Just back from the dawn 0307-0321

[magoo07]

We just returned from the Dawn on a back-to-back cruise from March 7th to the 21st. The first leg was a 5 day to the western Caribbean(Grand Cayman and Cozumel) the second leg was a 9 day to the southern Caribbean(Samana, Tortola, Antigua, Barbados, St Kitt’s)

“Overall, the cruise was wonderful and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

We love the freestyle cruising and also the “suite” life and we now would go no other way.

When we first arrived at the ship we were directed to the VIP check-in which was in a room situated directly after we passed through security. However, when we first entered the room we wondered if we had made a mistake when booking this cruise. Unknown to us, it was spring break week and there were 6 young fellows who had booked one of the suites and obviously they had begun their pre-cruise celebrating early in the morning. They were severely intoxicated and extremely belligerent and when we saw this we thought that we were in for some unpleasant times. However, this turned out to be an anomaly. There were over 1200 students on the ship and even the ship’s crew were concerned that they were in for some interesting times over the first 5 days of the cruise. All of these fears went for not as it was a pleasure to be around all these young people. They all thoroughly enjoyed themselves but at all times were polite and respectful.

After a very smooth and quick check-in we had expected to be escorted to our suite (we had read about this in previous reviews) but this did not happen. I think this was mainly due to the fact that Anshuman, the concierge, was trying to control these young men and minimize their impact on the other passengers and therefore he could not attend to the other suite passengers under his control. We were grateful for his intervention and so off to our suite we went.

Accomodations

We were in an AD category suite (10726) which, although it was lovely, did not really fit the description. It is called a romance suite but there is nothing about it that gives you the romantic feeling. Luckily we don’t need anything to give us that romantic feeling....LOL.

The room was quite spacious and the balcony was amazing as it had enough room to accommodate two large recliners and a small table. The bathroom was a tad small but it really didn’t matter to us because it is not a place where you spend a whole lot of time.

There was a huge closet and quite sufficient storage for the rest of our clothes.

The room had an espresso/cappuccino machine which we thoroughly enjoyed. It was a real treat to start every morning with a cup or two of espresso on the spacious deck.

On the first day of each leg of the back-to-back cruise we had a chilled bottle of champagne delivered to our room. We also had arranged for a bar setup which was there when we first arrived on the ship. We did this because we enjoy having a cocktail on our balcony each evening before we go out to dinner and did not want to try and smuggle libations onto the ship and risk being sent to the “naughty room”. One of the things that we did bring onto the ship was a supply of Coke whenever we were in port due to the fact that the ship only serves Pepsi and I am a loyal Coke drinker. There is no problem bringing any amount of soda or water onto the ship.

I have seen numerous comments on other sites comparing the forward and aft cabins and so I thought I would give our opinions as we have stayed in both ends. We found that the aft cabins were much more quiet than the fwd cabins. Also, you get the sound of the wake at the aft which is quite soothing. I have also seen comments about soot from the stack on your balcony as well as debris and we did not experience either. The only thing that we did experience was water from upper decks. Whenever they cleaned the upper decks at night they would sweep the excess off the edge and it would then fall onto the balcony causing your chair cushions to get wet(we got around this by folding up the cushions at night). We were on deck 10 which had less of an over-hang which was great for tanning but also let a lot more water to fall on the balcony. If you were on one of the lower decks, the over-hang is much more and so it limits the amount of water that falls onto the balcony. One other thing that we noticed on the fwd cabins was that the dividers between the balconies were not full height and therefore the privacy was very limited. We were in a fwd cabin on the Sun and the dividers were full size and therefore you had total privacy...... I guess each ship is different.

Staff

Our butler was Akhmad who was a very nice and pleasant individual. He ensured that we always had lots of coffee, fresh glasses and the ice bucket was always filled. Every day he would deliver a plate of h’or d’oeuvres which we enjoyed with our pre-dinner cocktails. We are not very demanding people and so we do not use the services of the butler as other individuals but it is nice to know that he is there to attend to any special requests.

Our cabin stewards were Maria and Ronald who were also very nice people that always kept our cabin neat and clean.

The concierge was Anshuman who is also quite pleasant. We only used his services to make dinner arrangements so again we probably didn’t take full advantage of having him available to us. The only disappointment that we had with him was when I asked him if it was possible to have our bar setup replenished (under estimated our need when requested). He said that he would check into it for us but never did get back to us with an answer. I guess we could have pursued the matter but I am the type of an individual that doesn’t chase after someone that doesn’t respond to a request. It would have been nice, however, to receive an answer no matter whether it is yes or no.

We also enjoyed all of the staff in the various restaurants.....all very pleasant and personable.

All in all, we feel that Norwegian have excellent staff at all levels who make your cruise experience very enjoyable.

