Cold Weather Cruising-Fun, Exciting, and New Once Again!
Alison Blackman
March 27, 2006
As a child growing up in Brooklyn in the 1950's, one of my fondest memories is sailing out of Gravesend Bay in Brooklyn on the family?s sailboat and watching a parade of grand ocean liners steaming in and out of New York Harbor. By the 1960's, the availability of the jet airplane slowed the parade of ocean liners leaving from New York City, to a trickle. By the time my family took a Winter holiday fly/cruise vacation in the early 1970's from Cura? on Chandris Cruise Lines, round trip cruises in the colder months from New York City were a thing of the past. Interestingly, the airplane may also be a force behind renewed interest in round-trip ocean voyages from cold weather ports in the Winter. While airplanes can get travelers quickly to the sun, the experience is not luxurious or relaxing. Security checkpoints, luggage restrictions, long lines, cramped seats, no food, and indifferent service, have made modern flying stressful. If you want to take a cruise however, flying is not only required, but you?ll have to factor in the cost of airfare and a night in a hotel at your destination port, just in case there are airport and/or weather delays. After you are relaxed from your cruise, you?ve got to fly home, as well.
This year, my husband I am wanted to take a warm-weather break before the Winter holidays, but we didn?t want to fly. I was elated when I learned that Norwegian Cruise Line would be offering some 11-day, round trip cruises from New York City calling at Ocho Rios Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Roatan, Honduras, Belize City, Belize, Cozumel, Mexico, and Great Stirrup Cay, Bahamas with four days at sea (the highlight of the cruise). Since the first two days out of New York were sea days, we had time to get to know the ship, sleep a bit later, meet new make friends, and rest, instead of quickly unpacking to be ready for the first port the next morning. Although I am a veteran of more than 40 cruises, I had never taken a cruise from New York in the Winter and I wanted to know what it was like. Even better, I could get a car service from my home in Brooklyn and be at the New York Passenger Ship Terminal (PST) between West 47th and 53rd Streets along the Hudson River in Manhattan in less than half and hour and even better, avoid the stress of flying. My husband and I quickly discovered that this was a draw for a majority of passenger.
Since we had such a short distance to travel from our home in Brooklyn, my husband and I got to the terminal very early as just a few passengers were arriving. The Norwegian Dawn accommodates 2,224 passengers and 1,200 crew. The New York Passenger Ship Terminal is spacious, but it hasn?t yet been renovated to comfortably handle large hordes of passengers that arrive all at once. However, NCL put enough staff on the ground to help move things along fairly well. The registration process is fairly efficient, even more so if you use the advance online registration form and/or are Latitudes Members (NCL?s frequent cruiser program) who directed to dedicated registration lines.. We were so early our embarkation process took less than ten minutes, start to finish, including security checks. Once onboard, we walked around the ship for a while, stopping to have a relaxing lunch in the main dining room (an option to the crowds at the upstairs buffet). Toasting our trip with champagne, I felt myself beginning to relax ? and we hadn?t even left the dock yet. Before departure, the ship had a lifeboat drill, which is taken very seriously by the crew, and is required by law. Alas, some of the stations conducted the drill on the outside deck in the freezing cold, even though there was ample room inside by the station to do it. Most passengers arrived with their life jackets but not with coats and were left shivering in wind for the duration of the drill.
Inside, the Norwegian Dawn is a true floating resort, with 14 passenger decks containing a casino, full-service spa and salon, indoor pools and hot tubs, a fully equipped gym, lending library with a nice selection of books and DVDs for in-stateroom use, an internet caf?nd wireless access hot spots around the ship, shopping, card rooms, a full sized movie and stage theaters, nightclubs, disco, and (limited) cable television in the staterooms. There is also a large shopping area (it was closed for a large portion of our cruise for re-fit) with basics you may have left behind, and good prices on duty free items from fine jewelry to liquor. A typical day?s organized activities presented in the ?Freestyle Daily? newsletter, featured: port lectures, language lessons, fitness classes, beauty and cooking demonstrations, blackjack tournaments, bingo, an art auction, dance classes, trivia games?just to name a few. Those who love organization will appreciate the numerous, onboard announcement telling passengers about the upcoming activities. .
