Norwegian Dawn or Liberty of the Seas?

Question

Hey guys, so we are planning our summer cruise and we are stuck on choosing either the Dawn or the Liberty of the Seas. We've cruised on the Adventure and Jewel of the Seas before, so we dont know if we would be dissapointed by Norwegian. The NCL cruise gooes to Bermuda while the Liberty goes to San Juan, St Marten, and Lambadee.

Thanks!

Answer 1

The Liberty of the Seas is an amazing ship.  RCL all the way!!!

Answer 2

Go for the liberty of the seas.  Royal Caribbean puts on a first class service that cannot be beaten by any other cruise line.  If it's not the exquisite service you'll love, it'll be that fantastic design of the boat, the wide variety of things to do on the boat, the outstanding food, or the little extra things I dont want to ruin for you that they do that will only make your trip more memorable

Answer 3

I have been on many cruises and a lot of them (about 7) were on NCL so I know about their "freestyle" cruising.   I have also been on the Jewel, the Adventure and the Liberty's sister ship, the Freedom.  So I can tell you what I think of your options.

First, the Liberty, like the Freedom, is a new ship with the latest amenities in the cabins.  I loved the balcony cabin we had. It was roomy and had plenty of space for clothes. They announced to us that the beds would soon  be cruise line wide; its was a great pillow top bed and was very comfortable in comparison to beds on other ships. There was a flat panel HDTV in the room, a safe, and a shower stall with a sliding door. Our room included a love seat and coffee table.

The ship has a mall area down its middle with shops on both sides, including a barber shop, coffee shop, and a place where you can get free food 24/7.  The Liberty is like a larger version of RC's Mariner of the Seas and Adventure of the Seas ships.

The ship has some of the same features that other RC ships have. The rock climbing wall is on many RC ships. But the new "flow rider" is unique to RC's Freedom and Liberty of the Seas ships; and the new Independence of the Seas. It is a place where you can go surfing on a boogie board right on the back of the ship. It works great, although I didn't try it. There is stadium seating for people to watch or sit while awaiting their turn. The Liberty, like the Adventure, also has an ice skating rink and during the week there are two days when there is a free ice show that is great, kinda like the Ice Capades. The ship also has a full sized basketball court and mini-golf. The one thing that it DOES NOT have that's on the Adventure is the roller blade track.

This ship is great for kids and families with kids. On the pool deck there is one area called the H2O Zone which is essentially a small water park for kids; but us big kids can play there too. It has water cannons, a small lazy river, a pool, and falling water all over. Kids will love it. Then the middle of the ship has another pool where everyone can get wet or use a hot tub. Then up further there is an adults only area called the Solarium with a pool and two hot tubs that extend over the sides of the ship. These tubs are huge, can hold maybe 12 people and you can look over the side of the tub at the ocean.

The ship has THE best gymnasium I have ever seen on a cruise ship. All of the latest equipment, including weight machines, rowers, steppers, treadmills and each has its own TV screen so you can watch TV while you workout. It also has a boxing ring and some other new high tech stuff. Also has steam room and sauna for those who use the gym.

The only thing I did not like about the ship was its Windjammer Cafe where everyone goes for breakfast and lunch if they don't go to the main dining room, is too small for everyone and people were walking around looking for a table after they got their food.  I think the Windjammer is a problem on many RC ships except maybe the Jewel.  We decided to just order the free breakfast room service an eat on the balcony.

San Juan is nice, been there a couple times; the two main tour attractions are the old forts and city and the Rain Forest.  St Maarten is mainly a beach stop, plus some shopping.  Now Labadee is really just a stop for a beach party.  Its THE best private cruise line island I have ever been to.  It has multiple beaches and a free tram to take you from one end to the other. It has lots of trees and plenty of free lounge chairs.  You can rent jet skis, go para-sailing, and they have a new attraction, a zip line that takes you from a mountain on one side of the beach across the ocean to the other side of the bay.  You can go canoeing or for a $15 fee, use the ocean water park, Arawak, that has inflated items to climb on and dive off of.  It also has a huge craft market so you can buy local native crafts.

I have been to Bermuda twice by cruise ship, once on RC and once on NCL.  Bermuda has some of the best beaches anywhere; pink sand beaches that you can easily find a deserted spot on. In my two visit it seemed to me that the majority of the people visiting the island were those on the two or three cruise ships which docked there during my stay. There are a few hotels in the town of Hamilton and about a dozen other properties/beach hotels, but they are nice. There are NO slums and ghettos in Bermuda like you may see on other islands. All of the houses are well maintained and painted in pastel colors. All of the public beaches are great.

A five, six, or seven day cruise to Bermuda is plenty enough time to see and enjoy everything there. There is not a lot to do in Bermuda other than water sports and golf. There are two main towns Hamilton, the largest (where most cruise ships dock for at least a day) and St George (also a port stop) which is like a small town and has just a few shops. The third place ships may dock while there is The Kings Dockyard.. The Dockyard is on the far end of the 22 mile long island and has a small mall with shops and a museum. The Crystal Cave and Fantasy Caves are worth visiting as a tour, or on your own. I also visited one of the lighthouses, for lack of anything else to do. You can visit one of the many forts on the island like Fort St Catherine if you like that type activity.

Now I'll tell you what I think of NCL's Freestyle cruising.  Freestyle Cruising  means that you do not have to specify a dining option when you book your cruise and thus don't have a table and waiter assigned to you. "FREESTYLE" means you can go to dinner in the main dining room, or any other alternative restaurant, any time of the evening after 6:00 PM..  But you will have to reserve a time in the alternate restaurants.  It also means that you don't have to "dress up" for dinner, just go "sports casual".  Freestyle also means that you may be standing in line awaiting a table on some days (like we had to do a couple times); not what I want on a cruise.  Since you go when you want, you rarely get the same waiter and so never really get to know your waiter and he/she never learns your name or what you prefer as is done on “traditional” cruise lines.

The option to traditional dining on NCL is their optional dining restaurants. However, these dining options can cost $5 to $20 a person for dinner each night.  The optional restaurants are very nice, including French, Chinese/Sushi, Tex-Mex, Italian, and steak house restaurants. We always skipped the optional restaurants and just got to the main dining early. That worked fine, except on "at sea" days when everyone wanted to go eat early.  We later found that we could reserve a time in the main dining room, but when we did this on our last NCL cruise we found that they would take reservations for only two days at a time and so there was the hassle of reserving for dinner every two days.  And, we still got a different table and waiter for dinner each night.

I prefer the traditional cruising with "my" wait staff and table and prefer getting to know my servers and have them call me by name rather than "sir/madam".  And at the end of the cruise I prefer to know that my gratuities went to the person who served me rather than in a pot that all of the staff split.

So I think that if you have been on RC ships you will not like NCL, for the reasons given above.