SHIP STATISTICS

The Dawn Princess is 77,000 tons built in Helsinki, Finland with a Great Britian registry.  It holds 1,950 passengers, 760 crew, is 856 feet long, and entered service in 1997.  The officers are British and the crew is quite a mix of European/International.  There 14 passenger decks.

There are over 400 cabins with balconies and all rooms have sufficient storage space, with more than enough closets and drawers for a couple cruising for a week.  Standard amenities include color TV, refrigerators, hair dryers, terry cloth robes, safe, and individual temperature control.  Bathrooms have showers and medicine cabinets.  Mini-bars, and tubs are found in the highest category staterooms.

Suite with Private Balcony (category AA) 678 sq. feet. Private bedroom with queen-size bed.  Sitting room area with sofa bed and private balcony for entertaining.  Two TV's.  Refrigerator.  Walk-in closet.  Bath with two sinks and tub and shower.

Mini-Suite with Private Balcony (category AB & AC) 374 to 536 sq. feet. Private bedroom with queen-size bed.  Sitting room area with sofa bed and private balcony for entertaining.  Two TV's.  Refrigerator.  Walk-in closet.  Bath with tub and shower.

Outside Double with Private Balcony (category BA, BB, BC, BD, BE & BF) 178 sq. feet. Two lower beds, which make up into a comfortable queen-size bed.  Private balcony.  TV.  Refrigerator.  Spacious close.

Outside Double (category D, EE, E, FE, F, GG, G & HH) 178 sq. feet. Two lower beds, which make up into a comfortable queen-size bed.  TV.  Refrigerator.  Spacious closet.  Picture window.  Views obstructed in category F.

Outside Deluxe (category CC, C, DD) 178 sq. feet. Similar to the outside double, deluxe staterooms are larger with the same features in a different layout.

Inside Double (category II, I, JJ, J, K, L, M, N) 151 sq. feet. Two lower beds, which make up into a comfortable queen-size bed.  TV. Refrigerator.  Spacious closet.

My Review of this Cruise

Let me start by saying that this was my first cruise with Princess and we loved it.  It was my fifth cruise overall, 3 with Royal Caribbean and 1 with Regency.  My first cruise with Regency was very disappointing and so I decided to give it another try on Royal Caribbean, 8 years later, and now I can’t seem to get enough!  It was nice to try Princes and have something else to compare my Royal Caribbean cruises with.  Comparing the two I would have to say that Princess was far superior in every way except for the design of their ships but I will go into the comparisons later.  This cruise included myself (age 33) and my husband (age 36) on the Dawn Princess doing the 7-Day South Caribbean Explorer route.  The cruise left from San Juan and the ports of call were Aruba, Caracas, Grenada, Dominica and St. Thomas, visited in that order.

PRE-CRUISE

We had heard many good things about the El San Juan so we decided to take the red-eye flight out and arrived in San Juan around 11:00 AM.  Needless to say, check-in wasn’t until 3:00 PM so we had a lot of time to just sit around.  Had we known check in was so late we would have chosen a later flight and saved ourselves the hassle.  Red-eye flights are no fun and I don’t plan to ever do one again if I can help it.  The hotel itself was absolutely beautiful and the woodwork was amazing, it was everything I had been told it would be.  The grounds were well kept, as was the hotel.  We didn’t spend much time in the casino so I can’t really comment on it other than it was a typical casino.  Our room was tastefully decorated with one king size bed and the other usual amenities including an ironing board, iron and blow dryer.  It had a nice balcony (unfortunately ours overlooked the parking lot) with a table and two chairs.  Since we had been to San Juan before we didn’t do any site seeing and spent all of our time at the hotel.  My husband did some shopping along the beach but that was about it.  We ate in one of their casual restaurants for lunch and enjoyed the food.  For dinner we ordered room service and were shocked at the prices so we decided on the most reasonably priced items, pizza and milk shakes.  We chose to go to bed early and get up early.  One thing I found rather annoying was we could hear the person in the next room snoring.  We couldn’t decide if it was because the walls were poorly insulated and thin or if it might be because of the door joining the two rooms but either way it was rather irritating.  We were up and out of the room by 8:00 AM and decided to take a dip in the pool, which was deserted at that time of the morning.  It was perfect and allowed us to get some great pictures of the grounds.  The beach was also empty except for a few joggers the perfect way to enjoy a little sun with the background noise of the ocean waves.  A great start to a great day. 

