Dwilli

4 hours ago, KKB said:

For our December cruise it says "Too early to book"

I was able to book it for our cruise July 2023 so that's a strange message.

We've used Rising Son a few times and loved it every time. They have equipment for you to use, they are entertaining, and their Rum Swizzles are great!

Congratulations! Enjoy your cruise 🙂

We have had SF suites on both the Gem and the Dawn and they are great! Kind of a lot of walking to get to the room but that's ok with us. Sitting on the balcony watching the wake of the ship is the best!

I got the email saying we are upgraded from an aft penthouse suite to an H3 on the Pearl to Alaska for July 8th! I'm so excited! Having a Haven room is on my bucket list and now I'll be able to check that off. Our bid was on the line between poor and fair for those of you who track that sort of thing. Thank you to everyone who has posted on this thread and given me hope!

Thank you so much for the beautiful pictures and the very useful information! I have planned our whole Alaskan cruise trip except for Victoria because I couldn't find what I needed. Now I have it thanks to you!

Thank you so much for the great review and the beautiful pictures. We are doing the same cruise in July and this is making me more excited which is something I didn't think could happen!

My husband and I went to Blue Lagoon for the Sea Lion excursion. It was an amazing experience! Blue Lagoon is clean and the people working there are so helpful and knowledgeable. We didn't swim at the lagoon but there were people there that looked like they were having a blast! There are signs everywhere so you always know where you are going or how to get there. Like someone else said, there is a board near the dock telling you the times the boat will leave for your specific ship. We watched the dolphins and the sting rays while we were waiting for our boat. I would go there again in a heartbeat! Have fun!

I didn't realize the Gem was going to Bermuda out of Boston in 2019. I'm pretty excited about that. I liked the Dawn but I loved the Gem!

We did the Blue Lagoon Sea Lion excursion and had a great time. Hugging a sea lion was amazing!

Thank you for posting your video! We will be going to Alaska next year and this helped a lot!

Yes, but you will only get $30 credit (i.e. the clamshell will be free,,,, but you leave some of the credit "on the table").

That's ok with me! We aren't doing any other excursions there. Thanks for the info!

Can you use the Shore Excursion Credit for a clamshell at GSC?

We've stayed in aft penthouse suites on the Dawn for the last two years on deck 9 and had no problems with smells (other than the smell of baking bread!) or motion.

Thanks for all the information and opinions. I think we have it figured out for now :)

I'm using Jet Blue miles so our flight will be free.

My husband and I are from Boston and we are cruising to the Bahamas on the Gem in July. We are trying to figure out a few things.

First, what airport should we fly into? LGA doesn't have any early flights so it would probably have to be JFK or EWR.

Second, if we got a flight that landed at 8:15 - 9:00 a.m. on the day of the cruise, would we be ok? If not, where can we stay the night before that won't break the bank.

And last but not least, we think we want to get a car service. Which one is the best? I understand that's a person's opinion but I'd like to hear what people think. Thanks for any info you can give me!

I remember there being a hurricane and they rerouted the cruise to Maine and Canada, their fall route.

We've never done the Gosling Sunset Cruise but we did do the Swizzle cruise last week. It was nice. The swizzles were flowing and really good. The captain talked about Bermuda and people can ask questions. The sunset was beautiful! It was an hour and a half but seemed a lot shorter.

I was on the Dawn last week and the internet speed was faster than last year but still a lot slower than the speed I get at home.

It's about .6 miles but took a while because we explored every cove! If you just stay on the path, it's an easy walk. The harder part is walking down to the different coves. That's soft sand up and down small hills. If your ankle is strong enough by then, definitely do it! It was amazing!

LaCucina is where LeBistro used to be but they did it all over. For me, it was just too bright and didn't feel like an Italian restaurant should. LeBistro is where LaCucina used to be which is a bigger space and the atmosphere there is nice, like it was before the changes. Cagneys is still the same. Moderno and Sugarcane are actually in the same room where the Star Bar was before. It's kind of a weird set up but it was good for breakfast. I'm not sure how it works for dinner though.

The addition of Los Lobos definitely took away some of the seating for Garden Cafe. There are doors that separate the two. Maybe they should consider opening the doors in the morning so people can sit there. Seating wasn't too bad at other times, just breakfast seemed to have an issue.

My husband and I went on the NCL Dawn for the third summer in a row. We were excited about the new things we would see after the ship being in dry dock for a month. We were in a suite so we had priority embarkation. We got to Black Falcon Pier at 10:45 and we were onboard and having lunch in Moderno at 12! We had an aft penthouse suite which was very nice. There was new carpeting and furniture but not new lounge chairs or cushions on the balcony. The room is great with lots of room and storage space and at certain times you can smell the bread baking in the bakery when you are on the balcony!

