Dawn Nine Day 12/04/09

[jmcdon7230]

We were on the "rebound" Dawn cruise.

 

We had never sailed on the Dawn before, and first of all I have to say that we were very impressed, if not awed, by the Dawn. After having sailed on many NCL ships, including the Pearl, we don't know why they discarded the Dawn/Star template and went to other designs. To us she was the perfect combination of size and convenience.

 

We particularly enjoyed the way that the live music in the atrium and Gatsby's lounge would waft up to the restaurants above. Tim Dion and Bernie Martini, while you are dining is worth the price of the restaurant surcharge.

 

We walked up (at prime time between 6 and 8 PM) and ate at all the specialty restaurants, except Cagney's which we did not try. Salsa, Bamboo and Impressions were half price all week and were never crowded. We even walked into Le Bistro at 7:30PM without a reservation....and it was half price.

 

We thought the entertainment was terrific: Jane L Powell, Dan Heenan, and the shows Band on the Run and Bollywood. The only show that was mediocre to us was South Beach Rave.

 

We enjoyed two excursions: Caves and Mangrove Kayak in Samana (rum and coke or rum shots from a bottle were served on the way back) and Catamaran to Two Pitons in St. Lucia, with a good lunch served on board.

 

My mother made the best lemon meringue pie that I have ever tasted up until trying the lemon meringue tart in the Garden Cafe. It was perfect. The last thing we would do every night would be to peruse the dessert areas of the buffet, hoping that they would have the tart out again. They never did.....and that's the way I'll end this, with that complaint.

:)

[saltmom1]

Do you have the 9 day menus ?

[martinchem]

Glad to hear such a nice positive review of the Dawn, We'll be on it next month, hope we have as good of an experience.

[jmcdon7230]

Do you have the 9 day menus ?

 

Sorry, no I didn't go to the trouble of copying them.

 

They were always posted early enough in the day so that we could include their "daily choices" in our list of walk up restaurant choices.

 

I was interested in the lobster and rack of lamb evenings, and we were able to enjoy both.

[DMH15]

Glad you had a good cruise. But now I am craving a slice of Lemon Meringue pie!

[Tideone]

After reading a review of the same cruise by another poster, I was getting worried about our upcoming cruise on December 18... Thank you for a great review and getting me excited about our upcoming cruise...

Now all I have to do is find the tart...

[zazou]

After reading a review of the same cruise by another poster, I was getting worried about our upcoming cruise on December 18... Thank you for a great review and getting me excited about our upcoming cruise...

Now all I have to do is find the tart...

 

The same from me! thanks for this review.

 

Do you remember if you have change the time during the cruise and if so, when? I have to reserve a independant tour.

 

I would also like the price to the spa pass for the 9 days.

 

Thanks,

 

Isa

[flrealtorlady01]

I also would like to thank you for the positive post, we are sailing this cruise on Friday and negativity is NOT an issue:):)

[jmcdon7230]

The same from me! thanks for this review.

 

Do you remember if you have change the time during the cruise and if so, when? I have to reserve a independant tour.

 

I would also like the price to the spa pass for the 9 days.

 

Thanks,

 

Isa

 

I believe the time change was before the Samana port stop which was Sunday. Here is the time zone map:

http://www.worldtimezone.com/wtz012.php

 

I don't have the spa prices as we did not use it.

[dougdevriesgr]

This was my first cruise on the Dawn..I was so impressed with the resturants and the food was fantastic and the service was unlike anything i every experienced. The shows were great and there was so many things do I almost wish i could have spend more time on this trip on the dawn, but we had to go back to reality.To the winter snow and snow storms ohh my...:)

[elruth]

I am totally convinced that a cruise is what one makes of it. Nothing will ever be perfect. We were on this 9 day cruise and the weather was perfect! ( no control over that ) We have been on the Pearl 2 times within this calendar year, the Majesty and the Star. Each ship had its own character and I liked some aspects of the Pearl better than the Dawn and some aspects of the Star better than the Pearl. I have to say the Dawn's Blue Lagoon is the BEST! We always got take out late at night and had chicken wings and fries = fabulous! I didn't think the food was as good as usual in the Venetian but the 2 dinners we had in the Aqua were beyond good.

