A client, upon reading my previous post, politely prodded me to get to the point about whether or not I liked Dawn Princess, as she and her husband are booked to be onboard in May, along with a few friends she persuaded to join them.
"How can I get you to tune in for the next episode if I don't tease you a bit by trickling out information?" I asked in response. I'll be writing about the trip over a series of posts, but for now let me tell you that I really like Dawn Princess. Princess has taken very good care of her, and at 12 years old, she's not an ancient mariner by any means.
Dawn felt less crowded than my last couple of Princess cruises on Caribbean Princess and Grand Princess, which of course are considerably larger ships but carry several hundred additional passengers. There were about 2100 passengers on this trip, which is about 5% below maximum capacity, whereas those other cruises were sold out summer and New Year's cruises, respectively, and those dates tend to attract a lot of very active families which can make it feel more hectic. As Princess likes to say, their ships aren't really revolutions as much as evolutions, so if you're familiar with and like Princess in general, then you'll feel comfortable and like another Princess ship, even if some of the features change. On Dawn, there's a pizza restaurant mid-ship on Deck 8 called La Scala, and I really enjoyed the lunch my wife and I had at one of the checker-top tables. I had a calzone and she had a pepperoni pizza. We both looked at how much food we had on our plates and said we ordered too much, but by the end, there were barely any crumbs. Delicious! There's no additional fee for this pizzeria.
The food and service throughout the cruise was excellent, with the highlight being Clams Casino as an apetizer and many great fish entrees. Personal Choice Dining worked fantastic for us, allowing us to be seated any time we wanted with no wait, although every now and then I would see some lines as we left dinner around 8.Dawn had three big production shows on this 7-night trip, and I think that was because they were breaking in at least one new show for the upcoming ten night Alaska cruises from San Francisco. I had never seen two of the shows: "Legends" and "Save the Last Dance." The third show, "Piano Man," did have some overlap with a show I had seen previously on Grand Princess, but this one definitely had different costumes as well as different song emphasis, so it felt quite new also. The performers were great throughout the cruise. As a man, I found the women dancers and their costumes quite sexy. The lead female vocalist is terrific, and the lead male is great 99.8% of the time. The back-up female vocalist also shined on a few songs, especially during "Save the Last Dance."
