NCL Dawn review

[kailan]

We sailed on the NCL Dawn 8/29-9/5/2010.

This was my second cruise the first for my husband and children. We stayed in an AB suite. Embarkation was easy enough going through the VIP entrance. We were escorted to Cagney’s for lunch, which was absolutely delicious. After lunch we headed to our suite, which was all we had hoped it would be. Nice bedroom with very comfy bed and sheets, good sized second bedroom, nice living room/dining room, roomy balcony, and an amazing bathroom with separate tub and shower overlooking the water. Sail away was amazing. We had other family members visit our suite for a champagne toast on the balcony. We had our music playing and our wonderful butler Madel delivered us cheese and crackers. We knew this was the beginning of a great vacation!

 

Dining- We were pleasantly surprised by the food. We ate in the Venetian twice for dinner and Aqua once. It was agreed that the food in the Venetian was prepared better than at Aqua, at least while we were there. Both restaurants had nice ambiance though. We ate at Impressions twice and I got the tortellini with pesto both times. It was so good! I should mention that I’m a vegetarian, so I can’t comment on the meat dishes, but my travel mates enjoyed them. The antipasta plate served before dinner was a nice touch. We ate at Bamboo and I didn’t like it all that much. We get some pretty amazing Asian fusion food where we live, so it had a lot to live up to. Also, I don’t eat sushi, but I imagine I would have loved the idea of all you can eat sushi for $15, if I did. The final night we ate at Teppenyaki, and it was pretty good. We had breakfast delivered from Cagney’s every morning. I’m really missing that now! The Belgian waffles and hot cakes were delicious. My husband really enjoyed the steak and eggs. For lunch we ate at Cagney’s twice. That was my favorite restaurant. We also ate at the NY deli for sandwiches later in the day because we tend to eat a late dinner. I ate at the Garden Café twice and I thought the food was quite good. Much better than any buffet I’ve ever eaten from before. The veggie Indian dishes were my faves. I personally loved the Blue Lagoon. Awesome tomato soup, French fries, and cheesecake! My husband liked the wings and wonton soup. We didn’t find the Bimini until the last day, but I had a great veggie burger. My children always ate from the kids menus and were happy enough with the food. One thing we discovered was that you can get small bags of popcorn in the pub. Nice afternoon snack especially with a beer!

 

Entertainment/activities- Our favorite entertainment was Next Stage. We saw them perform a Beatles tribute, a blues show, and a rock show. All were a lot of fun. The CD, Matt Baker, is an amazing blues harmonica player! The only show we saw was Bollywood, it was pretty good. I overheard Ariel Jacobe a few times and he is incredibly talented. He sang Frank, Nat King Cole, etc… The pool band was great! Perfect for hanging out in the sun with a frozen drink. We did the beer tasting and the martini tasting. Both were a lot of fun and you get plenty of drinks for the $15! We met really nice people at both. My husband went to the casino and had fun there (he won the second night and that paid for most of our on board expenses!), he also played bingo three times with my oldest son. My sister and I went out dancing one night in Dazzles lounge and had a good time.

 

Children- My kids are 5, 3 & 1. The two older ones were eligible for the Kids’ Crew, but had absolutely no interest in it. After the second try, I gave up on trying to send them. I do wish there were some kind of play structure aboard the ship like the one in the Kids’ Crew where parents could bring their children to let out some energy. My boys would’ve loved to have played on it, but wanted me there with them. We had plenty of other things to do to keep them busy. Of course they loved the pools, especially the dinosaur pool. One day though there were some very rowdy older kids cursing a lot and running up the slides, blocking the whole thing from the younger kids. There didn’t seem to be any parents around to stop this behavior. That is really my only complaint about the kids onboard. Most of them were pretty polite. The smaller pool next to the main pool was my oldest’s favorite. My one year old couldn’t go in the pool, but luckily I read on these boards to bring a blow up pool (actually a little tub) to fill with water. She was thrilled with it and we got comments and smiles all day about it. The kids loved the daily ice cream, getting soda any time, the movies on the suite’s TV, bingo, giant chess, towel animals, baths in the whirlpool tub overlooking the ocean, the gift shop, and the model of the ship in the atrium. Unfortunately we didn’t find the Under 2 Zoo until the last full day. My youngest two enjoyed it.