 

We were in an AE aft and embarkation took 10 min!! and our luggage arrived within the hr! Debarkation was a problem as we had signed up for the BAGS program and some info said 8: 25 and other info said 9: 25. We talked to our concierge and he said we could leave at 9: 25. Imagine our surprise when we were in Cagney's having breakfast at 8:40 a.m. and they called our names over the loudspeaker!! Seems the other BAGS passengers were waiting for us. My husband never was able to eat his breakfast as he had to go to reception and find out what was the problem etc. It was a mess and within 20 min the concierge did get up in the group but it was a nervous situation running up to get our 2 carry ons in the cabin.

 

They had many 2 for ones for the specialty restaurants. We loved Tappanyaki's ( sp? ) and one night we ate at Impressions. We commented to each other that this was the BEST veal marsala we had ever had in our lives! We went back 2 nights later and said this was the WORST veal marsala we have ever had. LOL Talked to a couple on the plane coming home and they had the exact same experience. We are not the types to send back food but I just thought that was so odd.

 

The room stewards do such an outstanding job. The carpeting all over the ship looked so nice and clean but in the hallway on deck 9,it was a little disconcerting to see 3 or 4 pails along the hallways catching water that was dripping from the ceiling.

 

All in all, a very nice cruise. The comic was very funny. I laughed so hard,my stomach hurt. We had seen all the Jean Ryan shows while on the Pearl in Sept/ Oct so didn't see those. Be sure to see Jose and Patti who should have a show in the Spinnaker one night and at Dazzles. Went to the night they featured Neil Diamond. Great entertainment.

[alwayssingin]

Hope you don't mind me making comments in your post. We were on this cruise as well! :)

 

I am totally convinced that a cruise is what one makes of it. Nothing will ever be perfect. We were on this 9 day cruise and the weather was perfect! ( no control over that ) The weather was certainly perfect for a Caribbean cruise! We have been on the Pearl 2 times within this calendar year, the Majesty and the Star. Each ship had its own character and I liked some aspects of the Pearl better than the Dawn and some aspects of the Star better than the Pearl. We plan on cruising on the Pearl next year, so that's nice to hear (although we did enjoy the layout of the Dawn and thought it was a lovely ship). I have to say the Dawn's Blue Lagoon is the BEST! We always got take out late at night and had chicken wings and fries = fabulous! Loved the chicken wings! I didn't think the food was as good as usual in the Venetian but the 2 dinners we had in the Aqua were beyond good. Out of all the places we ate, the Venetian was our favorite. Never had a bad meal and, except for breakfast the last day, service was great. Our waiter seemed to forget about us that last morning. Most of his tables seemed to be in another section.

 

We were in an AE aft and embarkation took 10 min!! and our luggage arrived within the hr! I don't know how fast embarkation was, but our car service picked us up at 10:20 in Ft. Lauderdale, and by 11:30 we were on board. By noon we had dropped our carry-on off in our cabin and were seating in the Venetian for lunch. :-) Our bags were waiting for us when we returned to our cabin after lunch and a walk around the ship. Debarkation was a problem as we had signed up for the BAGS program and some info said 8: 25 and other info said 9: 25. We had blue tags and were called to disembark about 20 minutes early. This wasn't a problem, but the staff on Deck 7 didn't seem to be doing a very good job of directing people where the end of the debarkation line was. We were directed to the end of the line, but many others before and after us were merged into the line further up. After the "hike" to baggage claim we found all of our bags together. The lines were steady and it wasn't long before we were back in our car service headed to FLL.

 

They had many 2 for ones for the specialty restaurants. We loved Tappanyaki's ( sp? ) and one night we ate at Impressions. We took advantage of the 2-for-1 special in Salsa, and were very disappointed. We have several excellent Mexican restaurants in our small town, however, that even a cruise ship would have a hard time beating! We had excellent dinners in Le Bistro and Cagneys, but wish that the menus in these restaurants were exclusive. It seemed that all the entrees we ordered in these two restaurants could be found on the MDR menus. Maybe they wouldn't have been as good? We had lunch in Impressions during the Murder Mystery. Everything was delicious. My only complaint was that they charged $20pp when Impressions was being offered as 2-for-1 for dinner and we had done the Murder Mystery dinner on The Wind for free.

