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Been on Dawn several times with young kids.  They loved it.  The Dino pools at the back are very fun for them.  With slides and stuff.  Although my daughter cracked two front teeth on the slide.  Totally goofing off and in no way NCL's fault (Not following the rules 😉)

The kids club on Dawn have been absolutely top notch all times we've gone.  Amazing staff.  But of course that could change depending on contracts.

For older kids there is the sports area and other pools. 

Let me know if you have any questions.

We bought 8 of them on our Hawaii cruise in Aug 2017.  We are a family of 7 so we normally have to book 2 rooms each cruise.

Our onboard account was charged $2000 and OBC of $1000 was also applied.  The net charge to our credit card was $1000 + what we had spent on that cruise.  We did not change our normal spending habits because of the OBC.  Just did our vacation.  Not matter how you do the math we are getting a $1000 of "VALUE" at no cost as long as they are all used within the 4 years.

We just used 1 for an Alaska cruise in September and have 7 left.  But are currently looking at 2 balconies on a cruise next March where we will be able to use 4.  Which will leave us with 3 left, which I don't think we'll have a problem using. 

In our case because we are Canadian the "Deposit" was converted to CAD.  So our cruise cost $2100.08 CAD and our $250 USD deposit was applied as $324.00 CAD.  Which means we owe $1776.08 CAD on final payment.

According to xe.com 250 USD is currently worth $334.10 CAD so they are taking some off the top.  However at the time of purchase the exchange rate was $1.23 so we paid $1230 CAD for $2000 USD of credits which if all spent today would be worth $2592 CAD so my net "VALUE" is $1362 CAD.

The good thing is had the exchange rate gone the other way we have the option of paying in USD and using them as is.

But now I'm really making it more complicated for those who say it's too complex... LOL.

Awesome... Thanks... I've been looking everywhere for this.

I just got back from our cruise and we did stay in 7594. The picture posted above is only one part of the suite, the larger of the two bedrooms with a sitting area and desk.

 

When you open the door to the cabin you enter a foyer like hall. To the left is a door that leads to a separate smaller cabin with two singles that can be converted in to a king and has two pull downs above. We had it as a King sized bed. You also have a desk, closet and bathroom. The cabin shown here below is a doorway straight ahead in the foyer like entrance. This has two singles that can be made to a king and a sleeper sofa.

 

There were 4 adults in our suite...one couple had the smaller of the two bedrooms and we had the larger. Both were very private from one another. When we were up and about we kept the doors open.

 

There are life boats that obstruct your views but you can see out, in the larger room there are two full size windows and in the smaller cabin there is one window.

 

We were pleasantly surprised with the cabin and loved having the suite perks. I did miss our balcony but the "perks" made up for that.

That is a great description. Thanks. If you have any pictures that would also be greatly appreciated.

I'm guessing we will end up having to put the 4 (14, 12, 10, 8) girls in the one room. The one boy (11) on the sleeper sofa.

Or hopefully on some nights with other family members in other cabins.

I've stayed in a suite twice before on NCL and love the butler and other advantages. After this cruise I'll be 3 points short of Platinum because of all the bonus points.

NCL has updated their website with some images. Although the images they posted don't seem to match the floor plan posted.

Would definitely be useful to see some real pictures.

We are in 7594 in August for our Wedding/Honeymoon Cruise with our 5 kids.

Thanks!

 

 

 

How were the other two ports??? We are doing Disney Fantasy in 4/23 and am interested in hearing about your time OFF the boat!!!

We went to Mr Sanchos in Cozumel and had an amazing time. Great service and nice beach.

In Grand Cayman we did some shopping and went snorkeling/diving and enjoyed that as well.

Weather was beautiful

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Myself, my Fiance, and our 5 (13, 11, 10, 8, 7) kids along with grampa booked this cruise in November 2014.

This was my 11th cruise but first time on Disney

We got a good price (relatively speaking) on two balcony cabins before the cruise was announced as #2 of 8 for Star Wars Day at Sea.

Rooms

The rooms were great and we loved the curtains that separated the kids from the adults. They were very spacious and had plenty of storage. The double bathroom's were also a nice touch. We didn't spend much time on our balcony but it was also very large and spacious.

Room Steward

Our room steward was horrific. She was rude and not efficient in any way. Several times we asked for more blankets and they never arrived even though she reconfirmed they were coming. We would often come back from dinner and our room was not yet turned down. She would then knock on our door and tell us "you'll have to leave if you want your room turned down as I'm off in an hour" This happened on three occasions even though we had been gone for almost 2 hours for dinner. I've had bad room stewards before and she was by far the worst. I've also had amazing ones so I know how they should operate and you want to bring them home with you at the end of the cruise. We ended up removing all of her tips from both our cabins.

