Dawn Forward Suite SF

[Scubadoc]

We are looking at a pretty incredible itinerary on the Dawn in 2026. A 16 day cruise with Maldives and Seychelles. Truly a trip of a lifetime. But we always try for an aft suite with a large balcony. Those suites are already taken even this far in advance! But the forward facing suites are available. I love the large balcony, but I’m concerned about wind and I’m not sure these balconies are actually over the water. I can’t find any pictures or videos online. Has anyone stayed in one of these? Anyone have pix? Would you recommend these rooms? Also on the deck plans it looks like the size of the balconies is larger on deck nine but the rooms are smaller? Is that true? The other deck available is 10. 

[dexddd]

You'll get different opinions but we've stayed forward on Dawn and Star several times in an OS.  Normally while underway, it is windy.  Sitting down not too bad.  Yes deck nine bigger balcony, smaller room than ten but not by much.

 

BT should be chiming in soon as they've stayed in those rooms before and have pics.

 

PS, if you can swing it, grab an OS as you also have a covered side balcony plus extra perks.

[Scubadoc]

We are trying to convince ourselves to splurge on the owner suite but what is frustrating to us is that a balcony where we can stretch out on the lounge chair it’s pretty much a requirement for us on a cruise. We love privacy and spend a lot of time on our balcony. It looks to me like the options For balcony deep enough to fit two lounge chairs are the owner suite, forward facing suite, and aft suite with large balcony. We would take an aft suite with large balcony in a second. We’re in one of those September on the Norwegian Pearl. But it looks like all those are sold out  on the Dawn. If I’m wrong and there’s another category of cabin that has a deep balcony, please someone let me know!

[BirdTravels]

20 hours ago, Scubadoc said:

We are looking at a pretty incredible itinerary on the Dawn in 2026. A 16 day cruise with Maldives and Seychelles. Truly a trip of a lifetime. But we always try for an aft suite with a large balcony. Those suites are already taken even this far in advance! But the forward facing suites are available. I love the large balcony, but I’m concerned about wind and I’m not sure these balconies are actually over the water. I can’t find any pictures or videos online. Has anyone stayed in one of these? Anyone have pix? Would you recommend these rooms? Also on the deck plans it looks like the size of the balconies is larger on deck nine but the rooms are smaller? Is that true? The other deck available is 10. 

 

We love the forward facing suites on the small ships. We had a forward facing room on the Dawn from Boston to Quebec,,, sailing down the St. Lawrence was magical. 

 

Room Size. The rooms on Deck 10 benefit from the "bay window" under the bridge bump out. A little more space. But it makes the balconies small, especially in front of the bay window. We have sailed on a Deck 9 forward facing suite to Alaska and enjoyed the 100 sq ft+ balcony. I would pick the bigger balcony, the room is plenty big without a bay window. 

 

Wind. If you stand at the rail, the wind will hit you in the face. The hull balcony is designed to sweep the wind up and over your head. So if you step back or are seated, the majority of the wind is deflected up and over you. 

 

The 270 degree views are spectacular!

 

 

[Scubadoc]

Very helpful. Thank you so much. We have decided to go with the Ford facing balcony. The owner suite is $11,000 more and that’s just not something we want to do. So we booked 9002.

[dexddd]

I see it is a 16 day cruise but that much more is exactly why we aren't sailing.

 

They even picked up that deck 10 OS booked more so reclassify to DOS to get more.

[cruisingnewb24]

We just got off of the Dawn on a 10 day Baltic cruise.  The wind is a factor no matter where your cabin is.  You can't control weather.  A high ranking officer told me that the Dawn was one of the first of its class and its sister ships accommodate wind much better because of what they learned with the Dawn.

 

On a port intensive itinerary, we did not miss a balcony AT ALL.  We never had a suite without balcony, but this cruise, we saved a ton of money opting for the no balcony family suite.  It was the right move for us.  The forward facing suite balconies, from what we could see from our neighbors, were above water, but the wind factor and the wind tunnels created by opening the balcony doors were pretty bad.  We noticed it when we walked by rooms with open balcony doors.  

 

Deck 12 balconies were big.