radzer0

But why wouldn't an announcement looking for people they believe may have missed the boat in the rooms? On other boats the in cabin speakers were on for major announcements. I agree I wouldn't want to hear about the art auction rip offs and bingo and such. But major things should be done in the rooms.

Remember sailing on the Dawn when she was a new ship and NCL had just begun year round sailing from NYC. We were so impressed with this ship. Hard to believe she is considered an OLD ship now. Time flies. I was so impressed with the pool area on Dawn. I love the light fixtures and tiers of seating. I just wish NCL had an outdoor poolside movie screen like Carnival & Princess. Dawn has a perfect setup for an outdoor theater.

 

What really impressed us on the Dawn was all the restaurants. So different from standard cruiseships with one main dining room. We love casual dress and anytime dining.

 

Hope the Dawn is put in dry dock before we book our Fall cruise in 2015.

Currently there is no plans for the dawn to go into drydock thru the current schedule that ends in 2016. I asked a few officers on the boat and they dont seem to believe that it needs it.

Enjoyed reading your review, sailing on the Dawn in February and hoping many of your observations will have been corrected.

I just got off the dawn and it appears many of the issues on this boat cannot be fixed without drydock. I see it a bit worse than the OP but I do agree this boat REALLY needs to be pulled and overhauled. At one point during one of the shows a large portion of the front of the boat filled with smoke. I also noticed that the air didnt work very well in the stardust and some areas of the ship were just plain hot. Like the hallway air didnt work at all in those areas. Maybe this is part of why some areas of the boat were always having soaked carpet.

I saw the other post disappeared which talked about many things on the ship. Based on my experence with this NCL cruise vs my other 4 NCL cruises. If this ship was a person it may commit suicide like the triumph to get fixed properly.

First I want to point out that not ALL is bad on this one. I know alot of people do those kinda reviews but that isnt what this is.

Good things, 90% of crew id say did there jobs well. David Davinci show was a good show and worth seeing again. Cabin person did a good job at keeping my room clean and tidy. Im sure there is more in this category I will think up later (currently have a sinus headache).

Bad, all over the ship lights were burnt out. In venisian restaurant I noticed on my 4th day one of the lights hanging from its wires and swinging (Recessed light) 7th evening for dinner, Light is still hanging and swinging with the seas.

LED lights near the pool were out when we got on. They went along and replaced 80% of these with what I will call "Chinese special" led strips. End of the cruise 2 of the ones they had replaced already had some colors and bulbs burnt out.

Public areas seemed to be in major disrepair. One bathroom the air freshener holder was broken, so the solution was to take a under the seat car air freshener and duct tape it to the holder. Elevator screens were all having issues, 90% of the burnt out and showing random letters. 2 elevators I noticed mildew or minor mold growing on the light covers in the corner. Paint all over the interior of the ship needs touchup. Scratches, etc all over. Outside there was alot of "Repair" paint touchups. But oddly enough, in colors that were not even on those walls. It was like taking a white car with scratches and filling the scratches with silver paint.

One whole part of deck 7 was closed off with "Restricted/crew only" signs printed out. I looked thru one of these glass doors and they still have the signs on the wall directing passengers where to go as this was a public hallway at some point.

The crew members in charge of events really tried to get the little that they were actually doing going but I think by the 4th day most people gave up doing much after dinner besides shows. In this case based on all previous cruises this was the MOST boring cruise ive seen. Im not a heavy drinker nor am I one who thinks the craziness on carnival is fun.

There was also scotch tape holding many things together around the boat. Pearly kings was always flooded and every few hours they had the shop vac, blowers, and dehumidifiers running trying to dry it out.

There is also a apparent bow thruster water leak. My family was in a room directly next to and above the crew hallway the access to the equipment was in and every 30-45minutes a bell would go off and you could hear someone run down the stairs than a pump come on. Apparently its nothing major that would cause a issue but the bell is VERY loud and goes off all hours of the night.

I didnt eat in any specialty restaurants but I heard that in cagneys the meat quality was poor and chewy (Dont know what cut) And I was talking to one of the crew members who went to the french restaurant with a bunch of there friends one night and they said after they left there the food was so bad they went to the blue lagoon (What I had in the blue lagoon one time made me not go there again, it was bad too). Also they had a prawn dinner, but it wasnt prawns as the next day the fried shrimp were twice the size. The prawns were the size of sandwich shrimp.