Fish Extenders

We signed up before hand and participated in a fish extender group. This was fun and we got lots of cool gifts in return from people. It's a lot of work to prep for but if you have an artsy side you should consider doing this.

Food

We found the food to be good to excellent. Our adult dinner in Palo was fabulous and the service was outstanding. In the dining room we also liked the rotational dining. We found the food there to also be of good quality. However they really liked to over cook their beef. I was asked to cut into my meat each time and when the waitress saw it was not medium rare she (Marvette) took it back immediately and returned with another. Once again it was over cooked. This was a theme on 3 of the 6 nights we ate there. The servers were once again fabulous. Our assistant server was on her 4th sailing and was pretty new and we could tell she was still learning. She did an amazing job thought. Now for the buffet. This I was very disappointed in. The food was not very good. I think I only had one meal that I actually enjoyed and it was pretty much the same food. I have found that other cruise lines did a better job than Disney on providing a variety of "new" dishes each day. My kids said the pancakes were absolutely horrible. I didn't try them. The Mickey waffles were ok but nothing to write home about. There were no make your own pasta / sandwich stations.

Ship

The Fantasy is a beautiful ship and was easy to get around and find things to do. It is impeccably clean. The pools were crazy each day. Often all the kids were ordered out as "floaters" were identified and were closed numerous times to be sanitized. The one thing I found amazing were the lifeguards. They were always around and keeping a watchful eye on all the kids. The aquaduck was also cool although my son got stuck in it as he was just tall enough but not yet heavy enough. It took them about 35 to shut it down get him out and get it back up and running. This is obviously not Disney's fault just an FYI.

Kids Programs

The kids programs were very well nice. However my kids much preferred NCL kids programs (their words not mine) They were not fans of the unstructured play time. My son also hated the fact that there was no "sports" time. He very much loves how NCL takes the kids to the sports court for organized sports. They also said they much preferred the NCL theme's each night and DCL didn't do this well according to them. They did however say they liked how many kids were in the program and how many friends they made.

Meet and Greets.

One of the main draws to a Disney cruise was the meet and greets with the characters. This process was not something I enjoyed. Requiring to book a meeting time and all that stuff is just not my idea of fun. The fact that the princess tickets are gone before all the people even get on the boat is absolute insanity. This upset a lot of people and kids (not mine because they didn't care) The Star Wars character greetings were also a huge issue and I could not be bothered to be so stressed to get in line and wait. From what I understand this is similar to WDW although I don't know that either. I don't know a solution to this other than having way more time for this but this is a huge fail on Disney's part.

Castaway Cay.

The weather was not good windy and cloudy and we had to make three attempts to get into dock at Castaway. We were limited to about 4 hours because of the docking situation. This once again is not Disney's fault as they can't control the weather. However I did over hear many upset people as they were only given a 25% discount on their Cabanas even though they only got 50% of the time. Serenity bay was also closed to swimmers and running on limited staff. This is most definitively a beautiful island and I'm sure it's much more enjoyable in better weather

Castaway 5K

We signed up for this when we boarded the ship and we met in the lounge before arriving in Castaway. However due to the docking situation they postponed the run and eventually ran it on the ship while we were doing our third go round of the island. We did it and received our medals.

Summary

I would definitely not say this was my favorite cruise and it definitely wasn't my worst. It was a very good vacation and we as a family had an amazing time. For me I will not pay a premium to go on a Disney cruise again. While planning this trip we had the opportunity to book an NCL cruise with a much nicer itinerary with two premium suites with butler & concierge & perks for less money than our two balcony cabins. The kids had been asking for a Disney cruise for some time so we decided on the Fantasy instead of NCL as their Christmas gift. For me DCL is on par with NCL - RCI - Celebrity so I'd definitely go for the better value choice next time we cruise. I'm not sure if my opinion would be different if I were a die hard Disney fan as everyone has their own preferences and goals in a vacation.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Just booked this for Aug 2017

the only info my TA was able to get is that it has two bedrooms with a door.

I'm also not able to find any pictures online.

Thank you everyone for all the great information. We just came off an NCL cruise and I've always thought NCL kids club is top notch. The hours posted above are accurate as well as the strict application of ages.. Although at times they do merge them.

The only problem we had was the 12 yo who is very mature would have done much better in the next level but was not permitted... It was fine she ended up having fun but not after a lot of coursing.

Can someone explain the tracking bracelet.

Can someone please explain to me how Disney operates their kids club. Their website is less than clear in this regard.

