Norwegian Dawn Cruise Reviews - Reviews

Definitely the most disappointing cruise we have been on. Cruised Celebrity in December, not one complaint. We have also sailed Princess, Seabourn, Royal Caribbean, NEVER again on Norwegian

This cruise was amazing! I loved the ship. I loved the itinerary. I loved the ports. I love most of our excursions. I'm sure we'll be doing this itinerary again in the future.

Cruise was okay overall: ports were good, ship and our stateroom were clean, if small, staff was friendly and professional (although there were fewer of them) and food was fair to poor outside of the specialty dining restaurants. Overall communication was very poor and many of the ways things were done were disorganized.

First cruise in 3 years due to the pandemic. 25 th with NCL. Great to get back out but to many cutbacks by NCL. No coffee in the cabins, no champagne in the room, staff short handed in the restaurants. Cigar bar was a big issue. Circulation was awful. We reported several times to no avail. To many cigarette smokers allowed in. To limited places to smoke outside. Worst entertainment we have had in 25 cruises. Bring back entertainers like Kenny Bird, Rod Long and Terrence G.

We enjoyed our cruise. We always travel with our friends of 40 years which always makes it fun.

I completely enjoyed every aspect if my cruise vacation. I plan to travel NCL again in the future.

Weather canceled both ports. They added Nassau which is not very exciting and I’ve been before so it was a bit of a wasted trip.

Not the experience I have come to expect from many other NCL cruises. Hopefully, they can get back to where they were and figure out the food.

Generally decent value for cost. Not high end and not low quality. Middle of the road experience.

The ship and crew were amazing, HOWEVER we missed ALL of the advertised ports. Instead, they took us to Nassau, which is a waste of time. I would have opted to stay home rather than spend that kind of money to only visit Nassau.

As mentioned weather was an issue, and we realize the staff has no control. Prefer to be safe, good call. Sadly 5 of the 6 of our party contracted upper respiratory infections. All tested negative for Covid. Maybe being confined too much caused these issues. We haven't sailed on NCL for years and did enjoy the ship and staff.

My only concern is the absence of assistance for mobility challenged people that had to wait in line for hours. Is there a plan B? I understand the extraordinary circumstances, but I do not understand the lack of assistance or communication on the part of NCL. It was a good thing that it wasn't raining. I also would appreciate the vaccination protocol being re-established in order to sail.

It was an interesting trip, that allowed us to see three new ports. The staff was excellent, attentive without being overbearing, and actually good with humor. The food was more that plentiful, and we experienced some of the specialty restaurants that we had not before. with varying degrees of success. The ship is older, and smaller than many of today's versions, but still enjoyed getting to experience many of the crew and passengers.

This was our third time on the Dawn. We really enjoy the ship and the staff. They are the most friendly and helpful people I have ever encountered on a cruise.

I love Norwegian but I do not think I would sail on this ship again. The lack of daily activities made sea days very boring. I was on another small ship but it surpassed this ship with activities.

Overall cruise was okay, not the best we have been on. NCL’s extremely poor communications on embarkation delays left a sour taste in a lot of peoples mouth. I even called NCL during the delay and the contact denied there was any delay. There own people did not know either.

We did not expect this cruise to be this enjoyable but it far exceeded our expectations.

This is my review of my 11 day Southern Caribbean cruise on Norwegian Dawn. I just got off of it on Friday, Jan 13th. This was my 8th cruise ( 6th on NCL) and my second solo. My first solo was only 5 days and several years ago so I felt like this was almost my first solo over again. We had a bit of a fiasco on embarkation day with fog delaying us in Tampa. I don’t want to dwell on that too much. NCL corporate should have given notice sooner to people. We received a text at 2 pm in the afternoon not to go to the pier till after 7:30 pm that night. Many of the people were already there. However I had been following the Facebook group and knew they turned away people so I stayed at my hotel with other people from other cruises. I hooked with two other couples from my cruise also and we decided we weren’t even going at 7:30 because it would be a madhouse. We left our hotel at 9 pm. Got there about 9:15. I got onboard about 11. Many people waited in a line for hours and hours. Some of that I blame on NCL that did not communicate. Some I blame on people that just had to rush to the pier no matter what. Then they had no place to wait comfortably. We had to skip Key West the next day to get back on schedule. We were given $100 onboard credit for the delay. Later on the cruise we were given back the $22 Key West port charges in our accounts. Now about the ship- I first thought the layout of the ship was a bit confusing compared to the Escape and the Pearl I have been on. There is only one elevator that goes up all the way to the 14th deck. The others only go to 12. I hadn’t encountered that before. I am capable of walking but for those can’t that is a problem. I did learn to get around but it seemed to take longer than usual. One thing I did really like about the layout is that casino is at the end of a deck. I love, love the Escape but I don’t like that the smoky casino is in the middle of a deck on it and you have to walk through it to get to some places. The staff on the Dawn is amazing! They were very courteous and helpful. My cabin steward Denmark was outstanding! I stayed in a balcony on deck 9. I paid for an inside and used my points from my NCL credit card to do a double meta upgrade to a balcony. It was well worth it on this trip due to the length of the cruise and the beautiful weather to be able to sit on my balcony. The shower seemed a bit larger than showers in other balconies. It was rather spacious. However I had almost no water pressure. Or if I turned it to have more a bit more water pressure then it was lukewarm almost to chllly. But I managed. The door into the toilet is very narrow. I’m not a big person and I turned sideways to go in. I had read about that in other people’s comments and I definitely see what they mean. But I was on a cruise. Better than being at home in cold PA any day! The food was very good in the main dining rooms and the specialty dining rooms. Venetian gets very busy and gets long waits some nights especially on port days. You may want to make a reservation there to avoid that. It isn’t necessary to do that but otherwise you might wait a while to get in. One night we ate at Aqua the other main dining at a prime time and it took us a very long time to get our food. I thought maybe they don’t have as much staff in there?? The only other thing I will say about the food is that I thought there wasn’t as much choice on the buffet. I had read somewhere about NCL may be cutting back on the buffet. Maybe they have started doing that. Either they have or it is just less choice than I’m used to on the Escape that I have cruised the most. Entertainment-is always a little less I have found on the smaller ships. I cruised on the Pearl in June and the only difference I really found between it and the Escape was the entertainment. The bigger ships have the broadway shows like Choir of men and the smaller ships don’t. The Dawn did have an excellent comedian as did the Pearl. One thing is that with these shows that you don’t need to reserve like on the Dawn then you don’t know when they are going to be till that day when you see them in the daily. So you can’t plan with your dining reservations etc. I wish they would post outside the theaters their schedules for the cruise. There was a great rock and roll show that was put on only once early in the cruise and I missed it. I can’t believe in an 11 day cruise they only did it once. The saving of towels - this happens on every ship. People go out early in the morning and stake out their chairs and then don’t show up for hours. Stop being so entitled! It was a fantastic cruise. I am probably going to take a very similar Southern Caribbean cruise at the same time next year on the Pearl so I can hit a couple more ports that I didn’t see yet. I love NCL!

Overall, it was a nice 11 day get away. The ship was older and needs an upgrade but it got us to the ports on time. Also it was not to crowded (60-70% full) a week or so before Christmas which was nice.

Great ship, wonderful staff and excellent food!! Absolutely loved the crew entertainment!