Honest review of Dawn from NYC couple

[RachelNYC]

My finace and I just got back from our Bermuda/Bahamas NCL Dawn cruise out of NYC. Overall it was a great vacation - very relaxing, clean nice ship, amazing ease of embarkation and disembarkation, friendly staff. However - this is not the cruise for everyone. Here's is our quick review of the pro's and con's of this particular cruise/ship:

 

Pro's:

- We live in NYC, so the ease of embarkation and disembarkation could not have been easier. It was BY FAR the easiest process compared to all the other cruises we have been on. If you can carry all of your bags, we highly reccommend the "express disembarkation" process. As soon as the ship was cleared by customs, we were off and in a taxi in around 15 minutes!!

 

- Great use of space in the stateroom. We were in cabin #10112, midship balcony. The bathroom and shower were a great size, and the toilet area was seperated by a sliding door. There is very little drawer space, so be aware of this when you pack. You might want to throw some extra hangers in your bags to hang more things in the closet. We found that the cabin and storage space was enough for 2 people, but anything more than that would be cramped. (Unless travelling with a child.) The balcony was great - very private - not like on some ships (Caribbean Princess) where you can look down onto other balconies.

 

- Freestyle dining! The convienience of eating whenever we wanted to was great. We had no problem getting a same day reservation for 2 at any of the restaurants.

 

- Bermuda was a wonderful port. Clean, friendly, safe. We definitely want to return to do more exploring there at some point. We took the public bus from The Dockyards to Horseshoe Bay at $4/pp and were very happy we did so! (No air conditioning on the way there, but we had a/c on the way back - maybe it depends on the particular bus?) We just couldn't justify $35 on a cab each way when the bus was just 4 bucks!

 

- Gatsby's Bar - great piano music with Jeffrey Allen. If you sit in the "wine cellar" area of Le Bistro you can enjoy a great view of the piano bar area, too! You can request this area when you book your reservation.

 

 

Cons:

 

- The food. Ok, ok, ok... I know there has been a huge debate on this on the message boards - and everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Everyone has different tastes, too - keep that in mind. With that being said, here is our take on the food:

We live in NYC. We eat at ALOT of restaurants. We've also been on a few different cruises with different cruise lines. We really appreciate a great meal. The food was VERY hit or miss on the Dawn. The food in the main dining rooms for lunch and dinner was VERY VERY dish dependent. Some were good, some were not. Some came served at the correct temperature, some did not. The main dining room lobster was mediocre at best. HOWEVER - the food at Cagneys, and Le Bistro were excellent. (I had the surf & turf at Cagneys - the filet was superb and the lobster was cooked well.) We actually went to Le Bistro twice for dinner b/c it was so enjoyable.

Room service was ok. Nothing to write home about, but adequate. The veggie plate and ceaser salad were always good snacks. As the end all, if you are willing to pay for the premium restaurants, you'll have good food. If you're only going to go to the main dining rooms - it's very "eh", and very hit or miss. (The one good dish I had in the main dining room was a swordfish entree.)

 

- The pool area. Wow - this area was awful. We like to lounge by the pool and have drinks at the pool bar throughout the afternoons, but not on this cruise. We knew there would be kids on the ship - b/c we were sailing in the summer. But, we were expecting most of the parents to put the kids in camp during the day. This was not the case. Kids were running all over the pool deck, running through the pool wading area splashing sun bathers, and being downright obnoxious. I am a teacher - and I love children. I do not fault the kids for their actions - they are kids! I blame both the parents of these kids, and the staff of the Dawn. There were no staff members telling the children not to run in the pool area, not to do "cannonballs", and the parents were just letting the kids be obnoxious. (Maybe it was just the particular group of people on our cruise? I don't know.) Also, there was only one pool on the Dawn. It was not nearly enough space for the amount of people on the cruise. The space at the bar kind of stunk, too. Bad view of the pool from the pool bar, and not enough tables at the bar with the hamburger grill up at the top level.

 

Overall:

Overall, it was a great vacation. If we got a great price on another sailing on this cruise, we might return to the Dawn again. The ease of the NYC port is great and will have alot to do on which ships we will sail on in the future. The ship was clean, the staff was friendly, and the overall cruise was enjoyable.

 

Please feel free to email me at rachelmle@yahoo.com if you would like to see pictures or have any other questions!

 

-

[carlielyn]

Thanks for the review. The tip about seating at Le Bistro is especially helpful. I'm going to request that area--it sounds great!! You also reinforced DH & my idea about lounging on our own balcony instead of by the pool.

Did you notice if they had the buy 5 beers get 1 free? Did you do room service for breakfast at all? If you did what was good?

[RachelNYC]

Hi there. They did have the beer special - but there is a catch. You get a "bucket" of beer - buy 5 and get 1 free. But they tack on a $5 fee for the bucket, which is the plastic helmet looking thing. You have to KEEP YOUR RECEIPT and return the receipt to get the $5 back. However, if you're out by the pool for the whole afternoon that really doesn't matter.

