pathubia

For those who have cruised on the Dawn recently, do you know if the Sushi bar is open for lunch?

I don't have the dailies for Sunday or Monday, Bamboo is not listed being open for lunch the rest of the week.

I just booked a cruise that isn't listed on the NCL website. One of the officers mentioned it on our Dawn cruise on Nov 15. It's a 10 night cruise out of New Orleans. 6 ports. Grand Cayman, somewhere in Guatamala, Roatan, Belize, Costa Maya and Cozumel. When I bring up my account on NCL it shows I have a cruise booked May 8, 2016, but it doesn't say where it's going.

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In past years how long has that been and where does it go?

It's a 14 day cruise from New Orleans to Boston.

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For those who have cruised on the Dawn recently, do you know if the Sushi bar is open for lunch?

I will check my "dailies" when I get home!!

Thanks. I'm doing more research but find CCers sometimes more helpful. This is my 15th cruise but my husband's first, and he's not at all sure what he thinks of the idea. I'm looking at options that I think will increase his pleasure, and fine dining is something I think he'd like. However, we are retirees on fixed income so also need to consider budget. I will give him the options for specialty dining and let him decide if he wants a package or just dine at one of them. I could care less and am happy with all the free options.

 

We do have the UBC as it was a perk when we booked. I know we'll use that.

If your husband like meat he will love Moderno, they serve chicken wrapped in bacon, lamb, sausages and a bunch of different kinds of meat....There is a big salad bar with two soups, we had seafood chowder and another kind of soup, but I don't remember what it was.

The only restaurant I found just ok was LaCuccina, it was good, but not "Wow, that was great".

We all loved our food in LeBistro, cant remember what we all got, yummy French onion soup, my husband got escargot (not a fan) that he loved, my daughter had the fruit/chocolate fondue for dessert which was delicious and shared by all of us.

At Cagneys, we all had some kind of beef, we were all happy with it, with the exception of my friend who thought hers was too rare....

Teppanyki was a fun meal along with a great show by the chef. He was a lot of fun and made us all have a great time. The food there was delicious, I think that between the 6 of us we covered all of the combos, I had shrimp and filet and it was so good my mouth is watering just thinking about it. Not a fan of the desserts there.....

Bamboo is a Chinese restaurant, we didn't eat there this cruise, we did last cruise in Jan and it was very good.

Bimini Grill is at the Bimini Bar on the 13th deck, its burgers and hot dogs.

They also have a grill at the Topsiders Bar next to the pool that is open during sea days for lunch.

Aqua and Venetian are the free restaurants.

The buffet.

Blue Lagoon is open 24/7.

On our Nov 15 sailing we had the Unlimited Dining Package and ate at Moderno, Teppanyki, Cagneys, LaCuccina, and LeBistro, We never ate at Aqua or Venetian this cruise, but we have in the past and they were both very good.

We are platinum level which also gave us one free dinner at Le Bistro with a free bottle of wine.

All of our specialty dining experiences have been great. At Cagneys my friends steak was a little undercooked (she had asked for medium rare, and it came very rare), the Maitre D, noticed she was picking at he, he came right over and offered to get her another, but she was ok with what she had eaten.

So am I to understand NFL games are shown but only in the Pearly Kings? We'll be sailing during playoff games in January.

I haven't been onboard during a playoff game, but I read that sometimes they air the games in the Atrium. Otherwise, its Pearly Kings.

Many thanks for all the terrific info. I sailed on the Star back in June and I think Dawn has a similar layout from the sound of things. Not expecting many kids at the end of Janaury so it will (hopefully) be a lot less crowded. We are expecting an older demographic plus couples or couples with very young children.

We were on the Dawn last January 25, there were only about 30 kids that week

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Maya Key allows you to get in a cage with a guide with two baby monkeys. They are adorable!!

Thanks for the great tips on Maya Key, with 5 of us, it sounds $$, but seems like a good day with a 3 year old

We have been to Maya Key twice. We LOVE it there. As far as the airplanes go, yes, they do fly right above but its not constant and after first couple of times you don't even notice.

I haven't been to Little French Key, but I have read mixed reviews!! Good luck with your choice.

Sailing on Dawn out of New Orleans on Dec 13. How would we find out how many kids will be on said cruise?

Did you book directly with NCL? Maybe your PCC or travel agent can find out. We were on the Dawn the week of Nov 15 and I mentioned to the concierge how few kids were n the ship. There were 2300 people on our cruise ( cant remember now if he said there were 20 or 40 kids on our cruise.)...He then remarked that the following cruise, week of Nov 22 had 800 kids sailing with a total of 3000 passengers!! :eek:

Not sure when Christmas break begins down south, but I don't think there will be many kids on your cruise.

We stayed out in the Garden District at the Prytania Park Hotel. They offer free parking there and you can leave your car there while cruising. Its a 10 minute trolley ride to the French Quarter.

We did a Haunted History Tour which was great and we ate at a Jazz Brunch at the Court of Two Sisters. They food was out of this world!!

I've been on the Dawn and Spirit when they've done the Boston to Bermuda route. They are both great ships. Dawn should be even better after it emerges from its dry dock next spring.

 

I haven't been on a mega ship yet, but we're booked on the Gem for a 10 day cruise this spring. We are looking forward to that.

 

Congratulations, OP, for booking 3 at once. Enjoy your cruises.

I was on the Gem when it was brand new on a Boston Cruise to nowhere....It was during a Nor'easter in December.....what a "fun" cruise that was!! :eek:

My daughter and her best friend took the Gem out of NYC (just a 7 day) in May and loved it. They took the NCL sponsored bus from Braintree (Mass, next town over from us).