Dining

We had breakfast most mornings and lunch in Cagney’s restaurant which we view as one of the real perks to the suites. It is an opportunity to eat in a quiet environment and it is much more pleasant than fighting the masses in the buffet lines. This has always been one of my pet peeves when you have buffet lines in either a resort or on a ship. Some people do not understand the concept of lining up and waiting your turn as opposed to butting into a line or reaching across you to get at one of the dishes.

We choose to dine mostly in the specialty restaurants as we find that it is a much more pleasant environment despite the fact that there is an additional cost.

We found that the Bistro and the Italian restaurants were our favourite ones that both served very good dishes. We tried the Teppanyaki restaurant one night but we found that the food was quite salty and otherwise rather tasteless. We went to Cagney’s steak house a few times but did not have very good experiences. This was our second time on the Dawn and the last time we had excellent meals so this time it was a disappointment. The first night my steak was under cooked and so I left most of it on the plate. They did offer to bring something else but I declined. The next time that we went to this restaurant we had a much better experience. However, the third time, we were dining with new friends of ours and both my and the other gentleman’s steaks were under cooked. This time they did re-cook our steaks but the second effort was not much of an improvement. I was not surprised however because I could never cook a perfect medium rare steak in under 7 minutes.

We did eat in the main dining room a few times and found that the food was very good but it lacked the atmosphere.

Overall, despite the bad experiences, we enjoyed the food.

Quite often on various message boards I have seen questions about wine packages so I thought that I would add a comment here.......The Dawn did offer a wine package that could be purchased on the first two days of the cruise. You could purchase 4 bottles for a 5 day cruise or 8 bottles for a 9 day cruise(didn’t quite understand the math here). If you chose one of the packages you received a 20% discount on the price of the wine. Sounds reasonable, except for the fact that you had to select your wines at time of purchase, and, only had a choice of 5 or 6 reds and 5 or 6 whites which were at both ends of the price scale. Personally, I like to have more of a selection when selecting wines and I also like to select the wine the night that I have it with dinner. It also doesn’t make much sense to me to purchase a more expensive bottle of wine just because you are getting a 20% discount....sort of defeats the purpose.

As previously mentioned, we purchased a bar setup prior to boarding which we found to be rather reasonable. They have a selection of various liquors that can be purchased in your stateroom. We paid $63 for a 1 litre bottle of Bacardi Superior which, at first glance may seem expensive but is much less than the cost of a drink at any of the bars(slightly under $7 for rum). You certainly get a lot more than 9 drinks from a litre bottle unless you tend to like your drinks on the strong side. We find that this allows you relax and enjoy a libation in the comfortable peace and quiet of your suite as well as avoiding the trip to the “naughty” room.

Entertainment

This was one aspect of the cruise that we found quite disappointing. Again, our last experience on the Dawn was totally opposite.

We are not ones to go to the theatre shows so we cannot comment on the quality of that entertainment. We prefer to go to one of the lounges and sit and relax and listen to music. Previously, the Dawn had excellent performers who were excellent entertainers. However, this year the theme seemed to be piano players. The lounge in the main atrium as well as Gatsby’s lounge had three piano players who played the piano well but that’s all they did. There was one other piano player who sang as well but again was not much of a performer. The interesting thing about this person was that we saw him perform one night with the stage band and he was excellent. I guess that the other type of venue was not his strong side.

There was a couple that played in one of the lounges every night but again were not what you would call top level performers.

One other thing that we found odd was the almost non-existent celebration of St Patrick’s day.....it was more or less a non event. The last time on this ship there was an Irish sing-along in the pub as well as lots of Irish music in the lounges at night....this year.....nothing.

The entertainment is not all that important to us on a cruise but I’m sure that it is for others and so I think that Norwegian needs to kick it up a notch.

Overall, it was a very pleasant experience. This being our second cruise on the Dawn, we found that the first cruise was better. Although, it is a nice ship, we found that the Dawn is looking “tired”. Interestingly, we met a couple on the ship and the husband was a retired sailor who spent 23 years in the navy. So, who better than someone like him to offer an opinion of the shape of the ship and he agreed with our observations. For example, the on-going work on replacing the plumbing system goes on and for three days only ½ of the internet cafe was available due to the fact that they ripped up the carpets and put in new ones. I think the Dawn needs some time in dry dock to perform an upgrade without trying to do it on the fly. We were on the Sun last year and found state of the ship to be of a much better quality.

Hope this has in some way provided useful information to some and if there are other questions please feel free to contact me.

Can’t wait until the next sailing.

[cruizinrican]

Thank you for posting such a through review! It sounds like you all enjoyed yourselves! We leave this Friday on the Dawn and look forward to many good times!