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Dawn New Year's Cruise Review


shelly11
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Full review when we get home. Had a great time!!

 

All those bad reviews......you must have been on a different ship because we had a blast!!! Only a minor gripe that I have but it wouldn't make me choose a different ship.

 

And whoever couldn't find chilled fruit soup..... I saw it almost every time that I went to the buffet.

 

Much more and photos when I get home. Bottom line.....the Dawn is great and so is NCL.

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Full review when we get home. Had a great time!!

 

All those bad reviews......you must have been on a different ship because we had a blast!!! Only a minor gripe that I have but it wouldn't make me choose a different ship.

 

And whoever couldn't find chilled fruit soup..... I saw it almost every time that I went to the buffet.

 

Much more and photos when I get home. Bottom line.....the Dawn is great and so is NCL.

 

Glad to see that I am not the only one who thought I was on a different ship - we had a great time as well!

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Welcome Back! Looking forward to reading your review. Did you think NYE with NCL was amazing? As I have stated many times, NYE is not the same now unless I am fortunate enough to be sailing with NCL. :D

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Looking forward to your review. My husband and I are cruising on the Dawn's Feb. 7th cruise. First time on NCL and we are looking forward to it. We have an aft penthouse booked. I was getting somewhat bervouse reading some of the reviews, but we are very easy to please and just enjoy being away!!

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Thanks Shelly! I was wondering if you tendered in Cozumel? Also, do you have any kids club info?

thanks!

We were on the ship with Shellly. While she is writing her review, yes we did have to tender in Cozumel. I read that NCL takes turns tendering, but we had the short straw.

They have tender tickets available at 7 AM and you need them! They used one large tender and one smaller one. We did not get tickets until 10 AM and had to wait until after 11 to get off the ship.The actual tender ride is short-less than 10 minutes.

Cozumel was so crowded that we only spent one hour in town and boarded the tender back to the ship.

If you have plans, get tickets and try to get off early. NCL excursions do not need tender tickets.

Tendering back is a long process coming back. The ship left 2 hours late as many had to wait to get back on.

It was not a good experience in an otherwise great cruise.

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This was mine and my husband’s third cruise, all have been with NCL. My first two on the Sky in ocean view rooms. This was our first balcony and our first 7 day cruise. This was our 15 year old daughter’s second cruise and we let her bring a friend. Kali is 16 and had been on a Disney cruise when she was small so she didn't remember too much so it was like her first cruise as well. The girls had an obstructed view room and it was a little farther away from us than I thought, but it worked out fine.

 

We drove down to Tampa and stayed at the Hampton Inn. They have free parking if you book the cruise/airport package. I think it was only $10-$20 more than a regular rate and our vehicle was safe in their lot until our return. The usually free Hampton breakfast and a taxi and we made it to the port. They have a free shuttle but it was packed and we didn't want to wait until 12:30 for the next one, I think we got to port by 11:15 or so.

 

Checking in was fast but not as friendly as the Miami port. We are latitudes members and we didn't get any special number to board. On our second cruise in Miami we got a latitudes boarding pass. Still we got on fairly fast and began to check out the Dawn. The ship is lovely. The only thing we noticed during the week is that it has a few dead ends that the Sky does not have. Maybe this was bad planning, maybe a result of the refurbishing? Not too bad, just strange to end up in an unexpected dead end.

The crew had the dance party by the pool and the sail away BBQ going fairly fast. We hit the buffet after a quick stroll around the top decks. The buffet was good all week. We did miss being able to eat outside like on the Sky but it was still good. Without the outside section the buffet area is very long! Happy happy washy washy

 

Our rooms were ready very fast. Both rooms were bigger than I thought. The bathroom was very nice! I was expecting the tiny round circle shower with the shower curtain but the separate shower stall on the Dawn was a great surprise! There was plenty of room for all of our things in the bathroom and in the closet. The tv is a flat screen and the bed was very comfy. The room we had was 8020 and was a hull balcony. I had no idea what that meant when I booked it and it was just fine. It was windy when we left so I didn’t know if it was windier than usual or not. We had 2 small chairs and you really couldn’t have fit a full beach chair on it to sun in, but that was fine too. Still nice to walk out and get fresh air and a view of the ocean whenever we wanted.

 

We waited up top to pass under the Sunshine Skyway bridge. It was beautiful but much colder than we expected! People brave enough to get in the hot tub up front we very cold in all the wind. After passing under the bridge we ate at the buffet for dinner and went to enjoy some shows.

 

 

more to come................

Edited by shelly11
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First night we saw the Welcome aboard show in the Stardust. It was a musical number and a little bit of Greg London. (he was not our cup of tea so we didn’t see him again) At the end the officers and captain were introduced. We then saw the Majority Rules show in the Spinnaker lounge. We planned on going back for the Sing it if You Know It game, but I got sleepy and went to bed.

 

Day 2—day at Sea and New Year’s Eve!

We had the buffet for breakfast (and we used the buffet most of the week so I won’t mention it again. I did have the banana chilled soup and dark cherry chilled soup. I saw the orange carrot chilled and blue berry chilled as well during the week.)

 

The cruise critic meet and greet was this morning in the Star Bar! Only about half of those who signed up showed. The crew had set out coffee, water, juice and pastries for us. The captain and officers came in just to meet our little group. Very nice of NCL! This was my first meet and greet and it was nice to meet everyone.

 

I could tell we were at sea when the only empty beach chairs were at the front of the ship a mile away from the pool. The hubby and I laid in the sun for a little bit. It was still windy and I don’t know how anyone got in the pool at this point. A storm front was passing and it wasn’t warm enough yet.

It was New Year’s Eve and Norwegian’s night out. Many people were dressed up and EVERYONE must have been eating out. We went to the Venetian (one of the main dining rooms) and still had to wait about 45 minutes to be seated. That has never happened to us before. When we were seated the staff was great and the food was out fairly quick and was very good.

 

After dinner we went to the Not So Newlywed Game. Very funny as always! Afterwards we went to the party by the pool. One hot tub had been turned into a champagne tower. The staff was giving out noisemakers and party hats. A 2012 ice sculpture was by the pool. Champagne was given to everyone for the New Year’s toast! The ice sculpture now said 2013. After we counted down we turned back the clocks and did it again! We passed into central time zone that night so two count downs! It was fun! In between the countdowns our teens went to their room and we went and got out of our fancy clothes. Now that we were comfy we stopped by the Blue Lagoon for a late night snack and made it to the pool for the second countdown. It was a lot of fun!

 

 

more to come....

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