LIVE from the Dawn Princess (after dry dock)

[saltycaptn]

Movies Under The Stars. It took me a couple minutes to figure it out.:cool:

 

 

 

Don't want to sound stupid but I am new to this - what is MUTS?

[bjboothman]

Don't want to sound stupid but I am new to this - what is MUTS?

 

Movies Under The Stars - some of the bigger ships are having a big screen installed on the top deck for outside viewing, or at least that's how I understand it. I've heard nothing about the Dawn having this and I can't say I'm terribly disappointed.

[saltycaptn]

I don't believe it has. I can the ship having it at night, but I think that during the day it would be very annoying. IMHO.

 

 

 

Movies Under The Stars - some of the bigger ships are having a big screen installed on the top deck for outside viewing, or at least that's how I understand it. I've heard nothing about the Dawn having this and I can't say I'm terribly disappointed.

[melissa_bel]

BJS,

As you may have noticed, we've missed the cruise. I'm sorry things are bad... wow... Maybe us missing the cruise was really for the best.

[jennifers490]

it doesn't sound like things are that bad to me, especially on a first cruise out of dry dock...i've been on much worse! i'm not discouraged at all and am looking forward to my trip tomorrow! still a little disappointed about the shortened ports though :(

[BJS]

it doesn't sound like things are that bad to me, especially on a first cruise out of dry dock...i've been on much worse! i'm not discouraged at all and am looking forward to my trip tomorrow! still a little disappointed about the shortened ports though :(

Right you are things are not bad just not as perfect as they could have been. Things should be perfect by the time you arrive tomorrow!

[jennifers490]

We all appreciate you taking the time to write back to us during your vacation...I'm sure we'll all have fun (just have to remember to bring extra wine!)

[balanceok]

Don't want to sound stupid but I am new to this - what is MUTS?

 

Movies Under the Stars - the new outdoor movies on the Grand Class ships

[brrgrr]

Does anuone abord know if in fact the engine was replaced, and if it was. is the ship able to travel at full speed?

I noticed that the arrival at Curacao was rather late, as it shows as 8:00 on my itinerary for the Dec 30 cruising. Was that due to having to break in the engine, or something else? And does anyone know the breakin period of these engines and when they can in fact be run at full power?

 

Appreciated, Carl

[sea++]

Can you tell us who the Captain and Cruise Director are for this cruise?

[Guest Host Tink]

Don't want to sound stupid but I am new to this - what is MUTS?

 

Don't worry about it. I had to ask when I started here too...LOL

[christicruiser]

Can you tell us who the Captain and Cruise Director are for this cruise?

 

We've been told the CD is Gavin Chandler. I have not read about who our Captain is.

 

Hopefully, Gavin is up to his old ways and will be very fun and witty!

 

Christi

[schack74]

I just got off the Dawn and feel for the most part the same as BJS. Being on this cruise at first was like being on a brand new ship. The staff at dinner the first night were awful, just wandering around like they didn't know what to do. However, the second night everyone seemed to be ok and we had the best waiter and assistant, Adrian and Muricio at table 25 in the personal choice dining room. They were the best and we made a reservation with them for the remainder of the cruise. I found the food with few exceptions to be excellent and the staff very friendly and helpful. The Sterling Steakhouse was worth the $15 charge and I would highly recommend it. This was the first time in 5 princess cruises that we tried an alternative dining and it was very good. The shows were good, however, I was disappointed that we saw the two headline shows last year on the Island Princess. Apparently, they move the shows from ship to ship and you can very well see the same show if you travel on princess alot. The ship looks great. The Captain wasn't very friendly and Princess didn't really keep us informed as to the late arrival in Curacao, except for one announcement. I'm not sure why Princess feels they can't communicate with passengers both before they sail like the whole mess with not going to two ports and then the mess on board with getting off the ship in Curacao. I don't want to discourage anyone because the cruise was wonderful. We had great weather, staff was wonderful, shows good and food near excellent. It's just that it took a few days for them to get it together which we don't expect on Princess. I also learned that there were alot of new employees on board, those that came back and just started a new contract and several brand new to the cruise line, which might have had something to do with the early disorganization. In any event all going on this ship will love it and have a great time, I'm sure. Melissa, if you read this, what happened that you didn't make the cruise? I hope everything is ok.

[BJS]

Can you tell us who the Captain and Cruise Director are for this cruise?

As I posted earlier the Cruise Director was Gavin Chandler. The Captain was Nicolo Bommarco.

