Embarkation: We live in Florida so we drove over the morning of embarkation. We easily found the ship and parking garages. The signage seemed to be much better this year than in the past. Some improvements have been made in the port of Miami. Beware though, depending on the garage that is adjacent to your ship you may need to come up with $140 cash before parking. We did pay cash and easily found a parking spot. We carried our luggage over to the porters from the garage because there was quite a back-up with buses when we drove by. Effortless and easy. We arrived about 11:30 am and were on the ship by 12:00 pm. We are Lattitudes members so we had a different line but I didn't see that this really made a difference. We followed the advice we received on these boards and at 12:30 headed straight for Venetian for lunch. Great idea! It was relaxing and a terrific way to start off the cruise. We lunched next to a window overlooking the port. There were very few other diners. Sail-Away: Unfortunately it was the one rainy day we've had in Florida in months. Sail Away was held in the Spinnaker Lounge and was fine. Unlike others who've commented on these boards my husband and I did not find the wait staff to be too pushy with drinks. In fact, the waiters were very polite all week, present when needed but definitely not pushy at all. When we went to our room we had to go on the hunt for our luggage. It had not been delivered by 6:00 pm and we wanted to freshen up. We located it in a luggage room on our deck. Our cabin steward immediately brought it to us when it was located. Ship Services: Service: We found the service to be excellent everywhere we went on the ship. Staff was friendly and seemed to be happy. They went out of their way to be sure we were taken care of whether it was in a dining room, stateroom or deckside. Our cabin steward was fabulous- attentive but not too pushy. Our room was always clean and towels changed out. Our son was excited to find a new towel animal every night. I know, it's a little thing but goes a long way to put a smile on a face. Dining: This was the one area where we were disappointed. We love freestyle and enjoy the variety of restaurants. We had done our research and knew to make reservations the day before we wanted to get in a restaurant so we had no problems with this. Our favorites were Teppanyaki, Le Bistro, Salsa and Impressions. Service was flawless everywhere but we were disappointed with the menu selections in the Aqua and Venetian restaurants. The lobster night consisted of lobster in a pasta dish. Beef was always in some kind of a sauce. There was no sign of a sirloin or good-cut of steak anywhere on the menu (we did not go to Cagney's- just didn't have time to go everywhere). Choices ranged from beef-stroganoff to chicken or fish in sauces. Many times the advertised item was just a tiny bit of the dish, ie, my "duck salad" had a minute piece of duck in a bowl of pasta and sauce. We did enjoy the Blue Lagoon. My son and husband loved this for a snack. Their food was delicious and true comfort food. We found the buffet to be good, food selection interesting. Hot foods were very hot, cold foods cold and it was rarely mobbed even though we were on a full ship. We did miss the action stations from the Jewel and look forward to more of these with 2.0. Entertainment: We enjoyed the shows but were not overly impressed. The lounge entertainment was good, large shows fair. We thought entertainment had been better on our past cruises. There were one or two nights when we seemed to run out of things that interested us to do. We're early nighters though so we were happy to get ready for another day. Kids Activities: Our son is at the older end of preteen so the 10-12 activities didn't really interest him, not the fault of NCL, just not a lot of fun for an almost 13 year old to play with 10 year olds. We had a 17 year old and 18 year old with us and they found themselves in "old peoples" activities much of the time. Because the 18 year old is too old for the teen club they found not to many things for their age but they had a good time joining us and going to some of the smaller clubs with the older crowd. Ports of Call: The ship itinerary was good. We did not get off the ship in Samana. Instead we really enjoyed the day on a quiet ship. Our teens enjoyed the pool time and other activities on-board. In St. Thomas we were disappointed to find that we docked at Crowne Bay. This was unexpected and the taxis were much more expensive for us for a group of 5 people. With five ships in port it was pretty crowded. We shopped in the am and enjoyed a nice lunch in town. Tip - the town cleared out about noon as people headed to the beach so it would probably work well to do the reverse of what most people were doing - go to the beach in the morning and then shop in the afternoon when it's quieter in town. I don't know why the change in docks for this port for our day. Tortola - we loved this port. We booked a catamaran through an independent company found on these boards and had a great day. It rained some then the sun came out. Snorkeling was beautiful. Important tender tip - Tender tickets were given out 15 minutes before the advertised time every day. I got in line about 30 minutes early and had no problem getting first tender for our excursions. Great Stirrup Cay - Beautiful water and a pretty beach but very, very crowded. We got early tender tickets and found a chair. Those who came in later had a difficult time finding a place to settle. The barbecue was fine, burgers and hotdogs, nothing fantastic but good. We found the snorkeling here to be not so good. There were fish but not much coral. If we did this again we'd probably not spend the money on the snorkel but rent one of their really big rafts. Those seemed to be the most fun thing on the island. Sea Days: We had lots of fun on the ship and there were many activities from which to choose. We found the chair hogs in full force though. My husband went out at 8 am and found the last two chairs poolside. This may be because the Dawn has only one pool. Lots of chairs and sundecks but the action is poolside. Others have complained about constant announcements but we found these to be at a minimum on the Dawn. Not bothersome at all and very infrequent. Disembarkation: This was effortless and well planned. NCL just seems to do embarkation and disembarkation really well. We walked our luggage off about 8 am and were at our car within 30 minutes.