 

Crew- Everyone we dealt with were very friendly and accommodating. They were so nice to our children. I felt so badly for people who told us they had children at home that they hadn’t seen in months. Our butler was Madel and we all loved him. Our steward Sherton was nice and did a good job. Our concierge was Anoop, he was friendly, but we didn’t see him much.

 

Disembarking- Didn't go as smoothly as I had thought, especially with the whole "VIP" thing, but it was tolerable. Two women who were in line for general disembarkation got into a screaming match that we thought was going to break out into a physical fight. Luckily it didn't, but my children were literally in the middle of it as we were attempting to bypass the crowds to get to Bamboo to meet for disembarkation. A little scary. We were also "yelled at" a couple of times by people who thought we were trying to cut the line. Understandable to a degree, because I don't like line cutters, but still a bit unnerving since we weren't doing anything wrong.

 

The Dawn- Like I said, this was only my second cruise, but I was perfectly happy with the condition of the ship. I had read complaints of peeling balcony railings, but our railing was smooth, I read about stained balcony furniture, again, not an issue.

We had such a great time. I have very few complaints, mostly too inconsequential to even mention. If you are sailing the Dawn in the near future, I think you will really enjoy it, we sure did!

 

If you have any questions, I would be more than happy to answer them. These boards were so helpful to me when we were preparing to sail.

[sottovoce]

Dining- We were pleasantly surprised by the food. We ate in the Venetian twice for dinner and Aqua once. It was agreed that the food in the Venetian was prepared better than at Aqua, at least while we were there.

Glad you were "pleasantly surprised" by Dawn's food. I believe food for both Venetian and Aqua are prepared in the same kitchen, so I'm not sure how one could have food "prepared better" than the other.

[kailan]

Glad you were "pleasantly surprised" by Dawn's food. I believe food for both Venetian and Aqua are prepared in the same kitchen, so I'm not sure how one could have food "prepared better" than the other.

 

Well we were "pleasantly surprised" because we had been told by family members that NCL was their least favorite for food, so we didn't know what to expect. We did enjoy it though. Like I said, the night we happened to be there, the food was better in the Venetian.

[DAGVBSB]

Glad you were "pleasantly surprised" by Dawn's food. I believe food for both Venetian and Aqua are prepared in the same kitchen, so I'm not sure how one could have food "prepared better" than the other.

 

You are correct.... Venetian and Aqua use the same galley for food preparation and in fact for serving the food. It would have been the same cooks putting the food on the plate and probably the same pots and pans for food going to either restaurant.

[mlbcruiser]

We will be going on the Dawn in a few wks. - just a 5 nt. cruise.

 

I will say that when we were on the Sky last fall, there was certainly a difference in overall SERVICE we rec'd. no matter which wait staff we had between the 2 D.R.s on that ship!

 

Would you happen to know if Matt Baker is leaving the Dawn soon to go to another ship? I think I read it on a thread recently.

 

Also, did you ever eat in the "Pub"? If so, did they show sports on the t.v.s, and did you get American sports - like baseball and such, or just int'l. soccer?

 

Thanks for taking the time to write the nice review!

[mondsd]

What is the "under 2 zoo?? sounds like my daughter will love that??:)

[kailan]

We will be going on the Dawn in a few wks. - just a 5 nt. cruise.

 

I will say that when we were on the Sky last fall, there was certainly a difference in overall SERVICE we rec'd. no matter which wait staff we had between the 2 D.R.s on that ship!

 

Would you happen to know if Matt Baker is leaving the Dawn soon to go to another ship? I think I read it on a thread recently.

 

Also, did you ever eat in the "Pub"? If so, did they show sports on the t.v.s, and did you get American sports - like baseball and such, or just int'l. soccer?

 

Thanks for taking the time to write the nice review!

 

I read in another thread that MB will be the CD for awhile longer.

