Last week after 18 months of planning my family and friends (17 in total) sailed on the Norwegian Dawn and the trip left a lot to be desired. The majority of my past cruises have been on Norwegian and I can honestly say that I’m not sure I will ever sail with them again. As a large group who planned this cruise for over a year in celebration of our friends 40th birthday we collectively spent more than $30,000, which I understand in the grand scheme of things is small change but to us working class folks was difficult and took a lot of sacrifices to make the vacation happen. If you don’t know what the word debacle means it can be defined by our week on this cruise ship. Personally I sailed with my 9 month old son and my husband. I was charged $700.00 for the baby who didn’t eat any of the ships food or participate in any of the ships activities due to his young age. I had to pack a week’s worth of baby food and toys for him and pay for him the same amount our friends paid for their 15 year old.

We arrived at the Black Falcon Cruise Terminal in Boston as a group and from the minute we got out of our bus it was a bad experience. The baggage handlers were extremely rude and unhelpful. We went through the check in process and because my husband and I had a suite we were made to be separated from our group and enter the boat separately which was supposed to be “VIP” access. Well our 15 friends actually made it onto the ship before us and we missed out on the group embarkation photo because we were made to enter separately. The next issue we encountered was that our luggage did not arrive to the room. Our room was a suite so at 6pm I notified the concierge who ensured me that while we were at dinner he would take care of it. I came back to the room at 10pm and the luggage was still not there. I called and was told I had to go down to the front desk and talk to them. So I put my 9 month old back in the stroller and went down to the front desk. The staff on this ship was the most unfriendly hostile group I have ever encountered on a cruise. They were very unhelpful. I described the bag perfectly a large orange Eddie Bauer rolling duffle bag. Rather than get the bag for me they made me trek down to where the luggage was kept with my baby in the stroller and get the bag. Every other bag down there was black or blue. The orange bag wasn’t mistakable. The concierge who was assigned to our room did almost nothing but drop a plate of fruit off in our room daily. He on several occasions came in when the do not disturb sign was out and on our final morning of the cruise when we arrived back in Boston he banged on our door at 7am and asked when we would be leaving . He woke our infant son who then cried and would not go back to sleep. My husband explained we were getting off when the color purple was called because we were with a group and that’s when we were all departing. He stood there as if he were waiting for something perhaps a tip but we did not feel it was exceptional service and we pre-paid our gratuity so we opted not to give him any extra money, he stood there at 7 am basically staring at my husband waiting for a handout until my husband shut the door. It was a very awkward and uncomfortable situation. Then after he was specifically told that we were getting off the boat with the purple luggage tags he knocked on the door again 30 minutes later to see if we were out.

The dining experience was disappointing as well. Our wait staff in the Aqua restaurant was beyond unfriendly. We were with a large group so we made arrangements to be seated at a large table. The table was a long table and ended up having two different servers so they took orders at different times and we never ended up eating at the same time due to the wait staff being different. I have literally received better service at a rest stop McDonalds off the interstate. We were repeatedly asked to clear our own plates to the edge of the table so the waitress could take them. The crumbs were never swept from the table and it basically was such an unpleasant experience we ate at the buffet a few nights just so we could avoid it even though we would have preferred a sit down meal. I have never experienced anything like this on a cruise ship. Read more