Live from the Dawn - British Isles Amsterdam-Southampton

[KeithJenner]

Time for a new live trip report, this time from the Dawn round the British Isles for 10 days from Amsterdam to Southampton. We sail this Thursday (15th).

 

Some of you may have followed along on previous cruises, but a bit of background for those who haven’t.

 

We are from the UK, and have sailed regularly with NCL over the past decade. Usually I sail with my wife and son, but this is the first trip for many years where it will just be my wife and I.

 

We were originally booked on the first Prima sailing from Amsterdam to Iceland in August, but when that cruise was cancelled we needed to look for an alternative, and decided that we would bring forward our first cruise without our son (originally planned for next year) and take this cruise instead. My wife was keen that we didn’t travel too far on our first longer trip by ourselves, so this worked out well.

 

With a 25% discount from the Prima cruise, we managed to get a very good rate on a balcony cabin (we were originally going to sail in an Oceanview as it isn’t really balcony weather). When prices fell further we were able to upgrade to an Aft Penthouse for only an extra couple of hundred pounds.

 

We have previously visited all of the ports except Belfast and Cork, some of them multiple times, so this will be a mix of relaxing time on the ship and seeing a few new places or ones we haven’t been to for a while.

 

As on our last cruise, we have again upgraded to the Premium Plus beverage package, which is a very valuable upgrade for us.

 

There have been a couple of last minute changes to the cruise. Firstly, because of ongoing issues in Amsterdam due to lack of rainfall, the lock gates at Ijmuiden are only opening at certain times, so we now won’t leave there until 3.30am. As a result we don’t arrive in Zebrugge until about 5pm. As a result, we are very unlikely to head out to Bruges that evening, which is a shame as it is one of my favourite places.

 

There is also likely to be disruption due to the Queens funeral, which will be on the day we are in Invergordon. We had no particular plans on that day, so are likely to stay onboard. Therefore, it will be a very slow start to the cruise, but the second half will be much more busy.

 

As always, if you are looking for reports on things like the Spa and shows then you are probably in the wrong place. There will be food, bars and hopefully some interesting places to visit. I hope some of you will follow along.

[KeithJenner]

I made a bit of a mess of our travel plans for this cruise.

 

It is always a bit tricky when the cruise starts and finishes from different places, but I thought I'd got this sorted. We are flying to Amsterdam tomorrow from London City Airport, as that is easy to get to by train, and then were planning on getting a train back home from Southampton after disembarkation. However, I had forgotten that we were disembarking on a Sunday, when the train services are very disrupted. It is impossible to get anywhere from Southampton on that day without having to transfer to a coach for at least part of the trip.

 

So, instead, we drove to Southampton this morning and left the car at the airport (cheapest parking we could find) and then got a train to London. At the end of the cruise we will get a taxi to the car and drive home.

 

We are staying at the Doubletree Tower of London, which is an excellent location, about 100m from the Tower. We know London well (used to live about 30 miles away), and were planning just to have a wander around, but the weather isn't great so I just walked to the Tower to take some pictures to post here instead.

 

We ate at The Cheshire Cheese, just behind the hotel. Good pub grub.

 

We have a short journey to the airport tomorrow, and at least we will miss the nightmare that is Heathrow by going from City instead. First time we have flown from there.

 

Some pictures from a rainy London:

 

Edited September 13, 2022 by KeithJenner

[KeithJenner]

It's probably a controvertial opinion, but I'm really not a big fan of Amsterdam. We've visited many of the big European cities, and Amsterdam is my least favourite.

 

Maybe it was because we turned up there first time direct from Bruges (which I love) and it couldn't compete in comparison. More likely its the cyclists everywhere (travelling on foot is not a pleasant experience here).

 

Anyway, we arrived here after a very easy journey (it is a 45 minute flight from London City) and an easy 20 minute train journey from the airport to Centraal Station. We are staying at the Doubletree Centraal, which is very convenient for the station and only half a mile from the cruise port.

 

The Dawn is here already, I assume they had to come in early due to the lock opening. We can see it from the rooftop bar at the hotel.

 

Anyway, we had a walk round the city and a few drinks at the bar. When we were last here we went to the Anne Frank House, which is excellent. This time we just walked and jumped out of the way of a few cyclists.