We ate in LaCucina, LeBistro, Cagneys, Teppanyaki, Aqua, O'Sheehans, and the Garden Cafe. We were disappointed in LaCucina's new location and atmosphere. It was too bright and didn't feel cozy like the other location it was in last year. The food was ok but we wished after that we had tried the new Los Lobos instead. We heard really good things from other cruisers that did try it. We had the best steak at LeBistro and had an awesome waiter. He took the time to talk to us and let us get to know him a little. Cagneys was good but seemed a little rushed. Maybe it was our server, but that's how we felt. Teppanyaki now has four tables (there were only two last year) and was very noisy with four chefs doing their thing at the same time. Our chef was great and kept us laughing the whole time. The food (filet and chicken) was good but VERY salty. Aqua was just ok. We were seated between two other tables and it was very hard to have a conversation with people right beside you. If you can, get a table in the middle if you want to be able to talk to the people you are eating with. O'Sheehan's was a great addition to the Dawn. We had dinner there one night and the food was ok, kind of the same as Blue Lagoon. We also had lunch one day and the cheeseburgers were great! We seemed to end up there at different times of the day for drinks and chicken wings or nachos. The bartenders there were a lot of fun and will make anything you ask. If they don't know how, tell them the ingredients and they will make it for you. Best drinks on the ship in my opinion and we never had to wait in line to get them! The Garden Buffet was usually very crowded, especially at breakfast. We went there twice for breakfast and had a hard time finding seats both times. The food was great though! It was much better than last year. There was a lot of variety and everything I ate either for dinner or breakfast was delicious. We usually ate in Moderno for breakfast because we had that as a suite perk. The breakfasts there were the best! My husband usually got filet and eggs. I got different things each day but the eggs benedict was my favorite! They have a buffet where you can get all different breads, rolls, muffins, yogurts, oatmeal, and fresh fruit. The blueberry muffins were amazing! We had lunch on the pool deck a few times. Topsiders is now a bar and a grille. They had burgers and hot dogs, etc. My husband's favorite was chicken legs and potato salad. He had that for lunch every sea day.

We only saw two shows - Band On The Run and Second City. The shows are the same as previous years so we didn't feel the need to see them again. Second City had some new material and they were pretty funny. Most people go to watch Elements which is a great show but we had seen it twice before so we skipped it. Some of the shows in Bliss were good. We watched karaoke a few times there. The servers in Bliss were great and so were the drinks.

We were going to go to the casino but when we got there, it was way too smoky for me. Smoking is limited to the casino and the port side of the outside decks. Both of those places were disgusting to me. They smelled so bad, I'm not sure how even the smokers could stand it. Having a non-smoking ship would be great for me (sorry to the smokers!).

Service on the ship was good. The room stewards work tirelessly every single day. They would always say hello and ask how our day was going. I don't know how they do it! Our butler, Jane was great. She did everything we asked and then some. Everyone seemed happy to be working on the Dawn. We didn't come across anyone that didn't seem to love their job. That is a little different from last year.

Bermuda is beautiful and the people are very friendly and willing to help if you are lost! We took the ferry to St. Georges and walked to Tobacco Bay. We were disappointed when we got there because the whole beach was covered with canopied chairs that you rent. We were just stopping there for a little while and didn't want to get chairs but there was no place to put our things while we swam so we rented a chair for $15. The next day we took the bus to Warwick Bay and took the path to Horseshoe Bay. We stopped at all the different coves along the way. It was the most beautiful walk we've ever taken. Warwick Bay Beach is as beautiful as Horseshoe Bay Beach but there was nobody there which was great! There are also no facilities there. I highly recommend taking the walk from Warwick Bay to Horseshoe Bay. If you take the bus, tell the driver you want to get off at Warwick Bay and he or she will tell you when you get there. Horseshoe Bay has a little restaurant there so you can get food and drinks. They also have facilities with showers, changing rooms and bathrooms. We changed before walking up the steep hill to the bus stop. We also shopped in the Dockyard. There are some shops and the Clocktower Mall. If you like fudge, go to the mall to Bermuda Fudge Company in the mall! They give free samples of really good fudge! While we were in the Dockyard, we went to the Frog and Onion. It was in an old stone building that used to be part of the fort. Food was good (we only had appetizers and drinks) but a little on the expensive side. We also went to the glassblowing place and the Bermuda Rum Cake store. Banana rum cake is delicious!

We had a great time on this cruise. Probably the most amazing thing we saw on this trip were the dolphins and whales on the last sea day. They were right next to the ship and were absolutely beautiful. There are a few things that bothered us a little - people saving chairs on the pool deck and not showing up for hours while there were other people walking around without any where to sit, people smoking on the non-smoking side of the ship, older teens misbehaving, etc. We didn't let these things get to us though. Would I do this cruise again - absolutely!

If you have any questions, let me know :)

Congratulations on your upsell! We were in a suite last year and will be again next week (I can't wait!). Last year when we got to Black Falcon it seemed confusing to me. I had read on these boards about all the perks suite people get. I couldn't imagine that one of them was standing in a long line! My DH asked one of the workers if there was a place where people in suites checked in and we were brought right to the front and up the stairs! We checked in and were escorted to the suite waiting area. If that doesn't happen, make sure you ask someone. We were there around 10:45 and escorted our room at 11:30, then to Cagneys for lunch at noon!

We didn't use the butler for much other than emptying our fridge and filling the coffee pods when they got low. He brought snacks 5 out of the 7 days and we didn't see him at all the last two days. We are hoping for a better butler this year.

I hope you have as much fun as I know we will! See you next week :)

I've done this a couple times. I taped around the outside of a case of bottled water with packing tape to make it sturdier and made a handle out of the tape so it's easier for the porters to pick up. Then put a luggage tag on it and there was no problem at all. It was delivered either at the same time as my luggage or a little later. I've only done this out of Boston though.