Dawn visit to Dominica is no longer

I just got the attached email for a March 2019 cruise. Apparently they are removing the Roseau Dominica stop from the itineraries and adding St. Thomas (along with re-arranging the current stops). Not a huge fan of St. Thomas but I guess I understand there was damage. They must not have any confidence everything will be back up in almost a year from now.

I did not realize that there was still itinerary shuffling going on. I guess I believed that all of the decisions would have been made by now.

I hope all of the islands can recover and get to a some sense of normal in the near future.

Hmmm... lines are starting making calls in Dominica again.

Beautiful island.

Hate to hear that, Dominica is one of our favorite islands.

I just got notified of a change in the Oct. 26, Eastern C aribbean Cruise. We'll be going to St. Lucia, rather than Martinique, and the arrival day of another port was changed.

We're OK with it, but was wondering if the changes were still due to storm damage.

I just got the attached email for a March 2019 cruise. Apparently they are removing the Roseau Dominica stop from the itineraries and adding St. Thomas (along with re-arranging the current stops). Not a huge fan of St. Thomas but I guess I understand there was damage. They must not have any confidence everything will be back up in almost a year from now.

Dominica got hammered, being a poor country the recover has been that much slower. Ships are making calls but not as many. Its a shame NCL has pulled out for now

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/travel/dominica-hurricane-maria-recovery.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lealane/2018/02/18/dominica-the-caribbeans-nature-island-offers-post-hurricane-bargains/#b84cc5973b33

I just got notified of a change in the Oct. 26, Eastern C aribbean Cruise. We'll be going to St. Lucia, rather than Martinique, and the arrival day of another port was changed.

 

We're OK with it, but was wondering if the changes were still due to storm damage.

We were in Martinique on the Dawn in September and the storm damage didn't seem too bad. Our itinerary for our February 2019 cruise was shuffled around as well.

I talked with NCL last night about my January 17th, 2019 cruise and they confirmed they are removing Dominica and Martinique from all Dawn sailings October 2018 through March 2019 at this time. They also removed Tortola from our 10 day cruise and replaced two of the three ports with Aruba & Curacao.

Ironically, the December 6th sailing (also a 10 day cruise), is removing the same three ports but being replaced with three ports (Aruba, Bonaire, & Curacao). We are now considering switching to the December 6th sailing in order to keep 8 ports instead of being reduced to 7. Really makes no difference to us though as all of these are still going to be first time ports for us.

So far, Tortola is still on our 14 day Eastern Caribbean on the Dawn out of Boston.

And we are keeping Tortola on our February sailing.

We were in Martinique on the Dawn in September and the storm damage didn't seem too bad. Our itinerary for our February 2019 cruise was shuffled around as well.

We are on the Jade in Nov with a scheduled stop to Dominica. We have not received any change in our schedule.

We were also in Martinique last November on the Dawn and didn't notice too much damage. We are on the Dawn again this year for Thanksgiving week and yesterday received them itinerary change email...Martinique has been removed and replaced with Antigua. Although we loved Martinique, Antigua was our favorite port last year. Great beaches!

I just got notified of a change in the Oct. 26, Eastern C aribbean Cruise. We'll be going to St. Lucia, rather than Martinique, and the arrival day of another port was changed.

 

We're OK with it, but was wondering if the changes were still due to storm damage.

Just look at it this way: in my opinion going to St Lucia is a much better choice than Martinique. If nothing else the people are much nicer. We were so looking forward to our stop at Martinique a few years ago but it was not the highlight of our cruise like we had hoped. Thank God we don't base a good cruise on the itinerary.

So far, Tortola is still on our 14 day Eastern Caribbean on the Dawn out of Boston.

You might want to keep checking.

We were sent a revised itinerary for the Dec 6 Dawn cruise. Lots of changes but Tortola was still on it.

If you go to NCL's website and bring up the Dawn Dec 6 cruise Tortola is no longer on there. It has been replaced by St Thomas.

If this is in fact true since we haven't been notified officially yet, that means of the 8 islands we were to visit only 3 from the original itinerary still remain.

Bill

You might want to keep checking.

 

We were sent a revised itinerary for the Dec 6 Dawn cruise. Lots of changes but Tortola was still on it.

 

If you go to NCL's website and bring up the Dawn Dec 6 cruise Tortola is no longer on there. It has been replaced by St Thomas.

 

If this is in fact true since we haven't been notified officially yet, that means of the 8 islands we were to visit only 3 from the original itinerary still remain.

 

Bill

I really hope they do not further change it and get rid of Tortola. Since they already added St. Thomas as a replacement for Dominica I am not sure what they would replace it with (Martinique perhaps). Last cruised out of San Juan 20yrs ago and I remember Tortola as a gorgeous island and am really looking forward to going back. St. Thomas was ok but not my favorite stop.

I really hope they do not further change it and get rid of Tortola. Since they already added St. Thomas as a replacement for Dominica I am not sure what they would replace it with (Martinique perhaps). Last cruised out of San Juan 20yrs ago and I remember Tortola as a gorgeous island and am really looking forward to going back. St. Thomas was ok but not my favorite stop.

I hope that they keep Tortola for you. I am not a big fan of St Thomas either.

Last time we were there we went to St. John but that was before the hurricane so I don't know what kind of shape it's in now.

Bill

So I was looking at the March 24 '19 Dawn cruise on an online TA's website that I use to plan out/price out potential cruises and they still list the itinerary with Dominica on it. That's a little strange . . .

I just read about the changes in itinerary for the Dawn in January of 2019. So sorry to hear that Dominica will not be part of the cruise, but fully understand why due to the severe devastation they suffered last fall. My wife has a childhood friend that has lived on Dominica for over 25 years and we have been unable to contact her since the hurricanes. We had intended to try renting a car and making our way to her house up in the mountains if possible. I suppose we will just have to keep our fingers crossed and hope to hear from her in the future. Dominica is one of the most beautiful places on earth, but is an extremely poor country. The mountainous topography that makes it so lovely also makes recovery that mush more difficult. When we visited he friend while in port a few years ago, they had just replaced the only bridge between her home and the port after being washed away three years earlier.

We will just have to make the best of things and take advantage of the sights and sounds of the ports being added instead.

Are passengers seeing the itinerary changes only for Dawn? I have a 10 day on the Jade out of Miami stopping at San Juan, St. Thomas, Dominica, Barbados, Martinique and St. Martin booked for March 2019 and April 2019 (identical itineraries until I figure out which dates work best for us) and haven't seen or heard of any changes so far

Are passengers seeing the itinerary changes only for Dawn? I have a 10 day on the Jade out of Miami stopping at San Juan, St. Thomas, Dominica, Barbados, Martinique and St. Martin booked for March 2019 and April 2019 (identical itineraries until I figure out which dates work best for us) and haven't seen or heard of any changes so far

We are on that April 2019 Jade sailing and have been keeping an eye out as well. I haven't seen any changes yet. I feeling if they are canceling for other sailings, it's just a matter of time for the Jade. I was very much looking forward to going there so that would be sad - but more sad to think how long it will take for the island to recover.