I have been on the Dawn 5 times in the last 3 years!! Absolutely love the ship. It doesn't have the bells and whistles of the mega ships, but by the end of the week, you feel so at home that you will need to book again right away!! We cruised on Nov 15 and our next cruise isn't until October 21...:eek: I did purchase 2 cruise next certificates, so I may be booking a spring cruise.

Pathubia, we sail on the Dawn on January 10th in 12032. Do you have any pic of that cabin? Also since it is a modified cabin can you tell me the bathroom setup? Had read it only had a very large shower and no bethtub. Thank you, Pam

Pam, its a great suite. It is directly across from the library and the last before the pool.

There is a bit of noise from above (chairs moving) but not enough to wake us up. We did notice it when we were all quiet.

When you open the door the bathroom is to the right, toilet has wall bars to help you get up and down. Just walk into the shower, nothing to walk over to get into it. Has a shower curtain surrounding it and has a fold down shower chair. There is one sink.

I am attaching a couple of pictures of the suite...

Patrick was the concierge and Joseph was our butler, they were both great!!

Bon Voyage

Thanks for you update, it is appreciated. I'll be on the Dawn in 6 days!

I am so jealous!! We don't have a cruise booked until next October. (I did purchase 2 certificates a couple of weeks ago, so that may change in the spring)

Bon Voyage!!

partigus I want to thank you for your post and look forward to seeing your more in depth review when you get time to write it. You gave some great information here already. My sister and I are sailing in Janaury and have one of the suites where the old lounge was and I think that may be where you were located. Hoping to hear some thoughts on that but we are easy going people and got a fantsatic deal and are really looking forward to our time in New Orleans and a different ship for us too. Everything sounds very positive so far.

We have cruised the Dawn on deck 12 twice, 12020 and 12032. Love cruising on 12. Next cruise is 12018. My husband is a smoker and since smoking is outlawed on the balconies, we don't get a balcony anymore.

Also following, we want to book the repositioning cruise on the Dawn, April 2017.

Just off that cruise today.

 

I'll do a full review in a week or two once I'm caught up at the office, but thought I'd share some main points:

 

Ship- Does not look brand new, but is in (my opinion) very nice shape...yes, there is some carpet that needs to be stretched, and I did notice a lot of wall dings in the interior hallways (we were in the newer section on 12 so not an issue for us).

 

Food- We had the UDP, so we ate in Le Bistro twice, Cagneys for dinner once- lunch twice and breakfast 6 times, :a Cucina Moderno Tepanyaki and The Venetian once each. And a few lunches at the buffet. Overall very good. The Main dining room meal was very nice. They also had pool side grilled foods twice and tacos once.

 

We also have several people in our party with food intolerance. They handled this very well.

 

Kids.....YES- over 800! The kids club was a joke- basically group baby sitting. Not their fault- you can't staff a team for 8x the normal need for one week. Our kids went twice briefly and didn't have any desire to go back...The staff though was great- our interaction with the program manager "Pickles" was excellent.

 

There are 4 hot tubs on the main pool deck- at least one is labeled Adults only. There is also one on 13 in the "quiet area" and another in the SPA. There were several groups of teens that turned into little cliques onboard. They all seemed to get along and were actually very well behaved. The older kids seemed to help the younger ones not be too loud or in the way!

 

Service- I was worried about the complaints on these boards about the UBP ruining things....Was there a lot of drinking? Yes. Yes there was. Did we drink more than we normally would have? Yes. Did I wake up with a tattoo? No. Did I notice people over consuming? Yes, but not the typical frat boys, rather the 45-55 who is probably a heavy drinker and this is a chance to splurge. Not ever did I feel the wait staff wasn't working hard. Some are better than others, but they all pitched in to get things done. Was the Sail Away hard- yesI don't think you can possibly have enough bar staff when you have 2900 people all wanting a drink at the same time.

That's a lot of kids!! Looking forward to your review. Did you have to tender in Roatan? We were scheduled to tender, but luckily, woke up docked!!

We were there last Friday. We went in the water and floated around anyways. They did let us know before we took the taxi that we couldn't snorkel, but we toughed it out.

Note to self....If you are floating around and its really mucky, its very difficult to get out of the water after 4 tequila sunrises.....

Did they mention why the arrival and depart times changed for Cozumel and Costa Maya?

 

Also, did they have you move clocks forward or backward at all? We are doing a private excursion in Belize and the paperwork says that Belize is usually 1-2 hour difference from ship time, but from what I can tell, it is the same time as NOLA at this time of the year.

As far as I know, they never explained why they changed the arrival or departure times. I was up early in Roatan. We were scheduled to tender in, but we were allowed to dock (YIPPEE) I was down at the customer service desk and even though we were docked about 20 people (just while I was there) either called or came down looking for their tender tickets.

We never changed the time on the ship. It was explained that it was because we would have to change the time 4 times. My advise, wear a watch. People that were counting on their cell phones for the time were getting all mxed up.

One more note, the illusionist, David DaVinci is now on his vacation.

Thank you so much for sharing! I noticed that you arrived in Cozumel and Costa Maya at 7 a.m. - were you expecting that? Heading out on the Dawn soon and the schedule calls for 8 a.m.; the dailies from last winter also has have 8 a.m. for those ports.

 

Also, were you expecting to tender in Honduras? I was thinking we would dock there.

 

Thanks so much!

We wound up docking in Roatan. We beat the Jade there and didn't have to tender. We docked there back in January, too

We did have to be back on the ship by 230 in Costa Maya, that was earlier that I expected too. Not sure if that is something new for this itinerary.

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I just bumped up days 3 to 7 on the Dawns dailies from the Nov 15 cruise. Sorry can't find days 1 and 2

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