Review of NCL Dawn 17 April

[Robbo66]

Well, this was the cruise that followed the 'rogue wave' incident. So we lost a day to begin with, and they cancelled the scheduled stop in Miami.

 

This was my wife and kids first cruise, and the first time I had been on a cruise ship (except for some familiarisation visits because I work in the travel industry for a technology company) since the 1980's for me.

 

The Dawn is a beautiful ship and we all really loved the colourful artwork on the exterior of the ship.

 

Embarkation was as chaotic as these message boards had warned! As first impressions go, NCL seriously need to sort this out. I can't compare with other cruise lines, so I don't know if it is a NCL problem, a New York Passenger terminal issue or what. All I know is that there was minimal direction and lots of people waiting and wondering what was going to happen next.

 

We had a cabin on Deck 11 Aft (minisuite). It was a good size, and despite some issues people had about storage (according to these message boards), we found it was fine. Maybe because we had flown from London, we have to travel lighter than most American cruisers might.

 

I also liked the size of the bathroom. Recently I have been on P&O's Arcadia (for the naming ceremony) and the Dawn's bathroom is definitely bigger.

 

But the Balcony was not very private. There is a big gap between the edge of the balcony and the next one. In fact, one day, the toddler in the next cabin easily squeezed onto our cabin (I then understood why next door were fixing their balcony furniture as barricades!).

 

Also, the cleanliness of the ship was an issue for me. Maybe it was because it was school holidays, and the ship had almost 1,000 kids between 2 and 17 on board. There were beer bottles and other litter lying around in public places and the only place they seemed to have enough cleaners was in the restaurants and cafes. Our stewards were very sweet but also seemed to have trouble keeping up with the workload (although we did our best to make life easy for them). When we arrived at the cabin, the cleaning had not finished, so the carpet needed a good vacuum. This could have been due to the late arrival of the ship and the quick turnaround, I'm not sure.

 

One of the best things about the cruise was the friendliness of the staff. The quality of the food was good, even exceptional at times and the entertainment was top class.

 

We ate in the Venetian a lot, mostly because other restaurants weren't open for lunch. The only restaurant with slow service was Aqua. Our best meal was in Cagney's and Salsa's was also very good. NCL are great with kids and their kids menu proved helpful and also meant we didn't have to pay a cover charge for the children.

 

I was disappointed they cancelled the stop at Miami because I didn't think the day at the private island was going to be great, but it turned out better than we expected. The tendering process went quite smoothly, but if you want to get across to the island early, you need to queue at the excursion desk for a ticket before 9 am. We didn't get there early, but we still managed to find a quiet spot on the beach, over near the boat rental hut.

 

We booked our 'specialty' restaurants through the concierge and generally ate early, around 5.30 so we could make it to the first shows. We hardly ever had to wait in line. The concierge was also able to book our excursions too. I think everyone in a minisuite gets this service.

 

If you are taking an excursion at Port Canaveral, get down to the general vicinity of the gangway early. We waited on the stairs and were on the first bus to Disney. Also, if you are looking forward to the Chocaholic buffet, you need to get in line early. We went to see it some 15 minutes after the scheduled start, and the queue was huge! By the time we got into the restaurant there wasn't much left and I felt it was very overrated.

 

All in all, I'd rate this cruise an 8 out of 10. We really enjoyed the flexibility of the Freestyle concept. Sailing out of New York was spectacular, but you have to be prepared for cooler weather on the 2 sailing days at this time of year, so next time I think we'll go from Miami.

[judyf]

Nice review, thanks for posting.

[pjsportsmom]

Great review, going on the Dawn 5/1 I'm looking for all reviews each week to keep up and be ready for mine.

 

thanks

pj