We will be travelling with 5 kids

13-11-10-8-7

We just got back from NCL and we are very familiar with their procedures and processes so if someone could compare the two that would be great.

NCL was 6-9 and 10-12 then 13-17.

10-12 could sign in and out on their own.

From Disney website it lists the following

Vibe - 14-17

Edge - 11-14

Oceaneer Club - 3 -12

Oceaneer Lab - 3 - 12

I do see it says they can go between Club and Lab.

Thanks

Good to know I booked a BOGOHO sale and was going to buy some shares again. The last time I sailed RCL I got the OBC and I made 36% of on my shares. The cruise ended up costing me something like $170.00 :D

I'm looking for pretty much the same answer

Looking at renting Ford E350 from IAH for 8 of us and returning to Texas City the next day.

Same thing on the way back. Pick up the car in Texas city and return to IAH.

The price I've found is ok but not great although it is cheaper than transfers.

Looking at all options and need to consider the cost of the cab as well.

Taxi Fare Finder says it will be between $42.77 and $52.09 depending on traffic.

Just tried again for my Nov 8th NCL cruise and was told not this time. Makes me wonder if it's a new policy or an agent that doesn't know their stuff.

Done it twice to a family suite on the Dawn.

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No, not checking those boxes. I can get a quote for 3 if I enter for 3 people but then I have to do it cruise by cruise. I was just wondering whether there is some site that allows you to enter the number of people and then it will shows you a list of available cruises (e.g. for the whole month of July) with the correct total amount for the 3 people in the cabin. The same what you would get if you do a normal search where the site will assume you are a party of 2.

 

I do not have a specific date or ship or itinerary in mind and I am just trying to find out a good deal for 3 people. I know I can get the details if I select s specific cruise and then enter for 3 people but that takes lots of time.

 

I know I can ask a TA to do this for me but I have yet to find a TA that is responsive enough for me and I like to be in control of the booking myself so much prefer to book directly.

 

I guess I am asking for something that does not exist !

You can do this on NCL (also having a kids sail free promo) but I don't believe you can on RCI.

EDIT - NCL gives an average price per person. So it may appear as though the kids are not free but they are.

I recently had the very same experience.

I was trying to book two cabins. It appeared that RCI had the number of quads severely limited. Daily price changes from $1400 (4 people) to $1800 were common.

I abandoned my RCI attempts and quickly booked on NCL for $1230.00 (4 people) and was able to get 2 rooms without any issue.

My TA commented that something was fishy. She had never had so much trouble booking two rooms before. But as the terms say it's capacity controlled so they clearly didn't want us to have two rooms and 8 guests for the same price as 4. I'm ok with that it's their business and I spoke with my money.

First time travelling to Galveston / Texas.

We are travelling in a group of 8 (3 adults, 5 kids) for a November 8th sailing.

Cruise leaves on a Saturday and our flights arrive mid morning on the Friday.

Looking for all options to get 8 people to a hotel and to the cruise port for the most reasonable rate. I'd consider all options including car rentals or even van service. The best would be to rent a van that holds 8 but I understand that may not be the most economical.

Cruise Disembarks Saturday early am and our flight leaves Saturday around 7pm.

Thanks for any and all input.

The good it's back up

The bad the prices I had found and requested my TA to book are no longer available.

This message is posted on the home page ...

 

Important Update

 

We are currently experiencing an unexpected outage of our back-end system. This outage is impacting some areas of the website, including reservations, Online Check-in, and Pre-Cruise Planner.

 

We are working diligently to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and appreciate your patience.

Yup the same as I posted in the first message.

I went to check on my cruise and got error message to try later seems like there doing some maintence to web site

My TA was told it was not maintenance but a crash. There is no timeline on when it might be fixed.

TA was trying to book us and when she spoke to reservations she couldn't do anything.

The following is now on their website.

We are currently experiencing an unexpected outage of our back-end system. This outage is impacting some areas of the website, including reservations, Online Check-in, and Pre-Cruise Planner.

 

We are working diligently to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and appreciate your

Booked the "Kids Sail Free" promo in March and got a great deal. I had done the exact same cruise exactly a year earlier and had a good time. The price couldn't be beat so I'd figure I'd try it again.

Last year's review for those interested

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1750122

Upgraded to Mini-Suite 3 weeks before sailing and then a SJ Suite 2 weeks before sailing again for a what I consider a great price

Myself 35 (8th cruise), Dad 64 (4th Cruise), Son 8 (4th Cruise), Daughter 5 (3rd Cruise)

Flights were booked out of Detroit direct to Tampa on Spirit Airlines leaving Saturday November 30th and returning December 8th. It was a 4 hour drive from Toronto to Detroit to catch our flights.

