We recently completed a 14 day cruise from Quebec City, QC to Boston, MA and back on the Norwegian Dawn. NCL considers each half of this as two separate cruises, but with different itineraries coming and going many people book them “back to back”. Ports of call consisted of a lot of different places in Atlantic Canada and Maine, many of which required “tendering”. While of course the cruise company has no control over weather, we had mostly clear conditions every day but one including one where we had a wonderful view of a total lunar eclipse.

The Norwegian Dawn is a smaller cruise ship, with about 2200 passengers. I don't like the new larger ships which have huge lineups for everything, long distances to walk, and a lot of amenities I don't need.

Embarkation was orderly and smooth, though the security screening lineup was long. Similarly the disembarkation was very smooth and quick, with less formality than I’ve ever seen from a cruise ship. I am glad both these things happened in the modern port in Quebec and not the port in Boston which frankly reminded me more of a bus station, situated as it was in an old warehouse. Read more