Nanaandpoppop

We rented the flat through HomeAway. It was property #1656288 and the owners are Myles and Emma. It was a nice flat which was located in a great neighborhood. We loved the area as you could walk to great restaurants, bus and tube stops, museums. The flat could use a little TLC but it was great for the 2 of us. It is basement so you have to be able to do some steps.

We just concluded a TA cruise disembarking in Southampton. We used Woodford Cruise Connections for our pickup, a trip to Stonehenge, and delivery to the flat we rented in London. Our driver John was awesome and fun, and Cheryl in the office gave us great communication. We highly recommend them!

We used Tours Plaza at our recent stop on Cozumel. Enrique was our driver and he gave us a great day. Pickup was on time and easy as we got off the ship, and we thoroughly enjoyed our tour!

Great review--very informative. Thanks for the tips on day passes at resorts. We are going to do that on our upcoming April cruise!

I believe we started entering the fjord about sunrise. There was quite a bit of fog at first but then we were able to see the beauty until we docked at 11am. We even were able to see the "Lady of Saguenay" statue and the Captain pointed out a white whale at one point.

We briefly considered the car rental to go to Perce but decided against it. Probably would make that a more interesting day.

JamesMe, I'm sure you are probably right. But for those of us who don't like to do the ship's excursions, it was somewhat difficult to find things "on my own." I'm sure as more ships come to the ports, there will be more vendors offering excursions. Plus, I realize no one can control the weather :D

Both ports were certainly beautiful.

Yes, there is a sleep sofa (big chair really) and the bed says it is a queen but it is almost as big as a king. And there are curtains you could pull around the bed for privacy if you wish.

One thing I would recommend, we were in 8170, which is directly above the Spinnaker lounge. So some evenings the live music was extremely LOUD! You might want to pick a higher deck than 8 :)

I wanted to give credit to a site where I got a lot of my information. Thank you to Tom at tomsportguides.com for so much information. I recommend you check out his guides wherever you are cruising!

Our next port was Gaspe. There were few choices for ship excursions and it was difficult to find any choices on the internet. So we decided we would just get off the ship and explore. It was a 20 minute tender ride into port, then a 10 minute walk from the ship across the bridge to the town. There was not much exploring to do, so after a short while, we were back on the ship! Pretty, but not terribly exciting in the town.

Our final port before Quebec City was LaBaie (or Saguenay). The morning sail into the Saguenay Fjiord was absolutely beautiful, and we didn't arrive until 11am, so we were able to see so much. The town was quaint and kind of artsy, but not a lot to it. We signed up to ride a sea plane so we could see more of the fjiord and park, but the wind picked up and they had to cancel.

We sailed into Quebec City and arrived about 7am. Disembarkation for priority walk-offs (with our own luggage) began at 7:30am and we were in a taxi shortly after! We rented a car downtown Quebec City and drove to Montreal (less than 3 hours and beautiful scenery with peak leaf time!) for our flight home. Wonderful vacation!!!

Day 3 was an "at sea" day. We enjoyed 2 games of "Deal or No Deal", lost a little money in the Casino, and saw a show in the Stardust Theater which featured David DaVinci "Thrillusionist" (and his wife and daughter). The show was good and he is very personable, on stage and off, and guests enjoyed talking to him and his family.

Over the course of the cruise, we saw several shows on the Dawn and liked them all. The Welcome Aboard Variety Show, which also had music featuring Harry O'Donoghue. We also saw Harry O'Donoghue another afternoon and appreciated his music and Irish humor. Another evening we saw "Band on the Run" which featured music of the 70's, and on day 5 we saw a Second City Troupe do scenes, songs and improvisation.

We also participated in "Karaoke Passion" in the Pearly Kings bar. My husband sang several songs and there was a fun crowd including a guy who could pass for an Elvis impersonator. Fun evening and I would recommend it!

Our next port was Charlottetown, PEI. We rented a car at Enterprise and drove all over the central part of the island. We brought our GPS and had no trouble navigating. We drove out to Cavendish to see "Anne of Green Gables home" and saw other sights on the Island. It was a cloudy day with spitting rain so we didn't see several places that involved a lot of walking. Had a nice day!

Our first Port was Portland, Maine. We did not do any of the ship's excursions, but found our own before sailing. In Portland we did a tour called "Lighthouse Lover's Cruise" through Portland Land and Sea Discovery. I read a review on trip advisor and the reviewer said it was a great cruise and gave a tip that it was better if you sit on the top deck right side of the boat as you will see the lighthouses better than on the left. We arrived early and were able to get on the right (starboard) side of the boat (which held about 80-90 people. We were so pleased with the cruise and the reviewer was definitely right! Got great pictures and thoroughly enjoyed our knowledgeable and entertaining tour guide. We also enjoyed walking around Portland.

Our second port was Halifax, Nova Scotia. I contacted a Taxi Tour recommended by Trip Advisor. They provide private tours for $55/hour, so you can choose to go it alone or recruit others to save on the cost. We elected to go with just the two of us. I corresponded via email with the company--Lucinda was my contact and she was awesome! She asked about our interests and made suggestions, then set us up with Peter. He was waiting for us when we docked and proceeded to take us on a great tour. We saw highlights of Halifax, heard about the famous Halifax explosion of 1917, stopped at a maple syrup outlet (and were fortunate enough to get there ahead of all the tour buses). The leaves were beginning to turn and it was beautiful. We saw colorful fishing villages and of course, a trip to Peggy's Cove to see the lighthouse. Then we were able to see the Titanic cemetery and hear the connection between Halifax and the Titanic. All in all it was a great day and we thoroughly enjoyed it, especially since we called the shots and got to pick and choose what we saw.

This was our 5th cruise; the first 2 were with Royal Caribbean and then we sailed on the Epic--from then on we are NCL fans. I had never been to New England so this cruise really appealed to me. I did a lot of research about the cruise, the ship, the ports and the excursions. There was not a lot of information available, so that's why I decided to post here. This is a 7 day cruise that embarks from Boston and disembarks in Quebec City. Many cruisers added on the return making it a 14 day. We opted for the 7 day.

Our previous cruise on the NCL Sky we stayed in the aft Penthouse. It was a beautiful room with a small bedroom and a separate sitting room, plus a ginormous balcony that wrapped around. We elected to have an aft Penthouse on the Dawn(8170); it was a large single room with a sitting area and a smaller but nice balcony. The bathroom was large and we had a little dressing area.

We were pleased with the special amenities available to us as suite owners--priority boarding, flowers in our room, special attention given to us by our butler (Ahkmad) and our steward (Joel), who always spoke to us by name and even called to ask if we had everything we needed.

As mentioned in another thread, we were a bit surprised by the average age of our fellow cruisers. We are an empty nest couple in our late 50's, and by far we were "the youngsters" of the group except for a few families with young children.:) I guess that was to be expected on a New England cruise in late September!

We elected to do the dining package, which prepays $$ for the specialty restaurants. We ate at Cagney's 3 nights and a LaCuchina's 2 nights and had delicious meals each time.We were glad we did the dining package, as the few times we tried other places such as the Garden Café, we were somewhat disappointed in the quality of the food, especially the desserts.

Overall we enjoyed the Dawn. It is a smaller ship and easy to navigate. The crew is friendly and helpful and seem to be happy with their ship and each other.