Dawn Review - December 1st, 2013

[FB]

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

Edited December 10, 2013 by FB

[OzCanuck]

Very balanced and honest. Thanks.

[legion3]

Glad you got home safely. I think the SJ suites and the perk of cagny's really made this cruise for my family. Awesome room. Enjoyed meeting you and your kids.

 

Cheers

[BlueJai]

Wonderful review, Thanks for taking the time to share! Suite life is on the bucket list so nice to read other people's experiences!

Glad you all had a good time and were able to get past the bad stuff.

[brisco549]

Hi,

 

If you have been reading other posting on the recent Dawn issues in Tampa, you probably know that the second sail away party was not done as a "sorry party" by NCL. It was actually done mainly for the new passengers that embarked in Cozumel for the start of their cruise which is causing the embarkation/disembarkation problems in Tampa. Customs and funding seem to be causing problems in Tampa.

 

Glad overall you enjoyed your cruise!

[tspeck63]

Sounds like you had a SJ "Family Suite". I have a SD "Family Suite" #12520 on the Dawn in Jan. Can you tell me more about the suite and your suite perks? I looks like they are close to the pool, any problems with noise?

 

Thanks in advance

[legion3]

Sounds like you had a SJ "Family Suite". I have a SD "Family Suite" #12520 on the Dawn in Jan. Can you tell me more about the suite and your suite perks? I looks like they are close to the pool, any problems with noise?

 

Thanks in advance

 

The room both the SJ and SD awesome sized rooms, I was much farther forward than FB was, but we had no issues with noise or traffic. Some of the farther back suites might have, particually if you were between the pool and elevators, but not much.

 

The suite perks to me that meant the most was Breakfast and lunch at Cagny's, as it was quiet and not crowded. Being escorted off the ship was a huge plus for avoiding the long lines.

 

The balconies are big but are not covered and they can be viewed from the deck above, but you would really want to look in order to see but it can be done. I have some pics I took of those balconies from above but have not downloaded them yet.

 

Here are a few pics of our SJ suite, your room will be identical except for a door in place of one of the windows and the balcony.

 

Main Bed

 

The couch that pulls out as a sofa bed (we did not pull it out as we liked the sofa and if its pulled out they want to keep it out the whole time + my 7 yo slept on it and she likes sleeping on a couch)

 

This is how the couch looked as made up by the steward

 

And finally the Murphy bed pulled out from the wall. My 4 yo slept on this. (this could be put up and down everyday, so it was out of the way during the day)

 

This slept two adults and two small kids great. However, it might not have been as comfortable with 4 (and definately not with 6) full size adults.

[legion3]

 

the family enjoying the view from Deck 12, well one is anyway. the murphy bed is folded up to the left of the picture.

[legion3]

I do have to agree that the Sorry party was lame apology. We didn't attend, which is our choice but if we don't drink or don't drink rum, which of course FB says wasn't in it, or if we don't drink punch ;) or how about the seasoned citizens who might not do pool parties??? Hmmm?

 

We got nothing. So the drinkers and the party people got free punch and those who didn't attend got nothing.

 

Hey how about a OBC that we can choose what to spend it on?

That's what the Legend did last year when it was late. :cool:

[che5904]

 

the family enjoying the view from Deck 12, well one is anyway. the murphy bed is folded up to the left of the picture.

 

Your kids are adorable.

[che5904]

Thanks for the well balance review