Norwegian Dawn Review
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Boarding Our flight arrived on time in Miami a bit before 10AM so we hopped in a taxi ($24 flat fee) and were at the dock by 10:30. Check in at that hour was painless, no lines at the first counter where we registered and had our shipboard ID pictures taken. Then upstairs to get our IDs, again no line. I had read about ships taking your passports at check in and keeping them all in a central safe somewhere but either that practice has been discontinued or it did not apply as we held onto our own passports. Since we were early the ship was not yet ready so we sat in a waiting area until a bit before 11:30 when they let the passengers board. The Garden Cafe was open so we got lunch then lounged on the deck until the rooms were available around 1:45PM.
The Ship The ship appeared to be in good repair. I liked the paintings on the wall outside when you walked around deck 7. The atrium was tall, I think it started on deck 6 and went up to deck 13. I never did get the hang where some of the public rooms where, but they gave us pocket maps when we boarded to a quick peek at them always straightened things out. The one issue I saw was a leak in the ceiling of the corridor a few rooms to the aft of ours. There was a bucket on the floor to catch the drips for a few days. Then on Saturday there was a trash barrel instead as water poured from the ceiling and the maintenance folks worked on it. They got it fixed but the hall there smelled moldy all day after that.
Dining Breakfast We had most of our breakfasts in the Garden Cafe. As far as I could tell the food available there for breakfast never changed the entire cruise. It was OK but nothing special and the place was typically packed. My one gripe would be the "crispy bacon" was never crispy which was a shame as I love my bacon crunchy! We had a couple breakfasts in the Venetian which had about the same menu as the Garden Cafe but was much less crowded and of course has waiters. They do have a better juice selection as well. Service was pretty good although the one waitress kept looking off at her other table when we were ordering so I stopped until she was paying full attention.