Booked a park and fly rate with the Holiday Inn Express in Romulus for $100 including a weeks parking. Very nice hotel. Worth the price considering the cost of parking included and breakfast

The parking is immediately behind the Holiday Inn. Parking shuttle dropped us off at the airport and had a very uneventful and pleasant flight down to Tampa.

Picked up our rental car from Alamo and drove to our hotel "Dolphin Beach Resort" on St. Pete beach. This was rated as a 3* hotel but was simply not up to par. It worked just fine and had a pool for the kids so it worked but I would not stay here again and it's definitely not a "resort"

Left the hotel around 11:00 and were stopped in our tracks by a 35 minute motorcycle parade with probably about 3000+ motorcycles. It's was interesting but took for ever and the police had the road completely blocked so we sat and waited, and waited, and waited.

Embarkation

Dropped the car off at the Westin Alamo and took the free shuttle to the port. This is where things started to go down hill. We waited in traffic for about 30 minute just to get to the port entrance at around 1:00. Once we were let off chaos ensued. Lines were forming everywhere and were would not permitted up the escalator. Stood there for about 30 minutes until a small group were permitted up the stars. There another VERY long line had formed outside in the hot sun. There we slowly queued our way for about 2 1/2 hour. Eventually NCL started serving OJ (if you can call it that) to guests outside. A view inside the terminal could see hundreds of empty chairs. We finally made it to security check in and 2 security/x-ray lines. It appeared 4 were there but only 2 in use. After clearing security we queued up again in the "suite" line and waited some more. Finally checked in at about 3:45 (2:45 wait to board). We were escorted to the "suite" area which was pretty much out of food and were quickly taken to the boat and into our suite. Our luggage was already awaiting us at our room and we unpacked.

So first impressions were not so good.

Room

SJ Suite is a great room for a family of 4. You get all the suite benefits including a butler and concierge. So much space a king size bed and 2 other beds for each of my kids. Would sail in this room again and again.

Upon arrival our safe was not functioning. Our butler made called for service and it was fixed within 30 minutes.

The last sea day my daughter was exhausted and needed a nap. I called our butler to get one of the movies from the movie list. He brought it within minutes and showed me how to work the dvd player. Unfortunately it did not work. He called for service and we had a brand new out of the box dvd player hooked up within 30 minutes.

Kids Club

I took the kids to kids club to register and we were introduced to the new computerized check-in/check-out process which is easy to use but adds extra time and instead of only having to bring your own card each time you had to bring the kids as well. It's great security but I'm not really sure how much of a problem it really is on a cruise. Again not complaining as I always want my kids to be well protected.

NCL's kids program is one of the best I have seen. The programs they run are top notch and the kids don't want to be anywhere else but there. It was pretty much all the same programming as last year but the kids still loved it and couldn't care less what they did. They once again also ran a circus show with each kid getting to perform a circus act in the main theatre on the the last sea day. It was fun and great to watch.

Butler

Madel our butler was fantastic and always got us what we needed very quickly and assisted us when we encountered problems as discussed above.

Room Steward

Very efficient room steward. Our room was always clean and he was very friendly when we did see him

Dining

Ate in the Aqua dining room twice. The service the first night was excellent and not so good the second night. The food was excellent to good.

Le Bistro - Ate here one night and had a decent meal. The food was again excellent to very good and the service was fantastic.

La Cucina - Ate here one night and it was not really worth the extra money. The appetizers were the only decent part of this meal and were all excellent. The main dishes however were very disappointing. The pasta was over cooked and the sauce was lacking any real Italian flavor. The steak I ordered was simply bad and I only ate half of it. No flavor at all. The beef itself tasted bland and was obviously a poor quality meat. It was not seasoned at all. The only thing you could taste was the cheap oil they fried it in. Very disappointing.

Moderno - Ate here one night and it was good. The meats here were at least flavored well. I had my fill but the time between servings was pretty long. If I had to compare it to Copacabana Brazilian Steak House it was certainly not as good.

Cagney's - Ate here for breakfast and lunch a few times (Suite benefit). Not for dinner. Breakfasts were good with some great options on the menu. Lunch one day was decent. Although once again the steak I ordered was terrible. I don't know maybe I'm spoiled but I can cook a better steak any day of the week. I ordered it medium rare and the first steak came well done and I sent it back. The second steak came back rare almost blue. I don't mind rare so I ate it. Service was excellent each time.

Nightlife

The nightlife on this boat is non existent. If you are going looking to do some dancing and stay up past 11pm look elsewhere. It's like a ghost town. Part of it can be attributed to the music they play in spinnakers, it was simply brutal. You would think there would be an incentive for the cruise director to promote some kind of night life but apparently not.

