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Norwegian
Norwegian Dawn
Bahamas

Doug

Age: 44
Occupation: Technician
Number of Cruises: 2
Sailing Date: September 11th, 2005

We set sail out of New York City, and because of Hurricane Othella we had to go further out to sea than normal to go around the hurricane, in fact it would take us almost an extra day at sea to get to our first port. And because we had an extra day at sea that changed the course of things and our first stop would be the Bahamas, we arrived there Tuesday night and we stayed all night there and left Wednesday night, was really cool to have the extra time to spend in the Bahamas. On Thursday we were in Miami, and Friday Port Canavril. Great Stirrup Cay was cancelled but no one seemed to care, I never heard one person complain.

This being our second cruise I felt everything was second rate as compared to our first (Carnival Legend). Norwegian was second rate in every aspect... with one exception the main Dance Productions in the Theater on the Dawn they were outstanding! but... every other show or event on the Dawn was bland at best, and with crew running them who could barely speak English and just seemed to not have a clue or care if things were done right. Some of these really were a joke.

The Karaoke seemed busy every night simply because of location and there were so few things to do as compared to Carnival, but it was second rate with crew running it that barely knew how to keep things going. The Casino seemed nice enough, the two $5 Blackjack tables would quickly fill up, and other table games would have no one, you would think they would close them if no one was going to play and open another Blackjack table or two.. but no. They really only had one pool party at night, which seemed a huge success, they should have had every night. Other than that the pool deck would close way too soon... we could never figure out why? leaving guests with really nothing to do. Where on Carnival there was so much to do that you seemed to be missing out on something.

The food was pretty good, but if you wanted the best you had to pay extra. ummmm I don't think so. The buffett was so much better on Carnival, as was the main restaurants, the freestyle was neat... but we found it odd the we were a Party of fifteen and even with reservations they couldn't comprehend that we would like to sit together, how hard it would be to push a couple tables together so we could all eat our main meal together... nope, they just couldn't handle any request out of the ordinary without sending them into a confused panic.

The shops on the ship were unbelievably expensive with less of a selection than Carnival, another huge disappointment. Carnival is way way ahead of Norwegian in this area.

The ship was beautiful, but the layout seemed not to flow to well.

We didn't have a bad time by any means on this cruise, but it was second rate in almost every area as compared to Carnival.

The Norwegian Dawn seems to be a Carnival wannabe ship that just falls short, I really don't know that we will cruise Norwegian again, Carnival is so much further advanced, next up Royal Caribbean we already know that they have a stellar reputation, and I must say Norwegian lives down to their reputation. Oh well still had a good time... trust some of the negative reviews... I didn't.

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