Dawn Princess

[holton]

We sailed the Dawn in the summer of 2000 and are considering taking advantage of a special Captain's Circle offer that came in the mail today for this holiday season. Has she been refurbished?...and any thoughts from those who have sailed her lately?

[Onebusyman]

We just returned from sailing on the Dawn April 19-29 2005. This was our first Princess Cruise, after sailing on NCL, and RCCL, and Carnival and we thought the ship was in excellent shape. The public rooms were in great shape as where the halls, carpets and rooms that we saw. The Vista lounge on the starboard side as you walk in had a sour smell about a couple of feet in. After that short stretch, we didn’t notice any smell. As always there was a group of folks cleaning, polishing and painting the ship all day long.

Our only complaint was that Princess didn’t dock in Cozumel, but instead tried to tender in. What a joke, after an hour of screwing around the Captain canceled the port and 2000 people were screwed. The ship probably made $20,000 in extra sales that day. No drink specials for the missed port. However, they did offer “paper box making”. I’m not kidding.

I’m glad that you liked Princess enough to think of sailing on the Dawn again. But for us, we would not be in any hurry to sail on a Princess cruise again. The hype of the “Princess experience” didn’t meet our expectations. The food was average, no lemonade or fruit juice, no 24 hour “free ice cream” a mediocre CD, average shows in a very small auditorium. Skip desert if you want a good seat or any seat.

Overall we were board most of the time day and night. It would have to be an incredible offer for us to sail on Princess again.

Just our opinion so flame away if you feel the need, and glad that your "Princess experience" exceeded ours.

[holton]

You need to give Princess another chance. We are taking our 10th and 11th cruise this month. You would like some of the newer ships. That is why I posted about the Dawn. She is an older ship and doesn't have some of the neat stuff as the newer ones. We will be on the Island May 7th and the Coral the 21st. They are sister ships and we have cruised the Coral before. They are great ships and our favorite size. The Grand, the Star, and the Sapphire were very, very nice...but a bit too big for us. However, we would cruise them again.

[Big Ed]

We were on the 4-19-05 sailing also,and will sail with Princess ,especially on the Dawn, again. This was our first cruise with Princess, after two with Carnival.

The Dawn is a beautiful ship and just the right size for us. The only complainant we had with the ship it self was the smell in the Vista lounge.

The food was good and the service excellent.Our cabin steward Ren (aft baja deck) was the best we have had.

We were disapponted that we did not make it to Cozumel, but made the best of the extra day at sea.I heard that the captain had a beef with the port officials in Cozumel and that this was his last cruise on the Dawn.

I enjoyed the less crowded Oasis bar in the afternoon.The bartender,Edger, was great.

Late afternoon and before dinner we had a great time at the Patisserie bar.The two bartenders, Gina and Allen have hundreds of bar tricks and are very funny.

Over all we had a great cruise and can't wait until the next one.

ED

[donnajo]

I was on the 4/9 - 19th sailing and I thought the ship was in excellent condition. The food was OK (always found something I liked on the menu)

the desserts (after being on Celebrity several times) were not very good.

The service was excellent and we met alot of super people onboard.

The casino and lounges close very early as the majority of people on the ship were older, but that is to be expected on 10 or more day cruises.

All in all, we got a very good deal on this cruise, so we were not disappointed.

Had we paid full price.......

I have yet to have a cruise that was "bad". There is always something that could have been improved on, but the Dawn is a nice ship and the Oasis bar and Adult pool area at the back of the ship is one of my favorite spots.

 

Donna