Cabin Review

This is an expert from a much larger review where I also included this room info.

We got onboard and were surprised we could go directly to our room. This is different from DCL as well, that keeps the magic behind the scenes and most room corridors are blocked off until guest rooms are ready around 1-2pm. It was nice to be able to find our room right away and a bit odd at the same time. The NCL staff had rooms propped open, as a welcome gesture I suppose. While this was great to get a sneak peek into rooms that we would not normally see the inside of (inside staterooms mostly), I felt this to be very odd for security reasons. I felt like the front door of my house was left open for the whole world to just walk in and explore. We had no gifts waiting for us or extras in our room, but what if we did? As frequent cruisers of DCL, we always have surprise goodies waiting for us – either from our TA or by being a Castaway Club member. Some rooms were still being flipped from the previous cruise and cleaning carts were in the hall corridors. Again, so small of a grievance, but started the vacation on the wrong foot. We wanted to still believe in the magic of cruising, not see the reality of someone’s dirty laundry being cleaned from the room as we board. We met our room steward, Xavier and introduced ourselves. He was kind and courteous, but a bit quiet and reserved. I’m not sure if we had a bit of a language barrier… but I did ask him to empty the mini bar items in the room fridge so I could put our water in there. He said, “Sure, sure” and never did. I asked the next day and he suggested to just pull everything out ourselves and rest on a shelf in the room. This did not seem like a good option either. Beer and wine were in there. Again, not being big drinkers ourselves, but I was under the impression that once alcohol was cooled, it shouldn’t be warmed and cooled again. I feared keeping things on the shelf would ruin the items for a guest who might enjoy them. In addition, we had limited shelf space and I didn’t want to take it up with a bunch of mini-bar items. I also let Xavier know we didn’t ever use the ice in the room and he could skip refilling it. Thinking this might save time and be a small way of helping him out. Everyday our ice was filled. Xavier was a great room steward and we were thankful for this bright star on our mediocre adventure.

The room itself (10526) was a basic balcony room, category BB. Deck 10, forward portside. We had a basic metal door, nothing fancy, nothing made it stand out. Some guests decorated their doors. Most didn’t. On DCL this is opposite. Almost everyone decorates with magnets and makes sailing a little more personalized and fun. NCL allowed tape to be used on their doors. DCL does not. To get into your room on NCL you have a standard magnetic key card room key that has to be slide into a slot in the door to unlock it. This is a small difference to the updated locks on DCL where you just wave your key over the lock area and the door unlocks for you. Again, such a small difference, why does this matter? Well on DCL, you wear your room key on a lanyard in a pouch and it’s nice to not have to take your key out of your pocket when your hands are full to open your door. Just another subtle difference.

The room was noticeably smaller than a comparable DCL balcony room and felt cramped. This was the 3rd sailing post refurbishment, where the bedding, rugs and drapes in all the rooms were replaced. The bedding was white and I did see some staining on it already. It did have a bright, cheery design when the curtain was open. The balcony curtain was also very good at blocking light if need be. The bed was high enough to store empty luggage underneath and out of the way. The room was covered in mirrors. Great for making things sunny and open, but be aware the whole wall above the bed is a mirror. The vanity area is a mirror and other walls have mirrors. It felt a little like a room you read about in a steamy novel. There was a small seating area with a couch that could turn into a twin bed if needed. Two small upholstered stools acted as extra seats or foot rests when using the couch. Our room could be opened to the adjoining room next door. The walls were paper thin and when we were quiet we could hear complete conversations of our neighbors. We wondered how much of our private conversations they could hear as well? We knew as soon as they got up, what their plans were for the day, who was mad at who and their life stories and dilemmas. We knew what they were watching on tv and more…..This is all while our door and their door were shut tight. They would smoke in their room and the smell would come under the door. I hate cigarette smoke and hated this. Now, smoking in the room is not allowed, but who is there to stop someone? I will say, I’ve never heard my cruise neighbor’s conversation while in my room on a DCL cruise. From balcony to balcony – sure, but in a closed room? Another poor quality design.

