Live from the Dawn, Jan 28 - Feb 8, in the Caribbean followed by a Disney Adventure

[Ken the cruiser]

16 minutes ago, alwalaska said:

Glad that was your first bad weather.  Hopefully it doesn't delay your return.  I'm ready to move from experiencing the cruise virtually through you to experiencing on my own in person. 🙂

No worries! We’ve passed the weather, made the turn, and heading for home. This time tomorrow you’ll be on the ship and getting ready to head out on your adventure!! 😁

 

Edited February 7, 2023 by Ken the cruiser

[Ken the cruiser]

Here’s another lesson learned, but this one we’ve continued to try to apply over the past 183 days of cruising on 3 different cruise lines since it started back up. And that is where to sit in the theater where someone “with the cough” can’t wind up sitting behind us. On the Dawn we first tried sitting up in the balcony on the starboard side, but that didn’t work out as the benches were long and some folks “with the cough” sat down beside us. We then noticed very few people sit up front on the left or right side of the stage as most folks want to be center stage and back a little. Then we found our perfect spot where there was a tall wall behind us and at the same time we are center stage.

 

Now, if you bring a deck of cards and temporarily use the folding seat between you to play gin rummy, now you have a maneuvering option if someone decides to sit down beside one of you. Just before the show starts and you put the cards away, the person that had a person sit next to them moves over to the seat you were playing cards on. Now you not only have no one sitting behind you, but you now have a chair space between you and that person who sat down next to you, which BTW both of you will appreciate. Just a trick we’ve learned over these past 18 months of cruising during the pandemic. 😁

[red4lisa]

I'm enjoying following along, thanks for the ongoing review!!

Edited February 7, 2023 by red4lisa
spelling

[Ken the cruiser]

After our last tasty meal in the Venetian MDR, we headed to the Stardust Theater for the last time to watch the production show Showdown which was excellent! 😁

 

 
Not a bad view from our seats on the back row, nearest to the center isle. But you have to get there early as they are popular and will usually fill up quickly on nights with the better shows. 😁

 
Then it was off to the Bliss Ultra Lounge to watch the Yes or No Game Show before heading back to the cabin to finish packing.

  

 
Overall, we had a great time on this cruise! The shows were excellent, except for the one comedian. But, hey, it’s rare on any cruise where all the shows are a big hit. The food was quite tasty, both in the Venetian MDR and the specialty dining restaurants with our favorites being Le Bistro and Cagney’s. Most of the game shows at 8 pm on both port and sea days were hilarious, and all of the NCL excursions we went on were a lot of fun and fairly priced!
 

We also really liked our Club Balcony cabin, even though we weren’t able to get an aft-facing one. However, I’ve got to say if we had to pick from similar itineraries where both the Dawn and the Jade were cruising, we’d definitely pick the Jade over the Dawn every time, just because there are more public spaces on the Jade when you include Spinnakers on Deck 13 forward and the Great Outdoors outside up on Deck 12 aft. Well, and for the fact the Dawn hasn’t been refurbished according to Wikipedia since 2016, to probably include the mattress in our cabin! 😂

 

Edited February 8, 2023 by Ken the cruiser

[Lindacruising]

Love this review. We get on the Dawn tomorrow when you get off.

Linda

[Ken the cruiser]

Just a reminder if you didn’t think of or remember to call NCL to make dining reservations in advance, especially if you want to eat early at the Venetian MDR, you can still make them once you board the ship by going to the Bamboo Restaurant. But I would also recommend you go there as soon as you board, as the 5-5:30 pm slots can fill up quickly.

 

The reason I mentioned this is because the “no reservation” line can get quite long at the Venetian MDR, but usually disappears by 6 pm. OTOH rumor has it there is no separate lines for reservations and no reservations at the Aqua MDR. One lady we talked with said the folks with reservations just cut in line. Not sure how true that is in all cases, but I’m sure glad my DW made all of our reservations at the Venetian to avoid having to “cut in line” and deal with all the looks from the “no reservation” people in line at the Aqua MDR.

 

Edited February 8, 2023 by Ken the cruiser

[Ken the cruiser]

We have arrived! Now it’s time to go eat our final breakfast, walk off the ship, and head towards Disney World!
 

For those that won’t be following us over to the Disney forum, thanks for joining us on this cruise and hopefully yours will be coming up very soon and wish you all safe travels on your next adventure! 😁
 

[Ken the cruiser]

Here’s a not so fun fact. Everyone has to go through Customs which is setup in the Bliss Ultra Lounge on Deck 7 forward, before getting off the ship! We of course are in the first “walk off” bunch with our luggage.
 

Now to get in line you have to join the line by entering from the outside promenade on Deck 7 at the Stardust Theater entrance.
 

BTW if you think taking an elevator down to 7 other than on the forward set of elevators, forget it. You will have to get off at Deck 8 and walk down the stairs to even get to Deck 7. 😂

 

[hmorrow]

Thanks so much for your in depth review, of food and entertainment, as well as basic ship information.

We'll be on  the Dawn in a very port intensive cruise in Europe, in October, and all your informtion was most helpful. Less public area's probably won't bother us since we'll be so busy, and also have a club balcony suite.

Thanks again!

[padisneyfan]

Disembarkment was a hot mess.  We ate in Aqua several times and it was very disorganized.   There was no separate line for reservations.   People just lined up 1/2 hr before and everyone merged.  Another hot mess.  My main complaint was the smoking smell on Deck 6.  That Havana cigar room smoke came into Gasby everytime the door opened.    Agree the ship need some refreshing.   Heading home.   Knee replacement surgery next week.

[Ken the cruiser]

1 hour ago, padisneyfan said:

Disembarkment was a hot mess.  We ate in Aqua several times and it was very disorganized.   There was no separate line for reservations.   People just lined up 1/2 hr before and everyone merged.  Another hot mess.  My main complaint was the smoking smell on Deck 6.  That Havana cigar room smoke came into Gasby everytime the door opened.    Agree the ship need some refreshing.   Heading home.   Knee replacement surgery next week.

Safe travels and hope your surgery goes smoothly!!

[padisneyfan]

6 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Safe travels and hope your surgery goes smoothly!!

Thanks.  Enjoy your time at Disney and DCL.

[LizikinsLivesToCruise]

Thank you very much Ken for sharing another adventure with us. It was particularly interesting to read this review because we were just on Dawn over Christmas and New Year. Key West was dropped for us 😔 and Dominican Republic was replaced with San Juan. On disembarkation day we were stuck at sea for several hours as we couldn't get into Tampa because of fog. We only arrived in the evening. People missed their flights, but we got an extra day of cruising, and it was daytime when we sailed under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge behind Royal Caribbean and Celebrity, which was awesome. Looking forward to reading your next review. 

[Ken the cruiser]

14 minutes ago, LizikinsLivesToCruise said:

Thank you very much Ken for sharing another adventure with us. It was particularly interesting to read this review because we were just on Dawn over Christmas and New Year. Key West was dropped for us 😔 and Dominican Republic was replaced with San Juan. On disembarkation day we were stuck at sea for several hours as we couldn't get into Tampa because of fog. We only arrived in the evening. People missed their flights, but we got an extra day of cruising, and it was daytime when we sailed under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge behind Royal Caribbean and Celebrity, which was awesome. Looking forward to reading your next review. 

Wow! Talk about a different experience with the same itinerary. I know weather can play a big factor at certain times, but that was quite the itinerary change!

[Ken the cruiser]

Just in case anyone is interested in our follow on Disney adventures and missed my earlier post, I opened a thread over on the Disney Forum.

 

 

[ggTexasGal]

Thank you for the wonderful info and pics!