Norwegian Dawn Dec 9th Western Caribbean Review *Pics to come*

[kornkitten]

Hi everyone!

 

I think this might be my first review on here, so please bare with me. A little back ground: My husband and I (27) decided to invite our parents and mother in law to join us on this 7 day western Caribbean cruise to Roatan, Belize, Costa Maya and Cozumel.

 

This is going to be a long one. with several parts. Please Bare with me guys.

 

Overall impressions:

 

The Ship: The Dawn was a gorgeous ship. She felt a little cramped for being such a large ship. (Keep in mind she is a large ship to me as I have only been on The RC Monarch and CC Fascination. ) She is older and is showing some wear but she was still a great ship with a smooth ride and great, amazing, awesome staff. Her atrium seemed tiny, the all hours dining was almost always packed and small, the pools and hot tubs were rather small (though there were at least 5 hot tubs! =D) , There were tons of food options (if you're willing to pay for a little bit more diversity than you get at the MDR, Buffet or blue lagoon). Tons to do, see and overall, I loved her.

 

Food: The food was pretty good for cruise ship food. I haven't been on any extravagant lines, only royal and carniva,l so in my eyes the food was pretty tasty. No major complaints from me except that the steaks were hit and miss in the MDR. If you ordered a medium rare steak, you would probably get a rubbery, well -done steak. My only major complaint. =/ Sad, because I love steak. The last steak I had on the last night was good though. So there was that. =D

 

I ordered the French onion soup almost every night and it was the best onion soup I have had on a cruise ship. Salads were fresh and delicious. Everyone seemed to enjoy their meals and they did not mind you ordering multiples of things if something caught your eye.

 

Special dining- We ate at Moderno one night (delicious and awesome), the actual wait staff left some to be desired but the goucho's were on top of everything.

 

We also ate at La Cucina, twice. Once for Dinner (huge let down as I love Italian food) and then once for the Second city presumed murdered mystery lunch (GREAT show, meh food). I have to say to save your money. Don't bother with dinner. Very disappointed. Very little to chose from, and everything I tasted seemed bland, under seasoned and well, just not great for pay service. I was so disappointed. I got better food in the MDR's.

 

Service: We ate in the MDR both the Venetian and the Aqua several times. Each time the service was a little slow but not so dreadfully slow that you were hungry. We allotted 2 hours to make sure we had buffer room to visit the shows and other activities and we were never late for anything we planned out. Usually dinner took 1 and 1/2 hours; Which for 5 people and 3 courses wasn't terrible. Our dinner staff in the MDR was attentive and besides some language barriers was pleasant and accommodating.

 

My room steward was not my favorite which made me rather sad. He still did an "ok" job. The room was turned down and cleaned up like it should but he did nothing extra or above and beyond like previous stewards or the stewards my other guests had. Their stewards were AMAZING! It wasn't until the last two-three nights of the sailing did we did towel animals, etc. He left the contents of my mini fridge in the room after being asked to remove them, etc.

 

 

Activities- We did lots activities. Everything was actually really awesome. We did the digital scavenger hunt, went to see all of the second city comedy acts and games (HILARIOUS!), participated in the perfect couple game show, the quest, watched the newly wed game, watched the nightly shows, participated in beer tastings and margarita tastings (etc), art auctions, paper box folding. We even went out dancing a few times and to the white hot party.

I have to say: For the most part their DJ'S SUCK. I know I saw the name DJ Delite more than once but it sounded good at sail away, so I am not sure if it was him/ her. Whomever was mixing the white hot party and the party after the quest, was just terrible. Can't mix, using horrible and annoying horn sounds to cover crap transitions, not following what the crowd wants. I mean, there were multiple times where crappy music and terrible mixing cleared the dance floor and left patrons confused on what was going on. A mix of all music would be nice that way younger and older crowds can dance and have a good time. It doesn't need to be gangster rap by any means but there are several top 40 songs that are not offensive and relatively nice on the ears that would easily keep all generations on the dance floor as well as classics from other decades that allows everyone to "cut a rug" and "shake their booty" on the dance floor.

 

My only other complaint about the activities is that there was almost nothing to do during the day besides a lot of fitness stuff and kid zoo stuff. Some early afternoon trivia or classes, topic discussions would have been nice. Everything we wanted to do started around 3:45 everyday up until midnight. It was pretty much jam packed at night without any breathing room.

 

More to come: ports, excursions and pictures! =D

[kornkitten]

I'm trying to do these from memory and I only have pictures from my phone at the moment since I'm at work. (Don't worry, I'm allowed to do this at work! Yay for awesome bosses =P)

 

Day 1: Sail Away

 

We woke up and it was so foggy. The drive in was slow going but we got to the cruise terminal in Tampa after spending the night with my parents in Clearwater. We got there around 11:00 am and it was still kind of foggy from the night before. We decided to do the valet parking which turned out to be really steep. I think the total ended up being 125.00 before tip. =/ Ouch. but not super terrible though for 7 days considering the Monarch in Port Canaveral for a 3 day sailing ended up costing us 70.00. RAWR!

