Review: Norwegian Cruise Line - Dawn - [November -- , 2004]

[Net Reviews]

Review By:

Reviewer Comments:

I just returned today from the NCL Dawn. Overall, an extremely
enjoyable cruise. Prior to this, I have only sailed on Celebrity.

Embarkation - my husband is in a wheelchair (quite a few health
problems, so he can't walk or stand for any long length of time). As
soon as they saw I was dealing with a wheelchair, an extremely helpful
guy was assigned to us. He took care of us from the curb to our cabin.
We were wheeled ahead of everyone, so we didn't have to wait in line.
I felt bad for the other guys, since it felt like cutting, but
relieved for us - by the time Conrado got us to our cabin, my husband
had to lie down.

Disembarkation - somehow, we were put on the Concierge/VIP list, so we
were the first off the ship this morning. Actually, because my husband
was in a wheelchair, we would have been the second group off the ship.
Again, one guy took us from the ship to the curb - he got a porter for
us, helped me find my bags, and even found the security desk, which
had confiscated my husband's pocket knife at the beginning of the
trip.

Service - was excellent. Always smiling, friendly and helpful.

Room service - was very nice. At one point my husband was not feeling
well, and although toast was not on the menu, they brought it for
them. What's nice about the room service is that they have kids stuff
(pizza, pb&j and hot dogs), so we used that sometimes. Room service
should be tipped as you order.

Room Steward - our room stewardess was Bella, and she and her
assistant were so very, very nice to us. They were very considerate of
my husband, and helped him as needed. They also made some great towel
animals - Celebrity doesn't do towel animals, so I was happy to
finally get to see some. And, even better, on our last day at sea,
housekeeping gave lessons on how to make some of them.

The kids program was great - my son (9 years old) is still in tears
today because he had such a great time on the ship, mostly due to the
kids program and the T-Rex pool. At the back of the ship is a pool
designed just for kids - it has one regular pool about two feet or so,
two other pools with slides (not big huge scary ones) and a little
baby pool with an itty bitty slide. An especially nice feature was a
Jacuzzi in the middle of this - Mom and/or Dad can watch their little
ankle biters having fun while relaxing in the Jacuzzi. Once every so
often a bar waiter comes through and you can order drinks. They also
have a video arcade.

Spa - I didn't use any of the services. They had several kinds of
massages, skin care and relaxation treatments. There was also an
indoor pool, Jacuzzi and Thalassotherapy pool (kind of like an
oversized Jacuzzi). The spa is OFF LIMITS to kids, so if you want a
swim with no kids around, this is the place for you. There is no
charge to use the spa pools.

Entertainment - the magician (Ed Alonso) was hysterical, albeit a
little sick. My husband is a magician, and I have seen a lot of
magicians, and found his act extremely funny and enjoyable. Some of
his jokes were a little 'risqué', but would go over the heads of kids,
so it was nothing to worry about.

I didn't like the comedian - I found him rather crude, but others in
the audience were wiping tears off their faces.

The juggler was pretty funny, and did some things well, others not so
well (he kept dropping the cigar boxes), although to be fair, it is
pretty hard to juggle on a rocking platform.

The other shows were extremely entertaining. Fantastic production
numbers.

This cruise went to St. Thomas, Antigua, Barbados, St. Maarten and
Tortola. For St. Thomas, we arrived on a Sunday - about one hour
before the shops in town closed. Only the shops in Havensight were
open. This was disappointing, since there was a specific shop we
wanted to visit.

Some things I noticed that need improvement:

More family activities needed, especially in the time from 5 to 7 pm
when the kids program is closed. My son would just get a hot dog or
something fast and then we needed to find something to keep him busy.
Since there were no age appropriate activities other than the video
room or the T-Rex pools, this was a tough time. It would be great to
have like family trivia (cartoons etc), limbo contests, bingo where
the first prize is like an NCL hat or something, and consolation
prizes are balloons. Learn how to make balloon animals, or cupcake or
cookie decorating. There are a lot of inexpensive activities that could
be held.

We tried to go to the Card/game room, but all the games were missing
pieces (e.g. Yahtzee had no dice in the game box, and there were no dice
to be found anywhere in the game room). I think they need to have some
sort of sign out method for the games - maybe across the hall in the
library, or at the front desk. Also, more family friendly games such
as Cadoo, and the junior versions of games such as monopoly and
scrabble would have been great.

I reviewed everything else separately, but wanted to give food it's
own review.

First off, I love the freestyle cruising - no set times for dinner,
which is really helpful. It gave us a lot of flexibility - something
especially important when traveling with children (we have one son 9
years old). If we wanted to eat together, we could eat between 5:30
and 7 when the kids program started (since my son wanted to not miss a
single second of the kids program). If we wanted to eat separately, we
could feed him at either the buffet, the blue lagoon (a 24 hour snack
bar) or room service. My husband, however, prefers the set eating
time, since it makes it easier to get to the shows. (I wasn't
organized enough to make it to dinner and shows every night).