EMBARKATION

Around 1:00 we were taken to the pier for check in.  We gave them our passports, already filled out documentation and credit card in exchange for our room key/ship credit card.  Everything was very organized and done within 20 minutes of walking into the building.  We boarded the ship on deck 4 and were quickly directed to the elevators to take us to our cabin. 

OUR CABIN

Our cabin was a category AA, suite with private balcony (B755) on the Baja Deck at the rear of the ship.  One of the things I disliked about Princess was the location of their suites.  The suite itself was laid out nicely except for the bathroom (I will go into that later).  First you have a basic living room area with a couch, two armchairs, coffee table, side table, desk w/ chair, a table with two chairs, TV, refrigerator, and complimentary alcohol.  Off to the side is the bedroom area with the standard bed, a walk in closet (very nice), another TV, two bed tables with drawers, dressing table with chair and the bathroom.  One thing noticeably missing was a full-length mirror.  Now, about the bathroom, maybe it’s just me but the bathroom set up seemed a little odd and inconvenient.  The bathroom was split up into two separate rooms but in my opinion it should have been combined to make one very large bathroom.  Both sides were small and wouldn’t fit more than one person at a time.  On the one side they had the shower, toilet and a small sink with a mirror.  On the other side was the tub and another larger sink with a mirror and cabinets.  Here is why is why I felt it was awkward.  First, the side with the shower had no hooks to hang the Princes bathrobes so you had to cross over to the other side or remember to bring the bath robe in with you when you showered and set it on the toilet which seemed a little unsanitary.  There were also no towel racks on the side with the shower, other than a small hand towel rack, so again you had to cross over to the other side while dripping water on the carpet to get a towel or remember to bring one in with you and put it on the toilet before you got into the shower.  It seemed like I was always having to cross over to the other side dripping wet and cold to get a towel or bathrobe.  Now on to my favorite part of this suite, which was a very spacious balcony.  The balcony had two lounge chairs and a small side table on one side and on the other side of the balcony was an eating table with four chairs.  We spent a lot of time on the balcony just lounging or eating a meal.  Since the sealing of the balcony was slightly slanted it allowed enough sunlight to actually layout on the balcony and get some sun rather than fight for a chair by the pool and I took full advantage of this opportunity. 

So far we have been lucky and never had a bad cabin steward.  Our cabin steward, Victor, was from Mexico and was very good at his job.  We always came back from breakfast to a straightened and cleaned room and in the evening we always came back from dinner to a cleaned cabin with dimmed lights, a turned down bed and chocolates on the pillow.

THE SHIP

Compared to the Royal Caribbean ships I have been on I found the Dawn Princess difficult to navigate at times.  I will try not to do too much of a comparison at this point and only provide a description of the ship.  You first arrive on the ship on the fourth deck in the Atrium, which covers deck four to deck six.  It was beautifully decorated and nicely laid out.  If relaxing is what you desire, in the evening there are a lot of quiet and non-crowded areas here to do just that.  I found that the piano playing accompanied with a drink was extremely relaxing and quieting after a busy day of touring an island. 

One place my husband spent a lot of time was the Casino.  I found the casino to be less glitzy than Las Vegas but a casino just the same.  He did all right the first few days but the last couple of days of our cruise he made up for all of his winnings.  He stuck with the tables most of the time but also ventured over to the roulette wheel and did pretty good there.  I don’t particularly care for gambling so after winning about $40 on the slot machines I decided to take my winnings and call it quits. 

The pools were very nice and not busy at all except for the one day at sea which was to be expected.  We didn’t spend much time at the pools but did use the hot tubs on a couple of occasions after dinner.  It was quite nice since there were very few people around and absolutely no one in the tubs.  We used the hot tubs in the Oasis Spa area and enjoyed it immensely.  It’s a very small area off the back of the ship and because of this it is quite secluded.  This is also where the exercise room is but as always we never even stepped foot in here.  We always say we are going to get some exercise but we always find ourselves much too busy to do anything that might be healthy for us. 

DINING OPTIONS

I’ll start with the service we used the least and that was room service.  We used room service on 4 occasions, three times for breakfast and once for a late night snack.  I preferred the Horizon Court for breakfast but the three times we used room service it came hot and tasted fine.  It was especially nice to be able to have breakfast out on the balcony and watch as the ship pulled into port. 

