Norwegian Dawn Review

4.0 / 5.0
3,018 reviews

Disappointing

Review for Bermuda Cruise on Norwegian Dawn
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bcoperalover
First Time Cruiser • Age 80s

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Sail Date: Jul 2009
Traveled with children

My husband & I travelled with our children & 2 grandchildren on the 7/16 sailing  to Bermuda on the NCL Dawn.  We had 3 cabins which were booked in October 2008.  We made the final payment in early May & some 2 weeks later the price had dropped approximately $2332.00 on the three cabins.  NCL would do NOTHING in terms of a refund, onboard credit or voucher toward a future cruise.  I didn't even receive a reply to the letter I wrote to Mr. Colin Veitch CEO of NCL, which I consider to be very rude.  As a last resort I was able to get an upgrade from the inside  JJ category to outside cabins.                                                                                                                                                                      The cruise itself was very disappointing in many respects.  The food in the dining rooms was mediocre at best with the service being fair to poor.  On the second night we had a 5:30 reservation in Aqua & did not leave the dining room until 8:30PM.  I don't think that the free-style dining has been beneficial for the cruise experience.  If you do not make reservations there are long waits in the Venetian or Aqua & the servers seem to be indifferent since they don't develope any raphor with the cruisers.  In addition, the same menu every night gets boring! On subsequent nights we dined in Salsa with Luis as our waiter &  the service was wonderful & the  food delicious.  We also dined in Cagney's where the  T-bone steak was excellent & the service very good.  Our son & his wife had sushi in the Asian restaurant which they said was excellent.  Most lunches we ate in the Garden cafe which had very good caesar salad, but the rest of the selections were the ordinary buffet fare. Another area I did not particularly like was the pool chair setup.  There are no lounges in shady areas around the pool & the lounges are on a tiered area  around the pool in the sun. The pool area was very  noisy and sunny & I could not find any quiet   outside area that had adequate chairs.  The only quiet outside area was on deck 7 outside  Blue Lagoon which had only a handful of chairs creating a problem for many of us.  The Blue Lagoon was a good alternative for light snacks & lunch.                                                                     Our cabin steward was friendly & helpful, but getting towels was like pulling teeth.  The cabins had adequate shelves & hanging space &  the bathroom was small with a tiny toilet area.                                                                                We enjoyed  the casino & we found the dealers & pit people to be very  friendly as were the bar servers throughout the ship.  Our grandchildren enjoyed the kids camp & they  were well supervised.                                                                          All in all we had a wonderful time, just being with our family but I would not rush to take another NCL cruise.  

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