 

Time to put our feet up for a while. We will wander to the ship tomorrow morning and hopefully be onboard nice and early. Really looking forward to being onboard a new ship, although we have previously sailed on the Star, which is a sister ship. Internet may be a bit spotty for the next few days (we have only got the basic free at sea minutes), but I'll try to post a bit onboard and then should be back properly in Edinburgh on Sunday.

 

If anyone has anything they'd like me to check onboard then feel free to ask and I'll see what I can do.

 

 

[BirdTravels]

Have a wonderful cruise.
 

Beautiful pictures!

 

So jealous. 

Edited September 15, 2022 by BirdTravels

[frankh1969]

Hope n on the to hear all about your adventures  on your British Isles cruise. We are on the next cruise out of London on Sept. 25th.

[susiesan]

How many people are onboard? My Dawn cruise that ended in Amsterdam Aug. 26 had 900 pax. It was wonderful, almost like being on a private sailing. 

[BikerAl]

Have a wonderful cruise.  We board her Dec 11th for an 11 day Southern Caribbean cruise, so anything you report will be welcome.  Last time we sailed her was 10/10/10, so there are new restaurants, no Spinnaker lounge, and whatever,

[KeithJenner]

Found out this morning that there has been a significant change to the itinerary.

 

I assume due to the disruption of being in Scotland next weekend, we are now going round the other way. The ports are basically the same (only Portland dropped and Newcastle added), but we are obviously in ports on totally different days to originally planned.

 

We have reviewed our plans and will have to move a couple of meals. We had the Guinness Storehouse booked, which it seems can be moved for a fee. We had also booked the Titanic Museum in Cobh, which we are now unlikely to go to. Luckily, as the NCL tours in Belfast and Kirkwall were well priced we had picked them rather than our first choice of hiring a car.

 

I'm sure there will be people who have a lot more replanning to do, and many people won't find our until they board. I suspect guest services will be worth avoiding today.

 

Main benefit is that we now get to go into Bruges on the final day. 🙂

[KeithJenner]

Onboard now. Boarding was quite easy. We have managed to move our bookings at Guinness for no charge and have applied to move Edinburgh Castle (which was free for us anyway, so no cost involved).

 

Waiting to hear about shore excursions. We were going to Giants Causeway with NCL from Belfast, but that excursions isn’t now showing, so it looks as though there is some work to do there.

 

Anyway, went to o’Sheehans for lunch and our bags have just arrived. Once they are sorted then we will see if we can find ourselves a bar. 🙂

Edited September 15, 2022 by KeithJenner

[KeithJenner]

We’ve tried out the Cellars wine bar. Excellent bar staff, and we are getting stuck into the premium plus package. We’ve decided to take a break as it is still a couple of hours until our Moderno reservation.

 

Viva Vino is still available here.

[krittykat]

I am looking forward to following your trip.  We are sailing on the Dawn next month from Southampton, around Spain to Italy.  This will be our 1st NCL cruise.   Have a great cruise!

 

[KeithJenner]

We have just arrived in Cobh, after a very relaxing couple of days onboard. It’s a short stop so we are going to find a pub. When we get to Belfast tomorrow I should be able to post some more and also

upload some pictures.

[fabnfortysomething]

okay so when are you in Newcastle?

may be able to provide tour service

[KeithJenner]

19 hours ago, fabnfortysomething said:

okay so when are you in Newcastle?

may be able to provide tour service

We are there next Friday. No plans to get off the ship (we know the area quite well anyway) and we leave at 2pm to get to Bruges the next day.

 

If you did want to meet up for a coffee or something then that would be nice, but I assume you will be working won't you?

[KeithJenner]

This report hasn't really quite got going yet, mainly because our internet is not great when not in the UK, and also because we have been too busy having fun. 🙂

 

I'll try to catch up a little bit whilst we are in Belfast, but we are going to dinner soon, so will have to try again later.

 

Firstly, this is the itinerary change. As you can see the changes are very significant.

 

As I think I mentioned earlier I managed to rearrange most things. The biggest disappointment was that the Giants Causeway tour that we had booked through NCL was cancelled. We did look at alternative ways of getting there, but given the short time we had we weren't able to.

[KeithJenner]

We are staying in an aft Penthouse. For the second cruise in a row we were able to upgrade very cheaply due to price reductions in the lead up to the cruise. We enjoy the bigger rooms and access to Moderno for breakfast, but don't see the value for money in the Haven, so the Suites in ships without a Haven (or non Haven suites on the Jewel Class) work perfectly for us.

