A great cruise touching all the Baltic countries (except Russia)
Norwegian Dawn Cruise Review to Europe - Northern Europe
Contributor Level:
Purser
Cruises: 7+ cruises
Reviews: 2
Helpful Votes: 41
11 Night Baltic: Finland Germany & Denmark (Stockholm To Oslo)
Sail date: June 05, 2024
Ship: Norwegian Dawn
Cabin type: Inside
Cabin number: 10101
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 5 months ago
Review summary
The Baltics have a unique history, heard it first hand and saw places taught in grammar school. It was great! Beautiful cities, beautiful countries, would do it again! Pray this part of the world can remain as it is without outside influences.Embarkation
We were only fortunate that the weather was nice, in the 60's (F). The NCL-contracted transfer company did not deliver us and our to the luggage drop. We were in a line for almost two hours, mostly outside a large warehouse where the check-in took place. There was no delineation as to where we to go, only the line of people who informed us about the luggage drop. No one was sure why the line was so long except that multiple transfer busses must have arrived at the same time and there were not sufficient NCL check-in personnel. By the time we got to check-in, there must have been 20 staff checking people in but the backlog and queuing only got worse behind us, some said they spent three hours in the line.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
We went to Cagney's, Teppanyaki, and Los Lobos and each was outstanding/delicious but we had these restaurants as rewards. I am not sure they would have been worth the price if one paid the extra price. We ate at the Venetian (main dining room) most other nights and the service was great and the food very good. There was always a variety and we tried new foods as often as was available. Portions were great for a late meal and we always tried two starters, e.g. special soup and a salad. We love seafood and tried as many varieties as possible, but honestly most looked like the same fish but I am not a fish expert. We tried to avoid the buffet, not enough willpower! We do know that a lot of food offered in main dining seems to be available at the buffet, especially the deserts! They generally shut the buffet, where the soft serve ice cream was found, around 9:00-9:30pm so don't be late. My wife's biggest complaint with the "beverage card" was with Diet Coke and it being unavailable on most days. She being the Coke expert continued to complain when servers tried to tell her Coke zero is Diet Coke. She would have none of that nonsense and gave her expert opinion, ha! We had breakfast every morning at O'Sheehan's on the 8th floor. Beside being two floor down from our room and convenient, it had the foods we wanted and you did not have to fight the buffet or wait a long in the dining rooms. It was our little quiet sanctuary (food-wise). We used to love the casual Asian restaurant outside of Teppanayi but everyone must have found out how great their food was since there were lines/waiting from 1.5-2 hours so we passed on that this cruise but it is a great place to eat. The head chef was from India and as we expected, there were several dishes with seasonings common in Indian cuisine and though we do not like some of those seasonings, we did try food and found it very good.
Onboard Activities
We filled our days with excursions, eating, watching the great shows, and resting although my wife spent a lot of time in the casino, I didn't get near that place unless I was reeling her in, just my preference as an old man, rather not give my money away and the smoke was thick enough to cut!
Entertainment
We enjoyed our 7:00pm shows immensely! Singers, a comedienne, magician, acrobatic pair, the ship performers (song & dance) and a grand finale where several teams all performed together (hope I didn't give too much away). We aren't paying $150-$200 for a concert but the talent was great and we enjoyed every minute of these shows!
Service and Staff
Our understanding but with no 100% proof is that NCL has reduced some staff. That is fine with us to help keep the cost down. Our room steward was extremely busy. Our room was always clean and neat. We miss the little things from the past, time to get to know our steward better, seeing them in the hallways to be able to talk, the towel figures, mints on the pillows, all gone to cut cost but that is ok. You also could see the lack of waiter staff in the main dining room and buffets but there were always supervisors there to help guide to empty water glasses and the like. The service staff also may not be getting off the ship as much while in port and they deserve some time away since they are busy most of the day.
Ship Quality
We believe we heard from one of the room stewards that the Dawn may have just come out of drydock for some updates and the ship showed it, it was extremely clean and fresh looking everywhere, not dozens of painters around touching up rust and the like. The smaller ships like this have their quirks as far as getting around. Thank goodness for the maps and even then you had to sometimes go through a maze of rooms to get where you were going.
Cabin / Stateroom
We decided to go cheap with an inside room and bid for an upgrade. We decided against a patio since we expected to be off the ship and busy more plus the weather forecast looked cool and potentially rainy so we did not see the value. We bought a European A/C electrical adapter so we could charge more of our electronic 'stuff' and that was a great buy. NCL is still a little behind other cruise lines, the TV is smaller than my computer monitor at home! The room was plenty for us and would have slept a third person if necessary. Plenty of hot water, A/C worked well, and the overall walls and floors look clean with no stains or damage.