For me, the best part of any cruise isn?t the activities, ports or dining, it?s what has captivated voyagers for generations: the simple pleasure of looking out and seeing the ship?s wake spread out in graceful, fan-like patterns, the sound of water fizzing against the hull. It?s the thrill of seeing dolphins, flying fish, and sea birds. It?s watching the night sky for constellations and shooting stars or perhaps, the lights of another cruise ship filling up a piece of the black horizon at night. There are many affordable cabins with balconies, and my husband and spent a great deal of time on ours, lightly bundled in lounge chairs, reading, drinking tea, and reconnecting with each other, as in days past during the golden days of ocean liner travel We left the curtains open so we could always enjoy a floor-length view of the sea through the patio-style balcony doors. On the last day at sea back to New York, we soaked in one of the heated, outdoor jacuzzis, warm up to the neck, faces stinging from icy raindrops! We waved to tankers as they passed by, and braved a quick but chilly dash back inside!
NCL?s freestyle cruising means formal nights are optional, so it was easy to pack for warm and cold days. I simply packed some jeans pants, and a few layering pieces with shorts and swimsuits, along with a couple of dressy pants outfits for me and dress pants and a jacket for my husband for the evenings. If you never ventured outside, you would hardly know you were on the ocean let alone that it was Winter. According to Jerker Aakerman, the Dawn?s Chief Engineer, the ship was specifically designed to suit these types of cold weather cruises. Its? beamy (wide) design with most of the weight in the bottom, plus a state-of-the-art Azipod propulsion system, and computer-controlled 5-meter long stablizers, keep the ship incredibly stable, with little vibration or rocking. The ship regularly cruises at 25 knots (fast, compared to older cruise ships). On our first day at sea, however, the ship was delayed, twice, by emergency airlifts by helicopter of two seriously ill passengers, but we still remained on schedule to our first port. Although the seas were moderately rough, the ship was so steady that I kept looking out to see if we were actually moving! Despite that, some people are genuinely prone to motion sickness. In fact, a former QE2 Captain once confided that on that ship, the ratio of passengers to crew that become sea-sick is nearly equal. Although this is much less likely to be a problem on a ship like the Dawn, the one passenger I did meet, tendering over to Grand Cayman, who said she was very queasy, also admitted to drinking heavily, the night before. Over indulging in good and alcohol are two main reasons people feel sick, onboard. If you are genuinely prone to motion sickness, the most stable part of any ship is the middle, so you will do best if you select a cabin, mid-ships.
Another cruise tradition is eating. If you wish, you can literally chow down around the clock on the Dawn, with an innovative, ?freestyle dining? program that gives passengers a choice of 10 dining venues and 13 bars & lounges. On an 11-day cruise you are likely to try every single one, although you?ll have to wait in line at busy times for reservations (considering the high-tech nature of the ship, it is unfortunate that NCL doesn?t install computer systems to allow passengers to make dining, spa, and shore excursion reservations from their staterooms). My tour of the galley areas with Tony Lockett, the Food & Beverage Director, revealed spotless kitchens (and the happiest food service workers I?ve ever seen) to serve all of the restaurants, the buffet and on deck barbeques. You eat where you want, when you want, and with whomever you want, either casually in your bathing suit or shorts in the extensive buffet 24/7, or more formally (eg. no shorts or jeans after 5pm) in one of the two main restaurants or speciality restaurants (some with extra tariffs, reservations required). A few missed the traditional, assigned tables, but most passengers we polled, including ourselves, liked the flexibility that didn?t force us into an assigned table in one dining room, at a specific seating time each day.
