We cruised on NCL Norwegian Dawn from Miami to the southern Caribbean. The ship was very nice and we took the advice from a cruise reviewer and went directly to the Venetian Restaurant for lunch when we got on the ship. Our cabin was small but the shower in the bathroom was the largest we'd ever seen on a cruise ship.The square table in the corner was a real nuisance trying to get around that edge of the bed. We were disappointed in the surcharge at most of the restaurants. They tried to tell us that the cost was what we'd pay for a tip back home in a restaurant, but we've never paid $10 per person for a tip, let alone $25! We ate all our breakfasts and lunches in the Garden Cafe- the food was very good, and our dinners in the Venetian. The food there was adequate but nothing spectacular. The staff was very nice except for a few exceptions. Our toilet wouldn't flush on 5 of the days, but after reporting it, it was taken care of fairly quickly - something to do with a problem with the vacuum lines. They offered to move us to another room after the 4th time, but we stayed put as we were pretty well settled in by then. The entertainment was excellent. We found the Dazzle Lounge show with Jose and Patti to be exceptional, and spent most evenings there, before and after the shows in the theater. The shore excursions were very expensive, so we found our own tours in the ports through local taxi companies.There was a $2.50 charge for a bottle of water when you left the ship in port, so we bought water in the port for less than 1/2 the cost and brought some back on board with us to refill bottles for future days. There weren't very many chairs out on the decks for sitting. On sea days, we found the Spinnaker Lounge to be a nice quiet place to read during the day, the card rooms were nice to play cards, but be sure to take a sweater. The Salsa restaurant also was a great place to play cards during the day.The pictures taken were disappointing - mostly only 8x10's. If you wanted to get 5x7's, you had to buy the 8x10's first.

Our first port was Samana, Dominican Republic. We didn't find an excursion we wanted to spend the money on, so we didn't go ashore. We were advised that it wasn't safe to go ashore unless you were going on an excursion. Many of the excursions sent boats out to the ships to pick up passengers. Many of us stayed aboard ship. We couldn't understand why they would even stop in a port that wasn't safe for people to go in to. Very disappointing.