The Horizon Court was a very nice surprise.  I wasn’t expecting as much of a variety of choices and quality of food as what we received.  We had breakfast here whenever possible and enjoyed it immensely.  They had all of the usual breakfast stuff plus something that I’ve never heard of before called English bacon.  Along with the scrambled eggs they also had cooked eggs (hard or soft/over medium), something that was only available from the dinning room on previous cruises.  They always had a great selection of breads, muffins, Danishes, and fruits.  I never eat more than a bowl of cereal for breakfast at home but I over indulge when I’m on a cruise and have a high fat breakfast every morning.  We ate lunch in the Horizon Court everyday and never disliked anything we tried.  Again, they had a huge selection of food and we always left very satisfied and full.  The other surprise was the afternoon snacks they offered here.  It wasn’t just small sandwiches and a few deserts but more like another full lunch.  They always had a few hot dishes available along with the usual finger sandwiches, full salad and fruit bar and best of all, sandwiches made to order.  They had several sandwich meats, cheeses and toppings to choose from.  All you had to do was tell the gentleman what you wanted and he would make up a full size sandwich for you.  It was great when we missed lunch a couple of times because of returning to the ship too late and were still able to have a very satisfying late lunch (or snack according to the schedule).  On two occasions we ate here late in the evening (about 2:00 AM) and we were surprised to see a complete buffet.  There was only one other couple in here so it was very quiet and a nice touch after a little gambling and a few drinks.  I realize this is the worse possible time you can eat, but it was great.  Maybe it was just because of the alcohol but we felt it was some of the best food we had on the whole trip.  Over all, we enjoyed eating in the Horizon Court and found the food to be above average when compared to buffet style food.  When they say they are open 24 hours a day, they mean they are open with a full selection of food. 

Now on to the dining room.  We were assigned to a table for two in the Florentine dining room.  I really liked having the two separate dining rooms rather than one very large dining room.  It provided a much more intimate feeling.  Our waiter, Petre, and assistant waiter, Lee, were both from Romania and were fantastic.  There weren’t real talkative but they did their jobs with efficiency and professionalism.  There was never a time when our water glasses weren’t full and he was always there if we needed anything.  The headwaiter was nice enough but seemed to be more of an annoyance than anything.  We found the food selection to be quite varied and everything we order we enjoyed very much.  For the first time I tried the lobster and really enjoyed it, which I didn’t really think I would since I don’t like fish.  Of course the Baked Alaska, Cherries Jubilee, Tiramisu, and Bananas Flambé were some of the highlights of the dining room selections (at least that’s according to a dessert lover like me).  My husband found the sauces served with the different steaks to be out of this world but then he’s use to my burnt food so he was in heaven.  I can’t say enough good things about the quality of service and food in the dining room and would have to vote it best over all. 

ARUBA

Aruba was the first island we visited on this cruise and I can’t say that I was very impressed.  My viewpoint may be somewhat inaccurate because I didn’t see anything except for the shopping area.  My husband tried the Discover Scuba tour offered by Princess and felt that for the amount of time spent learning the basics compared to the amount of time actually exploring underwater didn’t really make it worth while.  He didn’t feel he saw much in the way of sea life and had too little time in the water.  As for the shopping, there seemed to be a lot of name brand stores and a few street vendors with small trinkets and T-shirts. 

CARACAS

Before the trip I didn’t really understand that the ship actually docks in La Guaria and it’s another 45 minute drive to get to Caracas.  We hadn’t originally booked any shore excursions through the ship because we thought we would just get off the ship and take our own taxi into Caracas but after reading the warning letter from the cruise line and hearing the warnings on the TV we decided to go ahead and book an excursion.  The warning was quite blunt and simply said that La Guaria was an extremely dangerous place to venture into and should not be done.  We decided on the all day tour, “Caracas City Tour and Murano Glass Factory”.  We were probably the youngest couple on the bus by at least 20 years.  Our first stop was the Murano Glass factory where we made a 30 minutes stop.  I hadn’t planned on buying anything here but ended up buying a glass bowl.  The viewing area where we were able to see some of the items being made was fairly small and designed specifically for viewers.  Next we were off to the Heroes’ Boulevard for a short 10-minute visit, then a 20-minute visit to the Pantheon.  The paintings inside the building were very beautiful but not a lot to see other than the paintings.  Next in line was the Colonial Museum, which I found to be the most interesting part of this tour.  I really enjoy touring old century homes like this and try imagine what it must have been like to live the way they did.  What probably seemed like luxury conditions to them seem almost unbearable to me.  This was our last stop of the day and we headed back to La Guaria to board the ship.  This wasn’t one of my favorite ports and maybe that was because we spent too much time on the bus and with all of the stops it seemed like we were constantly boarding and unboarding.  Caracas seemed very dirty to me and La Guaria was even worse.  Looking at what they called a home I realized how lucky I really am to live in the US.

