To celebrate my 60th birthday my husband & I decided to do our 1st ever cruise. We wanted to do something exciting & that none of our friends in Australia had done before so after a lot of research we opted for a Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) Southern Caribbean cruise which included the ports of Samana, Tortola, Antigua, Barbados & St Kitts.(the last 3 ports were the ones that we wanted to see the most)

We asked another couple to join us on this incredible journey & booked 2 staterooms on the Norwegian Dawn's cruise from Miami 11th Feb 2011 to 20th Feb 2011.This cruise was booked in Feb 2010 as we didnt want to miss out on this amazing adventure.

We were so excited when booking the Dawn but that was to be squashed a number of times throughout the cruise. The 1st disappointment was the day we boarded 11th Feb 2011 as the ship was over two & a half hours late leaving Miami ( of well we must have got the time wrong).After we had been sailing for approx. 2 hours the captain announced over the PA system that there was an engine problem & that we were going to miss our 1st port of call Samana Dominican Republic & spending a second day cruising to Tortola. He advised that there were technicians on board trying to fix the problem & that he expected that they would resolve it asap & to compensate everyone for the inconvenience each stateroom would be credited $100 to their on board account. Read more