 

Since there were 5 of us, and the women of our families apparently can not pack light.... (:o) we ended up having carry on luggage to lug around after giving the porter our checked baggage. We went through the security lines which were relatively painless and went rather quickly. We were inside the terminal checking in- in roughly 20 minutes. We checked in and then sat and waited as we were in group 9 to board the Dawn. =(

 

They ended up boarding us about 25 minutes later and we were on the ship in no time! It was awesome. We were starving and after reading some advice from other posters on CC; to go to the Venetian because it was always empty on sail away, that's what we did. Service was extremely slow on sail away lunch. Luckily, we had no where to go. It was good and we were then called over the loud speaker that the staterooms were ready.

 

The Venetian MDR-

 

The Venetian window Christmas Decor-

 

cabin 6500 http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/kornkitten42/IMG_4514_zpscbea3562.jpg' alt='IMG_4514_zpscbea3562.jpg'>

 

Atrium :

 

Casino:

 

It was also kind of weird seeing this man on the ship. I didn't like seeing "Jack" on my boat!

[kornkitten]

Day 1 Continued:

 

 

 

We went up to the pool deck for the sail away party and met an awesome cruise member named "GIGI" and another named Natalie. They were awesome and so much fun. The group of us enjoyed some drinks of the day and danced.

 

Sail away party

 

Hot tub, pool deck, part of topsiders and part of the pool -

 

Pool stage, pool area -

 

It started getting dark out and finally the time came to go to dinner and we found out that we were sailing away late because of the terrible fog we had coming in. We ate in the Venetian again. Better service than earlier but still a little on the slow side. Food was decent, I was kind of irritated about my well done steak but was almost full by that time, decided to just eat it.

 

Us passing the Legend that night. They were delayed several more hours, I heard due to the fog and not getting back in time.

 

After dinner we went to the welcome aboard show. It was nice and we had a nice time. Didn't care for Greg London part of the act and felt that took way to long. After the show, we explored the ship some more, checked out the casino and then we went to Blue Lagoon to try out the all night eatery they had. Blue lagoon the first night left a lot to be desired. The service sucked so badly. It took so long to get our food, the hot wings I ordered were cold and super greasy and they didn't even bother bringing out my husbands entree. After trying to flag down some servers but they weren't any where to be found, we got up and walked away after I finished my french fries.

 

We ended up calling it a night and heading to bed as we were exhausted. =/

A kind of crappy picture of Greg London. =/

Casino :

 

On to day two... Sea day.

[camz]

OP - Welcome Back! Glad you enjoyed your time on the Dawn. I love the Dawn and the Star, as they have the friendliest crews at sea. Hope you have better luck later in cruise with Blue Lagoon. Blue Lagoon has always been a must, good eats and usually fast service. :cool: Looking forward to reading the rest of your review.

[LEtue]

Loving your review and pictures! Can't wait to try NCL and the Dawn for the first time in April :D

[boopsahoy]

Loving your review-keep it coming!

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the review.

[Half Pint Mini]

Great review...thanks for posting and looking forward to more!! :)

[marym933]

I agree, awesome review. I especially appreciate the pictures!

[debnjoe1438]

Thanks for the review. Can't wait to see more.

[PathfinderEss]

Enjoying your review and photo's, thanks for posting, looking forward to the rest of it.

[Cupcrazy]

Thanks for the review! Looking forward to reading more

[HOTROD1]

Thank you for the review. Looking forward to reading and seeing more pics!! We sail on Dawn in 3 days! So excited

[irishclover]

Thank you for sharing!!! Cant wait for the next installment! On the ship in 10 days and we are so excited!!

[bagzrpacked]

How long did it take you to get off the ship? We are getting ready to buy airfare and we found a good flight that leaves at noon. Wondering if you think we would make it?? How did you get off the ship....did you keep your luggage with you?

 

Thank you and keep the info coming!!!:D:D

[hammsz]

Was Candi the cruise director? Was there a JJ on the staff, how was karaoke?

[peg013]

Was Candi the cruise director? Was there a JJ on the staff, how was karaoke?

 

(Not Kornkitten but we were on the same cruise with her.) Yes, Candi was the CD. I know there was a "Johnny" doen't know about JJ? We didn't go to Karaoke but it was very active in the Pearly Kings Pub with people singing!

[Half Pint Mini]

Please tell us more about the Murder Mystery :eek:

[DolphinPatronus]

thanks for posting some pics looking forward to the rest of your review

[jdvmd]

Thanks for your comments!

[stillriver]

Hoping you will get back to this...really enjoying your pictures and detail!