Norwegian Dawn Christmas Cruise to the Western Caribbean Review, Dec 20-27, 2015

[mickev99]

Day 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mickev99]

Day 2:

 

 

 

 

[mickev99]

Day 3:

 

 

 

 

[mickev99]

Day 4:

 

 

 

 

[mickev99]

Day 5:

 

 

 

 

[mickev99]

Day 6

 

 

 

 

[mickev99]

Day 7:

 

 

 

 

[mickev99]

 

[mickev99]

Well, I think that's all, folks! Hopefully that helps some of you crazy planning fanatics like me. I love to have all of this stuff to look at before I cruise. Even though some things will change, it helps me. Of course, once I get on the ship, everything seems to go too fast. But it was great while it lasted!!

[cruisingforfun72]

Mickev99, thank you so much for taking the time to do this review and posting all of the menus and dailies. my family and I will be sailing on the Dawn in March and i to spend a lot of time planning and this helps tremendously. hope your dad is getting better. thanks again

[mickev99]

Mickev99, thank you so much for taking the time to do this review and posting all of the menus and dailies. my family and I will be sailing on the Dawn in March and i to spend a lot of time planning and this helps tremendously. hope your dad is getting better. thanks again

 

You are very welcome and have a great time on your cruise. Thanks for the wishes about my dad, I talked to my mom today and he is doing much better.

[Disneycruisers]

Thank you so much for your time posting all this info. We will be on the Dawn in 8 days and this info has helped us plan our specialty dinning and night time activities.

[Deb922]

Thanks for the great trip report

 

Glad your dad is doing better. It must have been a hard cruise with his health issues.

[sunbird21]

DAY 4, WEDNESDAY, December 23, 2015 – BELIZE

Tendering…what a complete and total nightmare!!

 

 

Four ships in port, water was choppy. The process was to go to the Spinnaker starting at 8am to get a numbered ticket. We went to eat breakfast in Blue Lagoon and hubby left before 8 to go get tickets. He said there were hardly any people in front of him and he still got number 6. After hearing all the announcements, we think that tickets 1-3 were only for NCL Excursions. That was all the CD kept saying “We are trying to get all of our NCL excursion passengers off the ship, then we will start letting everyone else off”. Basically they are more important than everyone else because they are paying 2-3 times the amount anyone on a private excursion is paying. He said this through the ridiculously slow process of calling Numbers 1-3. Then he finally called number 4-5 together and we gathered our stuff to go down and they called 6-7 while we were heading down. We got into port at 8am and we didn’t get on a tender boat until 10:30...... I later found out that the room stewards of all my other family had left them towels every night. Not ours. Our room steward was pretty non existent. She cleaned the room fine and left towel animals, but did nothing extra.

 

 

 

Hi! I came over to read your review and had to comment on the above so far...

 

Are you ABSOLUTELY sure that you weren't on the Carnival Dream with me that week??? Our experiences sound very similar!!!

 

 

I am enjoying reading your version of the same week on NCL!!

 

 

 

Another sidenote-I'm sorry that your dad was having such a rough time healthwise. As a home care nurse, most of my patients are CHF-ers, and it is a disease ( or as healthcare professionals try to lighten it up by calling it a "chronic condition") that people can have for decades, if managed well. The basic keys to managing it are following a low sodium diet, taking your meds regularly, exercising, and monitoring your symptoms (i.e., checking weights daily and recording them). The trouble is, most patients don't want to watch sodium, take meds(especially the water pill) etc., so they are prone to "flare ups."I'm not saying this was your dad's issue AT ALL, just wanted to reassure you that it is by no means a death sentence. I hope that he is feeling better!

 

 

Last sidenote- I saw that you guys skipped LFK?? Boo!!! Although I'll give you a preview-the place was awesome but the food=not so much. You probably could've gotten away with the basic package that included admission and purchased what food was edible a la carte.

 

OK, now I'll get back to finishing the rest of the review!!

Stacey

[mickev99]

Hi! I came over to read your review and had to comment on the above so far...

 

 

 

Are you ABSOLUTELY sure that you weren't on the Carnival Dream with me that week??? Our experiences sound very similar!!!

 

 

 

 

 

I am enjoying reading your version of the same week on NCL!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another sidenote-I'm sorry that your dad was having such a rough time healthwise. As a home care nurse, most of my patients are CHF-ers, and it is a disease ( or as healthcare professionals try to lighten it up by calling it a "chronic condition") that people can have for decades, if managed well. The basic keys to managing it are following a low sodium diet, taking your meds regularly, exercising, and monitoring your symptoms (i.e., checking weights daily and recording them). The trouble is, most patients don't want to watch sodium, take meds(especially the water pill) etc., so they are prone to "flare ups."I'm not saying this was your dad's issue AT ALL, just wanted to reassure you that it is by no means a death sentence. I hope that he is feeling better!

 

 

 

 

 

Last sidenote- I saw that you guys skipped LFK?? Boo!!! Although I'll give you a preview-the place was awesome but the food=not so much. You probably could've gotten away with the basic package that included admission and purchased what food was edible a la carte.

 

 

 

OK, now I'll get back to finishing the rest of the review!!

 

Stacey

 

 

Thanks for the info about my dad. He is stubborn and uses salt like it's going out of style. Seriously he puts salt on a salad. So I know he won't do low sodium. It's very frustrating.

 

I might have to skip reading your part about LFK because I might get sad that I missed it!!

