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NCL
Norwegian Dawn
Bahamas

John

Age: 39
Occupation: IT Consultant
Number of Cruises: 5
Sailing Date: September 11th, 2005


I traveled with my wife and we found the boarding process to be fine with 1 not too much waiting around. We think this was largely due to the fact that we were non-US citizens and had a different queue.

The Norwegian Dawn is a beautiful, modern ship. By the time we left the ship we were still wondering if the "artwork" on the hull suited such a graceful ship. The ship is tastefully decorated and we really could not fault anything on this aspect.

We found our cabin to be most acceptable - comfortable, neat and spotlessly clean. The cabin staff we encountered were pleasant and friendly.

After 2 days at sea we arrived at Nassau and stayed overnight. On the Wednesday we did the Dolphin Encounter excursion. This was a once in a lifetime experience and very worthwhile.

The following day we got to Miami where we did the BB hopper. We went to South Beach and then Bayside Shopping. Not much else to do there.

On the Friday we sailed into Port Canaveral and did the Kennedy Space Center tour - interesting and well organized.

The onboard entertainment was fair - certainly nothing great. Some of the best entertainment we saw was on the talent evening where passengers volunteered to entertain! We enjoyed the "Souled-Out Trio (although a duet for most of the cruise). For some reason halfway through the cruise they were moved from the Pearly Kings Pub where they we extremely well suited to the Atrium; a completely inappropriate venue for them. What were the entertainment managers thinking? Luckily they were moved back to the Pearly Kings Pub for our last night of fun.

We found the food to be excellent and dined in The Venetian, Aqua (where the ambience was terrible) and (our favorite) Impressions. We had no luck at the casino and the cashiers were unfriendly and abrupt.

Another staff member who was having a bad day was handing out trays at the Garden Café for breakfast - no greeting or smile, just a sullen look from somebody who was not happy with what she was doing. But it would be unfair to judge the staff on these two incidents. Overall we found them to friendly, helpful and pleased to be doing their job. Especially pleasant and friendly were the drinks waitresses all over the ship. In the Garden Café I witnessed people filling their old, used water bottles from a water dispenser with the mouthpiece touching the dispenser outlet. I reported this very unhygienic practice to the Maitre d' but I somehow think this is an ongoing problem (despite there been a notice to use a fresh cup every time). Needless to say we did not touch the iced water.

Another complaint was that in our daily planner we were told that we "had to attend" a meeting in the Spinnaker Lounge prior to arriving in the Bahamas. We dutifully attended to what sounded like an important function. We were met with some guy using "hard sell" to promote "selected" businesses in Nassau. The little bit of information regarding customs etc we got could easily have been conveyed to us via our daily planner. We left, highly unimpressed that we had been conned into attending a presentation and that our holiday time could be wasted like that.

My wife decided to have a massage but the moment was spoilt afterwards as the masseur also tried the "hard sell" technique to buy additional, very costly products. She felt that this was unnecessary and inappropriate. If she initially declined the offer to purchase products it should have been respected and left at that.

Due to Hurricane Ophelia our sailing itinerary was changed as we circumvented it. This meant that we did not get to the Great Stirrup Cay. This was not a problem for us as in so many of the reviews we've read it has not been highly regarded (overcrowded etc).

The automatic tipping of $10 per person per day was not very popular amongst passengers. I reckon a lot of people complain about this but NCL choose to ignore that and continue with this practice. Good information to have is that this is not mandatory and passengers can tip staff members at their discretion.

Generally the attitude on board is very relaxed and overall we enjoyed our trip and would not hesitate to recommend cruising on the Norwegian Dawn. We will definitely be doing so again.

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