My wife and I went on the Sep 18th 7 day Bahama cruise on the Norwegian Dawn with two other couples. Overall the cruise was excellent. A little background - We are both in our mid twenties, no kids, and this was our first cruise.

Embarkation: Since there were 6 of us it was actually less expensive to take a Limo from central Connecticut to the pier than it was to pay to park 3 cars for the week. The limo was able to pull right up to the pier entrance where there were porters waiting to take our luggage. The check in process was fairly painless. The only problem was that there weren't really any signs telling you where to go once you got inside the pier. Once we found the check in counter it took maybe 15 minutes to get through the line and get all the paperwork taken care of. They had a small area set up with finger sandwiches and breads to eat while you waited. We only waited about 25 minuets and then we were whisked through the x-ray machines and had our photo's taken for the I.D. cards. We stopped in our room first. The room was ready but the luggage wasn't there yet so we decided to find some lounge chairs on one of the upper decks. The ship left the port on time and soon after we were all taking pictures of the statue of Liberty as we sailed right by it.

Cabins: We went the least expensive route when booking the cruise and booked an inside cabin on deck 4. When we checked in we found out we were "upgraded" to an inside cabin on deck 10. The cabin was nothing to write home about but wasn't too cramped and seemed adequate for the week's vacation. There were plenty of shelves and hangars to put all the clothes and shoes that we brought, a mini refrigerator, and an electronic safe. Read more