Norwegian Cruise Line - Dawn Review

NCL versus Royal Caribbean on style formats

My wife and I recently took a seven day cruise on NCL's Dawn cruise ship from New York City to Bermuda and back.  We had a great time but we're not sure we would try NCL's "Freestyle" cruising anymore.

With six cruises under our belts on Royal Caribbean, we decided to try NCL because they had a outside cabin for us with 3 weeks prior booking. A last minute decision on our part to celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary. Bermuda is where we honeymooned 45 years ago and hadn't been back since. Bermuda was very nice but we remembered very little about it. We live in New Jersey only 30 minutes from the cruise ship port. That was nice - no air travel necessary.

Dining was our first "Freestyle" experience. The ship had two main dining rooms that opened around 5:30 PM for dinner. You enter a dining room and you are greeted by a host who will direct you to your table. We like to have dinner at around 5:30 PM so we were seated promptly. Others who came later had to wait on line until a table became available. This was "Freestyle"! Every night another table and another wait staff.

My wife and I like to be pampered at dinner and have a permanent table assignment and the same wait staff for our entire cruise. NCL does not offer this. On RCL, they have an early seating (6PM) and a late seating (8PM). You choose one of these seating's when you make your reservation. You can change your seating arrangements when you get aboard. At the reserved hour, you walk into your dining room and head for your table. Your wait staff gets to know your likes and dislikes. For example, do you prefer coffee, tea, wine or beer with your dinner? If so, they are ready to serve you when you sit down.

My wife and I found the food in the dining rooms on NCL to be sub standard compared to RCL. However, one evening on NCL we paid a $20.00 per person cover charge and had dinner in one of their specialty restaurants called Cagney's Steakhouse. It was excellent.  We both agreed that it was comparable to RCL's main dining room less the cover charge.

On NCL the gratuity for our wait staff and cabin steward was included in our bill automatically at the rate of $10.00 per person per day. There was no incentive for better service - or going that extra mile for us.  On RCL, the wait staff gratuity was not included and at the end of the cruise, the cruise line supplied us with envelopes for tipping our wait staff.  Each and every person that served us, gave us 110% and we rewarded them over and above the recommend amounts the cruise line suggested. I recall amounts like $3.50 per day per person for our head waiter or waitress and $1.50 per person for our assistant waiter or waitress. This whole paragraph says it all about "Freestyle" or Non Freestyle". You make the decision.

My wife and I signed up for a shore excursion on-board the Dawn. We had no idea where to meet and at what time. All we knew was the excursion was to begin at 10AM. We got off the ship at around 9:30 to be safe. A few people were holding signs for other excursions but not ours. Finally, we found our group and went on the excursion. We booked many excursions on RCL and they were very precise where they wanted us to meet and what time. A staff member escorted us to waiting buses, etc. and then joined us on the excursion. We felt very comforted by their presence.

I like to enter the casino tournaments. When the casino opened on our first day, I walked in and was told that there was no more room for me as most of the people registered on-line and that registration was closed to any new applicants. The tournaments are fun and it was a disappointment to me.  RCL also has casino tournaments and they will just add more rounds to the tournament so everyone can participate.

I have given you a lot of negatives about my NCL cruise but there are some nice things my wife and I enjoyed. The on-board activities, the stage shows at night, the cabin we were in (which had a balcony), our room steward, the desserts and pastries were excellent.

I tried to convey the differences between cruising "freestyle" or cruising with planned dinner seating's. I hope this will make anyone's decision as to which way they would like to cruise.