Norwegian Dawn sailing from New York February 22, 2004.
The author, Tom Rinaldi, was a passenger on this sailing.
(Photograph from the Empire State Building webcam.)
THE NORWEGIAN DAWN
by Tom Rinaldi
Twenty years ago New York Harbor seemed just about barren. Fleets of merchant ships had left Manhattan high and dry, its silent piers to rust and rot and fall into the water that once gave them reason for being. Fortunately things are different now. The harbor is busier today than it has been in recent memory, and it just got a little bit busier with the coming of Norwegian Cruise Line’s 92,250 grt Norwegian Dawn, the first cruise ship to make year-round sailings out of New York in some two decades.
I myself hadn’t sailed from New York for three years when a friend in need of a cabinmate invited me to board the Dawn one brisk Sunday in February, bound for Florida, Nassau and the Bahamas. My previous exposure to liners and cruise ships was limited to vessels built before 1982, most of them less than half the size of the Norwegian Dawn. Having entered service in December 2002 with a registered tonnage approaching 100,000, the Dawn had little to do with my affinity for smaller, more traditional vessels, and so I approached the new ship with some skepticism. In the end what I found was an undeniably fantastic week of fun-in-the-sun. If the ship herself isn’t a classic (at least not yet), the underlying idea surely is.
The Norwegian Dawn’s seven day itinerary is, in a word, basic. From New York she sails for Port Canaveral, Miami, Great Stirrup Cay in the Bahamas (home to NCL’s private beach) and finally Nassau before heading north to bring passengers back where they came from. Exotic it’s not, but if sunshine, beaches and a good tan are what you’re after, it gets the job done handily - weather permitting. Each trip starts on a high note with the momentous and unforgettable experience that is a departure from the Port of New York. The midtown skyline, the Battery, the Staten Island ferries, the Statue . . . it’s a phenomenal experience, one NCL could make the most of were the company to reactivate one of the three classic liners now under its ownership: the Norway, United States and Independence.
Verrazano-Narrows Bridge at dusk.
(Photograph Tom Rinaldi)
With snowy New York slipping off into the distance, darkness falls, and guests begin to find their way around the 965-foot ship that will be home for the next seven days. No sooner does the Dawn pass Sandy Hook than the ship’s 2,224 passengers start looking for dinner. Traditionally this has meant taking a seat at an assigned table in an assigned dining room with predetermined tablemates, at a designated sitting-- early or late. Norwegian Cruise Line has done away with this shipboard custom, offering instead what the company calls "freestyle cruising." Passengers on the Norwegian Dawn are allowed to take their evening meal when they want where they want, and are offered an unprecedented number of ways to do so.
On the Norwegian Dawn there are ten restaurants in all, four of which require an extra "cover charge" ranging from $10 to $25. Food, service and ambiance in the three main dining rooms-- Aqua, Impressions, and the Venetian-- was usually good. Not surprisingly, there was better fare to be had in the ship’s more intimate extra-tariff restaurants, which required reservations made no more than 24 hours in advance. Passengers in the mood for Italian are offered La Trattoria. Overlooking the atrium, Salsa specialized in Mexican. For Pan-Asian there is Bamboo, which comes equipped with a Sushi bar and Japanese grill room. High aloft on Deck 13 is a steak restaurant called Cagney’s. For French food, Le Bistro, NCL’s original fleet-wide specialty restaurant, can be found on Deck 6. Informal buffet style dinners can be had in the Garden Café, or in an onboard burger joint called the Blue Lagoon.
Overall the food was excellent for a mass-market ship, but there were inconsistencies-- in any restaurant, a lackluster appetizer could be followed by a truly spectacular entree, or vice-versa. Freestyle dining presents an almost dizzying array of options. A good bet is to sample no more than three or four of the specialty restaurants, thus minimizing the hassle of cover charges and reservations. My own favorites were the French Le Bistro, and the steak house, Cagney’s.
Monday is the first of two full days spent at sea. Without the distraction of a port of call there is time for a lengthy deck chair nap: these are invariably my favorite days of any cruise. On this sailing the Dawn was bathed in balmy sunshine, and passengers were able to spend the day outdoors comfortably in light clothing, just one day out of New York. Our cabin, high up on Deck 10, was bright and cheery but a bit small, and like many cabins on board it offered a private verandah. For those without verandahs, the Norwegian Dawn provides ample open deck space, though most of it is concentrated amidships rather than aft as I was accustomed to. The Oasis Pool, centerpiece of the Dawn’s upperdecks, proved (as expected) a bit loud for my own liking, but with very little effort I soon found a less raucous spot at which to spend the day. On two decks, 7 and 13, walkers and joggers are provided continuous full-loop deck space (a feature lacking on many recent ships), though both become uncomfortably narrow in places.
Deck 7 Promenade.
(Photograph Tom Rinaldi)
The Dawn arrives in Port Canaveral on Tuesday morning, and remains in port until the evening to allow for shore excursions to Kennedy Space Center or the Orlando amusement parks. We were the only cruise ship in port that day, sharing the wharves only with freighters, and with the gambling boats Mirage I, Ambassador II, and the former Hudson River sightseeing boat Dayliner, badly mutilated and barely recognizable as Surfside Princess. In Miami on Wednesday we again had the port to ourselves, save for Royal Olympia Cruises’ laid-up Olympia Voyager.
