We went with Heather's sister Jennifer and her sister's boyfriend also named Jason (I know. What are the odds?)

We decided on doing two weeks because we have found that on our several land based vacations, one week just never seems to be enough. Also, I have not taken more than 1 week off at a time for over 5 years.

The Itinerary

Nov 25 - San Juan, St. Thomas, St. Kitts, Martinique, Isla Margarita, Curacao, At Sea Dec 2 - San Juan, At Sea, Trinidad, Marbados, Antigua, Tortola, St. Thomas

The ship

The ship is very nice. I found it to be well decorated but not overdone - definitely not a lot of glitz but I prefer it that way. Unfortunately, the promenade deck is littered with art for the Princess art auctions. It is not so much the art that bothered me but the fact that most of it is sitting on easels that line the hallway and take up too much space.

The wheelhouse bar is probably the most beautiful room on the ship. I love the traditional look of the dark wood and leather along with the nautical decorations (old ship throttles, model ships of old ocean liners, etc.)

The main pool area was never overcrowded with the exception of the first sea day of the Dec 2 cruise. One complaint I have of the pool area is the areas of the deck without the carpet could be slippery at times. For the most part, the carpet covered most of the necessary areas, however, when walking up the teak stairs from the pool to the upper deck we found it to be a little slick at the top of the stairs until you reach the carpet. Just doesn't make sense not to have carpet at the top of the stairs around the pool - or better yet more teak.

There was always a team of workers maintaining all aspects of the ships interior and exterior, but were never in the way and never seemed to inconvenience the passengers. I thought that was great. The ship looks absolutley brand new. I noticed while in port that some of the other ships of roughly the same age (Galaxy, Fascination, Monarch of the Seas and one of the HAL ships - forget the name) appeared more weathered than the Dawn. Some showed many signs of rust or at least considerably more than the Dawn.

We found the dining rooms to be well layed out. I liked how the rooms were divided into smaller areas by use of low glass partitions and waist high walls. It created a more intimate setting, rather than a large mess hall like atmosphere that I know some people on rtc have mentioned about a few of the other ships.

Something that surprised us about the dining room was how hot it was in there. We have heard so much about it being so cool in the dining rooms because the air conditioning, yet we found the exact opposite to the point where it was almost unbearable for us guys on formal night with our jacket and ties. Even Heather's sister, who is always cold, found it to be quite warm.

The casino looked pretty much like any vegas casino, however the odds of winning at the machines are about half as good. We were fully aware of that, so we only went a couple of nights just for fun and spent very little.

The tour of the bridge was very interesting and informative and I recommended to anyone who is interested in that sort of thing.

I won't go into detail about the rest of the ship except to say that it was all very nice and and could not find any other negatives.

Cabins

We had inside cabins on the caribe deck. We were hoping for an upgrade, being that I have connections (my cousin), however the ship was at capacity both weeks and so he couldn't pull any strings for us. In fact, there were signs at the purser's desk stating the ship was full, thus implying not to even bother requesting upgrades or room exchanges.

Having visited the ship, we were not surprised at the size of our room and actually found it quite adequate. There was no shortage of hangers in the closet and plenty of drawers. The beds are tall enough to slide suitcases under to get them out of the way. The fridge was large enough to hold several bottles of water and about a dozen beer. Speaking of which, we bought beer, wine, rum in many ports and had absolutely no problem bringing it on the ship.

My only complaint of the room was that the beds were softer than my liking. However, I could have asked for them to replace my matress but did not think to ask until late in the cruise. By then I just decided to stick it out for the remaining few days. The other Jason asked for a different matress and received it in just a few hours.

Food

Overall, the food was excellent. We had no problem finding something on each nights menu that we liked and were never dissapointed after tasting it. The dishes and desserts that stand out the most were lobster bisque, onion soup, escargot, prime rib, lamb, lobster, all the pasta dishes, raspberry creme brulee and cherries jubilee. I also had ice cream most nights - alone or as a sundae and it was fantastic.

Burgers at the Balcony Grill and pizza and calzones at La Scala were excellent.

The buffet food was what I would would expect of most buffet food and was comparable to a Las Vegas buffet at say the MGM Grand - very good but definitely not gourmet. We ate either breakfast or lunch at the horizon court on each of the 14 days and had only one really bad experience. This particular day the selections and quality of food were quite poor. In addition, it was sushi day. We were pretty excited until we tasted it. It was the absolute worst sushi any of us has ever had. The rice was very wet and mushy - almost the texture of tapioca. We asked a few people what they thought and most did not think it was that bad. They didn't think it was great, but they enjoyed it more than we did. Perhaps being from Vancouver, which has a large asian community and hence a lot of great asian cuisine, we are just used to having much better sushi.

Another negative was room service. The service itself was great and we always received our orders at our requested time, but the actual quality of food food was less than average. The fruit was not ripe and the stale croissants must have been day olds from the buffet because they were hard as a rock. The coffee and juice was fine, but it's pretty hard to screw that up.

With the exception of the sushi and room service, we were very impressed with the food.

Service

Probably the biggest positive with our Princess experience was the service. Jamie our room steward did a great job right down to organizing our clutter and folding the clothes we left laying around the room. We requested four beach towels (two each - one to lay on and one to dry off with) and they were there every night after dinner without fail. Our ice bucket was always replenished with fresh ice - sometimes twice a day. He was very friendly and seemed genuinely interested when asking what we did and how our day was. We tipped him generously after the first week and he showed his appreciation by leaving two glasses of champagne for us.

