Let me start with this was our first cruise. The Dawn is an absolutely beautiful ship. We went through embarkation in New York. The employees there were very loud and shouted a lot. They unfortunately had no PA system or microphone of any kind. This would have eliminated them having to walk through and continually shout the same information every 10-15 feet. Otherwise, I thought embarkation was extremely smooth. I was worried as I had not gotten my passport and would be traveling with a birth certificate and drivers license. My worries were unfounded. The check in staff was courteous and was able to get us processed in an extremely expedient manner. One of the most annoying things I noticed through embarkation and throughout most of the cruise were people who were latitudes members or thought they should be more important giving staff an attitude. Customs does not care which cabin you are staying in so sit down, be patient and wait your turn. The only thing their attitude did was annoy people around them and the staff who they were trying to bully. I wish I could say these incidents were isolated, but unfortunately they were not. We were let on after embarkation and they had us enter on deck 6 forward. We were given a list of places which were open at the time of embarkation which was 12:00 noon. One complaint I had was that there was no map given with this list and for an hour we wandered all around the ship trying to find these places. If you are unfamiliar with the ship I would suggest printing out the floor plan and taking it with you. There is a mini map in the cabin, but I think this would be better served if given out upon embarkation or possibly included in all of the information the cruise line sends you prior to your sailing.

We ate lunch at the Venetian which I cannot stress enough is Gorgeous!!! You spend a lot of time in this restaurant as this is the only full service restaurant which is open for breakfast and lunch. The others are only open at dinner. The Venetian is breathtaking, if you can get a table by a window the views are incredible whether you are in port or at sea. The food was very good, my favorite was the goat cheese and pancetta quiche. We were told our room would be ready at 2:00 pm and it was. We did have a hard time finding it as you cannot walk from one end of the fourth floor to the other and had to go up to five and then back down to four at the front of the ship. Our room was exactly as I expected it would be. The room was small, but very clean. My husband got the soda plan and there was a letter in our room instructing us to go to the Java Cafe to get the sticker on his card. We also arranged for the Anniversary Package and our champagne with chocolate covered strawberries were already in the room, Yum Yum!! I was disappointed that the champagne was not chilled, but I put it in the fridge and we had it later that night. There was a ton of pillows and we found the beds very comfortable. They were not together as we had requested, but they were on casters so we just pushed them together. There was a lot of information about the ship on the television and in the blue binder. Take the time to read it. The room service order forms for breakfast are in the back of the book, this confused several travelers who we spoke with. There is not a lot of storage for your clothes, there are three drawers, two small shelves in the closet and a hanger for your clothes. If you do not have a lot of clothes to hang up try a tip I read on one of the message boards. I packed a shoe holder, not the pocket kind, but the shelf kind that hangs from the pole. This gave us an additional 7 storage cubes for clothes and this really made a difference. There is also plenty of room under the bed to put a medium sized suitcase. We had an inside cabin, unfortunately I do not feel this room should be used and if you find yourself in room 4511 I would call your travel agent or Norwegian and demand to be moved. The room was clean, but you are in between two mechanical rooms. Our first night we barely slept due to noises from the room next door. We were able to get the majority of the noises stopped the next morning, but we walked through that day with almost no sleep. It turned out there is a water tight door the staff was using as a shortcut and every time the door was opened an alarm would sound. Until the alarm was shut off manually it would go on and on. But, I do not like to complain, the front desk said that the door would not be used for the rest of the cruise, my comment was the door should not be used at all whenever this room is occupied. We did go up to the pool and the band was going and the servers were serving the drinks in the souvenir glasses. Take advantage of the 8.00 pricing of the drinks, just do not forget to take the glass back to your room. I saw many glasses left behind and thrown away. We went up to the top deck and watched as we passed by the Statue of Liberty. The view was truly incredible.

A side note, go to the lifejacket and lifeboat drill. They have it for a reason and they know which cabins show up. If you do not go you will be called individually and have to do it later. They do this before the ship even leaves port and if you do it later you will be missing something fun. Just go, suck it up and listen, it only takes 10-15 minutes and the employees try to get through it as quickly as possible. Read more