Wonderful Sites with So-So Food

Item: Norwegian Dawn
Rating: 3.7
Author: outlander1

Norwegian Dawn Cruise Review to Europe - Western Europe

outlander1

Contributor Level: Deck Hand

Cruises: 4-6 cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 28

Overall rating:

3.7 out of 5

Verified Review

British Isles: England & Ireland to London

Sail date: August 24, 2023

Ship: Norwegian Dawn

Cabin type: Inside

Cabin number: 10151

Traveled as: Family (older children)

Reviewed: 1 year ago

Review summary

We chose this cruise for the itinerary as we wanted to see as much as we could so, we ate off-ship quite often. Unfortunately, we were still disappointed in the quality of the food on the ship even though we were not really expecting it to be great. I will likely look into other cruise lines before considering Norwegian again.

Embarkation

4 out of 5

The boarding process was relatively easy

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

3 out of 5

We found the food to be rather sub-par. At our first dinner in one of the main dining rooms, we ordered a filet Mignon from the steak house for an additional charge. Unfortunately, the steak was slightly over-cooked above the request of medium rare and was covered in some kind bearnaise sauce, which should hardly be necessary for this cut of meat. Next we tried the Asian restaurant and were, again, dissatisfied with the quality. The sweet and sour sauce clearly had a ketchup base to it, making the whole dish quite sweet and tangy. The specialty Mexican restaurant was quite good and the buffet was rather hit and miss.

Onboard Activities

3 out of 5

While there was a large itinerary of daily events, most were not to our taste.

Entertainment

4 out of 5

The nightly stage shows were very good, particularly the aerialists that performed their own show as well as were included in an ensemble piece.

Children's Programs

No children on board with us.

Service and Staff

3 out of 5

Several of the servers we encountered seemed disinterested in their jobs.

Ship Quality

3 out of 5

The ship was clean and well maintained but, as an older ship, the design was certainly a little stale.

Cabin / Stateroom

3 out of 5

The cabin itself was well located and served our purposes and the bathroom was actually larger than we expected. However, it's proximity to the elevators (which we chose to make it easier on my mother-in-law) was a downer as the nightly music from 4 floors lower could still be heard in our room via the balcony opening between said elevators.