Norwegian Dawn Cruise Reviews - Reviews

The itinerary of this tour was great. The ship is getting worn out, although the size is good. Food was okay, breakfast and lunch were boring after awhile. Staff is stretched thin, especially servers in the bars and pool areas. You may not see one! Overall, I was on a cruise and had a good time.

Great cruise. Very busy itinerary. Would do again.

Can’t wait to explore the Eastern side of Africa. As I said before, remember this is Africa and very few ships have been to these ports. Follow ship rules and advice and enjoy the adventure.

Totally disorganized management of every aspect of this cruise. Would not recommend. Got the impression that NCL could care less.

For me, they did not have enough activities and the food was not good compared to other cruises that I have been on. They need to step up their game. This was my first time sailing on Norwegian and I am hoping that this cruise was not indicative of other Norwegian ships. If so, I will not be cruising Norwegian again.

Overall OK cruise. NOt impressed with food. NCL App is awful. Never works

This was a very unsafe cruise and should have been cancelled. No one was happy about this cruise due to safety concerns. The front desk staff was uncaring and pretty much did not want to hear any concerns. We also had 2 nights of "black out" due to high risk Pirate areas in the Red Sea which we were not informed of prior to the cruise. UNSAFE! UNACCEPTABLE!!!

This is a cruise designed to introduce travelers to some of the most important sites in Western history and culture, while giving you a comfortable bed, tasty meal, and ample libations along the way.

I don't know that I would vacation again this late in the season, the waters were rough and certain tours were canceled then we got sick as many guess were sick. When we arrived home we were testing positive for COVID.

Norwegian Dawn penthouse suite w balcony an overall excellent experience, especially our cabin team, the service in restaurants and bars. The disembarking experience was a true buzzKill for an otherwise enjoyable cruise.

Generally we were very happy with all the ports and excursions (except Paris, which was the most expensive). The ship is desperate need of maintenance!

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.

The overall quality of the cruise experience has gone down since before covid period. The service,food and drinks all were not as good as before. I had take many cruises on NCL and this was the most disappointing.

Definitely would do this itinerary again but maybe on a different ship with more attention to Entertainment. Also the internet was the worst we’ve had on any ship.

Overall, the cruise was great - it was an excellent adventure. It's just that the food was disappointing in each area, because we had done 2 other NCL cruises with the food being exceptional in every area, buffet, dining room and specialty restaurants.

The major criticism is the lack of excursions offered by NCL. The ones that they offered were sold out months before the cruise.

What was most disappointing was that when I signed up, the cruise was described as having only one tender port. In fact 5 of the 9 ports utilized tender boats. A cruise that was supposed to have only one sea day, in fact had four. This was upsetting to my wife who hates sea days and can’t wait to get off the ship in port.

Norwegian let down a lot of previously loyal customers. The published itinerary showed one tender port, and the remainder to be docks. It turned out that all ports were tender ports except for two. Tendering was a big hassle, and Priority guests did not get priority for the return tender. It may sound petty, but for the price of a Suite and promises for priority tendering - what are we getting for the extra cost? They never provided priority for return tendering. They canceled three of the eight ports, including Dublin which is a huge port to miss, and communication about the cancellations was poor. The first two ports that the captain decided to scrap, I saw it on the navigation channel and called the Concierge to ask him why we weren't stopping - the second one he wasn't even aware of - but they didn't make an announcement until an hour later. For the third one, they disabled the navigation channel so nobody would see that they blew past the port. They claimed it was because of rough seas for tendering - well, they were on the itinerary as docking ports, so tendering shouldn't have been an issue, and also Dublin was sunny and had calm seas all day. To "compensate" the guests for the inconvenience of missing 3 out of 8 ports, they gave a $100 nonrefundable stateroom credit to each cabin... then closed the ship store permanently when they went into Portland even though there was a full night at sea left, so guests could not use any remaining nonrefundable credit at the ship's store. This is my first trip on Norwegian, but I was also surprised at the "Service Charge" they automatically add on $25/person/day - $500 for a 10 day cruise - does not cover tips for the people actually waiting on us, and none of it is discretionary. They state it is for the "behind the scenes" crew. So we were still expected to tip our butlers and concierge on top of that. I am used to "mandatory" tips being collected and distributed to those who served the guests, but it that is not what the "Service Charge" really is. I have doubts as to where it even goes. They also offered a laundry special - $30 for a bag of laundry which is a great deal. But it would have been nice to know that before we packed enough for a full 10 day cruise - we could have probably packed half as much, but by the time you are on the ship it's a little late to pack lighter. I'd say to chalk it up to remember for the next cruise, but there won't be a next cruise for us on Norwegian. I am also done with the nickel and diming of customers at every turn - pay extra to get a decent meal (that wasn't even that good); the included wifi is 150 minutes, so you can't leave it on and use it when you need to because the minutes run out even when it is idle - but that is to get you to upgrade to unlimited service, but even that service wouldn't allow streaming of any sort, including facetime. For that you have to upgrade to the unlimited premium wifi. And even that is not any faster - it just unlocks streaming. Our plan offered "free" unlimited bar, but you have to pay gratuities on its value that would add $500 to the bill - so you have to decline the free unlimited bar to avoid that service fee. I guess I can see why they do this petty stuff for the guests paying under $1000 for an inside stateroom, but it's tough to justify for guests paying ten times that on an owner's suite.

When I booked my cruise in March, I was told there were eight ports of call: Edinburgh, Invergordon, and Kirkwall in Scotland; Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis; Dublin, Ireland; Belfast, Northern Ireland; and Falmouth and Portland in England. My reservation stated that the only tendered port was Edinburgh and that the NCL Dawn would dock at the other 7 port of call. This itinerary and number of docked vs tendered ports were confirmed in my cruise documents and cruise contract. I booked this itinerary specifically was because there was only one tendered port. When boarding the Dawn on July 2nd we received a letter stating that an error in the NCL reservation system did not accurately portray a number of ports as tender. Instead of 1, we now had 5 tendered ports. As a result of these errors in the NCL reservation system, we picked the wrong cruise and were unable to go ashore because of rough weather at the ports of Dublin (the reason I took the cruise), Stornway, and Falmouth. NCL refunded $100 dollars to our cabin and offered us a 25% off the next cruise. I doubt I can trust NCL enough to cruise again.

This cruise could be great on a different ship and if we made it to all ports. Missing three ports is really unacceptable and they gave us $100 onboard credit after the shops closed. It seemed insulting. The places we visited were beautiful. They need more onboard activities in the event of sea days/ missing ports.