Norwegian Cruise Line, Norwegian Dawn, Mediterranean Review

A thoroughly enjoyable cruise. The Norwegian Dawn is a little old now but is still a great cruise ship.

On the whole we really enjoyed this cruise. The staff were exceptional and quality of service and friendliness was really high. The cabins are a bit small but still pleasant to use. Boarding was efficient and friendly and were on board within 40 minutes of arriving at the terminal.

Food was of a high standard in the main restaurant although the buffet was not quite as good, but certainly acceptable. Most evenings we ate in the main dining room and were pleased with the food quality, choice and service. We also twice ate in the Bamboo restaurant and throughly enjoyed our meal both times - if you like Chinese/Asian food we can definitely recommend this.

We ate in two of the specialty restaurants. The first was the Cagneys Steakhouse. An exceptionally good meal with excellent service. We would definitely eat there again and although it was included in our package, we would pay to eat there. The second specialty restaurant we ate in was Le Bistro which was rather disappointing. The service was still great but the food was quite ordinary. Although we didn't complain, we did tell the Maitre D when asked about our meal and he seemed only a little concerned. We really felt that we should have been offered some level of compensation for a very ordinary meal with an extra cost that was not as good as eating in the main dining room.

Our only criticism of the whole cruise was the noise level. All the bands and musical acts were extremely loud and the performance in the theatre was way above 110 decibels when 90 decibels is usually regarded as a safe maximum. Having a 'quiet' drink in any of the bars was impossible and it was very difficult to have any conversation. we mentioned this to the Cruise Director and her comment was that the levels were set by ' head office' and couldn't be reduced. We know of at least 50 other guests who complained about the noise level. In fact it made some evenings unpleasant.

However, the positives definitely outweighed the negatives and we will definitely cruise with NCL and on the Dawn again.