 

We didn't eat in the pub, I didn't think they served food there, just a bar, but I'd think you could bring food in if you wanted. They had ESPN on one day and the US Open on another when we were there.

 

Thank you for appreciating the time I took to trying to write a helpful review.:)

[kailan]

What is the "under 2 zoo?? sounds like my daughter will love that??:)

 

It's just a conference room, but it's filled with toys and these pop up tunnel type things (train, fire truck, school bus)for the kids to play in. It's not anything fancy, but it was a good place to let my 1 year old crawl around after having been strapped into a high chair or stroller for much of the cruise when we weren't in our suite. It was near the Spinnaker Lounge.

[3rdtimecruising]

We sailed on the NCL Dawn 8/29-9/5/2010.

This was my second cruise the first for my husband and children. We stayed in an AB suite. Embarkation was easy enough going through the VIP entrance. We were escorted to Cagney’s for lunch, which was absolutely delicious. After lunch we headed to our suite, which was all we had hoped it would be. Nice bedroom with very comfy bed and sheets, good sized second bedroom, nice living room/dining room, roomy balcony, and an amazing bathroom with separate tub and shower overlooking the water. Sail away was amazing. We had other family members visit our suite for a champagne toast on the balcony. We had our music playing and our wonderful butler Madel delivered us cheese and crackers. We knew this was the beginning of a great vacation!

 

Dining- We were pleasantly surprised by the food. We ate in the Venetian twice for dinner and Aqua once. It was agreed that the food in the Venetian was prepared better than at Aqua, at least while we were there. Both restaurants had nice ambiance though. We ate at Impressions twice and I got the tortellini with pesto both times. It was so good! I should mention that I’m a vegetarian, so I can’t comment on the meat dishes, but my travel mates enjoyed them. The antipasta plate served before dinner was a nice touch. We ate at Bamboo and I didn’t like it all that much. We get some pretty amazing Asian fusion food where we live, so it had a lot to live up to. Also, I don’t eat sushi, but I imagine I would have loved the idea of all you can eat sushi for $15, if I did. The final night we ate at Teppenyaki, and it was pretty good. We had breakfast delivered from Cagney’s every morning. I’m really missing that now! The Belgian waffles and hot cakes were delicious. My husband really enjoyed the steak and eggs. For lunch we ate at Cagney’s twice. That was my favorite restaurant. We also ate at the NY deli for sandwiches later in the day because we tend to eat a late dinner. I ate at the Garden Café twice and I thought the food was quite good. Much better than any buffet I’ve ever eaten from before. The veggie Indian dishes were my faves. I personally loved the Blue Lagoon. Awesome tomato soup, French fries, and cheesecake! My husband liked the wings and wonton soup. We didn’t find the Bimini until the last day, but I had a great veggie burger. My children always ate from the kids menus and were happy enough with the food. One thing we discovered was that you can get small bags of popcorn in the pub. Nice afternoon snack especially with a beer!

 

Entertainment/activities- Our favorite entertainment was Next Stage. We saw them perform a Beatles tribute, a blues show, and a rock show. All were a lot of fun. The CD, Matt Baker, is an amazing blues harmonica player! The only show we saw was Bollywood, it was pretty good. I overheard Ariel Jacobe a few times and he is incredibly talented. He sang Frank, Nat King Cole, etc… The pool band was great! Perfect for hanging out in the sun with a frozen drink. We did the beer tasting and the martini tasting. Both were a lot of fun and you get plenty of drinks for the $15! We met really nice people at both. My husband went to the casino and had fun there (he won the second night and that paid for most of our on board expenses!), he also played bingo three times with my oldest son. My sister and I went out dancing one night in Dazzles lounge and had a good time.

