"Ferry to Boston" NCL DAWN from New Orleans to Boston 23 Apr to 5 May 2017

Cruising on a re-positioning trip with Norwegian Cruise Lines on the DAWN from New Orleans, LA to Boston, MA on 23 April to 5 May 2017. This is my second “Ferry to Boston.” (My term for the trip. It beats a slog from the Florida Panhandle where I live to central Massachusetts where I make occasional visits to the few relatives remaining on my father’s side of the family.

My first “Ferry to Boston” was a re-positioning of the Royal Caribbean SERENADE OF THE SEAS in 2015 from New Orleans to Boston, Voyage 541, 11 to 24 April 2015.

The remainder of that trip was a rental car from the port in Boston (Black Falcon Cruise Terminal) to visit in the Fitchburg/Leominster area for a few days, returning the rental car to Logan Airport in Boston, and then flying one-way back to New Orleans. Flight fare, BTW (with one bag for each of two passengers) was a total of $334.98, with a 2+ hour stop in JFK. The cruise fare – we stayed in a (unique) “family ocean view” stateroom, 318 sq. ft. with large main room and sitting area and with an additional small room with bunk beds. Extra closet space! and the bottom bunk had our suitcases opened and we didn’t even need to really unpack. Interesting cabin facing forward just under the bridge (Deck 8, Cabin 8500). No balcony, but the main forward facing window was about 7-8 feet in diameter, sloped back at about a 45 degree angle, and you could throw a couple of pillows up there under the window, lay back, look DIRECTLY out at the water and the bow of the ship, relax and read a book or just daydream! Very interesting option to a balcony. And for the record, that 13-day cruise in April 2015 in Cabin 8500 was about $2,100 per person (my wife and I), prepaid gratuities $156PP, taxes/fees/port $106PP and a discount of $1045 for second passenger, brought the total 13-day cruise to about $3660 total. (BTW, shipboard charges were about $400.) the SERENADE OF THE SEAS was leaving (as was RCI) the New Orleans market and the ship was enroute trans-Atlantic after Boston to go to UK and thence the Baltic for the summer. (BTW, RCI was replaced in 2015 with NCL serving New Orleans.) The Royal Caribbean SERENADE OF THE SEAS in April 2015 from New Orleans to Boston is rated as a very good trip, the ship and accommodation, not exceptional but enjoyable, and the value was good.

That was then, and this is now. I saw essentially a similar opportunity earlier this year, with the Norwegian DAWN re-positioning from New Orleans to Boston (thence to ply the St. Lawrence Seaway/River between Canada and New England/New York for the summer). So I made reservations for this cruise AFTER ensuring I could get a cheap flight back from Logan to New Orleans. (Jet Blue had a non-stop for about $140PP – and that is adding a checked bag per seat – which I though was very good!)

So this is a pre-cruise summary of what is planned for this April/May on NCL! I will come back and briefly follow up on any issues and give a short review of this cruise. (BTW, if anyone is doing this or cruising from New Orleans, the Fulton Street Garage (901 Convention Center Blvd) has $10/day roof-top parking, pretty secure, and open 24/7. Find them at airportparkingreservtions.com. Covered parking is a bit more, and there will be (for us) about a $40 taxi ride from the airport to the cruise port area on return.) I tried to use the reservations for the cruise at the NCL site, using their reservations people, but had bad and contradictory information and ended up booking though EXPLORE Cruise and Travel (from my USAA site). Not too easy here either, but I finally booked – they got answers to all my questions whereas NCL reservations (Mauricio Pilarte, whose email list I have been unsuccessful getting removed from for the past 3 months! AVOID!!!) was pretty, nay, very poor!

Cruise arrangements I was trying to make included a promotional program for which I had seen offers – “Free at Sea” which had offers for NCL’s Unlimited Open Bar and Specialty Dining. (I think these were two of the three or four options, but I did not need enhanced WiFi or whatever the other was. I selected a Mini-Suites with Balcony, Category MB, and the best they could give me was an 11th deck suite to starboard toward the aft, but still a half-dozen or more cabins forward of the aft elevators and stairways. I should comment that we have previously cruised out of New Orleans on the DAWN – 29 November 2015 to Mexico and western Caribbean.

Price for the mini-suite seemed fair at $3356 for the two of us including taxes and fees, but add-ons were significant. (For this trip, due to circumstances, I did something I seldom do, I got trip insurance - $384 total – due to some special factors.) And then I got hit with the following additional charges: Pre-paid gratuities (I have been prepaying these in recent cruises for convenience) were $324 total, and then they added additional gratuities for the “unlimited open bar” drink package of $341 total, and also additional gratuities for the “specialty dining” package of $30 total. (Get this – I get ‘free’ drinks and ‘free’ specialty dining, but still get hit with 18% gratuities to the tune of nearly $400!!!) So the cruise cost totals about $4,436.

Gratuities are all paid. Drinks on the deck and at meals are included. We have 4 specialty dining nights for the 12-day cruise…our second “Ferry to Boston!” The only side trips arranged are in Cartegena, we have a tour with Marelvy Pena (not an NCL trip – found/recommended on Trip Advisor), and in Tortola we are taking a NCL trip to Jost van Dyke for the day. More on this unique cruise upon return in May.

Suggestion if you do something like this: Bring along your EZPass transponder (and your Garmin GPS) from your car. You can call the EZPass service number and add the rental car license to the registered license plates for your EZPass when you get your rental car. (Mass pike and tunnels tolls.) Make sure to call them back and take the rental car’s license off after you turn it in though!

We are on this cruise - very much looking forward to it. Flying out tomorrow early morning!

Enjoy.

Ellen

OK - I'm the original 'ferry to Boston' poster. It is now a couple of weeks after this cruise. See my review of the cruise on 4-23-17 Dawn cruise witth NCL...and bottom line, it was very nice. About what I expected. Would do it all again pretty much the same as I planned it. Thanks to NCL for a nice cruise. GEN Kelly needs to get his CBP effort in San Juan better organized! NOLA staff checking us in was TERRIBLE!!!