Freestyle cruises also attract a large number of families. There is a well organized youth program designed for various age groups. We had several hundred children (mostly pre-school-age toddlers) on our cruise, and that amount can swell to over 1,000 kids on a holiday cruise, according to Hugo Vanosmael, The Norwegian Dawn?s Hotel Director. Luckily, the Dawn has areas of the ship just for children, including their own outdoor pool, a game room, teen disco, playrooms and special dining areas. Therefore, except for children not in the program and not well controlled by their parents in the adult areas, we didn?t find them too intrusive.
By the end of 11 days my husband and I were holding hands and smiling. We?d made new friends with a great couple with whom we knew we?d keep in touch, we felt rested and ready to deal with the rest of Winter. Alas, when our ship returned, the City was in the middle of a transit strike and no one really knew how much transportation, if any, would be available at the pier. None of the cabs wanted to take us back to Brooklyn. With large suitcases and some bulky items we?d purchased on the cruise, we couldn?t exactly walk home. I managed the luggage while my husband scrambled to negotiate a shared ride with a moonlighting limo driver (for more than four times the usual fare). This was the only stressful incident on the entire cruise.
This pre-holiday, 11-day itinerary attracted a cross section of cruisers of all ages and interests, although shorter cruises tend to attract actively-partying and slightly younger passengers. A large portion were New Yorkers or at least within a day?s drive of the Big Apple who didn?t want to fly to their cruise destination, especially during the holiday season. We also found lots of repeat cruises who had lost interest in the standard 7-day Florida to the Caribbean cruise formula and wanted a new experience, and NCL Latitudes members, taking advantage of the benefits in NCL?s well-promoted frequent cruiser program. Non local passengers found the New York based cruise attractive because the liked coupling the cruise with time in the City, pre- or post, cruise. Easy access from the pier include day tips to the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island ferry at Battery Park, t he South Street Seaport, the Intrepid and Concorde, Times Square, Fifth Avenue, Rockefeller Center, eating, central park, carriage ride, just to name a few.
Box: Round-trip New York cruises in the cooler months are gaining in popularity. Norwegian Cruise Line has invested heavily in the New York market, offering itineraries year-round on the Norwegian Dawn and the Norwegian Spirit. ?New Yorkers love us, and we love New Yorker? says Hugo Vanosmael, The Norwegian Dawn?s Hotel Director. Holland America is another line actively moving into the New York Market with the addition of the Norwegian Spirit and the brand-new, very elegant Noordam, which makes an 11-day round-trip NYC voyage to the Caribbean. ?Travel agents we work with are clamoring for an expansion into the New York Market,? says Susan Robison of Holland America. ?Adding the Norwegian Spirit is another step in making NYC one of our biggest home ports. We have more capacity out of NYC than out of Miami,? she adds.
This year, my husband I am wanted to take a warm-weather break before the Winter holidays, but we didn?t want to fly. I was elated when I learned that Norwegian Cruise Line would be offering some 11-day, round trip cruises from New York City calling at Ocho Rios Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Roatan, Honduras, Belize City, Belize, Cozumel, Mexico, and Great Stirrup Cay, Bahamas with four days at sea (the highlight of the cruise). Since the first two days out of New York were sea days, we had time to get to know the ship, sleep a bit later, meet new make friends, and rest, instead of quickly unpacking to be ready for the first port the next morning. Although I am a veteran of more than 40 cruises, I had never taken a cruise from New York in the Winter and I wanted to know what it was like. Even better, I could get a car service from my home in Brooklyn and be at the New York Passenger Ship Terminal (PST) between West 47th and 53rd Streets along the Hudson River in Manhattan in less than half and hour and even better, avoid the stress of flying. My husband and I quickly discovered that this was a draw for a majority of passenger.
