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[ 04-25-2008: Message edited by: joe at travelpage ]

Personally I think the design looks quite smart. Notice the lifeboats are once again suspended over the side of the ship, a trend that is occurring on many newbuild designs. In the case of DREAM, it appears Carnival has opted to retain a full wrap-around Promenade Deck, above the lifeboats. I also think I see "hull balconies" similar to QM2.

This truly has a been an exciting few weeks in cruising. After years of nothing but Conquests, Spirits, Vistas, Grands, and Voyagers .... we are seeing the design features of so many built from scratch designs! F3, SOLSTICE, Genesis, and MSC FANTASIA.

Ernie

[ 04-24-2008: Message edited by: eroller ]

It has a slightly different looking central pool glass wall but shares commonalities with the Costa newbuilds - Fortuna, Magica etc. She also has hull holes as was pointed out..a la QM2.

Note the rounded lower frontal superstructure, that is different. Unlike the 3 sided angular front of the Destiny/Conquest-class.

If you want to get ridiculous, she has two leveled red carnival stripe along the hull. The promanade idea as was said before maybe inspired by Crystal Serenity?

The stern looks quite different too.

Initial impression is that she looks top-heavy but interesting new details in the design and remember these are just what we can see from profile view. Maybe she has secrets on the upper-decks?

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Originally posted by rd77:
I have to wonder about the new setup with the lifeboats. What would happen in rough seas? Wouldn't waves hit the lifeboats and smash them against the hull? Of course 95% of the time ships like these will be sailing calm waters, but still they have to be prepared for rough seas....

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The boats are not much lower - at least not much - than on other ships.

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Originally posted by Malcolm @ cruisepage:
How do you actually get into a lifeboat?

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Originally posted by Malcolm @ cruisepage:
How do you actually get into a lifeboat?

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Like Ernst just said, you step on just like you do now!

I believe all the new ships with this lifeboat design have a the staging area, or boarding deck just behind the boats. This is very time saving as the boats do not have to be lowered in order for passengers to board them. They are loaded up first, with passengers in a sheltered area behind the boats, then lowered to the sea once full.

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Originally posted by dougnewman:
If this has a wrap-around promenade deck, it will be quite an innovation for Carnival... None of its ships from TROPICALE right up to CARNIVAL SPLENDOR have had one.

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On the Spirit Class you can walk all the way around, except that in the forward section of the ship it's an indoor promenade that they have turned into a quiet sitting area.

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Originally posted by sunviking82:
I wonder if Princess or Costa will get a version or two. I could diffently see this design being "re-used" by Carnival Corp. Hopefully they don't neonize the interior!

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I see Princess eventually getting it's own new design. The Princess concept of "big ship choice, small ship feel" is rather different then Carnival. Carnival and Costa and close enough that Costa may see one of these designs eventually.

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Originally posted by Waynaro:
[QB] The hull hole balconies seem awfully close to the water, but other than that she looks great. [QB]

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Looking at the photo again, I'm not sure that those are hull hole balconies--I think they are just large windows for the public rooms decks. The openings immediately below the lifeboats could be for those embarkation decks which are only used for boat drill!

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Originally posted by Linerrich:

Looking at the photo again, I'm not sure that those are hull hole balconies--I think they are just large windows for the public rooms decks. The openings immediately below the lifeboats could be for those embarkation decks which are only used for boat drill!

Rich

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Rich,
I'm almost positive they are hull balcony cabins for a variety of reasons.

1. While DREAM is a new design, it's roots definitely come from the Destiny/Conquest Class. I think the bottom two decks are all passenger cabins just like on the Destiny Class.

2. You can see standard cabin windows before and after the hull balconies. Carnival does not usually mix cabins and the main public rooms on the same deck.

3. You can see the individual doors behind each of the hull openings indicating it's a balcony door.

4. There are only four full decks of balconies in the superstructure. This is minimal compared to the competition and Carnival had to look at ways to increase the balcony count. I think hull balconies were the compromise just like they were with QM2. Otherwise Carnival would have to design a mega-ship completely from scratch, without using the Destiny/Conquest Class as a blueprint.

5. There are two little holes underneath each of those hull openings. I assume these are for drainage.

So while the DREAM is a new design, I think we will see some similarities with the Destiny/Conquest Class.

My biggest hope is that they re-configure the public rooms so that the passenger flow is much better than the Destiny/Conquest class ships. On those ships, the passenger flow, in a word, sucks.

Carnival really needs to pull out all the stops on this one; for too long, RCI's Voyager and now Freedom class ships have have left them in the dust.