 

The balcony is GREAT - we spent a couple hours on it everyday. The best is at night when you're at sea, with the moonlight bouncing off the water.... so beautiful. What the heck - it's amazing during the day, too! :)

 

As for room service breakfast - here's what we did:

 

We like to call room service breakfast our "pre-breakfast" :)

We would order coffee, melon, and muffins to be delivered very early. They always call about 1 or 2 minutes before the room service staff member shows up to your room, so that was our wake up call!! We'd then either roll out of bed, and onto the balcony for some pre-breakfast as our eyes opened - OR - we'd go right back to sleep, only to wake up to some tasty treats when we DID want to finally get up! What could be better than that?! As for the room service breakfast menu - it was ok. The coffee was always hot - so that's all that mattered to me. The menu was filled with juices, coffee, tea, muffins, pastry, fruit, yogurt, a few different cold cereals, milk, toast.... I can't remember what else. (I think if you have a suite, there is a better room service menu.) The breakfast in the Venetian was ok. I ordered egg white omlettes twice and they arrived drenched in oil. I'm not a buffet person, but my fiance is, so we went up there a few times after hitting the gym (gym time is after pre-breakfast, but before breakfast breakfast) and it was quite good. I can certainly say that it was the best buffet breakfast on a cruise I have had!

 

I hope that info helps. Let me know if you have any other questions! :)

[judyf]

Thanks foe taking the time to post a review. Good room service idea.

[debbiearch]

Oh, we'd be best friends - prebreakfast! We have practice breakfast and real breakfast, then brunch, then lunch....

 

Over the weekend we took our nephew mini-golfing - we had ice cream, then golf, then ice cream.

[RachelNYC]

Oh, we'd be best friends - prebreakfast! We have practice breakfast and real breakfast, then brunch, then lunch....

 

Over the weekend we took our nephew mini-golfing - we had ice cream, then golf, then ice cream.

 

Hah - yes!!! I love it! "practice breakfast" :) very cute

 

Also, I forgot to mention.......

 

In the buffet at night the pizza station turns over to a crepe station with fresh made to order crepes. Those were fun b/c you get to see the guy making them right in front of you. (and tasty, too!)

 

Also....... the bars were not consistant in the quality of the drinks throughout the ship. The pool bar's mixed drinks and blended drinks were typically weak, spinnaker lounge was hit or miss (my fiance is a big martini drinker and he actually sent one back to be re-made there), but - Gatsby's bartenders were great!!!!! They were so friendly, too. That was our usual hang out spot on the ship.

 

:)Rachel

[newlywedcruisers]

Hah - yes!!! I love it! "practice breakfast" :) very cute

 

In the buffet at night the pizza station turns over to a crepe station with fresh made to order crepes. Those were fun b/c you get to see the guy making them right in front of you. (and tasty, too!)

:)Rachel

 

Practice breakfast sounds good to me.

 

I hate sounding uncultured but I will anyways, what are crepes?

 

(Slaps self because it's probably something very basic that I should know already)

[mack0217]

Practice breakfast sounds good to me.

 

I hate sounding uncultured but I will anyways, what are crepes?

 

(Slaps self because it's probably something very basic that I should know already)

 

Crepes are very, very thin (paper thin) pancake type of wrap. Then filling is put in the middle. On Dawn they had apple, peach, banana, or strawberry pie filling and also whipped cream. Then it is wrapped/rolled up. The chef would do the whole thing and then place it on your plate.

[carlielyn]

Rachel,

You are full of such great information!! Were the crepes served at all the breakfast buffets? I also love your pre-breakfast idea and what a wonderful way that is to wake up!!

We will definately be doing Gatsby's too. It's nice of you to give us pointers!!

[curiouscat]

Mazel Tov on your marriage. I always love to hear a NYer comment on the food. I then can gauge correctly since I am a past Nyer stuck in foodie hell in Georgia.

 

I am getting set to sail on NCL Jewel and have been prewarned about the food. We booked based on itinerary not cuisine.

 

Since you are newlyweds and sounds like you don't have children yet(after that cruise you may never:p ) I would suggest Princess or RCCL.

You may have to fly but you will enjoy the food and the children love the kids club on those lines.

 

CuriousCat

[RachelNYC]

Mazel Tov on your marriage. I always love to hear a NYer comment on the food. I then can gauge correctly since I am a past Nyer stuck in foodie hell in Georgia.

 

I am getting set to sail on NCL Jewel and have been prewarned about the food. We booked based on itinerary not cuisine.

 

Since you are newlyweds and sounds like you don't have children yet(after that cruise you may never:p ) I would suggest Princess or RCCL.

You may have to fly but you will enjoy the food and the children love the kids club on those lines.

 

CuriousCat

 

Hi again!

 

Yes, we certainly loooooove our food here in NYC. I'm actually heading to a new place in SoHo tonight! Wheee!

 

I think we're going to be sticking w/ Princess and RCCL in the future, too. We went on the Caribbean Princess last year and absolutely loved it. (I know that's taboo to say on a NCL board, but it's true!) My father lives in Ft.Lauderdale, so we can always crash w/ him before sailing out of Port Everglades or Miami.

 

I don't remember seeing crepes for breakfast.......only saw them at dinner time.

 

-Rachel