 

Children- My kids are 5, 3 & 1. The two older ones were eligible for the Kids’ Crew, but had absolutely no interest in it. After the second try, I gave up on trying to send them. I do wish there were some kind of play structure aboard the ship like the one in the Kids’ Crew where parents could bring their children to let out some energy. My boys would’ve loved to have played on it, but wanted me there with them. We had plenty of other things to do to keep them busy. Of course they loved the pools, especially the dinosaur pool. One day though there were some very rowdy older kids cursing a lot and running up the slides, blocking the whole thing from the younger kids. There didn’t seem to be any parents around to stop this behavior. That is really my only complaint about the kids onboard. Most of them were pretty polite. The smaller pool next to the main pool was my oldest’s favorite. My one year old couldn’t go in the pool, but luckily I read on these boards to bring a blow up pool (actually a little tub) to fill with water. She was thrilled with it and we got comments and smiles all day about it. The kids loved the daily ice cream, getting soda any time, the movies on the suite’s TV, bingo, giant chess, towel animals, baths in the whirlpool tub overlooking the ocean, the gift shop, and the model of the ship in the atrium. Unfortunately we didn’t find the Under 2 Zoo until the last full day. My youngest two enjoyed it.

 

Crew- Everyone we dealt with were very friendly and accommodating. They were so nice to our children. I felt so badly for people who told us they had children at home that they hadn’t seen in months. Our butler was Madel and we all loved him. Our steward Sherton was nice and did a good job. Our concierge was Anoop, he was friendly, but we didn’t see him much.

 

Disembarking- Didn't go as smoothly as I had thought, especially with the whole "VIP" thing, but it was tolerable. Two women who were in line for general disembarkation got into a screaming match that we thought was going to break out into a physical fight. Luckily it didn't, but my children were literally in the middle of it as we were attempting to bypass the crowds to get to Bamboo to meet for disembarkation. A little scary. We were also "yelled at" a couple of times by people who thought we were trying to cut the line. Understandable to a degree, because I don't like line cutters, but still a bit unnerving since we weren't doing anything wrong.

 

The Dawn- Like I said, this was only my second cruise, but I was perfectly happy with the condition of the ship. I had read complaints of peeling balcony railings, but our railing was smooth, I read about stained balcony furniture, again, not an issue.

We had such a great time. I have very few complaints, mostly too inconsequential to even mention. If you are sailing the Dawn in the near future, I think you will really enjoy it, we sure did!

 

If you have any questions, I would be more than happy to answer them. These boards were so helpful to me when we were preparing to sail.

 

 

Great review of the Dawn. We just returned from Bermuda on the Spirit out of Boston and look forward to having the Dawn here next year. We are booked in an aft balcony in late August 2011. We also ate in the main dining rooms on the Spirit this year and found every meal to be pleasantly delightful...:) We wanted Bernaise sauce for our steak and lamb chops and they graciously sent to Cagney's for it for us. A very nice touch. The caribbean lobster was moist and soft and we were offered two. We are from New England and love our Atlantic lobster.

 

Glad to hear you got to experience Ariel. He was on our Spirit cruise in 2009 and hope we get to see him again in the future.

 

We are looking forward to our aft balcony and would love to hear from anyone who has experienced one.

 

Thanks,

 

Ann and Bernie

[Robandzog]

Hi there - We must have met at the martini tasting (I'm Nancy with the 5-year old son). It certainly was a good deal for $15! Good to read your review and that you had a good time. We were also pleased with the ship, the service, and the food. The Friday evening wind and waves were really the only big negative, and that's certainly not the fault of NCL. Glad that was over in time to enjoy the martinis!

[kailan]

Hi there - We must have met at the martini tasting (I'm Nancy with the 5-year old son). It certainly was a good deal for $15! Good to read your review and that you had a good time. We were also pleased with the ship, the service, and the food. The Friday evening wind and waves were really the only big negative, and that's certainly not the fault of NCL. Glad that was over in time to enjoy the martinis!

 

Hi! It's so funny that we keep running into each other! That Friday night was really rough. The martini tasting was a lot of fun! Your husband emailed me the pic of all of us.

[Mrs. H.]

M[quote=We are from New England.

 

Any suggestions on what I should do in Boston?

 

We are looking forward to our aft balcony and would love to hear from anyone who has experienced on.

 

We absolutely LOVE the aft!