There was a small tv that got a few news channels, 2 movie channels and on tv show channel in addition to cruise specific channels. Movies were available for purchase for $9.95 for us (this was free for suite guests). The 2 free movie channels showed about 10-20 different movies over the length of the cruise. The one non movie TV channel showed The Goldbergs on repeat whenever we flipped channels. Movie titles for our cruise included: Spectre, Adeline, Goosebumps, Creed, Divergent (the second one), Pawn Sacrifice, Woman in Gold, Interstellar, Self/less, Bridge of Spies, The Good Dinosaur & more. Again, so different from a DCL cruise and left us feeling disappointed. On Disney, every single Disney movie ever made is available in an on demand manner. Animated, live action or Pixar movies are all available. DCL will also have an extensive on demand library of non-Disney movies, mixture of new and older releases. On DCL, all ships have a movie theater too. When Disney premiers a movie, it will premier fleet wide at the same time! We were lucky enough to get to see the latest Star Wars movie the night before the world premiere by sailing during this time on a DCL ship. Having a few movies to pick from on the Dawn just was very unimpressive when we wanted down time in the room. Some will question why we watch movies during a cruise. For us, we prefer relaxing and new release movies are a treat for us. We don’t get to normally get to new releases in our everyday lives, so to catch one feels special. There are inclement weather days, days when you want to avoid the sun, days you want to avoid people and order room service for all your meals. This is a real treat on DCL, not found on our Norwegian sailing. Our friends in the suite with the children did use their free movie option often for their girls, since there was very limited entertainment for younger ones. There were 4 child friendly movies they could pick from.

The closet was standard with plenty of hangers. There were shelves inside the closet, useable, but not easy access or light to see what you put on them. We found a hangtag stating that there should be a robe for our use while on the cruise and if we wanted to purchase it for $75 we could. We never found the robe…. Talking to our friends in the suite, the same thing happened to them. They did ask their steward about the robe and were brought a nice terrycloth robe for use while onboard. There was a standard safe in a little cabinet as well. Ours did not work at first, but after contacting someone, we got it fixed before setting sail. This seemed to be the same safe we find on the DCL fleet.

The bathroom was OK. We definitely missed our standard split DCL bathroom with 2 sinks and bathtub. The Dawn had a single entry door to the bathroom with hooks and bars on the inside to hang used towels or other items on. The room was stocked with a bathmat, 2 bath size towels, 2 washcloths and 2 hand towels. We prefer 2 bath towels a piece and Xavier brought the extra 2 towels for us upon request. When you walk into the bathroom, you stand in front of the mirror and sink. To your right is tiled shower, with clothesline for hanging wet bathing suits. It had a handheld sprayer that could double as a showerhead. To your left is the toilet with small door. This was a cramped area and my poor tall husband would find his knees hitting the wall if he sat down. Not to be petty, but the toilet paper was paper thin. Just another area of poor quality, making things feel cheap. Folks in room 8558 never had a working toilet for the entire cruise and could not get a resolution. Public restrooms were sparse and often out of service intermittently. Our own toilet did not work at times, but was fixed quickly. Our friends in the suite also stated their toilet didn’t work at times. Staff told us that the plumbing clogged easy and often, taking a large area of toilets out of commission. Various folks on the FB page complained of toilets going in and out of commission as well. The bathroom of our friends in the suite was GIANT. It had 2 sinks, separate shower, full size tub, scale and more. I think their bathroom was at least ½ the size of our whole stateroom!

Cruise provided toiletries are lemon eucalyptus scent in bulk dispensers. A conditioning shampoo and body wash were in the shower and a hand soap dispenser was in the sink area. They did give us a small body moisturizer and bar of soap. The bathroom had a mini sharp disposal container if needed. A small shelf above the sink held glasses and there was some shelving under the sink. No standard electrical outlets in the bathroom, but there was an included ‘normal’ blow dryer in the vanity area of the main bedroom. There was also a magnifying mirror in the main mirror of the bathroom.

