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Carlos

Age: 52
Occupation: Sales Director
Number of Cruises: 2
Cruise Line: NCL
Ship: Dawn
Sailing Date: November 23rd, 2003
Itinerary: Bahamas

My wife and I along with our 3 kids (ages 16, 14 & 10) and my mother-in-law, spent Thanksgiving week on board the luxurious Norwegian Dawn for a 7-day cruise to Florida and the Bahamas.

Wanting to be aboard as early as we could, we arrived at the pier at 12:30 p.m. after a half hour on the ramp that goes up to the departure area. The reason for the jam was because passengers on the previous trip were still there being picked up by their rides as our batch came in. Checking our bags was a cinch but the line to the check-in area spilled out to the gate. After another hour of waiting in line and filling out immigration forms for the Bahamas, we finally made it to the counter where they take your picture
and is linked with your ID/key/credit card. Everytime they swipe your card when you leave and board the ship, your picture appears on the screen. A truly great security feature.

Finally, after posing for a pre-departure portrait with a picture of the ship as a backdrop, we got on board at 2:00 p.m. If you take this cruise, I suggest that you get there no earlier than 3 p.m.

Our bags were already outside our cabins when we got there so there are no bellhops to tip. We had 3 adjacent inside cabins on deck 8. One adult to a child per cabin is their rule. As you board the ship, you immediately notice how massive this ship is with a lobby bigger than that of a 5-star hotel. But you enter your cabin and you wonder how they were able to fit 2 single beds, 2 desks and 2 mini night tables plus a bathroom with a shower. You maneuver your way around the cabin the first 2 days but after a while you get used to it. The cabin is clean, the beds are comfortable and the bathroom is spotless. They keep it in this condition with the 2 make-overs a day. You never come back to the mess that you left behind since our room attendant Fernando cleaned it in the morning and late afternoon. He also makes dolls out of your towels and places them on top of your bed with a chocolate mint on your pillow. Nice touch!

There are 10 restaurants but 3 of them charge a cover. We went to all of them except for Gatsby's that charges $17.50/person. The Bamboo Sushi bar had excellent sushi and sashimi that kept coming by via a conveyor that passes your table. The Filipino wait staff were so courteous and helpful and kept asking us if we wanted something else other than what came by. We asked for unagi (eel) and got it 2 minutes later. If you like Japanese food, it's worth the $10 cover charge.

The Venetian is like the main dining room since it's the biggest and can accommodate a big crowd without reservations. The prime rib was so tender and delicious that I didn't put any steak sauce on it. The Garden Cafe located on deck 12 offers buffets for people who don't want to wait and be waited on. Aqua and Impressions are continental while the others are themed according to their names. A good word of advice: Friday night is surf & turf night, meaning lobster and fillet mignon so make your reservations as early as Monday. We couldn't get a table that night at any of the theme restaurants until 9:30.

My teenaged boys spent most of the day playing basketball, swimming and playing video games at the arcade. My ten year old was kind of lost since she's too old to be supervised but too young to wander by herself. They have an activity center for her age group where she spent the afternoons and gave us the time to be alone.

The bars are well stocked with domestic and imported wines and beer. Domestic beer is $3.74 each with the 15% gratuity included but you can get any domestic wine and beer at half price during happy hour at the Pearly King's Bar. The beer drinkers took advantage of this by buying buckets of 6 beers for $11.22. Sammy the bartender was so accommodating and very knowledgeable especially with mixed drinks.

The casino on deck 6 is small but large enough to offer table games such as blackjack, Caribbean poker, 3 card poker, baccarat, casino war and let it ride. It also has roulette and craps and hundreds of slot machines ranging from nickel to dollar. The only thing missing from this casino as in other ships, is the complimentary drinks. Yes, you pay for them and the only way around it is by signing up with the club to earn points/dollars that can be used to purchase drinks.

The Port Canaveral stop didn't do anything for us. My kids have been to Orlando several times and didn't want to go to the Space center so they stayed on the boat and played basketball. My wife and I took the bus ride to the Mall and Wal Mart where I bought a bar of soap since our bathroom had dispensers that you push and gel soap squirts out.

Miami was also a waste of time since we really didn't want to go shopping in Bayside and walk around South Beach so we spent the day laying by the pool and read.

In Nassau, we went to Atlantis to see the aquariums and we really enjoyed watching the sharks and thousands of fishes. It's similar to the Mandalay Bay attraction where you walk in a tunnel surrounded by aquariums. It costs $25/person to get in and $8/person roundtrip for the cab ride.

The Great Stirrup Cay is an island with white sand beach and clear and pristine waters where you can see fishes and stingrays swim alongside you. They have a bar and hold a barbecue cookout for lunch. The only drawback is toilet facilities which we found rather disgusting. I guess it's the lack of water pressure that made it hard for them to keep them clean. Back to the ship at 2:30 p.m. where everybody headed to the pool and the party continued.

Entertainment is so-so. The band at the Spinnaker lounge was mediocre. The singing duet at the Dazzles Bar bored me after a couple of songs. Phil Hughes the ventriloquist was funny on the first show but kind of became predictable on the second. Kieran the cruise director is funnier I think. The singer who played the piano was great. A combination of Barbra Streisand/Bette Midler/Bernadette Peters, she entertained the older group to which I belonged. The Karaoke Bar was entertaining until the kids took over. a quartet of 3 men and a woman sang pop songs and were okay but listening to them night after night can be boring too.

When the ship docks in New York at around 8:45 a.m., don't rush to get out since we didn't disembark until 11:00 a.m. Had I known it I would have spent another hour sleeping. The color coding of disembarkation was wonderful and efficient but then it was our turn to meet heads with the next batch when we got out of the pier. NCL should start boarding at 2:00 p.m. since the ship doesn't leave until 6 p.m. anyway.

On the overall, I recommend this ship to everyone, young and old. It's a great experience and I would do it again!

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