quercus alba

We spent a fair amount of time almost every day in Gatsby's, immediately adjacent to the cigar bar, and generally didn't find it to be too obnoxious. It is a somewhat more pleasant, and briefer, whiff than the constant cigarette smoke from say, the Epic casino, back in the day. We were more bothered by the smoking on the streets of Athens and Istanbul than onboard.

There was an NCL shuttle from the new port to town for us. We just followed a Rick Steeves walking tour (kind of) on our own and were more than satisfied. Read about Delos, but after Athens the day before and with Ephesus coming up...thought I might be getting ruined on the ruins already, and figured that old Zeus didn't need any more celebration of his serial rape exploits than he was already getting.)

Driving with my kids...they're so used to having Siri or their GPS tell them where to go now... It's kind of sad actually... OK, now I'm turning into one of those old people. [And sorry OP, we taken you way off topic, I think...]

And if there is anything that NCL is all about...it is the marketing, yes?

Don't get Mr. @Auburn Girl started on the grits--amirite Alicia and John??? 😂

I just sifted through some Dailies---it's crazy, lots of opportunities to spend your money unnecessarily, but no simple listing of basic information like that. Go figure! The captain, IIRC was Ronnie(?) Berg. The Cruise Director, who we did actually chat with at the coffee bar on our unplanned sea day as he was personally passing out updated activity schedules was Jerry _____ , and he was from Latin America somewhere I think. The General Manager was a pleasant French gentleman who made a jovial attempt to steal my coffee from me in line to board tenders one morning--and I'm blanking on his name too.

I feel that NCL promoting Trieste = Venice is like saying Port Canaveral = Disney World. I really am glad that we aren’t tearing up that city with the wakes of mega ships anymore, but it’s a 2 hour train ride from the port, and an awful lot of Americans just weren’t paying attention that well in high school geography class.

Really missed my instantaneous, no-nonsense wifi access and spotify playlists. +2 on the Weather Channel votes, too. Would just be really nice to know how to dress for an excursion in the variable fall weather of the Mediterranean, and the info the ship delivered was unhelpful.

Istanbul is literally as far away from the Syrian border as one can be--literally on a different continent. As I told several people, I felt safer in Istanbul than in an American bowling alley, night club, or elementary school! 🤔

Ship - Dawn Deck - 11 Stateroom # - 11112 Stateroom Category – Balcony Starboard or Port Side - Starboard Quiet Stateroom? (With comments on problems) – Generally OK EXCEPT as noted below. Was stateroom a connecting stateroom? - no Balcony View - Give comments on view, noting if location of any obstructions was an issue. – large overhang might bother some, might be a plus to others. Balcony Size? Normal or oversized for class? - normal? Was wind a problem? - no If an aft cabin, was soot a problem? - n/a Any specific problems with this cabin? - cabin is located directly off midship elevator/stairwell lobby--this was not a problem--no excess noise from this area or from atrium when door was closed, HOWEVER... ...cabin is DIRECTLY below entrance to Garden Cafe/Pool deck/buffet storage locker on deck 12. (Picture of this area is attached--door to storage area to left, pool area to far left, Garden Cafe entrance to right--your bed is directly below the traffic pattern here.) As a result there was always loud activity overhead at 0500-0530 as staff were preparing for breakfasts. Light sleepers will be bothered--my wife did not notice. Any other comments? - very convenient location, but buyer beware.

Just returned from essentially your #2: Trieste --> Istanbul on Dawn. I though Dawn was well suited for this itinerary. It was very port-intensive. We did lots of archaeological sites in Croatia, Turkey, and Greece. Weather was a factor in mid November--we missed our port call for Olympia due to high winds making docking unsafe at Katakolon that day, and it was somewhat chilly and windy at Santorini and Mykonos, too. I really hate to think what it was like there this summer with 90-100 degree temps and the more crowded conditions! We enjoyed spending time in Istanbul after the cruise, too. Why not? Izmir/Ephesus and Istanbul were both perfectly safe--and amazing, interesting destinations. Our Thanksgiving Day lunch in Türkiye, our Thanksgiving dinner filets at Cagney's, and what our poor, abandoned children had back home in Minnesota 😂

Just got back from the 10 day Eastern Mediterranean itinerary, and I would concur. My previous NCL cruises were on Epic and Pearl--and I was expecting this to be something akin to the Pearl in experience. Don't know if it's related to "post-pandemic blues", or the staffing priorities that you mention above, but Dawn was not up to the level of our Pearl cruises (2013 and 2015...so the world has certainly changed since!) in terms of staff morale and initiative. My sense was that a lot of the staff were new in their roles, and very reluctant to step out of defined protocols (even altering a drink recipe slightly in a bar, for example). That said, though, I think Dawn is nicely suited for "grown-up cruises" --i.e. people who don't need constant entertainment and stimulation from VR arcades or go-kart tracks. It was great for this kind of port intensive trip -- not a single planned sea day , though we got one due to having to miss a port for weather conditions. We covered 9 different destinations in 10 days, and could come back on board to soak weary legs in the hot tubs and recklessly enjoy our food and drink. I think it's kind of cool that a ship like the Dawn is doing so many long cruises to non-standard places, even though the 10 days was plenty long for us this time. (Some people were doing not just B2Bs, but 3 or 4 x B2Bs...nice life!) I liked the layout for the most part, and thought the atrium was nicer than Epic's or Pearl's--seemed "right sized" for the way it was used, and was pleasant to look at while seated at O'Sheehans or the coffee bar. As always, YMMV.

10 years ago you could have tempted me with an offer to "lose" a couple of my children in a foreign country like that...

Valid point--but the reapplication process was still less painful than the initial.

Once you get a passport, I find it convenient for my kids because they then always have documentation of citizenship without having to carry a certified copy of their birth certificate on trips, or find where it's filed when applying for a job, etc. Plus, within 5 years of the trips we initially got the passports for, both of my younger kids already had them when school trips came along that took them overseas with music or language classes. And although child/youth passports expire sooner than adult ones, it's still easier to keep them renewed than to get new ones.