NCL DAWN - Nov 7 2014 - Boston to N.O. Repo

Who else is taking this cruise? My husband and I from Mississippi will be on this cruise.

Hi there - Jody and Rick from New Orleans. We will be on this cruise as well. Looking forward to meeting up for cocktails at Friends of Dorothy!

Rick

Hi, Kim and my spouse Linda are on this cruise. Looking forward to it. I will celebrate my 50th birthday on the cruise! Just finished booking our excursions the other day. I am looking forward to 3 relaxing sea days to start things off.

Welcome aboard Kim and Linda. We celebrated Jody's 50th last year on a 16 day panama canal repo cruise to new orleans. Looking forward to meeting up on the ship.

We buy the spa pass its a great place to relax and rejuvinate, not to mention the pool, hot tub and thermo pool spa thing you lie in.... I load up my tablet with magazines on Next Issue and read a lot there or bring my knitting.

Rick

sounds relaxing...we usually don't hit the spa and not much around the pool either but we do like to hit the casino, the martini tastings, hot tubs, etc. We also splurged on this one for my birthday and got a family suite. What are you doing for excursions? We are doing our own thing in San Juan as we were just there for 3 nights in May. We booked turtles, turtles, turtles in Grand Cayman, Dunns River Falls/VIP Bamboo Beach, Antilla Wreck in Aruba, Dune Buggies in Curacao, and save a turtle in Cozumel(kind of have a turtle thing going on I guess)

We havent booked any excursions yet. We are travelling with a straight couple and we are going to decide on excursions when we get on board. Jody loves the casino and I love the martinis as does my friend Karla but not ger husband Jim. It will ve a great trip. The family suite sounds great.... we gad an aft penthouse suite on ncl spirit a few years back and it was very nuce, the bathroom alone was worth it!!! You will enjoy!

Are you staying anytime before in Boston or after in NOLA. There is a regular roll call that has gotten a group rate on hotels although I am not sure in the one in Boston is fully booked. We are doing 2 before and 3 after (this will be our 3rd time in NOLA and love it)

Hey Rick and Linda - I haven't been here for a few weeks - thought no one else was going to reply :) Are either of you in the huge CC group? I was thinking of signing up for the meet and greet but haven't yet.

My partner (Duane) and I haven't booked any shore excursions yet; I guess we should get busy. I have looked at a short excursion in San Juan that I was interested in. It was basically a bus or van trip to a few places downtown. I've been to San Juan several times and have never made it out of the Old city and would like to see the new part.

I'm excited about this cruise because it will be my longest. I'm anxious to see if I can survive two weeks without an balcony. We're down on the 5th deck, ocean view. We normally cruise once a year but Duane retired last fall. We'd like to go more often than that now, and do some in Europe. We had just a window on our 7 day last spring and it was fine.

BTW - I'm 57 and Duane is 64. It's nice to meet someone that says "Friend Of Dorothy" and knows what it means :D Rick you knit in the spa? Doesn't the humidity bother you and cause the yarn to pull? Since we have so many sea days this cruise perhaps you can refresh my memory on how to do that?

Here are some of our pictures from our spring cruise. Duane is the tall one, I'm the short goofy one.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10202338814689226.1073741834.1157830876&type=1&l=50a9e79392

Yes we are staying Nov 1 through 7 at a beach house on Plum Island in northern Mass... it will be on the chillier side but we are looking forward to lobster boils on the beach and visiting quaint new england towns. We are venturing to NYC for a day trip to catch a show.

Jody and I live in New Orleans, im originally from New York, weve been together 14 years now.

Rick

We switched to booking only interior rooms several years back, more money for shopping and cocktails. We dont miss the suites or balconies ir windows because we keep our room at the lowest meat hanging temperature and no sunlight means I get to sleep until noon without a problem. We are on deck 11 aft this trip in an interior and our straight couple friends are across the hall in a mini suite so we will use their balcony at times but honestly we will be out and about, on deck, poolside or in the spa which is the reason for our room lovation. We love NCL have cruised many times with them snd are finally Platinum status so we will hsve a few perks this trip we r looking forward too.

Yes I will knit anywhere... if things snag I put it away or just go on to another project... we shall see... I dont find the spa all thst humid with the ac pumping in there.

We enjoy cocktails and FOD gatherings and find NCL to be the most open and friendly of the big lines. We also love the freestyle and choices of dining on ncl... it just makes 2 weeks at sea really wonderful and very non-repetitive to me.

We normally just wing it on the excursions.... weve been to every port on this trip at least once except wrve never been to Jamaica or Grand Cayman, not sure im looking very forward to Jamaica with their unfriendly reputation. We will likely do a water actvity like a catamaran or river raft tube thing their.

Rick

We feel the same way about Jamaica and I'm not sure what we'll do. Last spring we were on RCCL and they have built their own little fenced in shopping area at Falmouth. We just got off the ship for about an hour, walked around the private area and went back.

