We just cruised on NCL Dawn (FEB/07) Read my review:
Embarked port of NY 2/8/07. Beautiful and clean ship.
We went cruisin' for our 39th anniversary. We picked NCL and Dawn based on the freestyle dining concept and general reviews. Booked through AAA. Third cruise, first with NCL. Previous Carnival & RCCL.
We drove to Morristown, NJ from Hershey, PA, caught the NJ transit, and took a cab to the pier from Penn station. Arrived at approx. 12:15 p.m.
Embarkation procedures incredibly smooth and fast. We were on board in about 15 minutes. Concierge was near the reception desk on deck 7, so we were the first ones to book reservations at the specialty restaurants. We booked Cagney's, le Bistro, Salsa, and la Trattoria. Couldn't have been easier.
Our room wasn't ready (9th deck, inside - wife gets motion sickness easily - wore the patch), so we headed to the Venetian main restaurant. Very good lunch with excellent and friendly service. Cabins were ready at 2:30 p.m., and we were pleasantly surprised with the layout of the cabin and the relatively roomy bathroom that had a shower with a glass door. Plenty room for storage and utilized the safe. Brought extra hangars, and only needed a few.
Entertainment - excellent shows and performers. roomy and elegant stardust theatre (3 levels). Frediani & Second City stood out. Bollywood was unique and very well done.
Dining - very good to poor. Service was spotty, excellent one time and poor the next. Food was fair to good at main restaurants, with minuscule appetizer portions. Desserts poor to fair. Not fresh. Entrees disappointing both in portion size and quality of selection. Seemed that fancy names disguised common dishes. Specialty restaurants ranged from poor to excellent - Cagney's was excellent, le Bistro very good, Salsa fair, la Trattoria poor. Service was excellent at Cagney's, very good at le Bistro, fair at Salsa, and poor at la Trattoria. Enjoyed the Garden Cafe at various times for breakfast, lunch and late snacks. Good variety and never any long lines. However, desserts poor to fair. Blue Lagoon (24 hr joint) was decent. Wings and fish & chips were very good, but portions were small, so had to order doubles or triples. Service was usually very good. One note about specialty restaurants – never crowded, usually always had empty tables while we were there, and whenever we passed and looked in. Bamboo restaurant was virtually empty every night.
Room stewards – excellent, friendly and efficient. Always had fresh ice. Special requests were met with a smile and were done ASAP.
Reception desk/credit desk – friendly, efficient and knowledgeable. Overall, staff on ship were cordial, except officers, who usually did not acknowledge our presence.
We booked a basic excursion on each island (except San Juan) through NCL. It included sightseeing, beach time, and shopping. We learned later that we could have done the same and cheaper if we had booked with the native drivers. On San Juan we checked with a local bank before booking with one of the natives. Not only did we have a great time and see much more, but it was three times cheaper than NCL’s price. Note that we docked on schedule at each stop so that we had plenty of time everywhere.
Overall we enjoyed the cruise, as the good things outweighed the bad. Will we go with NCL again? Maybe, but we want to try Holland America and Princess before we do so. We really missed the friendly, get to know you service at the restaurants, but we did appreciate the ability to dine whenever we wanted to. Again, we didn’t run into any lines but we ate early (6:00 p.m.) or late (8:30 or 9:00 p.m.) depending on the day’s activities.
