My review of Dawn 1/29/17

[home-mom]

Had a great cruise despite Harvest Caye being cancelled. We've been on the Jewel, the Pearl, and the Gem. We loved the Dawn. I think it's our new NCL favorite.

 

The ship - loved the décor and the layout. Found it very easy to navigate. My youngest (8) LOVED the T-Rex pool. She used it everyday and had it all to herself until the last day of the cruise. My teen (16) loved the teen club. Our last cruise she said they all sat around and talked and the counselor took them to Bliss for karaoke every night (there were about 15 of them). This time there were 7 of them and they actually did the scheduled activities on the sheet and she had so much more fun! We were told there were only 100 under age 18 on the ship.

 

Room 12026 - Category SD - Family suite with balcony. Our other cruise we always stayed in the 2-bedroom family suites and we like this layout much better. We felt like the other cruises the children were isolated in the front of the suite cutoff from us. We felt like we had more room to move around here and the youngest loved the murphy bed and slide out wall. The balcony was amazing and we weren't sure ahead of time about it being uncovered, but we found we really enjoyed the sun everyday.

 

Our butler was Rey and he was very nice. We aren't ones to ask for things. We asked him to clear the fridge, told him we would only use the decaf coffee, splenda, and mint tea, we had him bring us dinner twice and used him to priority disembark/tender.

 

Felix was our room steward, he was also very nice, no issues here.

 

Roel was our concierge, he was nice, but we've had better service from other concierge. We met him before we boarded, but he never said he was the concierge, we didn't know until we saw his card later on. On our other cruises the concierge was always in Moderno and came around at breakfast every morning and stopped by our room at least once a day while we were there to see how we were and if we needed anything. We never saw Roel. When we used priority disembark/tender, it was always the butler who helped us, on our other cruises it was always the concierge.

We called him on day 3 to ask if there was a way to buy a t-shirt from the teen club as one was given out as a prize. He did two things. First, he said we should send our child to the club to participate in chance of winning one (we didn't appreciate being told what to do with our child, plus she DID go everyday, that's how she knew about the shirts.) Second, he talked to the teen counselor and told her my husband was demanding a shirt for our daughter. She was so embarrassed when she went to the club later and was told sorry, there were only two shirts left and those were being saved as prizes, she would get more after docking in New Orleans. My husband had to go back with her and explain that the butler misunderstood and we were only asking if it was possible to buy one or not. (The counselor ended up having some storage areas searched during the week and found a box and gave each teen a shirt on the last night.)

 

Food - we ate all our breakfast and lunch meals in Moderno. They were fabulous and we had a waiter Ro****h that spoiled our kids and brought them special treats every lunch and dinner when we ate in Cagney's, which we did three nights. It's our favorite and always excellent. We ate once in Bamboo and had it delivered twice, we loved it. We ate at Aqua once, it was ok and took forever.

 

Ports - we've been to them before, so we just shopped in port each day. We had planned on splurging and renting a private villa on Harvest Caye. That was to be our beach day, but since it was cancelled and replaced with Belize City we didn't do any excursions. Wish we'd have know earlier than the afternoon before, we would've gone to our favorite beach in Cozumel or chosen one in Roatan. At previous ports we've always found a beach hotel to use for the day so we have a room to change in or store stuff or shower up before returning to the ship. We asked the concierge about something like this in Costa Maya, hoping to get one day in at the beach. He had a list of possibilities sent to our room. Without having the internet to search, we chose one from the list, it was $77 and had a 8.7 excellent score. In port we took what ended up being a 30 minute $20 cab ride to Almaplena Eco Beach Resort. Upon arrival at the resort we asked for the $77 room and she said she could not do that, but seeing as we were from the ship she would give us a special rate of $64 per person to use the beach and have food and alcohol. We don't drink, we didn't want food. We wanted to use the beach and a room for $77 like our printout said, not the $256 she was asking. We took the taxi back to port, walked around the shops and returned to the ship.

 

Internet - when we asked guest services how to get a refund for our prepaid cancelled villa on Harvest Caye we inquired about internet minutes. We had told family we would check in that day because we would have free wifi in the villa. She said she would talk to the concierge and have him give us the info. 4 hours later we called Roel to see if he had the info. We had to leave a message with his assistant. Roel came by our room an hour later and said they were going to give us 100 free minutes. This was very nice as we hadn't asked for it to be free, but merely what packages were available. Thank goodness it was free. If I had paid for that myself I would've been livid! The first time it took 3 minutes to connect and 14 minutes to open a browser, this was with my husband standing in the hallway under a router! I sent a quick text to family and logged out. The next day we thought we'd look into hotels in Costa Maya. Wrong. Once we got a signal it took 22 minutes of not getting anything to load. Tried our last sea day for 14 minutes as well with no luck.