 

Some pictures of the room:

[KeithJenner]

We upgraded the beverage package to Premium Plus, having really enjoyed it on the last cruise. We also upgraded the dining package, giving us 6 meals in total (2 free at sea, 2 purchased and 2 latitudes). This is just the right amount for us, leaving a few meals in the MDR and Asian.

 

On Thursday we went to Moderno, which is a favourite of ours. The meal was excellent as usual. We had identified the Cellars as a likely favourite bar beforehand, and that has been the case. It is quiet and us and a few other couples are the regulars there now. My wife can get her Champagne there, and I have been working my way through the red wines. We were there until closing on embarkation day, which resulted in some sore heads the next day.

 

As I think I mentioned earlier, Viva Vino is available and I have attached the menu. There was also a handy sign showing all the drinks packages which I am waiting for my phone to upload a picture of. I will post that when I can.

[KeithJenner]

We were woken fairly early on Friday as we went through the lock at Ijmuiden.

 

The Captain had mentioned the day before that the rerouting was quite fortunate, as the weather was not good in the North Sea, and we may have struggled to reach Edinburgh in time anyway. This was confirmed by some quite rough sea in the morning, but after we entered the channel it improved, although it was windy most of the day. The promenade deck and much of deck 13 were closed most of the day.

 

We had to go through Irish immigration during the day, with each deck being called in turn. Suite guests could go at any time, and it seems that most (us included) went at 8am and then headed to Moderno for breakfast, resulting in a very busy restaurant. We are used to Moderno being quiet for breakfast, so that was a shock to the system.

 

We also had lunch in Moderno. We don't usually eat much at lunchtime, but as me had no evening meal plans we decided to try it. The food was good, but eating a full meal at that time isn't our preference.

 

In the evening we went to Bamboo for a small meal. It is one of our favourites and was excellent as usual.

 

We decided to have a night in after the excesses of the previous day. We are only a couple of decks up from Cellars, so I could easily nip down there for a drink when we fancied one. The cabin is in an excellent location for that.

 

One thing that not many people seem to have noticed is the Lounge on deck 9 directly above o'Sheehans. It is enclosed, but is quite a nice area for sitting with a book.

 

Overall a lazy day to start the cruise. Just what we needed.

[www3traveler]

When you can would you please post the list of the Officers current on board.

 

Thank You

 

Hope you are having a wonderful cruise.

 

My thoughts and prayers to all those from the UK and Coomwealth during these very difficult days.

[KeithJenner]

2 hours ago, www3traveler said:

When you can would you please post the list of the Officers current on board.

 

Thank You

 

Hope you are having a wonderful cruise.

 

My thoughts and prayers to all those from the UK and Coomwealth during these very difficult days.

Hope this comes through ok (other than being upside down).

 

By the way, was your facebook hacked recently? I was getting messages that didn’t sound like they came from you.

 

 

[www3traveler]

1 minute ago, KeithJenner said:

Hope this comes through ok (other than being upside down).

 

By the way, was your facebook hacked recently? I was getting messages that didn’t sound like they came from you.

 

 

Page upside down.  Hard to figure out upside down.  I do see that my friend the Restaurant Manager Noel Chaves is on board.

Yes, both my email and Facebook got hacked at the same time.  Got my email back but so far not my Facebook.

[KeithJenner]

13 minutes ago, www3traveler said:

Page upside down.  Hard to figure out upside down.  I do see that my friend the Restaurant Manager Noel Chaves is on board.

Yes, both my email and Facebook got hacked at the same time.  Got my email back but so far not my Facebook.

I’ll have another go at posting. We were talking to Noel at dinner tonight.

 

When you get Facebook sorted then send us a friend request again.

[mafig]

What deck is your aft penthouse on?

[KeithJenner]

5 minutes ago, mafig said:

What deck is your aft penthouse on?

Deck 9. Perfect location.

[fabnfortysomething]

3 hours ago, KeithJenner said:

We are there next Friday. No plans to get off the ship (we know the area quite well anyway) and we leave at 2pm to get to Bruges the next day.

 

If you did want to meet up for a coffee or something then that would be nice, but I assume you will be working won't you?

is that Friday 23rd?

I'm working Newcastle so could meet you off ship for a local coffee-is it North Shields ferry terminal whee DFDS has its ferries to Amsterdam?