NCL Dawn Review - excluding food

Wonderful observations Heidi! We sailed pretty much the same cruise as
you this past January(11 day w/Dominica and Grenada). Such a great
deal for East coast families who would normally have to pay airfare on
top. Sadly the stop in Tortola was much too brief.

Coincidentally, our son shed a few tears on the last night of Kids'
Crew too though he wouldn't admit why. How much is standard to tip on
room service? You are right. The only family activity I remember was
the pizza making hour in the Kids' buffet. I only found the 5-7 time
lacking on sea days which actually allowed me to play some basketball
with the kids.

The only thing we liked about our HAL cruise more than the Dawn was
the daily Afternoon Tea, hors d'oeuvres with our pre-dinner cocktails
and the classic deck chairs. But the martini clinics on the NCL Dawn
and missing from HAL more than made up for it!

andrew


On 28 Nov 2004 17:59:23 -0800, (nekochan) wrote:

I just returned today from the NCL Dawn. Overall, an extremely
enjoyable cruise. Prior to this, I have only sailed on Celebrity.

Room service - was very nice. At one point my husband was not feeling
well, and although toast was not on the menu, they brought it for
them. What's nice about the room service is that they have kids stuff
(pizza, pb&j and hot dogs), so we used that sometimes. Room service
should be tipped as you order.

The kids program was great - my son (9 years old) is still in tears
today because he had such a great time on the ship, mostly due to the
kids program and the T-Rex pool. At the back of the ship is a pool
designed just for kids - it has one regular pool about two feet or so,
two other pools with slides (not big huge scary ones) and a little
baby pool with an itty bitty slide. An especially nice feature was a
jacuzzi in the middle of this - Mom and/or Dad can watch their little
anklebiters having fun while relaxing in the jacuzzi. Once every so
often a bar waiter comes through and you can order drinks. They also
have a video arcade.

This cruise went to St. Thomas, Antigua, Barbados, St. Maarten and
Tortola. For St. Thomas, we arrived on a Sunday - about one hour
before the shops in town closed. Only the shops in Havensight were
open. This was disappointing, since there was a specific shop we
wanted to visit.

Some things I noticed that need improvement:

More family activities needed, especially in the time from 5 to 7 pm
when the kids program is closed. My son would just get a hot dog or
something fast and then we needed to find something to keep him busy.
Since there were no age appropriate activities other than the video
room or the T-Rex pools, this was a tough time. It would be great to
have like family trivia (cartoons etc), limbo contests, bingo where
the first prize is like an NCL hat or something, and consolation
prizes are balloons. Learn how to make balloon animals, or cupcake or
cookie decorating. There are alot of inexpensive activities that could
be held.

We tried to go to the Card/game room, but all the games were missing
pieces (eg Yahtzee had no dice in the game box, and there were no dice
to be found anywhere in the game room). I think they need to have some
sort of sign out method for the games - maybe across the hall in the
library, or at the front desk. Also, more family friendly games such
as Cadoo, and the junior versions of games such as monopoly and
scrabble would have been great.

That about winds up this portion of my review. I am reviewing food
separately.


Carnival Tropicale 1982
NCL Dawn 2004
HAL Noordam 2004

If you packed the offending pocket knife in luggage you would have
access to it throughout the cruise YET they confiscate it when
boarding???

There are also plenty of metal knives available onboard (unlike an
airplane) which could be used as well. I don't understand why they do
this on a cruise.

AWB

he got a porter for
us, helped me find my bags, and even found the security desk, which
had confiscated my husband's pocket knife at the beginning of the
trip.

Speaking about metal knives, on our Lufthansa flight from Vancouver to
Frankfurt for our Oceania Regatta cruise they had real cutlery, including
metal knives with our meals. If you wanted to bring a sharpening stone in
your carry on, you could have had a nice shiv.

Tobieon an Island in the Pacific

"Adolfo2" wrote in message
om...
If you packed the offending pocket knife in luggage you would have
access to it throughout the cruise YET they confiscate it when
boarding???

There are also plenty of metal knives available onboard (unlike an
airplane) which could be used as well. I don't understand why they do
this on a cruise.

AWB

he got a porter for
us, helped me find my bags, and even found the security desk, which
had confiscated my husband's pocket knife at the beginning of the
trip.

Speaking about metal knives, on our Lufthansa flight from Vancouver to
Frankfurt for our Oceania Regatta cruise they had real cutlery, including
metal knives with our meals. If you wanted to bring a sharpening stone in
your carry on, you could have had a nice shiv.

Tobieon an Island in the Pacific

"Adolfo2" wrote in message
om...
If you packed the offending pocket knife in luggage you would have
access to it throughout the cruise YET they confiscate it when
boarding???

There are also plenty of metal knives available onboard (unlike an
airplane) which could be used as well. I don't understand why they do
this on a cruise.

AWB

he got a porter for
us, helped me find my bags, and even found the security desk, which
had confiscated my husband's pocket knife at the beginning of the
trip.