GRENADA

I really enjoyed Grenada and think it was because the people were so nice.  It was completely opposite of what I experienced in Jamaica.  In Grenada when a street vendor would ask if you wanted to buy something and you declined they would politely say, “OK if you change your mind I will be around”.  In Jamaica I was confronted with aggressiveness and then rudeness when I didn’t want to purchase something they were offering.  The approach by the people in Grenada was much more polite and therefore made me want to buy more of their items, which I did.  I’m not saying they aren’t at all aggressive in Grenada but it’s a totally different attitude than in Jamaica.  The island itself was absolutely beautiful.  I chose the “Scenic Mountain Drive, Annandale Falls and Fort Frederick” tour.  There was still a lot of driving on this tour but the scenery was so beautiful that I didn’t mind.  Our first stop was Fort Frederick where we were able to have a beautiful view of the harbor with the Dawn Princess off in the distance.  Next we stopped at a nutmeg factory where we toured the working plant to see how they processed nutmeg.  I don’t know if the people working here were actual workers or if it was all staged just for the tourist.  I suspect it was staged just for us because as were walked up to the working areas the people would stop visiting and start working and then as soon as all the people would leave the area the workers would stop and continue with their conversations.  If it wasn’t staged then I would have to say that the conditions they work under are very primitive and must be back breaking work.  Our next stop was Grand Etang Lake.  It was nice to get out of the car and walk around for a short time with such lovely surroundings.  I only wish we had more time to sit and take in all the beauty but that’s the way it is when you are trying to pack so much into such a short amount of time.  Our final stop was Annandale Falls and it was a bit disappointing to me but still a nice site.  Something I found amusing was that everyone on this stop wanted a buck for two for their service.  For instance, there were ladies dressed in tropical island attire with very large fruit baskets displayed on top of their heads but if you wanted to take a picture of them you had to give them a dollar.  Then there was a guy walking around with a monkey and he would put the monkey on your shoulder for a picture if you would give him two bucks.  Then when we got to the falls there were locals jumping of the falls and they were asking for money to take the jump while you took a picture.  One guy even suggested that I give him $20 to try and make up for the people who don’t pay for taking pictures but I didn’t buy into that one.  I didn’t mind giving them a couple of bucks (what’s a couple of bucks to me but to them it means a lot) but I there was no way I was going to give them $20.  After this we reboarded the van and returned to the ship.  This tour was another tour with a lot of driving but I felt it was worth it.

DOMINICA

Here we hired a taxi to take us to Trafalgar Falls.  Dominica is another very beautiful island with a lot of lush green foliage.  The drive up was on a very narrow and windy road but another pretty scenic drive.  Once there we hiked the short distance to get to the falls, snapped a few pictures and then returned.  Although the brochure mentioned the paths to the falls were rustic I was able to do it just fine in my flimsy sandals with no problems at all.  If your walking is a little unstable to begin with then you may want to choose more stable shoes but as if for me I wear as little as possible on my feet.  I was disappointed that the only way to view the falls is from a very small platform and quite a distance from the falls themselves.  I would have liked to get close but that wasn’t possible.  I should also mention that this was another place where local people were asking for money to perform an unnecessary service.  They would ask people for two bucks to take their picture with their own cameras but rather than do that the couple in front of us asked if we would take their picture and they in turn would take ours for us.  I would love to have the opportunity spend more time in Dominica and would visit this island again if ever given the opportunity.

ST THOMAS

I think St. Thomas has to be my favorite island but to others I’m sure it is their least favorite.  I guess it just depends on what you like.  I like St. Thomas because it is clean, prices are pretty much set and it’s very Americanized although my reasons for liking this island are exactly the reasons others would hate this island.  That said, our first adventure was on a helicopter.  I had never been on a helicopter so I was a little reluctant but my husband had been before and couldn’t wait to do it again.  It was a perfect way to see the entire island along with surrounding areas including St. John.  The helicopter accommodated four people, one on the front and three in the back.  My husband sat in the front while I was in the back (a much preferred seat for me).  I was amazed at how low the helicopter got at times but it made for a lot of very nice pictures and a great shot of the ships docked in the harbor.  If you are at all afraid of heights you definitely don’t want to do this tour.  After that I chose to be dropped off down town for some shopping while my husband returned to the ship for Captain Nautica’s Snorkel tour or according to the brochure the “New Waves Expedition Snorkeling”.  My husband raved about this tour, which means it must have been very good since he never raves about anything.  He said it was the best snorkeling tour he had ever taken and he wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.  According to my husband the snorkeling was more advanced than any of the other tours and it was a much smaller group of people allowing for more time in the water and more personalized service.  Well worth the money in his opinion.