Desserts on the boat were mostly good. I also remember a post about windows leaking water into the rooms and family suites when it rained. I noticed one day walking down that hall that they were resealing many of these windows. So that is one complaint from the past I believe they should have fixed up very soon.

I see why this cruise ship is the cheapest in the NCL fleet for a 7day cruise. They need to move one of the other ships drydock back and push this one in as it really needs alot of work that cannot be done while passengers are on board.

And on another note, the white hot party was around 60% under 18 just to give you an idea of who was doing anything on the boat. Once 11 came and they asked them to leave the dance floor was pretty dead and there was just people sitting in the chairs listening to the music. Which ive been to neighborhood bars with better speakers than they used for this one.

Toga party was even worse.

Not to mention one of things most noticeable. The speakers inside the cabins didn't work until the final morning. In costa maya they were calling looking for 2 members of our party who were already on the boat but there cards showed them off the boat. They couldnt hear them calling there names because of this issue. Also when you heard the ding dong atleast in my area you would hear alot of doors open for people listening.

Would like to mention this one, the nutella "pudding" that they made was my favorite food all week. It was called something else and I didnt know what to expect. But I do know to expect this to go the way of the do do bird just like the delicious watermelon chilled soup NCL had years ago. If its that good. They get rid of it.

How is the Star a high end ship and the Dawn is not? They are essentially mirror images of each other. :confused:

The star came here after its dry dock. So it was higher end as in up to date. The dawn came clearly already in partial disrepair if what this and other reviews I've seen are true

The dawn isn't currently lined up for a dry dock so we're looking at least mid 2016 if not later. Ncl doesn't care about the New Orleans market. We had a high end ship for one year since Katrina (star). I'd gladly take the spirit back here but it's kinda small for this market, I believe that's part of why it's in better shape tho.

Watch out for circus cruise lines. They hide under many names but it's still ran by clowns.

Port of NOLA needs to build a garage for NCL. I called before our crusie and was told there was parking for the ship AT the port.

 

NOPE!!

 

 

 

We pas Julia port, turn left towards downtown, then get on Convention Center blvd, then drive down a couple of blocks to the Hilton Garage and parked there.

 

 

 

The people holding the signs to park for $12 had a much closer lot. I know the ineptitude of NOLA officials, so I didn't hold that against NCL. Now getting in the Terminal at 12:30 and not getting on the boat until 5:30. That was all NCL. And yes, I think lot of people took this cruise for the sole reason of testing NCL, and most of those did not seem happy.

 

 

 

The employees were all great though. I went around this morning handing $10s to a few of them that I had interacted with.

There is a garage. It's for the whole terminal and there is a free bus. I believe it's around $90 for the week but there are hotels if you stay at them you get to park and they bus you there and back.

The Dawn was in Tampa this time last year. I know, because we sailed her in January.

Maybe I just got boats mixed up than. Whatever boat was here last year did it. I didn't go on a cruise last year. Mine was jan 13 on the star

But, people readily pay for three ports to sail out of Houston. Also, since when is Key West considered a big American city? Also, not being able to get to the Eastern Caribbean from New Orleans, and Tampa for that matter, is a myth. NCL choses not to do it for their own reasons. Are they not offering alternating East/West itineraries on the Spirit from Port Canaveral?

 

I personally love going to Key West. We have not been there since 2008 when Hurricane Mitch changed every one of our ports of call. One of our most memorable cruises.

Huh?

 

What are you talking about, 6 sailings? Could you add a little more information to your posts so we can figure out what exactly you are talking about!!

 

The Jewel is now sailing 3 ports out of Houston and the Spirit has not yet returned for its sailings out of Port Canaveral.

Last year the dawn had 6 eastern sailings from new orleans. Around this time of year, maybe oct is when they started but about a year back. They didnt make nowhere near as much money as the westerns which were rotated for those 6 cruises. Some of them also sailed with empty rooms as they couldnt even fill the boat.

Someone here may be able to post a history site for sailings, I dont know those kinds of sites.

But, people readily pay for three ports to sail out of Houston. Also, since when is Key West considered a big American city? Also, not being able to get to the Eastern Caribbean from New Orleans, and Tampa for that matter, is a myth. NCL choses not to do it for their own reasons. Are they not offering alternating East/West itineraries on the Spirit from Port Canaveral?

