I just got back yeszterday from the launch of NCL's brand bew flagship THE NCL DAWN,<BR>Its a beautiful ship, 14 decks and the villa and penthouse suites are something else. <BR>The ship has 10 decks and 10 restaurants. Its a freestyle ship so no formal nights, and you can eat in any of the restaurants on any night.<BR>If you get the chance to go on this ship, its highly recommended.

Glad to hear she is beautiful! We are sailing on her 1/11. There actually are 2 formal nights, you're just not required to dress up. A bit weird but they still exist.

Well, there's ONE agent (an agent) that gave the wrong info (no formal nights)and the agent was even ON the ship---go figure. Hope it wasn't a FAM cruise!! They sure didn't get familiar atleast with that important point!

NCL say you can dress formal if you like. This is rather silly since if you do wear a tux you would look out of place with the jeans, muscle shirts and caps that others would wear.<BR><BR>Paul

Paul,<BR><BR>The &quot;Formal Optional&quot; idea at NCL works pretty well in my opinion. First, jeans, muscle shirts, and caps are never allowed in their diningrooms after 5PM on any night. but on the formal optional night, they designate their elegant main dining room as &quot;Formal Only&quot;. That solves all the dress problems.

Thanks for the post, agent! I'll be going on Feb 8th. This is our forst experience with freestyle dining and are really looking forward to not having to get so dressed up! Thanks so much for the input!

hmmmm agent.. dont know where you were on her..(maybe a tour?) since i just got off of her 1st ever sailing today (the 18th as your post was on the 8th) but she is a BEAUTIFUL ship.. anyone going on make sure you see the show bollywood!!!!!!!!! (comparable to cirque de solais sp???) and if you like italian make sure to eat at le treteria EXCELLENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you had bothered to read my post properly you'd have noticed that I said THE LAUNCH not a cruise.<BR>I'm really glad you enjoyed the ship, Bollywood was superb..As was everything else that I managed to see in 24 hours

We are also leaving 1/11 on this. My wife and I (age 49) have never been on cruise and are going with parents. Happy to hear the NCL Dawn is great. Any other paticulars? We don't even have itinerary as this is a Xmas gift to us. Anything you could offer would help, either on board or wherever we are going in eastern carribean. Thanks Steve

I have been on the NCL Windward and Dream. My husband and I cruised on the Windward 4 yrs ago to Alaska. The food then was medicore. And because of that I didn't want to go again on NCL. My husband convinced me to go on the Dream because the price was right. Last Xmas/New Years went on the Dream for 28 days from Ft Lauderdale FL (which was a repositioning cruise to Santiago Chile)and went around South America to Bueno Aires Argentina. I can tell you the food was fair. They kept running out of oranges, limes, yogurt, butter, and various other items. It became a joke with the passengers. The chef I must say did a wonderful job trying to make up for the shortages. There was freestyle dining. I prefer asigned seating. I don't like having to make a reservation, then wait in line to eat. I can stay home and do that. The best food is on Holland America, Celebrity and Royal Caribbean, in that order. I hear Princess has great food. This Saturday I will be going on the Holland America Volendam for 1 wk. This will be our 7th cruise on Holland America.<BR>

Steve - My friend and I will also be on the cruise. The intinerary is Miami - Sea-San Juan-St. Thomas-Tortola-Sea-Great Stirrup Cay - Miami. Check out the Cruise Critics message board and you will find some more information on the Dawn and on those of us going your week. Since she is brand new there is not a whole lot of information posted about her.