Our balcony was small, 37 sq feet, but sufficient. The sliding glass door was VERY difficult to open and close. It would come off the track sometimes making it impossible to lock. The ocean sounds (which I enjoy) came through louder than I’ve been used to. This was not a big deal, but when the ship horn would sound – that came through as well – a lot louder than expected. Departing Boston and again on the last sea day, there was quite a bit of fog. This had the ship horn sounding off every 5 mins or so for safety. Just be aware, being on deck 10, we heard the horn quite a bit. Our deck 12 friends also heard the horn, but did not hear it when they were dining in other areas of the ship. Two chairs were on the balcony with a small table. There were glass panels. You could see where things were repainted during the refurbishment, because it was done so poorly. There was white paint on the glass, brown paint from the banister on the metal supports. When looking at our neighbor’s balcony, speakers swung from the ceiling where someone forgot to reattach them. Areas had peeling and chipping paint, which was just painted over. Rust was still apparent in spots and again, we were reminded everywhere we looked we were not on Disney where they practice preventative maintenance. The chairs looked new and were as comfortable as basic chairs can be. The table had a bad paint job and was fine to hold a beverage for each of us. The sloppy work we seemed to keep encountering, reminded us of a cheap airport motel. You know the kind you stay in because you just need a safe place to sleep for the night, but still don’t feel clean even after you shower. We still used our balcony, but not as often as we normally would.

The location of the room was great. We had a deck of rooms above us and below us, limiting public area noise with the thin walls. Other guests complained about public area noise effecting their cruise and sleep. (Deck 8, aft rooms, one of the worst offenders for noise). Being on deck 10 forward, we were 2 decks below the main pool area and the Garden Café buffet, where we reluctantly ate most of our meals. Most of the day bars were on deck 12 or 13 as well, making getting a frozen beverage a short walk if we were in our room avoiding the crowds. We were about 3 rooms off the stair/elevators, so we did not hear the noise associated with those features. All in all, we liked our location – we just didn’t like the ship. When coming into port in Bermuda, we encircled the island to get to the Royal Navy Dockyard. We had a perfect view from our balcony to watch the process. Another silly, but great thing about our location is my husband could see the docking process close up. He loves to see how things work and watched as the ships ropes were dropped and secured ashore. From our balcony we could oversee the dockyard during our stay, watching the action of everyone going ashore. It was great people watching – seeing the tours depart and come back in and the general workings of the dockyard.

Another added feature to our room location was the fact that our deck was ALL staterooms, no public spaces. Why does this matter? Well the ship’s layout was very convoluted, with many dead ends. It was so frustrating to get from point A to B. You would think if you were in the front of the ship and want to go to the aft of the ship, just walk in that direction. On most decks you’d be wrong. However, on our deck we could walk the length of the ship, then either take the stairs up or down to our destination. Some areas were still very difficult to access. This is true of the gym and kiddie pool area in the aft area of the ship. Getting around the ship was one of the major frustrations of our cruise, but was made easier if we were going to or from our room.

Another thing I feel compelled to mention was the beach towel situation. On NCL they provided a standard stripped beach towel in your room that they would like you to use on excursions or at their pool. Lose the towel and they charge your account $25. Maybe they do this on other cruise lines, but not Disney. On DCL you have unlimited towels that are provided near the pools. So you don’t have to remember to bring it from your room or bring it back when wet. You use as many towels as you like, then drop them in the towel collection bins when done. When you go into dock, they have towels as you step off the ship and then they collect them from you as well. This is especially awesome at Castaway Cay, so you don’t have to lug towels around for your family. Just take what you’ll use and drop off the dirty towels before returning back to the ship. Another small gesture to make you feel special, spoiled and well taken care of.