The sanitation was very, very impressive. A big worry of mine was my
husband contracting something, since his meds suppress his immune
system. At the beginning of each buffet line, and at each restaurants
front desk, there is a motion activated, touchless machine that has
hand sanitizer. The first day of the cruise, all the staff reminds
guests to use the sanitizer. The Buffet is set up in 4 sections - each
section is open only for maybe an hour or two at most. Once the
section is closed, the entire section is practically taken apart and
scrubbed down to get any little bugs that might even fantasize about
having a party. All the beverage machines in this section are scrubbed
down at this time too. Guests are encouraged to take a fresh glass or
cup for each refill. I was told that NCL consistently gets marks of
'100' from health inspectors.

In general, I would rate the food overall an 8 out of 10. The fruit,
vegetables and fish were excellent - I rarely came across a poorly
prepared dish in these categories. The fruit soups were for the most
part excellent, although one night we had a pistachio and pears soup,
which tasted good, but the pistachios should have been more finely
ground - the large chunks were extremely distracting. The breads were
so good I'm now inspired to try to recreate some of them at home. The
chicken was usually good. One night my husband had duck and was very
happy with it. The meat (lamb and beef) was disappointing - although
flavored well, it was not good quality. I found the lamb tough, and my
husband said his meat was more like eating at the Sizzler. (I don't
eat beef).

The fruit based desserts were good - I loved their cobblers and one
night we had a 'slump' (I'm not sure what the difference is between a
slump and a cobbler, but it was good). Cherries Jubilee was really
good. My son ate his weight in pound cake, I believe. The other
desserts, such as mousse and the cakes, were not really sweet enough
for our tastes. We are used to butter cream icing, and they use whipped
topping, so the desserts were usually not worth the calories. They
really need to get just plain pies and butter cream cakes for
Americans.

Anyway, there are 10 restaurants, not including room service. 3 are
the main dining rooms - Aqua, Impressions and Venetian. They all share
the same menu each night (the menu changes each night, but is the same
in all these restaurants). They always have a vegetarian choice, and
if nothing appeals to you, you can request pasta with tomato sauce.
The waitresses really push the food. One night, I wasn't really very
hungry, so I ordered just an appetizer and a salad. The waitress must
have asked me at least 4 times if I was sure I didn't want more food
(maybe they have a Jewish mother gene in them somewhere). Another
night my husband and I wanted to make the show, so we left without
eating dessert. Our waitress saw us the next day sitting down, and
actually spoke sternly to us (in a friendly, joking way of course),
for leaving without dessert.

There are two specialty restaurants which you need reservations for -
an Italian and a Tex Mex. It is very hard to get reservations unless
you're organized enough to do it the day before. Since I don't know
from day to day how my husband is feeling, I couldn't plan to eat at
any of these.

There are another three specialty restaurants with a cover charge. One
of them we didn't bother with - it was a steakhouse, and between my
not liking meat and my husband finding the quality of the beef not
very good, we didn't bother.

A second restaurant with a cover charge is an 'Asian Fusion'
restaurant. They have an all you can eat Sushi bar for $10, various
Thai/Japanese/Vietnamese dishes etc. We ate in the Teppanyaki room -
it was extremely entertaining, although the food was not particularly
terrific.

A third restaurant with a cover charge was the French restaurant 'Le
Bistro'. The food was fantastic, and I will always remember with
extreme fondness the Chocolate fondue. They used a very high quality
chocolate, and gave my husband more fruit when he wanted more. My one
minor complaint was the plastic water pitchers - here we are in an
elegant French restaurant, and they're using plastic water pitchers.
They need to lose the plastic. It's okay in the other restaurants, but
for some reason I found it extremely incongruous in the French
restaurant.

The 9th restaurant in my review is the Buffet - they always seem to
have at least one section open. Every day at lunch they have a
vegetarian buffet - the Indian food was VERY toned down, but still
delicious. There is a kids buffet area - small chairs, lower tray
rests etc. Hot dogs, chicken nuggets, French fries etc. The main
buffet areas also usually have kid friendly choices. There is also a
soup station, a pasta station and a fruit station at the buffets.

The 10th restaurant is the 'blue lagoon' - a 24 hour snack bar. Hot
dogs, fish and chips, fried rice (they prepared mine without the pork
and shrimp). My son had pound cake and milk there every night - by the
end of the cruise, the waitresses were our friends here. One waitress
gave him a HUGE plate of pound cake to bring back to the room. They
were very, very funny.

Actually, there are also a few other places to get food. The Bimini
bar has grilled chicken, hot dogs and French fries. The pool area has
Barbeques at lunch, and also has an ice cream bar (no charge for the
regular ice cream, only for the Haagen Dazs). There was also a
Chocolate buffet at one point - the food wasn't great, but the
chocolate sculptures and artistry was nicely done. There is also room
service. Also, there is a buffet by the pool some evenings (maybe all)
- by that time, I'm not eating anymore, so I didn't really pay
attention.

Just a few things that might improve things: They should use colored
food wrap on the glasses for room service - we kept pouring liquids
onto food wrap not realizing that wrap was on the glasses of ice for
room service. The grits were too watery - they need to be thicker.
Beef should be better quality, or use tenderizer. And they need to get
desserts with butter cream.