Will never cruise again

Norwegian Dawn Cruise Review to Caribbean - Southern

samnicole0519

Contributor Level: Purser

Cruises: 2-3 cruises

Reviews: 2

Helpful Votes: 12

Overall rating:

2.8 out of 5

11 Night Southern Caribbean (San Juan Roundtrip)

Sail date: January 27, 2019

Ship: Norwegian Dawn

Cabin type: Oceanview

Cabin number: 6508

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 5 years ago

Review summary

My wife and I just returned from our cruise on the Norwegian Dawn. I am sad to say that we had a terrible time not only with the quality of the ship but with your lack of customer service. It started with the terrible dinner we had at Los Lobos restaurant. It made me very sick to my stomach and I had to run back and forth to the bathroom several times within 24HRS of eating that terrible food. We didn't say anything to the front desk at this point because we figured it was a fluke and we would look forward to dining in your other restaurants. Then we experienced Teppenyaki (your hibachi restaurant). It seems that if you get one of the last reservations of the night that you guys don't care what type of experience your guests have. It was obvious that the person cooking the food in front of us was some kind of trainee because he had to be constantly helped when cooking the food. Not even the help he was getting could come close to improving the poor quality of food presented to us. It started off with him burning all the garlic and still using it in the fried rice, all you could taste was burnt garlic. Then all the vegetables were under cooked and our protein was not cooked at the correct temperature. It was so bad that all the people at the table talked about how poor the quality of the food was that night. We decided that we would say something to Guest Services. When we were talking to Guest Services, the agent's smug attitude about our complaints was incredibly off putting. He was able to get in touch with the Assistant Chef (not the Head Chef) and he came down right away. We expressed our concerns to him and he said that he would communicate this to the Head Chef. We didn't hear anything back from anyone for 2 Days!!! We had to go back to Guest Services and once again inquire if we could talk to the Head Chef. Again, they got in touch only with an Assistant Chef. We did not want to go and talk to another Assistant if our message wasn't going to be taken seriously! After some time had passed we returned to our room to find a message on our phone saying that they took off the dinner charges from that restaurant. We had the dining package so they took off that we used one of our dinners there. The problem here is that it took not only 2 Days for some kind of answer but we had to go up to Guest Services TWICE!!! UNACCEPTABLE!!! In this time that we were trying to get an answer from someone about our dining experience we also ran into a problem with a credit that one of our family members have given us for the trip. When we addressed this with Guest Services, that smug individual told us that they would have to write an email that would go to the corporate office and that it would take 3 DAYS FOR AN ANSWER!!! We asked for the number and our family member who had given us the credit, called the corporate office and had it rectified within 24HRS. 3 DAYS!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!! Not only does this show how lazy your staff is, please tell me why they couldn't pick up the phone and get the same results??? Also, we had asked for them to let us know when our credit would appear. WE HAD TO AGAIN FIND THIS OUT OURSELVES BY MONITERING OUR OWN ACCOUNT!!! Then we ate at Cagney's Steakhouse, which we were excited about because we had such a good meal on our last cruise that we went on, The Bliss. How does a Steakhouse not know how to prepare the main thing that they are advertising... STEAK!!! My wife's steak tasted like shoe leather and my steak was not properly seasoned AT ALL. To be honest I don't think it was seasoned PERIOD! One of the managers that was walking around the restaurant asked us how our meal was and we told him what was wrong and the only thing that they did was take back MY STEAK and I saw them just put salt on it!!! SERIOUSLY??? Anyone that knows how to prepare a steak knows that if you don't season it well before you sear it when you first start cooking it, you can't go back and season it after the fact and expect it to come out right with that succulent crust. They brought back my steak and we told the manager that it was embarrassing that they couldn't get our steak right. As we were walking out after not finishing any of our main course, we told the manager that we would like whoever was in charge to contact us to settle this horrible dining experience. Once again we waited... And... NO ONE CONTACTED US!!! After 24HRS of no one contacting us we, YET AGAIN, went up to Guest Services. We expressed our concerns and told them that our cruise was turning into a nightmare. The agent who we spoke to just laughed it off uncomfortably and told us that they weren't able to do anything until someone contacted us. We again told them that no one was contacting us and again she laughed it off and told us to express our concerns to the Cruise Next agents. At that time the Cruise Next agents were not in so we stormed off and told Guest Services that we were very annoyed at the lack of service that they were providing. The next day we went to talk to the Cruise Next agents to see if anyone could help us. The Cruise Next agent who talked to us was very helpful but explained that he could not do anything except put in a ticket to their system in order for someone to contact us. We waited again and all we got in the next 24HRS is a note on our door from someone named BB. The letter only upset us more because it asked if we were hopefully enjoying our cruise. HOW MANY PEOPLE DO WE HAVE TO TELL IN ORDER TO GET OUR POINT ACROSS ABOUT HOW HORRIBLE OF AN EXPERIENCE WE WERE HAVING!!! And as much as we appreciated the effort of the note we received, why on earth would no one leave us a message??? You guys have no problem leaving a million Cruise Next messages but no messages addressing our concerns!!! We tried going to Guest Services ONE MORE TIME with note in hand. We had written notes on the note that was left on our door incase BB wasn't available. Not only was BB not available BUT... NO ONE AT GUEST SERVICES KNEW WHO BB WAS!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!! I put the note on the desk in front of one of the agents and told them when they do find this made up person BB to have them give us a call. I also asked them to cancel any other reservations that we had made to any of the specialty restaurants. At this point we were over trying to talk to anyone about anything and decided to document our experiences in this letter you find yourself reading here today.We also received our bill on the last day of our trip and low and behold!!! They charged us for a specialty restaurant that WE DIDN'T EVEN EAT AT, LET ALONE STEP FOOT IN!!! And during the last day when trying to pull closed the sliding door that separates the toilet from the rest of the bathroom, the whole door came off its hinges and fell on my head. But what was the point in telling anyone??? It was our last day and we wanted to get of that god forsaken ship!!! I did try calling Guest Services one more time on our way out because I refused to go down there and be face to face with your lazy, smug, inconsiderate staff. The agent I talked to, told me that not only could he not help me over the phone but when I asked for a manager of some kind, he told me that all the managers were off the ship at the moment helping people get off. I understand the managers wanting to help people get off. But HOW DO YOU NOT HAVE AT LEAST ONE MANGER ON THE SHIP IF SOMETHING WERE TO HAPPEN... ON THE SHIP!!! We also had a horrendous experience dealing with your medical staff, my wife was very sick towards the end of the trip and to understand anything that they were trying to do was an absolute CRAP SHUTE!!!