LIKES AND DISLIKES

First I will list my dislikes about this cruise.  This isn’t necessarily a dislike but and advantage that I really enjoy with Royal Caribbean and that’s being able to check in for your cruise at the hotel rather than having to do it at the pier.  It saves some time and seems less of a hassle.

I already mentioned how much I hated the bathroom set up in our suite so I will move on.  Something very minor but a little annoying was the absence of any Kleenex in our cabin.

I feel the suites on the Dawn Princess are in a terrible location.  They are located on the very end of the ship rather than in a more localized area as they are on Royal Caribbean Ships.  I really didn’t like the way this ship was designed in general.  I’ve been told it was designed this way in order to break up the ship more so that passengers didn’t feel like they were on a ship but I found it to be inefficient.  The elevator locations were very badly placed and didn’t make much sense.  There were also areas of the ship which you couldn’t get to without going up one level and then back down another level rather than just having a straight line there.  The area I am talking about is the lookout area at the front of the ship right in front of the Horizon Court.  In order to get out there you had to go up one deck to the Sun Deck and then walk down the forward stairs to the deck area.  On the Royal Caribbean ships it seemed to me that you could always walk from one end of the ship to the other on every deck.

Another thing I didn’t like was having to have our luggage out by 10:00 PM.  This is way too early for us and if you have the late dinner seating you have to be completely packed before you go to dinner and then rush back from dinner in order to pack the clothes you had just worn so you could get your luggage out in time.  I also didn’t like this because it didn’t leave you any time to walk around the ship one last time unless you wanted to wear the same clothes you would be wearing the next day. 

Now for the things I liked better about Princess.  For starters I like the fact that your room key is also your charge card rather than on Royal Caribbean where they give you both a room key and a separate charge card.  It just makes it more convenient to have one card rather than two.

I really enjoyed the Horizon court and preferred their food over the Windjammer food on Royal Caribbean.  The food in the Horizon court was excellent and sometimes better than what was offered in the dinning room, not to say I didn’t like the food in the dinning room either because we did.  The food in the dining room was also excellent and the service was far superior to the service on Royal Caribbean.  I had been told the service on Princess was better than Royal Caribbean and now I can say I agree.  I also like the fact that Princess served breakfast in the Horizon Court until 11:30.  We are late risers and it always seemed like we were getting up earlier than we really wanted to in order to get breakfast but on Princess we always seemed to have plenty of time and were able to relax and enjoy our late breakfast.  It was also nice to always have the Horizon Court open rather than on Royal Caribbean ships where the Windjammer is only open during certain times of the day.  You could always go to the Horizon Court and get a meal regardless of what time of day it was but on Royal Caribbean if you didn’t make it during the specified dining times you were limited to room service or Pizza, Hot Dogs or Hamburgers in the Solarium not giving you much selection. 

I really enjoyed the set up of the dining rooms.  Rather than having one very large dining room you had two completely separate dining rooms on two different floors.  I don’t particularly like sitting in a large dining room where people can look down from an upper floor while you are eating.  The dining rooms on the Dawn Princess seem more intimate.  La Scala Pizzeria was wonderful and another great option for a meal.  Royal Caribbean has nothing like this and it’s too bad.

Another plus for Princess was the absence of the dining room antics performed by the waiters.  I really liked not having my meal interrupted by dancing or singing waiters but then I’m a very private kind of person when it comes to meal time.  Princess also has real Baked Alaska and Cherries Jubilee in the dining room.  On Royal Caribbean they have discontinued this ritual because of fire hazards.  They still offer the desserts but they are not prepared in the traditional way.

FAVORITE ISLANDS

My favorite islands on this cruise were St. Thomas, Dominica and Grenada in that order and my least favorite would have to be Caracas and Aruba.  I would most definitely visit St. Thomas, Dominica and Grenada again but I have absolutely no desire to ever see Caracas or Aruba again.

OVERALL OPINION

It’s really hard for me to say which cruise line I now prefer, Royal Caribbean or Princess, because there were pros and cons to both.  I like Royal Caribbean’s ships and the cabins on their ships much better than Princess but I found the service and food on Princess far superior to Royal Caribbean.  If asked which cruise line I would prefer to go with I would have to say I don’t prefer one over the other at this point.