 

The room stewards do such an outstanding job. This was the first time on any cruise that our cabin stewards were not fantastic. There were dirty glasses left in the cabin the first day, no wine glasses replaced (even though they knew we still had our wine and wine bucket), and no mints on turn down at night! :eek: One of our cabin stewards seemed to have a hard time mumbling a "hello" or "good morning" whenever I saw him, but the other was very nice and always called us by our names. Don't get me wrong - they did a good job - just not what we had become accustomed to.

 

The carpeting all over the ship looked so nice and clean but in the hallway on deck 9,it was a little disconcerting to see 3 or 4 pails along the hallways catching water that was dripping from the ceiling. We were in a BA AFT on Deck 9 and yes, there were lots of buckets to dodge at times!

 

All in all, a very nice cruise. The comic was very funny. I laughed so hard,my stomach hurt. We had seen all the Jean Ryan shows while on the Pearl in Sept/ Oct so didn't see those. Be sure to see Jose and Patti who should have a show in the Spinnaker one night and at Dazzles. Went to the night they featured Neil Diamond. Great entertainment. We only saw the comic the last night, but he was pretty funny. Saw the magician twice, and he was pretty good. DH is more interested in magic than I am. We really enjoyed the first Jean Ryan show, but were not impressed with Bollywood. We did not see the South Beach show. A lot of times the Jean Ryan shows seem to be the same show with different costumes/music... We loved Jane Powell. We had seen her on The Wind and enjoyed seeing her again. Vladimir Krivian may have been our favorite entertainer. The guitar player/singer in the Atrium was very good. We only saw Jose & Patti while passing through on our way soewhere else, but it was always packed.

[Planer's Edge]

Just an FYI. They discontinued the mints at turn down quite some time ago.:(

 

PE

[disneyg1rl]

After reading a review of the same cruise by another poster, I was getting worried about our upcoming cruise on December 18... Thank you for a great review and getting me excited about our upcoming cruise...

 

Hear hear! Ditto Tideone's comments!!

[alwayssingin]

Just an FYI. They discontinued the mints at turn down quite some time ago.:(

 

PE

 

That's what we thought must have happened. I guess all those mints add up to lots of $$$!!!

[sunquest76]

@alwayssingin

 

We are in a BA Aft on deck 10 in a month. Did you find there was much boat motion? I'm starting to get worried about sea sickness :(.

[jmcdon7230]

@alwayssingin

 

We are in a BA Aft on deck 10 in a month. Did you find there was much boat motion? I'm starting to get worried about sea sickness :(.

 

We experienced very little motion on our cruise and the seas, for the most part, seemed relatively calm. We were in the middle of the ship deck 9.

 

I always take a 24 hour low drowsiness Dramamine pill before going to bed each night. I begin the night before boarding. In the past I have suffered with queasiness and outright sea sickness, but the new formula Dramamine has removed that problem for me. In fact, we took a catamaran excursion on St. Lucia that was rough and I was able to handle it very well.

[rideev]

@alwayssingin

 

We are in a BA Aft on deck 10 in a month. Did you find there was much boat motion? I'm starting to get worried about sea sickness :(.

I stayed in the cabin with alwayssingin;) and I didn't feel much boat motion. Neither of us got motion sickness while on the cruise. Really did like the Aft Balcony.

[alwayssingin]

@alwayssingin

 

We are in a BA Aft on deck 10 in a month. Did you find there was much boat motion? I'm starting to get worried about sea sickness :(.

 

I've only experienced motion sickness on one cruise, and that was in the Pacific. Our seas were very calm, except for the last night (and then they were not that big, and actually quite fun! :p) I do, however take ginger pills the entire time, and start them a couple of days prior to flying. I take 2/day, one with breakfast and the other with dinner. I also wore wristbands for the first few days, just to be safe. Oh, and since Diet Ginger Ale is my soda of choice at home, we took a 12-pack on board so I'd have one every day.

 

You will loved the AFT balcony. We slept with the door open just a few inches every night so that we could hear the wake.

[figuremom]

The same from me! thanks for this review.

 

Do you remember if you have change the time during the cruise and if so, when? I have to reserve a independant tour.

 

I would also like the price to the spa pass for the 9 days.

 

Thanks,

 

Isa

 

The Thermal Suite was $119 for a single or $189 per couple. Open from 8am to 10pm. They told me that don't offer a day pass.