Our NCL Dawn Experience- My husband and I are avid cruisers and have decided that freestyle cruising was definitely for us. We have sailed on 6 different cruise lines and never, never been as disappointed in the food as we were on this cruise. The first night we tried to keep an open mind even though the dining room did not serve as nice a meal as any of our local chain restaurants. The 2nd day was at sea, we expected as usual some special offering in the main dining room. After going to the cruise critic members meet and greet we were very discouraged to see the menu for dinner. It involved the regular menu which was a left page full of things you could have every night, like chicken, fish and chips, and a small steak---and the right hand side would have one soup, one salad, and 2 new entrees and 1 vegetarian dish. That night it was braised short ribs and a vegetarian dish that sounded awful. We asked an officer at the meeting why the food was so disappointing so far. She said that they had a new chef and were experimenting with a new menu. She was sure we would get more "special" meals offered later in the cruise. So, we decided that that night would be a good time to try a specialty restaurant since there was nothing on either menu that sounded tasteful.

IF you don't want to be a passenger guinea pig for the NCL menu testing, read further:

We made a reservation and went to the Bamboo, and ate their "Asian Fusion" menu. Being from California and having eaten oriental food from around the world, we did have some high expectations. The first course was a little promising as the Chicken salad dish was a bit unique. But after ordering 10 other dishes to eat family style, as they were very small portions, we found we could barely swallow some of the items down. The "sauces" were all the same and ketchup based. All the meat was in large, flavorless chunks and there were almost no Chinese flavors we recognized. My husband grew up near China town and is somewhat of a experienced Chinese food expert. We ended up leaving the table with most of the dishes barely touched. We felt that if we were going to eat those kind of calories at least they should be tasty and worth the workout in the gym which we had planned. The "pork ribs" where short ribs from the dining room's menu with some brown sauce and sesame seeds. Read more