Ship tip
Use the NCL app but take a picture of the floor plan of the floors you plan to frequent, they don't put 'fish swimming' to point you to the front of the ship.
Thumbs up
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Ports of call
A beautiful city! We had a very good tour guide and got to see some history we knew about. It was not the excursion we wanted (filled up too quick) but still go to see the majority of sites we hoped.
Another beautiful city with a lot of history and right next door to Russia as were the first four stops. Great history lesson. We went on "The Best of Medieval Tallin" and it was our only Level 3 in activity. Cobble stones were pretty rough but the walks and small hills were manageable.
Hate to be repetitive but this was another beautiful city rich in history, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, all going through similar challenges. Beautiful churches.
Hate to be repetitive but this was another beautiful city rich in history, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, all going through similar challenges. We had the best tour guide, a young man from Ukraine who was extremely humorous and very sharp with his history. Most entertainment on an excursion in a long time.
NCL let us down on this one. We booked an excursion to a concentration camp, one of the principle reasons of the trip. All excursions were cancelled and "we were not notified" until we called the day before and asked about the tickets and meeting place/time. NCL made room for around 250 people to go to Gdansk but we were either late or not eligible, not sure. We took the 4-5 hours time to walk into and through Gdynia and that was a disaster. There was nothing for us to do in this town which is obviously not expecting to make much of a living off tourism. We went into a dozen or more shops and could not find any souvenirs or tee-shirts from Poland. There was another ship in town, not hardly any of those people to be seen. Rumor had it that NCL changed the itinerary/dates to Gydnia and the other ship in port got first rights to all the 'limited' excursion/tour companies. A mess.
Best excursion ever and one of the main reasons we came on this cruise. We were extremely lucky to book this excursion through Cruises.com/Shore Excursion Group, saving a couple hundred dollars. It is a three hour trip to Berlin from the port city and our excursion was by bus all the way. NCL used the train to go into Berlin before shifting to a bus. The Ukrainian president was in town that day and it fouled up the works for train/rail riders due to security. Our tour company had the routes and expected closures, rerouted order of sites, and we made it around all the 10 major historical sites with no delays and had more than enough time to visit each. So much history. Our guide wasn't the loudest person so we had to keep tight to hear him but he was quite knowledgeable and open about the past. We heard there were over three hours delay getting the trains back to the cruise port so we were blessed as well as lucky to use Cruises.com for our excursion! The Jewish memorial was exceptional! You need more time at the section of the old "Berlin wall", there were hundreds of plaques and pictures to visit below the wall and all I could do is just try to take as many pictures as I could to read them later, way too much to absorb in a short time.
Going through the submarine was great, better hope your back isn't hurting if you do go through, reason they don't have a lot of 6'-6" sailors on subs! The museum was extremely interesting showing the maritime history. Again, not enough time to read everything a see all the displays. We did not go into Hamburg although other did and liked their excursions. We wanted this hands-on opportunity.
An unexpected jewel for all the places we visited. Absolutely beautiful city and it was one 'picture postcard' after another. We had an excursion that drove us around for a couple hours and saw all the most important sites, including 'the little mermaid' and then took a canal cruise for a couple hours and saw everything from a truly different most times better vantage point. We also tried a "Hop-on Hop-off" on the second day since others had told us it is a great way to tour. Being new to the hop on/off mode, we only got off once to shop for souvenirs and a snack. It was confusing to us the first time since we had some delays and had to get off one bus and get on another on two occasions. I need to read more about how to take advantage of this service and try to find the 'don't do's' but it seems interesting since they have recorded talks about the area we drove, some of the same things that our excursion guide told us.
This was the only excursion (beside the 3-hour drive to Berlin) where we got to see the countryside and how people lived outside of the cities. We did "West Coast Islands" and while there was not a lot of city buildings, churches, museums, there was a lot of beautiful farm land. The small town we visited was so quaint and beautiful. We walked through the streets just like you would in your neighborhood and talked to a couple of the folks that lived there, and it was charming. Unfortunately we were in the town before any of the stores opened at 10:00am so there was no shopping. I wish I could remember the small town's name in case you go there early, the is only one "one-hole" (country term) WC in the town!!
Disembarkation
I give this a five-star but it was one of the worst disembarkations we have ever had BUT not through NCL's fault. Waiting on the elevator to leave, my wife got sick and was taken to medical where we spent our last two hours on board the ship. So very thankful the NCL medical staff, doctor and nurses, were qualified to help my wife! Be sure to care 'trip insurance' that covers the doctor visits.