When we took our first cruise together he got a balcony because I was still smoking then. I stopped some years back and we noticed that the balcony didn't get much use after that. It's fun to sit out there with a cup of coffee in the morning and stand on it as you pull into new ports but all of that isn't worth the extra. We'll save the balcony money for a Panama Canal or Alaska cruise.

We've never been to Aruba and the stop right before that yet so those will be two new ports for us.

We're flying up the day of the cruise. Hopefully the first of Nov will be too early for a snowstorm to mess things up. We're driving down to N.O. the day before and staying at a hotel near the airport that had a parking package.

Aruba is great... wonderful shopping there and beaches are great too. Curacao is very quaint with a european vibe and architecture, thrre is a big casino in the port and since wr are there til 11pm and its about the only thkng open past 8pm, other than restaurants and bars. We loved both stops a couple years ago on a nyc to nola repo.

Its a bit early for snow but there have been freaky blizzards on halloween before, rare tho, we should be fine. Water can be rough that time of year so first night might be a little bumpy but its more adventurous thst way!!!! Lol

I check into the other cc roll call but never feel im a part of the crowd, they tend to be very clique, so we dont always partake in the meet n greet. Too many staring eyes, you know, like they have never seen a gay couple before, maybe because they are just oblivious to the world. Ok, off my box.

We heard from a san Juan native to find a rain forest excursion in Puerto Rico, so we may do that there. The beach will be calling us in aruba. Probably in Curacao too. Grand cayman we will probably do a catamaran and cozumel, beach n shopping, I stock up on liquor there for the holidays.

I've read through all the messages on the group and you're right. It seems they know each other and all do this together frequently. Of course, we COULD all show up for the meet and greet and really make an entrance. I've been planning my "big hat" for the Sweet Potato parade next spring. I could get it done now and really cause a stir :) We have never joined a CC roll call and most likely won't this time either. We've always just hit the Dorothy functions and hoped for the best or just enjoyed each other's company. We had great table mates on our last cruise that we would run into all day. A British couple (straight) a few years older than us and they had traveled everywhere. It was interesting to hear their take on Americans and really interesting to hear their comments on our fellow passengers. (This was a cruise out of N.O. so the ship was about 75% LA/MS/AL/TX)

We always use Cozumel as our "Caribbean Shopping Mall" also. Unless you find something unique, most of the souvenir type junk is the same wherever you go and we've found the best prices in Cozumel. That's where we buy trinkets for friends and our house sitter.

We joined the roll call and they do seem to be pretty active. I don't get the vibe that they would anything less than welcoming so we did sign up for the meet and greet and the poker crawl. The last few cruises we've met some really fun straight folks through CC. There usually isn't much a roll call on the gay threads. The FOD gatherings do seem to be better attended on NCL than on CCL (Carnival always seems to have them later and at weird venues. We did the rainforest in May this year in SJ and loved it. Hope to see you all at the meet and greet (it's the 1st sea day at 10:30) and/or at the FOD. The poker crawl is kind of fun we did it on our last cruise and you get to see a variety of cabins. :)

We just got back from a wonderful 4 days in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Now it's time to start the countdown to the cruise :)

yes!! we are under 60 days!

We are so ready to be on vacay. Yes the countdown has begun. We will at least have the 6 of us at the first FOD gathering.

Kim, you're doing Dunns River in Jamaica? Jody have y'all thought anymore about there? We've stopped there about 4 times I believe and have only did a shore excursion once. That was a trip to a coffee farm on top of a mountain that was very nice. Unfortunately, afterward on the way back the van stopped for shopping and we were mobbed by yelling, grabbing locals. Since then we usually stay on the ship or just get off and walk around the port terminal inside the gates. Still thinking about that one.

I think we're going to wing it and walk around Aruba. I've never been there.

Not sure yet on Jamaica... we will probably decide once on the ship.

Shopping in Aruba id great. There is a great mall type thing across from the cruise terminal there and then a couple streets to walk on and shop. Very pleasant, no beggers or street peddlers to deal with. Beaches are superb in Aruba too.

My excitement is starting to "kick in". My older brother is on his way back from Bermuda (docking in Baltimore tomorrow). After talking with him and hearing about their cruise I'll be in an "all cruise all the time" mode. He was on RCCL but I noticed on the cam that they were docked right beside the Dawn.

Getting pretty excited. we taken off in 36 hours. I think we are going to have dinner at the Island Creek Oyster Bar Wednesday night, then Thursday walk around maybe try to have lunch at Cheers. Can't wait to board the ship Friday!! Jody and Rick you are already there and having fun...whoo hooo. I am ready for some cocktails :)

We have been here since Saturday, right in the middle of that Noreaster that lasted well into Sunday nihht but we still made it an adventure collectibg our sea water for the 8 lobsters we cooked Sunday evening... more on that story when we all meet up later this week. We had SNOW on Sunday in Gloucester and it was Fabulous and exciting. Shopped for yarn, well I have, we went to Maine yesterday and stoppedat LL Bean... fun. Today is lay low locally cuz tomorrow we are adventuring south to NYC for the day and Boston on Thursday.