Since we had such a short distance to travel from our home in Brooklyn, my husband and I got to the terminal very early as just a few passengers were arriving. The Norwegian Dawn accommodates 2,224 passengers and 1,200 crew. The New York Passenger Ship Terminal is spacious, but it hasn?t yet been renovated to comfortably handle large hordes of passengers that arrive all at once. However, NCL put enough staff on the ground to help move things along fairly well. The registration process is fairly efficient, even more so if you use the advance online registration form and/or are Latitudes Members (NCL?s frequent cruiser program) who directed to dedicated registration lines.. We were so early our embarkation process took less than ten minutes, start to finish, including security checks. Once onboard, we walked around the ship for a while, stopping to have a relaxing lunch in the main dining room (an option to the crowds at the upstairs buffet). Toasting our trip with champagne, I felt myself beginning to relax ? and we hadn?t even left the dock yet. Before departure, the ship had a lifeboat drill, which is taken very seriously by the crew, and is required by law. Alas, some of the stations conducted the drill on the outside deck in the freezing cold, even though there was ample room inside by the station to do it. Most passengers arrived with their life jackets but not with coats and were left shivering in wind for the duration of the drill.
Inside, the Norwegian Dawn is a true floating resort, with 14 passenger decks containing a casino, full-service spa and salon, indoor pools and hot tubs, a fully equipped gym, lending library with a nice selection of books and DVDs for in-stateroom use, an internet caf?nd wireless access hot spots around the ship, shopping, card rooms, a full sized movie and stage theaters, nightclubs, disco, and (limited) cable television in the staterooms. There is also a large shopping area (it was closed for a large portion of our cruise for re-fit) with basics you may have left behind, and good prices on duty free items from fine jewelry to liquor. A typical day?s organized activities presented in the ?Freestyle Daily? newsletter, featured: port lectures, language lessons, fitness classes, beauty and cooking demonstrations, blackjack tournaments, bingo, an art auction, dance classes, trivia games?just to name a few. Those who love organization will appreciate the numerous, onboard announcement telling passengers about the upcoming activities. .
For me, the best part of any cruise isn?t the activities, ports or dining, it?s what has captivated voyagers for generations: the simple pleasure of looking out and seeing the ship?s wake spread out in graceful, fan-like patterns, the sound of water fizzing against the hull. It?s the thrill of seeing dolphins, flying fish, and sea birds. It?s watching the night sky for constellations and shooting stars or perhaps, the lights of another cruise ship filling up a piece of the black horizon at night. There are many affordable cabins with balconies, and my husband and spent a great deal of time on ours, lightly bundled in lounge chairs, reading, drinking tea, and reconnecting with each other, as in days past during the golden days of ocean liner travel We left the curtains open so we could always enjoy a floor-length view of the sea through the patio-style balcony doors. On the last day at sea back to New York, we soaked in one of the heated, outdoor jacuzzis, warm up to the neck, faces stinging from icy raindrops! We waved to tankers as they passed by, and braved a quick but chilly dash back inside!
NCL?s freestyle cruising means formal nights are optional, so it was easy to pack for warm and cold days. I simply packed some jeans pants, and a few layering pieces with shorts and swimsuits, along with a couple of dressy pants outfits for me and dress pants and a jacket for my husband for the evenings. If you never ventured outside, you would hardly know you were on the ocean let alone that it was Winter. According to Jerker Aakerman, the Dawn?s Chief Engineer, the ship was specifically designed to suit these types of cold weather cruises. Its? beamy (wide) design with most of the weight in the bottom, plus a state-of-the-art Azipod propulsion system, and computer-controlled 5-meter long stablizers, keep the ship incredibly stable, with little vibration or rocking. The ship regularly cruises at 25 knots (fast, compared to older cruise ships). On our first day at sea, however, the ship was delayed, twice, by emergency airlifts by helicopter of two seriously ill passengers, but we still remained on schedule to our first port. Although the seas were moderately rough, the ship was so steady that I kept looking out to see if we were actually moving! Despite that, some people are genuinely prone to motion sickness. In fact, a former QE2 Captain once confided that on that ship, the ratio of passengers to crew that become sea-sick is nearly equal. Although this is much less likely to be a problem on a ship like the Dawn, the one passenger I did meet, tendering over to Grand Cayman, who said she was very queasy, also admitted to drinking heavily, the night before. Over indulging in good and alcohol are two main reasons people feel sick, onboard. If you are genuinely prone to motion sickness, the most stable part of any ship is the middle, so you will do best if you select a cabin, mid-ships.
