NCL Dawn Dec 2009- Lynn

Norwegian Dawn – December 2009 – 5 Night Western Caribbean from Miami.

Had a wonderful time on the Dawn. We took the entire family and had a great time. Check in was very easy and took very little time. All the staff were very polite (exception being the on-board front desk personnel). We had a problem that started actually with the reservation department. We had ordered 2-Teen Passport booklets (one for each of our girls). They are booklets with non-alcoholic drink coupons, they also get a DJ pizza party and some other little amenities. When we got to our cabin we only had 1 booklet. So, trying to get this straightened out took quite a bit of time. The front desk was not nearly as staffed as it should have been. Lines were long and it took a couple of hours over two days to finally get it straightened out.

Even with all of that our time on the ship was pleasant. My husband and I had a Balcony cabin and the girls had an inside cabin across the hall. The Balcony cabin was roomy, had a nice balcony with two chairs and table. The cabin had a nice size bathroom, even my husband fit (6ft 7in tall) in the shower, a pull out sofa bed, nice décor and a reasonable sized closet with a safe. The inside cabin was also pretty spacious for two teen girls. Each had their own desk area one with a mirror. Their bathroom was almost as large as ours. Again nice closet space with a safe.

I met the cabin steward the first day, very pleasant, but didn’t see him much after that. Our rooms were always made by the time we were back from breakfast and turned down after dinner. We never went without towels or bath amenities, even pool towels. The areas on the ship were clean, well staffed and in nice condition. The pool area was clean, busy, but we always found chairs for 4 people. The ship was sold out on our sailing, but it never felt crowded anywhere we were on the ship. Even the dining rooms didn’t feel crowded. Perhaps due to the Freestyle dining?

Dining –
Garden Café – Overall good. Breakfast was best. Would highly suggest the made to order waffles with warm banana compote! Yum! We ate lunch at the Buffet the first day, but never dinner. Lunch was good, lots of variety, food was hot and always well maintained and stocked.

Venetian – Main Dining room at the back of the ship. We were always seated right away, only had to wait the very first night for like 5 minutes. Food was VERY good! They had a set menu about 5 entrees, 3 appetizers, salads, soups, desserts from which to choose from (this menu was the same every night), OR they had a special menu which changed every night. This menu usually had three entrees, salad, appetizers, soups and desserts that you could also choose from. So, if you didn’t see something on the specials page you always had the set menu to to fall back on. The wait staff in the main dining rooms were very good. Always kept the glasses filled and courses coming, without making you feel rushed.

Aqua – Main Dining mid ship – Same menu and service as the Venetian! Again wait staff and food here was superb!

Impressions – Italian specialty restaurant. $10 cover charge. From the first day we arrived on the ship, they were offering a reduced cover charge price for Impressions (Italian), Le Bistro (French), Salsa (Mexican) and Bamboo (Asian). Reduced cover charge was $5 per person. Overall the food was ok, not great, and the service was ok. I’ve had better at Olive Garden.

Cagney’s – Steak – Cover charge $25 per person. We ate here our final night. Excellent! This was 5 star, great food, great service. Small and intimate setting on the upper deck (12?). I had steak, excellent, the girls had enormous King crab legs, which they talked about for a week after. My husband had the prime rib, excellent as well.

One nicety was they always had lunch BBQ by the pool. The day we ate by the pool they had BBQ chicken, hamburgers, hot dogs, all the fixings, two kinds of pasta salad, rice with jumbo shrimp, and cookies. Very good food.

Plenty to do as well! The casino is very large, lots of tournaments and other happenings going on there. We saw two shows, one was a Bollywood show, EXCELLENT! The other was a Magician act, he was funny and the magic was very good. We took in a couple of shows at the Spinnaker Lounge. One was the Not so Newlywed Game, FUNNY! Used people from the audience. The other was a couples event and then we saw the Second City Comedy Troupe. They were very good also, their show could have been a little longer, seemed short.

The girls visited the Teens club a couple of times, didn’t really care for it, but they are older teens, so nothing overly excites them. The spa was very nice, I and my daughter had pedicures, and she had her nails re-filled and painted. NOT that great for the money we spent. I’ve had better at home. I don’t think that had anything to do with the spa itself, just the technician. There was another lady there and she didn’t like her pedicure either and my daughter didn’t care for the way her nails came out.

Shore excursions: We did Stingray City and Island drive in Cayman. Stingray City was EXCELLENT! I wouldn’t do the Island drive part again. OLD bus, stopped at Hell, Rum Cake Factory and along side the road to see the oldest house on the Island (we never got off the bus for the house). On Cozumel we did an Island Drive and snorkel tour. My husband got to drive a jeep around the island and we had a guide. The jeeps were manual shift, but it worked out fine. The stop where we snorkeled was right off the main road and not much to see as far as fish and coral. The coral there was mostly dead, but we did see SOME colorful fish, but not a lot. For first timers it was fine, but nothing spectacular. Getting in and out of the water was hard, there were LOTS of slippery rocks! The drive around the island was VERY neat! We stopped at El Cedral ancient ruins, had lunch at a beach side café, had time to use the beach area near the café and we stopped at a roadside vendor selling all kinds of handmade crafts. It was a full day, but we still had time to do some shopping in the main area of town when we arrived back. We tendered in both ports and getting on and off the ship was rather quick and painless. NCL was very organized and had plenty of boats to go back and forth, so we never waited very long in either direction.

Overall experience was good. My husband and kids said they would definitely cruise again and my husband really liked the Freestyle aspect of NCL. My youngest said she would like something more formal next time, meaning she likes to dress up! Our oldest liked the shore excursions best and wished we would have had more of them.