[BJS]

Does anuone abord know if in fact the engine was replaced, and if it was. is the ship able to travel at full speed?

I noticed that the arrival at Curacao was rather late, as it shows as 8:00 on my itinerary for the Dec 30 cruising. Was that due to having to break in the engine, or something else? And does anyone know the breakin period of these engines and when they can in fact be run at full power?Appreciated, Carl

We were told that an engine was replaced. The fastest we observed the ship going was 18.5 knots - unfortrunately the log of the cruise does not have the speeds. All the ports were made just fine except for Curacao. We had the time for that port changed to 12:00pm arrival even before we received final docs and we were advised, the day before, because of the winds it would be a 1:00pm arrival but it was about 2:15 before we arrived.

[Desertbelle]

Thanks BJS for getting online and sharing the situation with the Dawn. We just arrived home about an hour ago....it's been a very long day.

 

I plan on writing a full review but thought I would add some of my observations to BJS's list.

 

It's a rather long list of negatives, and I have to say most people I talked to or over-heard talking, are very upset with this cruise. This isn't to say we didn't have a great time.....even the worse cruise is a good vacation. I know of one family who were so upset about the Dawn and fed-up with so many sea days that they got off the ship in St. Thomas and flew to Orlando to finish their vacation. Please understand that we are not complainers. We are easy travelers and generally let minor things go by without a second thought, but this cruise was just too much. Every day it was something else. I think the whole atmosphere of this cruise was terrible....so many really upset people finally got to us. People grew grumpier as the cruise wore on. I never saw a cruise with so many long faces.

 

Some of you might not be aware of the history of this cruise. We booked, last October, a 10 day cruise with 6 ports and a week after final payment we were informed that due to "operational problems" it was being changed to 4 ports and two of those ports were shortened to half days. Princess did give us a $150 pp shipboard credit, but they wouldn't allow anyone to change ships without taking a penalty. All those sea days are hard to fill without spending a lot of money...and if you had kids it was a nightmare keeping them busy. This was a holiday cruise so there were a good many children onboard.

 

So here are my observations:

 

No ATM machine onboard. No check cashing at pursers desk because satellite was down most of the cruise. 3% charge to get money off your shipboard account. Take this into consideration when accepting those onboard credits...it's NOT like getting cash, you get dinged 3% when you take cash even if you have a balance.

 

Speaking of satellites, apparently they were having a great deal of problem with this for most of the cruise. TV reception was horrible as well. Some of the movies they showed the first few days had distorted sound.

 

The new internet cafe is lovely but it was useless for the most part on our cruise. The first time I tried to use the computers I never got online after trying for 6 minutes, so I gave up. But I still had to swipe my card to try and was charged for that time. I went to the pursers desk and asked for it to be removed, which they politely did. What upset me was a day later when I went to try again there were signs on the computers that said that the satelite was working on and off and whether or not you got connected to the internet you were responsible for the time. I think that was unacceptable.

 

This was the smallest balcony room I have ever had. It was 8' x 17' (136 sf) including the bathroom and closet. The bathroom was the smallest I have ever had. Very little storage area. I can't even imagine having a third or 4th person in a room this size. The inside rooms had much more storage space than the balcony cabins. The balcony was also the smallest I have ever had. 3' x 8' (24 sf) There are two flimsy plastic chairs and a small table. It was difficult to move around the balcony because of how crowded and small it was.

 

They were having toilet flushing issues. A few times all the toilets on our deck (deck 10- Baja) were out for a few hours or so. I don't know if other decks were having problems or not. My daughter's cabin had a shower drainage issue, it had to be repaired twice.

 

Most of the brand new washing machines and dryers in the laundry rooms were broken. The only working pair was on deck 6.

 

They must have had some difficulties with the public area air conditioning. The ship's public areas, especially the Horizon Court and the elevators were very warm. On the formal nights I thought my husband and son-in-law were going to faint from the heat while they were in their suits.

 

The public restrooms were terribly smelly at times. They were trying to keep the doors open to air them out, but they still smelled like the restrooms at a public beach, UGH. Also, one of the restrooms, I can't remember which one, didn't have a paper towel dispenser, and no paper towels were left out on the counter for use.

 

On the second formal night there was a problem with the lobster tails. Some of them were very strange and gross tasting...I couldn't cut mine with a knife. They seemed to not be tails at all but pieces of another part of the lobster, with innards attached, laid on top of the shell. Our table got 4 of these. When we complained to the waiter, he was very upset and said this had been a complaint by many and took our weird "tails" back to the chef to show him. We received replacements, but it took a very long time and by then we were done eating and had rather lost our appetite for lobster.