 

All in all it was a great cruise, great weather, great food, great ship. We had lots of fun and enjoyed sailing out of New Orleans.

[cruisegal40]

Thanks for the review. We just went on Escape back in December. We are now interested in the Dawn out of Boston this September. We are wondering if we will find it lacking? We don't use any of the slides or rope courses. So we have decided not to pay for that. Was there still good activity on board?

[home-mom]

I think there were plenty of activities each day. My teen saw three of the shows and enjoyed them all. They have the typical bingo and deal or no deal, sports challenges, pool side games, tastings, classes, and tours. Lots of stuff, we were never bored.

[cruisegal40]

Thanks for the info. Like I stated earlier. My DH and I were discussing why we were paying for all the bells and whistles and not even using them. Just give me a lounge chair in the sun and I am fine with that.

[iyaayas]

We were on the 15-22 January Dawn Cruise and it was our first experience with concierge or butler service. Our first contact was in the VIP waiting area with Roel. He was very professional, answered/completed our questions/requests, gave us his business card, and followed up on everything. He did a great job for us and was always available. The Butler Rey and the Cabin Steward Maria were the same and made our trip much more enjoyable. Those three were truly outstanding with the service they provided. Sorry to here about your experience with Roel.

[easyboy]

Glad you had a great cruise!

[jg51]

Thanks, "Home-Mom," for your review.

 

You wrote, "My teen (16) loved the teen club. Our last cruise she said they all sat around and talked and the counselor took them to Bliss for karaoke every night ..."

 

Are we correctly understanding you to be saying that the karaoke shows in Bliss were for teens only? If so, where are karaoke shows for adults done?

Following up on that question ...

1. How many afternoons/nights per week was there karaoke for adults?

2. How long are the karaoke shows for adults -- and during what hours?

3. How extensive is the list of songs?

 

We hope that you kept your "Freestyle Daily" copies, so that you can answer the above. If not, we hope that you have a good memory!

(We would also welcome other comments on Dawn karaoke from anyone else who has been on the ship in 2017. We recall karaoke on Dawn in 2013 -- the primitive equipment used, etc., but frequent and long hours -- and we wonder what it is now like.)

[BirdTravels]

Thanks for the review. We were on the Dawn in September and Roel was our concierge. He was pretty bad compared to the other concierge we have had.

[bedfordmom]

On the Dawn Repo, Leah was our concierage. She was very outgoing and tried very hard to please us. We are independent and did not need her services other than asking about internet at each port. I could have sworn that Roel was our butler. Whoever the butler was we were disappointed with him (couldn't reach him by phone at times, brought snacks that we told him that we didn't want). We were very impressed with the cabin steward for 12516

[home-mom]

Thanks, "Home-Mom," for your review.

 

You wrote, "My teen (16) loved the teen club. Our last cruise she said they all sat around and talked and the counselor took them to Bliss for karaoke every night ..."

 

Are we correctly understanding you to be saying that the karaoke shows in Bliss were for teens only? If so, where are karaoke shows for adults done?

Following up on that question ...

1. How many afternoons/nights per week was there karaoke for adults?

2. How long are the karaoke shows for adults -- and during what hours?

3. How extensive is the list of songs?

 

We hope that you kept your "Freestyle Daily" copies, so that you can answer the above. If not, we hope that you have a good memory!

(We would also welcome other comments on Dawn karaoke from anyone else who has been on the ship in 2017. We recall karaoke on Dawn in 2013 -- the primitive equipment used, etc., but frequent and long hours -- and we wonder what it is now like.)

 

The Teen counselor on the Gem took them to the adult karaoke sessions. We never went on the Dawn. Looking at the dailies, it was on the Dawn Sunday 8:45-10PM, Tuesday 10-11:30PM, and Friday 10:30PM-12AM

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.

[jg51]

The Teen counselor on the Gem took them to the adult karaoke sessions. We never went on the Dawn. Looking at the dailies, it was on the Dawn Sunday 8:45-10PM, Tuesday 10-11:30PM, and Friday 10:30PM-12AM

Thanks for looking into that. It helps us to make a decision.