Another cruise tradition is eating. If you wish, you can literally chow down around the clock on the Dawn, with an innovative, ?freestyle dining? program that gives passengers a choice of 10 dining venues and 13 bars & lounges. On an 11-day cruise you are likely to try every single one, although you?ll have to wait in line at busy times for reservations (considering the high-tech nature of the ship, it is unfortunate that NCL doesn?t install computer systems to allow passengers to make dining, spa, and shore excursion reservations from their staterooms). My tour of the galley areas with Tony Lockett, the Food & Beverage Director, revealed spotless kitchens (and the happiest food service workers I?ve ever seen) to serve all of the restaurants, the buffet and on deck barbeques. You eat where you want, when you want, and with whomever you want, either casually in your bathing suit or shorts in the extensive buffet 24/7, or more formally (eg. no shorts or jeans after 5pm) in one of the two main restaurants or speciality restaurants (some with extra tariffs, reservations required). A few missed the traditional, assigned tables, but most passengers we polled, including ourselves, liked the flexibility that didn?t force us into an assigned table in one dining room, at a specific seating time each day.
Freestyle cruises also attract a large number of families. There is a well organized youth program designed for various age groups. We had several hundred children (mostly pre-school-age toddlers) on our cruise, and that amount can swell to over 1,000 kids on a holiday cruise, according to Hugo Vanosmael, The Norwegian Dawn?s Hotel Director. Luckily, the Dawn has areas of the ship just for children, including their own outdoor pool, a game room, teen disco, playrooms and special dining areas. Therefore, except for children not in the program and not well controlled by their parents in the adult areas, we didn?t find them too intrusive.
By the end of 11 days my husband and I were holding hands and smiling. We?d made new friends with a great couple with whom we knew we?d keep in touch, we felt rested and ready to deal with the rest of Winter. Alas, when our ship returned, the City was in the middle of a transit strike and no one really knew how much transportation, if any, would be available at the pier. None of the cabs wanted to take us back to Brooklyn. With large suitcases and some bulky items we?d purchased on the cruise, we couldn?t exactly walk home. I managed the luggage while my husband scrambled to negotiate a shared ride with a moonlighting limo driver (for more than four times the usual fare). This was the only stressful incident on the entire cruise.
This pre-holiday, 11-day itinerary attracted a cross section of cruisers of all ages and interests, although shorter cruises tend to attract actively-partying and slightly younger passengers. A large portion were New Yorkers or at least within a day?s drive of the Big Apple who didn?t want to fly to their cruise destination, especially during the holiday season. We also found lots of repeat cruises who had lost interest in the standard 7-day Florida to the Caribbean cruise formula and wanted a new experience, and NCL Latitudes members, taking advantage of the benefits in NCL?s well-promoted frequent cruiser program. Non local passengers found the New York based cruise attractive because the liked coupling the cruise with time in the City, pre- or post, cruise. Easy access from the pier include day tips to the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island ferry at Battery Park, t he South Street Seaport, the Intrepid and Concorde, Times Square, Fifth Avenue, Rockefeller Center, eating, central park, carriage ride, just to name a few.
Box: Round-trip New York cruises in the cooler months are gaining in popularity. Norwegian Cruise Line has invested heavily in the New York market, offering itineraries year-round on the Norwegian Dawn and the Norwegian Spirit. ?New Yorkers love us, and we love New Yorker? says Hugo Vanosmael, The Norwegian Dawn?s Hotel Director. Holland America is another line actively moving into the New York Market with the addition of the Norwegian Spirit and the brand-new, very elegant Noordam, which makes an 11-day round-trip NYC voyage to the Caribbean. ?Travel agents we work with are clamoring for an expansion into the New York Market,? says Susan Robison of Holland America. ?Adding the Norwegian Spirit is another step in making NYC one of our biggest home ports. We have more capacity out of NYC than out of Miami,? she adds.
Print
Email