 

I feel like cruise cuisine has gone too fancy. It's like they want to make the food so special that it begins to just get strange. I think people would be a lot happier if they toned that down some. For example: What's wrong with just creamed chicken and mushrooms in a pastry shell for an appetizer? Why add sweetbreads? Just my opinion. :)

 

Curacao was a nightmare. First we were told that because of "head winds" we would be an hour late. It turned into 2 hours late, getting in at 2 pm. It was a nightmare getting off the ship. They used stairs instead of a ramp. We had many, many people in wheelchairs on this ship as well as many people using canes, walkers and crutches. 4 crewmen would have to carry these huge wheelchairs down. It took some people 2 hours to get off the ship (took us 1 hour of standing in line.) Many people missed their Princess excursions. My husband's excursion of 12 people had 2 missing. They were going scuba diving and they couldn't wait any longer or they wouldn't have had time to get in both dives. As it was it was dark when they headed back from their dives.

 

Our plan was to spend a few hours on the beach (went to Kontiki Beach and it was lovely) and then head back to town to do a little shopping. We left the beach at 5:45 pm. By the time we got to town all the stores were closed. No one mentioned the stores closed at 6 pm. Our taxi driver advised us to "quickly" buy our liquor and to immediately return to the ship as the area around the ship was not safe for 2 women to be walking around alone. This really made me nervous, so we walked back to ship as fast as we could.

 

Apparently, according to our headwaiter and room service, there is a new policy on Princess that you CAN NOT order what is on the dining room menu during dining room hours from room service. We had been told that you could do this and because we were traveling with a toddler, we thought that we would take a couple of dinners in our cabin so as to not take a cranky child to the dining room. The first night we tried to do this we were refused. It seems the new rule is that you can only order from room service what is on the room service menu. The head waiter did tell us that we could come to the dining room and talk to him and he would give us a plate of the food to take to our room. This was pretty upsetting to my daughter.

 

The show room situation was awful. If you wanted a seat for the 8:30 show you needed to get there at 8:00. We missed a few shows simply because of no seats available. They really need to find a way to relieve this congestion at the 8:30 time....either have two shows going on at the same time or move the comedy type acts out of the Vista lounge and into the showroom. Maybe if they had some bands playing in other lounges at that time, it would removed some of the problem. I never saw any bands in the other bars except at the pool.....occasionally a piano player but never a band. The variety of music onboard was dismal. The pool band, Tidal Wave was great, we really enjoyed them.

 

Speaking of the pool....chair hogs were out in force. I never saw a single case of a crew member assisting with freeing up unoccupied chairs with a towel, book, magazine on it for hours. My husband noticed a couple of chairs that were like that for an hour and finally moved the items and took over the chairs. When the woman returned about an hour later she screamed and had a fit. Even using the F word (and other curses) at my husband while he was holding our 20 month old grandson.....how rude is that?? He asked her not to scream or curse in front of our grandson and this only made her more angry. This was not a young women, she was grey haired and over 60.

 

I never once saw someone cleaning the handrails throughout the ship. On the Legend of the Seas last December and September there were people constantly spraying down and cleaning the handrails. You saw these people everywhere, every day. I was very conscious of this and I was very uncomfortable holding onto the railings not knowing when they were last cleaned.

 

Continued on next posting.

[Desertbelle]

Continuation from Part 1:

 

 

Food in the Horizon Court was fair...it was OK for grabbing something quick to eat but it wasn't great dining for sure. There is a lot of congestion in the Horizon Court. They don't have trays, so it's very difficult to carry a plate and a bowl of soup, a glass of water and a coffee or ice tea to your table. I saw that a lot of people got their food, found a table and then returned for beverages....what a hassle.

 

Having said all this, we did enjoy our cruise, though we will most likely never cruise Princess again. This is our second Princess cruise and frankly our cruise on the Star Princess was better than this one on the Dawn, but still a disappointment. I was sad that this was my daughter and her husbands first exposure to cruising.

 

The staff were very polite and they tried very hard to take good care of us. Our room steward was excellent and after the 3rd or 4th day, our dining staff seemed to gel and the service there improved dramatically. The bar staff were great and the drinks were exceptionally good the whole cruise. The pizzas and calzones in the pizza restaurant were excellent.