 

Michelle

[Loucat]

We were on Star during the same week. Dawn was visible when tendering in Belize started with much delay due to high wave action. Passengers were complaining and pointing out the larger tenders that appeared to make Dawn more efficient!

Our tendering lasted until 11:30 AM as the sea was so rough. Interesting perspective that you were in the same condition as we were.

We were on the Belize pier as we saw too many not too large boats overloaded with people taking off-it is obvious they do not have US Coast Guard restrictions!

Your dailies were great and comparing events your ship had so much more going on than on the Star.

We went to Nachi Cocum on Christmas and they have a limit of guests but not the same activities as Chankanaab.

Great review and very interesting to compare our experiences on Star vs your Dawn cruise.

Thanks so much for taking time to post all of your information.

We have sailed on Dawn for NYE twice but then it left for NOLA.

[scott in maine]

Exceptionally helpful reading since we sail on Dawn tomorrow afternoon! Please let me know how quickly you cleared custom on the return into NOLA. we have 12:40 flights that day and I'm not anticipating any issues, but would sure feel better knowing that it only took you 30-45 minutes or less to be on the curb once you left the ship. Thanks!!!

[mickev99]

Exceptionally helpful reading since we sail on Dawn tomorrow afternoon! Please let me know how quickly you cleared custom on the return into NOLA. we have 12:40 flights that day and I'm not anticipating any issues, but would sure feel better knowing that it only took you 30-45 minutes or less to be on the curb once you left the ship. Thanks!!!

 

 

We were supposed to be called at 9:25 and I would say they called our tag around 9:00, but we weren't ready. Don't know if it's normal for them to call early. I think we got off closer to 9:30. I looked back at a text that I sent my husband while he was heading up the stairs in the Fulton parking garage and it was 10:22, so we were definitely off the ship in about 30 minutes. I know sometimes they have problems with customs holding things up, though, but we had none. Have a great trip!!

[kenb]

Thank you for all your hard work. I'm glad your father is doing well. We are booked on the Dawn in April and I appreciate your review. Too many times people like to complain about every little thing. This is our 2nd cruise out of NOLA and our 10th with NCL. All our cruises have been great but not perfect.

[scott in maine]

We were supposed to be called at 9:25 and I would say they called our tag around 9:00, but we weren't ready. Don't know if it's normal for them to call early. I think we got off closer to 9:30. I looked back at a text that I sent my husband while he was heading up the stairs in the Fulton parking garage and it was 10:22, so we were definitely off the ship in about 30 minutes. I know sometimes they have problems with customs holding things up, though, but we had none. Have a great trip!!

 

Wow - that's great. Sounds like you were in the middle of the pack getting off the ship and still managed to do it in a half an hour! that puts my mind at considerable ease since we'd read more than a few tales of folks finding themselves in 2 hour lines upon debarkation @ NOLA. That was making me very nervous.... Sure appreciate the timely and helpful information!! (Best wishes to your Dad.)

[nanwel]

Thank you for a very real look at what we can expect on our cruise - grandma/ 2 daughters/2grandkids 5 of us, sometimes find that throws the numbers for them too - cannot figure odd numbers and table settings - end up giving us a table for 8 and we do not care for that.

The menu's and dailies will help a lot for our preplanning, and will let the 10/11 yr olds think if they want to go the kids area or not.

I love to preplan, my daughter likes to wing it - except she is not paying the $ when the cost is more than prebooking.

Glad your dad is doing better - a lot of stress for your mom too. Good luck to you/them in the future. Once he gets his meds/blood work on level, he will feel so much better!

Happy New Year!

[Derek Sutton]

Thanks a lot, we will be boarding this cruise in exactly one week and cannot wait. We really like to be prepared and organized and this will really help. When I have more time I will go back and read EVERYTHING. Just skimming though and am happy that we booked excursions through NCL.

[smokey11]

Thanks so much for the great review and copies of all the menus and dailies. We will be cruising in 2 weeks in the Dawn and it is great to have all this information!

[sunbird21]

Michelle, I love your review!!! Even if we weren't at the same ports on the same day, it sounds like our cruises had a lot of similarities!

 

We had some of the same rockiness on the seas, too, and Belize tendering was about as awful-just wait.

 

I'm glad your dad is doing better...the sodium is the most difficult thing for patients to change. Eventually it does sink in, though. Are you sure he won't be able to cruise again at a different time, or has he just decided against it?

 

In either case, it sounds like you had a good time(despite missing a certain excursion in Roatan:) )and you have a beautiful family!!

Stacey

[mickev99]

Michelle, I love your review!!! Even if we weren't at the same ports on the same day, it sounds like our cruises had a lot of similarities!

 

 

 

We had some of the same rockiness on the seas, too, and Belize tendering was about as awful-just wait.

 

 

 

I'm glad your dad is doing better...the sodium is the most difficult thing for patients to change. Eventually it does sink in, though. Are you sure he won't be able to cruise again at a different time, or has he just decided against it?

 

 

 

In either case, it sounds like you had a good time(despite missing a certain excursion in Roatan:) )and you have a beautiful family!!

 

Stacey

 

 

 

Thanks. My review is not nearly as cute as yours, though I can definitely be snarky, as I've been told. Knowing my dad, he will probably want to start planning a cruise when I go visit in February. He can't stand to not have something planned. We'll see what happens.

 

Can't wait to hear about tendering in Belize for you. Ugh!!