Finally: My extensive review of the Dawn- 6/17-6/24

[WaldosPepper]

Keystone - FABULOUS review! :D Thanks for taking the time to offer so much detail!

 

So very glad you had a fabulous time. ;)

[cruzegirl]

I'm glad you had a great cruise Keystone inspite of the problems right before you left... I'm not sure I would have been as recovered from that as you were.... But it's awesome that you all had a good time.....

And your photo dept. horror stories sound like mine from the Carnival Paradise in March.. I wonder if the same subcontractor company is involved here?? I was in tears over my story.... I was treated so rudely..... Unbelieveable.... See my review for examples. I sent my letter to Bob Dickinson and got a letter back for on board credit.... Which I didn't want.... I just wanted their photo policies fixed and the photo dept. upgraded... I'm glad the Pride of America last year didn't have the problems you mentioned... They were great........

[KeystoneCruiser]

 

And your photo dept. horror stories sound like mine from the Carnival Paradise in March.. I wonder if the same subcontractor company is involved here?? I was in tears over my story.... I was treated so rudely..... Unbelieveable.... See my review for examples. I sent my letter to Bob Dickinson and got a letter back for on board credit.... Which I didn't want.... I just wanted their photo policies fixed and the photo dept. upgraded... I'm glad the Pride of America last year didn't have the problems you mentioned... They were great........

 

 

I was on the Norweigan Star last year and the Pride of Aloha the year before. Both of those photo departments were excellent. In fact, I loved the photo people last year on the Star. They were so helpful and took the time to get good pictures. They also gave you tips on when to get the best deal on picture prices. (on guy told me I should wait until tommarrow to buy the pictures. He was right, they had a sale for Lattitudes members the next day! On the Dawn they would have lied to your face (and did) to sell you pictures!)

 

I plan on writing several letters to try and get the problems with the Dawn photo department fixed!!!

 

As far as not being upset about the situation.... Why be upset, NCL had solved the problem. My only complaint is that we were really thinking about paying for and upgrade to the AB cabins but NCL wouldn't even give us a price and kept telling us they were full when they weren't. I think they were afraid that we were going to ask for them for the price of our AF which we actually hadn't even thought about. Oh well, NCL's loss on that one.

[KeystoneCruiser]

:D Ok, comedy time. Those of you who followed my saga back in April and May will get a chuckle out of this:

 

We got a letter in the mail yesterday from NCL. (dated June 30). Basically the letter said: we have received your concerns about your room situation and we are investigating your complaints and looking into what can be done to resolve your situation!

 

Now, for those of you who are still not laughing:

I sent my first letter to NCL around May 1.

I sent a second letter to NCL around May 30

Someone at NCL corporate solved the problem around June 10

We sailed on June 17

Returned on June 24

....and we had a great cruise.

 

 

I'm sure glad NCL Customer Service has decided to work on my problem now.....lol:D :D

[TransOcean]

Good afternoon Cruise Critics!

 

I would like to respond to the comments made by KeystoneCruiser.

 

I am Operations Supervisor for Trans-Ocean Photos, who, as correctly pointed out by other members, run the Photo concession onboard NCL.

 

I will start with the worst of the worst. Rudeness to our guests is not something that is tolerated by our company. We will investigate these concerns to ensure that we have courteous and polite staff on all our vessels. It was nice to see positive comments from the Norwegian Star staff, also part of the Trans-Ocean team. Same goes with the rest of the NCL fleet. I will not try and give excuses for the Dawn staff, but look for ways to improve this area.

 

Now onto the general comments:

 

1) “Embarkation photos will be taken down mid-cruise….Lie #1” This sign is in fact to help the guests. Onboard the N Dawn we have limited space. Embarkation being the 1st photo to be taken, it is the 1st photo that has to be taken down due to limited space. We do not offer deals on these photos later on in the cruise, so it does not benefit us sell these earlier rather than later. Obviously, we will sell more earlier, as the photos can still be easily seen, and not placed in boxes on tables. This sign is for the good of both the guest and the photo department.

2) “Set” of photos. This set has actually proved to be very popular across the fleet. Almost every shoot we offer a different deal. With each photo we offer something along with it, whether it is a keychain, a magnet, a calendar, a montage print, etc. These prices are all set to $14.99. We are continually looking to offer new products/designs that cruisers have not seen before. With the digital capabilities onboard, we feel we are offering many new designs that enhance the traditional cruise photo

3) Group shots getting off the ship. Ok, this one is a gray area. As I’m sure many of you know, disembarkation can be a stressful time. Getting 2500 guests through 2 gangways and onto the tours on time is an arduous task in itself. Trying to take photos of all the guests at the same time is even harder. The gangway photos we take are one of the most popular. We seem to get more comments when we are not there. Shooting guests one by one streamlines this operation a great deal. Should you be flat right denied and shouted at? No. This is something else we will look into. On many occasions we do offer another shoot further away from the gangway that caters more to families.

4) Rearranging the photo gallery! Yes, you hate it, and we hate it. Unfortunately, it’s the nature of the game. Space being limited, we have to rotate our gallery often, condense prints, take shoots down. Also, as another critic mentioned, we do post the newer photos in a more prominent position. This just makes sense. The most popular photos are the most recent ones, and should therefore be in the most prominent position of the gallery.

5) “Hovering” over the guests. Unfortunately, we are seeing more and more theft from our photo galleries. I wish this was not the case, and that we could leave the photos open and leave people free to browse their photos at their leisure. Realistically, this costs us thousands of dollars in losses. One example would be a cruise on the Dawn this month; we had TWELVE of our photo panels ripped off their hinges, locks and all. Even with surveillance, there are minorities of guests that seem to think they can help themselves. If people don’t think theft is a problem, they are not being very realistic.

6) The rest of your comments, as I had mentioned above, will be looked into from this office.

7) In response to “Trece”. We have recently (over the last couple of years) opted not to print enough of the group photos for each couple in the photo. This has cut down unwanted waste dramatically. We do of course have the ability to reprint any photo, any amount of times, directly from the digital image. We also keep our digital files for one year after the cruise. I thank you for your comments regarding the quality of the photos.

8) To “Unclepaulie” You’re absolutely right, we would love to just show the guests the digital files and have them print when the purchase has been made. We are working on this, and it will certainly be something of the future. Smaller vessels (600 guests or less) are already opting for this type of service. Other ships off ‘selected’ images on screens.

 

Thank you all for your criticism. We will work with you to improve the negatives. I hope you all have lasting memories of these wonderful cruise vacations.

 

I should probably note that as I am a concession working onboard NCL, my comments may not reflect that of Norwegian Cruise Line.

 

Please, don’t rip our photos in half. It’s not big, or clever.

No, we are not the same concession as on Carnival. Carnival run their own photo department.

 

Safe Sailings….

Rob Hambly