Excursion

Roatan - I went diving at the Splash Inn. Top notch dive operation with top notch service and hospitality. $60 for two dives and $30 for a transfer including full equipment which is well maintained. My dad booked an excursion from cruise excursioneer to West Bay Beach. He had booked the same trip last year. They take you to Bananarama for a beach break. They had a great time again but he didn't get any of the things the excursion was to offer. We have since requested a refund, and will see how it goes.

Belize - We did the cave tubing with .bz. Many of us came together at the meet and greet and the roll call before and arranged to do it as a group. Being in a suite I was able to get 25 prority tender tickets for our group without question and we were all onshore on the first tender. The cave tubing was simply awesome. Both my kids had a great time. The lunch provided afterwards was delicious and the free drinks were strong and plentiful. I would HIGHLY recommend this excursion with .bz to anybody...Top Notch.

Costa Maya - We went to Tropicante beach bar. Another top notch spot. Great beach and the service and food was fantastic. The owner was so welcoming and his hospitality was exceptional. They offer free wi-fi which was actually pretty fast. They also offered free phone calls to the US and Canada. My kids got to call their mother which was good for them. I also had to call Visa as I got an email notification that one of my pre-authorized transactions had been rejected. Turns out it was not a Visa issue. We ate and drank here all day sitting in the sun and spent $76.00 It cost us $16.00 for a cab there and back. Well worth the money.

Cozumel - Booked a sailing/snorkel adventure with cruise excursioneer again. Took a cab to the boat and registered at the bar. Then the skies opened up and it poured for about 40 minutes. The quickly put a tarp up on the sail boat and we set sail in the rain. It was fun but cool. Then the sun came out and stayed out for the rest of the day. The snorkeling was crap IMO... But as a diver I'm not sure much would have impressed me. I had done this trip for my kids. My sun snorkeled for about 15 minutes and then wanted out however my daughter had an absolute blast and stayed in the water looking at the fish for the whole 40 minutes. She just had a mask and a life jacket on and rocked it....We then went to a second snorkel but neither of my kids wanted to go so I stayed on the boat while my dad did the second snorkel. We were served very strong drinks and chips and guacamole which was good. We then went back to the dock. As part of the package with the company we booked we were supposed to have 2 for 1 drinks at the bar but they would not honor it as it was not printed directly on the ticket. Seems to be a new problem with this company as we didn't experience any of these issues last year. Overall it was a fun day. I would not do this excursion again. The price was high for what we got.

Sorry party

Due to all the embarkation issues the ship was offered a sail away party after cozumel with "free" rum punch. A nice gesture but they botched this too. If there was any rum in that punch you can call me "Captain" I don't get why companies make a goodwill gesture and then just piss people off more by being cheap about it. Absolute FAIL by NCL

Disembarkation

We were warned ahead of time that the lines might be long and because of this they were keeping the boat open to all guests until 1:00 including the pool. We had a 2:15 flight and wanted to be sure we got there. We went to get off the boat around 8:20. We got off the elevator and into a big line. I was thinking to my self...this isn't priority disembarkation. I went alone while my dad stayed in line to find out what was going on. I found out priority was in spinnaker lounge. One of the NCL employees followed me back to the line pulled us from the line and took us right to the front. Great job... However once off the boat we waited in another line. If you walked off with your luggage you could proceed but for those who put their luggage out the night before we had to wait until ALL the bags were off before we were allowed to proceed to customs. Once that was completed we were sent to customs and luckily as Canadians we got to enter the "non-us" line which was very short. We cleared customs and grabbed our luggage quickly and were in a shuttle to the airport ($26 for 4 of us)

Summary

So in summary we enjoyed our cruise very much, but I'm a firm believer in a vacation is what you make it. NCL certainly has some things that could use improvement but also has some areas that they do well. Would I sail NCL again probably but I will most likely try another cruise line again for my next trip. The embarkation/disembarkation along with the way they handled the sorry party has left a sour taste in my mouth.

If you have any questions or comments please let me know.

Thanks

Took 4 hours to board last Sunday. Appalling. Getting off wasn't much better. Just a catalogue of pathetic service. Goodbye NCL.:mad::mad: Never again.

Hey they gave us rum less rum punch for our troubles... I agree appalling... The rest of the cruise was enjoyable

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Hotel Manger told us this will be an issue until May as this sailing is now an Open loop cruise. Customers from Europe will be boarding in Cozumel all season.

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We arrived at 1 and we have been standing in line for two hours and still not checked in yet.. That's with priority suite embarkation

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