First time on NCL...The DAWN...Loved our ship, love our trip. We arrived a day early Saturday 1/14 ( left a snow storm in Cleveland) Rented a car for the day went shopping for a few cruise essentials we were told we would need ( soda, Water prepacked snacks- crackers, cookies and fruit drops)

The Cruise:

Dropped the car off at Hertz (downtown Miami) and had a shuttle to the port. Checked in terminal B. Embarkation was OK. At about 11:45 the boat was ready for us to board. When they called for the Latitudes members, a huge line formed. This was over half of the people waiting to board. The only negative was the pictures taking was hold up the line (so to find out, this happens every time you get off the boat). Once on board, we were ushered to the feeding "Trough" ...I joke about the Trough but to be honest we loved the buffet style food (lines can be long at the start of the line -- salad bar, you can skip to section 2 "hot Indian, Chinese, pizza" or 3 "deli" but section 3 was only open for lunch). Our state rooms were ready before 2. The luggage was delivered to the room for us by 3:30, except the duffel bag with soda, water and snacks. (More about that later) Read more