After dinner, well fed guests have a number of passtimes from which to choose. NCL continues to uphold its reputation for high quality entertainment on board: with entertainment as solid in the ship’s lounges as it was in the Stardust Theater, it was clear that line has consciously upheld this priority. Fortunately for this passenger and his fellow traveler, the popularity of indoor entertainment gave us our run of the ship’s shuffleboard courts out on deck– a freedom warm weather allowed us to enjoy each night of the cruise.
Otherwise nightlife on the Dawn is anchored by five principle public rooms. For a quiet nightcap to the tune of reserved live music, try Gatsby’s Champagne Bar on Deck 6 or Star Bar on Deck 13. The slightly-more-upbeat Pearly Kings Pub is the place to go for a good old fashioned beer. Karaoke happens each night in Dazzles Lounge. Rather surprisingly these rooms emptied out and were closed by 12:30AM, leaving anyone in search of a quiet cocktail out of luck. By 1:00AM, only one main venue (besides the casino) remains open: the disco, housed high up and forward in the Spinnaker Lounge. Even this sometimes closed as early as 2:00, after which time only the Blue Lagoon burger joint continued to serve, until 4:00.
Bahamian boys on the beach at Nassau.
(Photograph Tom Rinaldi)
Thursday and Friday, days Four and Five, find the Dawn in the Bahamas. Winter is now just a distant memory. The first of the ship’s two Bahamian destinations is Great Stirrup Cay, also-known-as NCL’s private island. The main attraction here is a very crowded beachfront, which can be avoided by seeking out one of several more secluded beaches elsewhere on the island, or by hiking away to a small lighthouse (not open to the public).
Our final port of call was Nassau. After having had three ports all to ourselves it came as a bit of a shock to share this particular waterfront with four other cruise ships– Fantasy, Disney Wonder, Explorer of the Seas and Zuiderdam. Our stay in Nassau was brief: we were, after all, a boatload of New Yorkers, with places to go and people to see. The Dawn casts off promptly at 2:00PM, bound once again for New York. (With Nassau not far in our wake we passed the inbound Century, which was to occupy the berth left vacant with our departure.)
Heavy going enroute to New York, the author on deck.
(Photograph Ted Scull)
For the remainder of Friday and all of Saturday, the Norwegian Dawn makes a bee line for New York. At her top speed of 25 knots, there is just enough time to get back by 10:00 Sunday morning. But rough seas were encountered on Friday evening, which forced us to change course and reduce speed to 15 knots, ultimately to delay our arrival at Pier 88 by only two hours.
Cooler temperatures and windy conditions on Saturday meant lots of empty deck chairs as most passengers opted to stay inside. The Dawn’s public rooms are concentrated on four main decks: 6, 7, 12 and 13. Design-wise, the rooms vary widely. The lows are epitomized by the gaudy Venetian restaurant, a onslaught of bad baroque, which my roommate aptly likened to a Queens catering hall. Elsewhere the ship is more reserved, and, aside from the excessive application of fake wood paneling, quite pleasant. There are numerous references to the staid, British-deco rooms one would have found on any given Cunarder of the 1930s– Gatsby’s, and the library and writing rooms are the most pronounced examples of this retroactivity. Highlights were the more contemporary Bamboo restaurant, and the double-level Eldorado Spa & Fitness Center, which included an indoor pool. These were probably the most handsome rooms on the ship.
Of particular interest is an assemblage of noteworthy original art on board. Works by Andy Warhol are to be found at each stair landing. Fans of impressionist painting will appreciate copies of famous works in the suggestively-named Impressions restaurant, but will be more interested in four original works which hang in Le Bistro: Van Gogh’s "A Park in Spring" (1887); "Nude with Turban" (1921) by Matisse; "Vetheuil in Sunshine" (1880) by Monet; and "The Bather" (1909), by Renoir. The line has taken pains to make known the presence of these works by painting the names of their artists in large letters on the hull of the ship– part of a colorful livery which seems to draw a generally positive response.
On Sunday the Dawn is back where she started, her passengers treated for a second time to the breathtaking procession through New York Harbor. The simple act of coming or going from this port is the experience of a lifetime, one soon to be severely compromised for Royal Caribbean passengers when that line relocates its New York terminus to Bayonne, New Jersey. New York, for me, is the definitive ingredient of the Dawn’s routine. Much more interesting Caribbean itineraries are offered by every major cruise line, including Norwegian (the Dawn herself makes a number of 10- and 11-day trips featuring more flavorful ports of call). But none are so easily accessible, at least not to those living in the northeastern US, for whom NCL has mercifully obviated the hassle of air travel ("catch a cab for the harbor," say their televised advertisements). For its convenience and for its style, New York makes this trip worthwhile. In the tradition of long vanished green-stacked Grace liners, the Norwegian Dawn has revived the classic winter escape from New York. She is a welcome fixture in this port, and one I hope will be with us for a long time to come.