[1027Cruisers]

We sailed on the NCL Dawn 8/29-9/5/2010.

This was my second cruise the first for my husband and children. We stayed in an AB suite. Embarkation was easy enough going through the VIP entrance. We were escorted to Cagney’s for lunch, which was absolutely delicious. After lunch we headed to our suite, which was all we had hoped it would be. Nice bedroom with very comfy bed and sheets, good sized second bedroom, nice living room/dining room, roomy balcony, and an amazing bathroom with separate tub and shower overlooking the water. Sail away was amazing. We had other family members visit our suite for a champagne toast on the balcony. We had our music playing and our wonderful butler Madel delivered us cheese and crackers. We knew this was the beginning of a great vacation!

 

Dining- We were pleasantly surprised by the food. We ate in the Venetian twice for dinner and Aqua once. It was agreed that the food in the Venetian was prepared better than at Aqua, at least while we were there. Both restaurants had nice ambiance though. We ate at Impressions twice and I got the tortellini with pesto both times. It was so good! I should mention that I’m a vegetarian, so I can’t comment on the meat dishes, but my travel mates enjoyed them. The antipasta plate served before dinner was a nice touch. We ate at Bamboo and I didn’t like it all that much. We get some pretty amazing Asian fusion food where we live, so it had a lot to live up to. Also, I don’t eat sushi, but I imagine I would have loved the idea of all you can eat sushi for $15, if I did. The final night we ate at Teppenyaki, and it was pretty good. We had breakfast delivered from Cagney’s every morning. I’m really missing that now! The Belgian waffles and hot cakes were delicious. My husband really enjoyed the steak and eggs. For lunch we ate at Cagney’s twice. That was my favorite restaurant. We also ate at the NY deli for sandwiches later in the day because we tend to eat a late dinner. I ate at the Garden Café twice and I thought the food was quite good. Much better than any buffet I’ve ever eaten from before. The veggie Indian dishes were my faves. I personally loved the Blue Lagoon. Awesome tomato soup, French fries, and cheesecake! My husband liked the wings and wonton soup. We didn’t find the Bimini until the last day, but I had a great veggie burger. My children always ate from the kids menus and were happy enough with the food. One thing we discovered was that you can get small bags of popcorn in the pub. Nice afternoon snack especially with a beer!

 

Entertainment/activities- Our favorite entertainment was Next Stage. We saw them perform a Beatles tribute, a blues show, and a rock show. All were a lot of fun. The CD, Matt Baker, is an amazing blues harmonica player! The only show we saw was Bollywood, it was pretty good. I overheard Ariel Jacobe a few times and he is incredibly talented. He sang Frank, Nat King Cole, etc… The pool band was great! Perfect for hanging out in the sun with a frozen drink. We did the beer tasting and the martini tasting. Both were a lot of fun and you get plenty of drinks for the $15! We met really nice people at both. My husband went to the casino and had fun there (he won the second night and that paid for most of our on board expenses!), he also played bingo three times with my oldest son. My sister and I went out dancing one night in Dazzles lounge and had a good time.

 

Children- My kids are 5, 3 & 1. The two older ones were eligible for the Kids’ Crew, but had absolutely no interest in it. After the second try, I gave up on trying to send them. I do wish there were some kind of play structure aboard the ship like the one in the Kids’ Crew where parents could bring their children to let out some energy. My boys would’ve loved to have played on it, but wanted me there with them. We had plenty of other things to do to keep them busy. Of course they loved the pools, especially the dinosaur pool. One day though there were some very rowdy older kids cursing a lot and running up the slides, blocking the whole thing from the younger kids. There didn’t seem to be any parents around to stop this behavior. That is really my only complaint about the kids onboard. Most of them were pretty polite. The smaller pool next to the main pool was my oldest’s favorite. My one year old couldn’t go in the pool, but luckily I read on these boards to bring a blow up pool (actually a little tub) to fill with water. She was thrilled with it and we got comments and smiles all day about it. The kids loved the daily ice cream, getting soda any time, the movies on the suite’s TV, bingo, giant chess, towel animals, baths in the whirlpool tub overlooking the ocean, the gift shop, and the model of the ship in the atrium. Unfortunately we didn’t find the Under 2 Zoo until the last full day. My youngest two enjoyed it.

