Wonderful 10 days Greek Isles Cruise
Norwegian Dawn Cruise Review
Contributor Level:
Purser
Cruises: 7+ cruises
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 23
10 Night Greek Isles: Santorini Athens & Croatia (Trieste To Istanbul)
Sail date: November 14, 2023
Ship: Norwegian Dawn
Cabin type: Suite
Cabin number: 11176
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 11 months ago
Review summary
A fantastic itinerary with a variety of ports and plenty to seeEmbarkation
Very quick and efficient at Trieste
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
Generally excellent. Venetian was better than other MDR we have been on in terms of fine dining. Food not always piping hot however. Garden Cafe excellent selection for breakfast and lunch although the layout was not very user friendly and caused congestion. Le Bistro was top notch but wasn’t fussed with Moderno
Venetian (Main Dining Room)
We liked the ambience and generally excellent service. We pre booked our table as lines could be long. We like to dress up for dinner and it felt appropriate to do so In Venetian
Garden Cafe
Generally excellent but crowded at times depending on ships schedule.
Onboard Activities
Entertainment
Elements was the best show we have ever seen on a cruise, and would command high ticket price in London. Superb
Service and Staff
Staff were all fantastic, friendly helpful and efficient. Big shout out to the guys in Gatsbys who helped make our cruise so enjoyable!
Ship Quality
Once you work out which areas are which, and which decks you can’t walk all the way round etc, layout was good. Very clean
Cabin / Stateroom
Lovely size club balcony suite. Plenty of storage and living space. Nice to have a decent bathroom with plenty of room! Enjoyed the sweet treats, fizz and complimentary laundry bag. Nice balcony.
The bed was so comfortable and cabin generally very quiet - except for service times in the Garden Cafe!! Be aware the cafe is directly overhead and you can hear constantly scraping chairs being moved during service times. I did speak to an officer to suggest easy glide feet were put in the chairs!!
Ship tip
Choose your excursions wisely. We opted for 4 out of the 10 ports as on this itinerary, many had interesting ports you could spend hours walking around on your own steam
Thumbs up
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Ports of call
We disembarked in Istanbul but had an evening flight so deposited our luggage at the port and had 4 hours wandering around the city before taking a cab to the airport.
Warning: Easy Point luggage storage at Galataport is - in theory - easy and cheap (€10 for 6 hours per case) and convenient. BUT everyone was struggling with the app unless you have a Turkish mobile number! The ground level shop doesn’t open until 10am and we wasted 90 minutes trying to get the self service lockers to work on level P1. Once the shop opened, the employee was brilliant setting ours up using her Turkish mobile to get locker code etc.
It was Friday so mosques closed to the public but we had a lovely few hours seeing the main sites etc. Got our luggage then a Galataport taxi to the airport!
Trieste is not “Venice”! We knew this having visited before, so arrived a day early and stayed in the NCL favoured hotel near the airport for the night, Crowne Plaza.
This was fine as right next to the railway station to get across to central Venice etc so spent the day before the cruise exploring.
Our transfer to Trieste was a picturesque coach ride and we could have wandered around Trieste but decided to just settle in onboard Dawn.
We booked Ephesus and Terrace Houses which was a fantastic excursion with NCL with a terrific guide. It was a very early start though, but well worth it. The site is huge with lots to see.
We did stop at a “carpet shop” on the way back, but this one was very interesting, upmarket, and we didn’t feel under any obligation to buy (unlike others on a private excursion who felt very intimidated and upset with their carpet shop stop).
I didn’t realise how huge and industrial Izmir port is and had no desire to venture back out (although there was no time anyway) so suggest an excursion for this port.
The Turkish security lines back at the ship were around the block!!
Excursion not needed.
This is another tender port but it wasn’t a problem getting off. We chose to walk up the 600 odd steps out of the caldera. Apparently the queues for the cable car were 2 hours long (imagine in high summer!) and we weren’t going to ride the donkeys.
The steps are long and broad so it was quite easy to walk up with stopping points but a bit slippery and watch your step for the donkey doo!! I was pleasantly surprised that the donkeys looked healthy and well treated (unlike the horses in Egypt), but still think it is unfair to use them.
There were plenty of cabs but we chose to get the hourly bus to Oia - abject chaos at the bus station!!! Seriously, sort it out!!
So worth it though, Oia is even more stunning than the travel guides. Just don’t go in high summer!
We did Magnificent Blue Eye and Lekursi Castle excursion with NCL which also gave priority tenders.
The port itself didn’t look very inspiring and the traffic to get out was horrendous. But the hair raising drive to the castle was worth it - more amazing views and dodged the rain.
After the old church, we went to Blue Eye - a fantastic series of springs with water so clear, and a very picturesque drive to and from. Our guide Alma was excellent
We originally hadn’t planned an excursion but as Olympia was cancelled, we used our refund to book Delos. Wow amazing island, 100% archaeological ruins with a ferry ride from the old port. Great excursion tho the guide perhaps gave too much info, and the audio packed up. Would have been good to have free time to walk up to the Mount.
Back to the old port and a walk around Little Venice, up to the windmills. Again delightfully sunny and quiet for the time of year!
We took Athens on your Own with NCL, more for security and peace of mind in case we were late back, but honestly don’t bother - it’s a long day in port so just take a cab or the bus.
We didn’t bother pre booking Acropolis tickets and just queued for 20 minutes on the day. Awesome visit - more blue skies!
Loved also walking around the old town and parks with archaeological sites at every turn!
No excursion needed.
Beautiful city, walked up to the Trsat Castle which was a walkway of some 500 steps, steep but well worth it, amazing views and free entry.
The city also has other buildings of note and was very clean and pretty
It rained!!
But no excursion needed as you can see the main sites on foot although the signage looks great, we did get lost but worth exploring.
There were shuttles to the port entrance from the ship. Be sure to find the rotunda and the arch in addition to the White Tower
No excursion needed.
Beautiful port and city, plenty to walk around including the old Palace which is part of the town. Worth climbing to the top of the bell tower for amazing views. We were so lucky with blue skies in November for this lovely port
Disembarkation
We elected to self assist and this was so easy at Galataport in Istanbul. We were advised against this by NCL due to “long, zigzagging walkways” but it was absolutely fine