 

I've rather run on and on, and I will get right to work on the full review. We meet some wonderful people on this cruise and without an exception, our excursions were great!! We only wish that we had had more time to enjoy these ports. A few hours in a new port is just not enough time. Being with family and friends saved the cruise.

 

If anyone has any specific questions I have all the Patters and Ship Log and would be happy to answer them for you.

[kkorman]

DesertBelle,

Glad you had a good time... it is too bad the original circumstances had made so much of the trip negative for you. Having sailed one of the 2 cruises right before drydock, you'd expect us to have a worse trip, but we had the exact opposite. It ranked in the top 2 or 3 cruises I have been on.

 

It also sounds like expectaions were a little off... if you did the research, you would have known that the Dawn Princess balcony cabins are small as they are not extended out of the hull of the ship. The sq ft. including the balcony is 182, it is small, and it is right in the catalog or website.

 

The 3% on shipboard advances is industry standard.... I have actually been on cruises where it was 5%. Most people use this for gaming and not to get the OBC of their account.

 

Every Princess ship I have been on has had difficulties with internet and satellite. They all also had the warning sign that once you swipe the card, you are paying for the service. Be happy that they credited your account the first time as they did not have to.

 

Also, the women in my group walked into the area by the ship in Curacao alone at night with no issues. We met at a bar and hada nice evening in town. There were plenty of passengers in the area and the area is relatively well lighted.

 

And last, your food comment, I know that I do not go on cruises to have foods that I can easily prepare at home. I am a WIP culinary arts student, so I would be very disappointed if they went to ordinary. While mass amrket cruise fare is often only at the good to very good level, I think that Princess does better than some in adding these specialties. Their sweetbreads are quite good.

 

Anyway, better luck on your next cruise.

[Desertbelle]

Thank you, kkorman, we did have a good time and it's true that being treated so badly by Princess before-hand probably tainted the cruise some, but believe me when I say it wasn't just us who were upset.

 

I did do my research and I knew the balcony would be small. That wasn't a problem but more of an observation. And I can assure you, we measured the cabin and it was not 182 sf. The inside was 136 (8' x 17') and the balcony was 36 sf (8' x 3') for a total of 160 sf., so no ammount of research would have given us that extra 22 sf. since the catalog is incorrect!! :(

 

I have cruised NCL, Carnival, and Royal Caribbean, and have never been charged a fee for getting cash from the casino cage or pursers desk. We were just on the Legend of the Seas in September and there was absolutely no fees for getting cash from your sea pass card. They should be glad you are taking money out at the casino cashier because chances are they are going to get most of it right back!! :D Though this wasn't a huge problem for us, we did take a hit because we needed to get cash for shore excursions...if ever we cruise Princess again, I guess it could happen, :) we will be sure to bring along plenty of cash.

 

I can't agree with charging a fee to use the internet when the internet isn't available because of their problem (they replaced/repaired the satellite in Dominica and managed to get it working a day or two later) I can't think of many businesses where you pay whether you get the service or not. On other ships there has generally been a computer person in the internet cafe helping folks and trouble shooting problems, but I never saw a person the several times I went there. There were many people who were very upset with being out of contact with family and business for 8 days. I have been on other ships with spotty connections but never no connections for such a long period of time.

 

As for the cuisine, I agree that most of the dining room food was good to very good, and I don't expect more than that. I am not asking for pot roast and chicken pot pies, I love variety and some items I only get when I cruise, but sometimes they take perfectly wonderful foods, like lobster, and manage to screw it up by trying to fancy it up....this is not just a Princess problem, this seems industry wide. On our December 2003 cruise on the Legend of the Seas they had some sort of oregano coating on the lobster tails, I thought there was going to be a mutiny!! People were angry and plate after plate of lobster was being returned. In September on the Legend the lobster was plain with melted butter, and I saw a lot of smiling faces that night!! My suggestion was only that they might try to tone it down a bit, not eliminate gormet food.

 

I have no doubt my next cruise will be great....in fact I expect that all my future cruises will be great. Like some people say, even a bad cruise is better than no cruise!! :D

[Coral]

On the Princess ships I have been on - you can test the internet connection by clicking on the Princess.com website. This is free and you can tell how quickly the internet is working. If it connects quickly, you can then swipe your card and proceed to your own sites.

 

I have been on several lines and Princess is not the only line with internet issues. I had a lot of issues trying to connect on my RCCL Explorer of the Seas cruise and was unssucessful more than successful.