 

Crew- Everyone we dealt with were very friendly and accommodating. They were so nice to our children. I felt so badly for people who told us they had children at home that they hadn’t seen in months. Our butler was Madel and we all loved him. Our steward Sherton was nice and did a good job. Our concierge was Anoop, he was friendly, but we didn’t see him much.

 

Disembarking- Didn't go as smoothly as I had thought, especially with the whole "VIP" thing, but it was tolerable. Two women who were in line for general disembarkation got into a screaming match that we thought was going to break out into a physical fight. Luckily it didn't, but my children were literally in the middle of it as we were attempting to bypass the crowds to get to Bamboo to meet for disembarkation. A little scary. We were also "yelled at" a couple of times by people who thought we were trying to cut the line. Understandable to a degree, because I don't like line cutters, but still a bit unnerving since we weren't doing anything wrong.

 

The Dawn- Like I said, this was only my second cruise, but I was perfectly happy with the condition of the ship. I had read complaints of peeling balcony railings, but our railing was smooth, I read about stained balcony furniture, again, not an issue.

We had such a great time. I have very few complaints, mostly too inconsequential to even mention. If you are sailing the Dawn in the near future, I think you will really enjoy it, we sure did!

 

If you have any questions, I would be more than happy to answer them. These boards were so helpful to me when we were preparing to sail.

Thanks for the review. We are sailing at the end of this month in one of the AB suites and we were wondering if there is a CD player in the suites. Thanks!!

[ShedQueen77]

Thanks for your review. We're first time NCL cruisers with 101 days to go until we get to experience the Dawn!

 

In regard to the Kids Club, is there a sign up time to enroll them or do you just show up? My kids always like to try the club but like yours, usually end up spending more time with us (which is OK, really!).

[saltmom1]

M[quote name=We are from New England.

 

Any suggestions on what I should do in Boston?

 

We are looking forward to our aft balcony and would love to hear from anyone who has experienced on.

 

We absolutely LOVE the aft![/quote]

 

There are a couple of hop on-hop off trolleys and the duck tours. There is one trolley that leaves from near the aquarium, not TOO far from the terminal. The trolleys more or less do the Freedom Trail, hitting some highlights such as the Constitution and Bunker Hill monument. You can google Beantown Trolley. You can go to the North End to Modern Pastry for some great Italian bakery treats. Don't go to Mike's- great food but very touristy. Boston is a walking city. Don't miss the Common and Swan Boats. There are statues of the ducks from Make Way for Ducklings.

[momo24]

Great review of the Dawn. We just returned from Bermuda on the Spirit out of Boston and look forward to having the Dawn here next year. We are booked in an aft balcony in late August 2011. We also ate in the main dining rooms on the Spirit this year and found every meal to be pleasantly delightful...:) We wanted Bernaise sauce for our steak and lamb chops and they graciously sent to Cagney's for it for us. A very nice touch. The caribbean lobster was moist and soft and we were offered two. We are from New England and love our Atlantic lobster.

 

Glad to hear you got to experience Ariel. He was on our Spirit cruise in 2009 and hope we get to see him again in the future.

 

We are looking forward to our aft balcony and would love to hear from anyone who has experienced one.

 

Thanks,

 

Ann and Bernie

Hi Ann and Bernie, we are also booked on an aft balcony on the Dawn in August(19) to Bermuda. I have never been on an aft balcony before so I am looking forward to it. We have one of the bigger ones with loungechairs so that is where I will be spending most of my time.:cool:

[momo24]

Does anyone have any pictures of the Dawn. I would be interested in pictures of the back of the ship. This is our first trip on the Dawn because we don't want to fly anymore. We just got off the Epic and that was great, but we don't want the hassle of flying to Miami again.:rolleyes:

[Dolphins]

Very good review. Happy you share our enthusiasim for the talented Areil Jacobe.