 

I personally love going to Key West. We have not been there since 2008 when Hurricane Mitch changed every one of our ports of call. One of our most memorable cruises.

They did 6 sailings, I believe around this time last year. According to my TA when I asked him about it they did the test and canned it because they lost there ass compared to western as it was very hard to fill.

If only this website had edit enabled I could change the main post so people would stop replying about a year old post...

No worries but remember that was the case in late 2011 and if things have changed remember, its not my fault lol ;)

 

 

 

We will be there in mid January and I am hoping things haven't changed as well.

I will try to remember to post how my search for wifi went when I come back on the 14th. If you think about this after than post a reply so I can remember lol.

Eastern itenaries don't work well from New Orleans because of the distance. Nobody wants to pay for only 3 ports and have one be key west. We want to get away. Not goto another big American city.

Outside wifi. The fact on the ship still charges per min even when the Internet is at slower than dialup is a joke. They should allow the mb plans as a option on all shops

Picked up free wifi in Cozumel, until a Disney ship got the way.

How long ago? The ones I found charged but my VoIP went past because the DNS was what u were paying for.

I know the wifi on roatan and costamaya kinda suck. Just didnt know if there was any places there doing the charge for wifi yet that was directing at the ships. Its been 2 years since ive been out that way. I know inside the ship wont pickup but in roatan on the outside deck facting land you used to be able to pickup wifi but the company went under a few weeks prior to me getting there.

Figure a company selling wifi that can be picked up on the outside decks of a ship charging even just $0.10 a min could make a killing.

We attempted to use it for calls to home as it was only 79 cents a minute. Would lose signal by the second ring so never got to. We also

Made sure everything was off when we used it. Despite paperwork telling you otherwise this app has a long way to go.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

Yea im just refering to in ship. I do all my back home calling thru ring.to (previously grooveip) In cozumel the public wifi it actually bypasses the pay portion. Dont know if this is a design flaw or actual design. Webpages wont work tho.

Didnt realize they started it when the built the epic, but what happened to the spirit? They did it this year and it didnt get the upgrade with the next program. I know its a smaller ship but its not something that uses tons of space.

The dawn has no plans for a future drydock as per NCL's site. I guess its the only one not getting it. Seems like neworleans always gets the shaft of boats anyways. Even the star isnt listed and I wouldnt be suprised if after next year with the dawn it comes back here.

Also NCL lists the epic as not getting the NEXT upgrades yet but it still has it. So maybe that info is wrong?

Also the spirit was done after all of this was put into place and it doesnt have it. I read that it was a upgrade they would do while the boat was in operation since its a separate system from the normal wifi. Makes me think more that it isnt part of the drydocks.

Id mainly use it just for the phone portion. Im the only one in my family with a smart phone so they would be calling me from ship phones.

It does say to kill off everything but wifi for it to work properly on the paperwork ive seen.

From Norwegian's website:

 

 

 

NORWEGIAN ICONCIERGE

 

Now Norwegians can unwind, unplug and still stay connected. Our Norwegian iConcierge app keeps you informed about everything going on, lets you make reservations for Shore Excursions and more on board Norwegian Breakaway, Norwegian Epic, Norwegian Getaway, Norwegian Jewel or Norwegian Pearl. You can plan your playtime with just one hand — which is great because your other hand will probably be holding an umbrella drink.

And how exactly does this answer my question about how they said rollout would be done by the end of 2013? It's end of 14 and I find online about the dawn having it turned on in March of this year listed as " previously turned on"

Anyone heard anymore about this or did NCL kill it? 2 years ago one of the VP's came out and said it would be on all ships by the end of 2013 and yet its still missing from many boats. Even ones who have had overhauls since. (overhaul and drydock are different in my mind as overhauls can be done while the ship is in service)

I see tons about it even the live feed but nobody says a word about when its coming other than the french restaurant isnt getting a new menu untill 2015.

Does anybody have a date when the new menus go into effect?

When it comes to free cruises you can get one from any travel agent. Instead of the money going to the "fare" it goes to taxes and fees. In the end it turns out to be the same amount paid.

My mom got a free cruise one time and it turned out to be like $12 MORE just in taxes and fees than going direct to NCL and paying fare+fees.