 

On the Dawn Princess - did they move the internet center? It used to be aft on deck 12 I believe - near the spa area.

[Desertbelle]

Yes Coral they moved the Internet center to midship deck (deck 7), and it's very lovely, all wood, very peaceful and quiet.

 

I had read your hint before but we were unable to "test" the internet by going to the Princess site first. Before you could do anything you had to swipe your card. :(

[Coral]

Yes Coral they moved the Internet center to midship deck (deck 7), and it's very lovely, all wood, very peaceful and quiet.

(

 

This is good to know. Thanks! I wonder what they took away to make space for this on Deck 7?

 

That is too bad that you can not test the connection first.

[kkorman]

Thank you, kkorman, we did have a good time and it's true that being treated so badly by Princess before-hand probably tainted the cruise some, but believe me when I say it wasn't just us who were upset.

 

I did do my research and I knew the balcony would be small. That wasn't a problem but more of an observation. And I can assure you, we measured the cabin and it was not 182 sf. The inside was 136 (8' x 17') and the balcony was 36 sf (8' x 3') for a total of 160 sf., so no ammount of research would have given us that extra 22 sf. since the catalog is incorrect!! :(

 

I have cruised NCL, Carnival, and Royal Caribbean, and have never been charged a fee for getting cash from the casino cage or pursers desk. We were just on the Legend of the Seas in September and there was absolutely no fees for getting cash from your sea pass card. They should be glad you are taking money out at the casino cashier because chances are they are going to get most of it right back!! :D Though this wasn't a huge problem for us, we did take a hit because we needed to get cash for shore excursions...if ever we cruise Princess again, I guess it could happen, :) we will be sure to bring along plenty of cash.

 

I can't agree with charging a fee to use the internet when the internet isn't available because of their problem (they replaced/repaired the satellite in Dominica and managed to get it working a day or two later) I can't think of many businesses where you pay whether you get the service or not. On other ships there has generally been a computer person in the internet cafe helping folks and trouble shooting problems, but I never saw a person the several times I went there. There were many people who were very upset with being out of contact with family and business for 8 days. I have been on other ships with spotty connections but never no connections for such a long period of time.

 

As for the cuisine, I agree that most of the dining room food was good to very good, and I don't expect more than that. I am not asking for pot roast and chicken pot pies, I love variety and some items I only get when I cruise, but sometimes they take perfectly wonderful foods, like lobster, and manage to screw it up by trying to fancy it up....this is not just a Princess problem, this seems industry wide. On our December 2003 cruise on the Legend of the Seas they had some sort of oregano coating on the lobster tails, I thought there was going to be a mutiny!! People were angry and plate after plate of lobster was being returned. In September on the Legend the lobster was plain with melted butter, and I saw a lot of smiling faces that night!! My suggestion was only that they might try to tone it down a bit, not eliminate gormet food.

 

I have no doubt my next cruise will be great....in fact I expect that all my future cruises will be great. Like some people say, even a bad cruise is better than no cruise!! :D

 

Money taken off account for me: I paid 3% on NCL 12/03 and it was 5% on Carnival 12/03 (I refused to pay this amount).

 

As for the internet, there were cafes in Curacao and Barbados (right in terminal), so they had oppurtunity. I do not have to pay for internet because of my plat. staus, but realize frustration when you want to communicate.

 

I was not questioning the quality of the lobster tails... they are tricky animals and freshness plays a huge part of that. I have had bad lobster before, so know that can be disappointing. My point is that in general cruise lines have simplified their foods from 15 years ago... this is disappointing to me. I like the traditional French cuisine. You do not see that very often anymore

 

Glad you are looking positively into the future... a bad cruise is like bad pizza... still pretty good.

[CruisinChris]

Coral -

 

They've converted the card room into the internet cafe. I understand the displaced card players now occupy many of the tables outside the Horizon Court near the pools! (Sun Princess review).

[Desertbelle]

OK, I am studying the deck plans and the best I can figure out is that the old card room, the Deck to Deck room is now the internet cafe. It's the room on the opposite side of the ship from the Photo Gallery and next to the Library, right off from the aft elevators and opposite the Vista Lounge. The best I can figure out is the new card room is, I think, inside cabins E340 and 346. It's an inside room that is dark and stuffy....not an inviting place to play games of any sort.

 

The Texas Holdem players in our group, along with some friends we made on the ship, started off in the new card room, then moved to the Atrium Lounge and then found it's home in the pizza restaurant. It's a perfect spot, a bar and pizza until late into the night!! :D