The dining room service was also great. Thinking this may have something to do with my cousin being our head waiter, I paid particular attention to see the type of service others were getting and can say that we were not getting any sort of preferential treatment...OK OK maybe just a little. But seriously, everybody I saw seemed to be getting top notch service and were well attended to. Our waiter and his assistant, Romeo and Mark, both from the Philipines, were excellent and very funny. We gave both of them more than the recommended amount as well.

Entertainment

We attended only a few shows. We not really into musicals and the Vegas style shows however, we went to see a few of the comedians and also went to London Pub Night. London Pub Night was a lot of fun with audience participation. Unfortunately, that included me and I was dragged up onstage. This was one of two nights that I was brought on stage by a performer - I must have a sign on head that says Pick Me. Anyways, at London Pub Night I was onstage with about 9 others to play a game where one has to but a ballon between your knees and waddle over to a chair where one of the cruise staff of the opposite sex was seated. Then you had to place the balloon in his/her lap and pop it by sitting in their lap - face to face. Needless to say I was not disappointed when that staff member happened to be Shelby the fitness instructor. The comedians were good but not great.

We went to the Wheelhouse Bar a few times and would have spent more time there, however the music is not exactly our style - not necessarily bad but not our thing.

We went to the disco a couple of nights, but not something we wanted to do every night.

The outside Windjammer bar on the top deck was where I spent much of my time and one my favourite places on the ship. It is a great place to have a drink or two, chat with some people, feel the breeze and watch the waves. The bartender Wayne, from Jamaica, was a lot of fun and very funny and kept the reggae tunes playing at all times. The only problem with this place is that it closes at 7:00pm. There was drink service on the pool deck but watching sea from the top deck is so much nicer.

San Juan

We arrived the night before our cruise and stayed at the Tres Palmas Inn. It is set up like spanish style bungalows. The inn is by no means deluxe, but it was clean and comfortable and saved us a few dollars copared to the bigger hotels closer to the cruise terminal. It is approximately 15 minutes from the airport and about 10 minutes from Old San Juan. We shared accomodations so there were four of us sharing two double beds. The cost was $90 for the night which included continental breakfast. There are a couple of hot tubs on the roof which we enjoyed under the stars.

We visited El Morrow which was very scenic and interesting and spent a lot of time just exploring Old San Juan.

St. Thomas

Our itinerary brought us to St. Thomas twice. On our first visit we went to Coki Beach. We got there early and there weren't too many people. It started to get a little more crowded around 2:00pm - not as bad as Megan's Bay from what we heard from many others. Snorkelling was very good and the visibility was excellent.

Second time back we took the ferry over to St. Johns and spent the day at Cinnamon Bay. The snorkelling was good with many varieties of fish, though the visibility was not quite as good as it was at Coki Beach. The island of St. John's is quite beautiful and we wish we had left ourselves more time to explore the island and the town. Cruz bay is very clean and not too crowded. This is one of the best spots we visited.

St. Kitts

Our intention was to go to Turtle Beach. Our taxi driver recommended Friar's Beach but said he would show us both and drop us off at whichever one we decided on. We are glad he did this. Turtle Beach was a little too choppy for swimming and snorkelling. So although we didn't get the chance to feed the monkeys at Turtle Beach we did see many on our way back to Friar's Beach. In addition, the drive around this island is very scenic and our driver gave us many opportunities to get out at some very nice spots to take pictures. The snorkelling at Friar's was very good on the right side of the beach along the rocks around the front side of the rocks. If you are adventurous and in good physical condition, the snorkelling gets better the further along you go to the right of the rocks. However, the current is quite strong and you should leave yourself plenty of steam to swim back. Our driver offered to pick us up at a pre-arranged time and came back on time, as promised. We found this service to be offered at many of the islands we went to and all the drivers were true to their word.

We did a bit of shopping and there was some very nice clothes, though we didn't find any real bargains.

Martinique

We took a tour of Fort Saint Louis. It not as nice as El Morro and our guide could had a very thick accent which made it almost impossible to follow. Parc de la Savanne, adjacent to the fort is quite nice and we saw a 3 foot long iguana. However, the accumualtion of garbage detracted from its beauty considerably. Actually, we found the city to be very dirty, which is unfortunate as it would be very pretty otherwise. I particularily enjoyed the architecture which issomewhat similar to the french quarter in New Orleans.

One thing that really put us off was the attitude we encountered by many of the merchants. Some were quite rude and treated us as if we were an inconvenience rather than a potential customer

Isla Margarita

Having only 5 hours in Margarita does not leave a lot of time for exploration. It is almost an hour to get to towm or some of the bigger beaches. There is a small beach within walking distance, next to the terminal. The water is shallow and very clear. Those who got up early enough to explore or take excursions said it was very pretty and wished we had more time in port.

Curacao

The Sea Aquarium is my recommendation to anyone who like sto snorkel. We did the animal encounters and it was great. For those who are not familiar with the Sea Aquarium, it is basically an average aquarium with tropical fish, sharks, pelicans and flamingoes, but the best part is the animal encounters where you get into a giant enclosed area where there are several dozens of species of fish (including large grouper, tarpon, sting rays, parrot fish, angels, etc.) In addition, behind a plexiglass window are nurse sharks, lemon sharks and giant turtles. You are given a container of small fish which you can feed to the fish you are snorkelling or diving with and you can also feed the sharks and turtles through small holes in the plexiglass barrier.

Next to the Sea Aquarium is their private beach with all facilities. It is a man made beach, which is protected by a rock wall so that the waters are very calm.

We found shopping in Curacao to be the best of all the ports we visited. But the best bargains were found on the side the ship docks at. Almost everyone heads straight for the walking bridge and over to the coloured buildings (which we did as well), but if you turn right just before that, you will find a lesser used shopping district that seems to be where the locals shop. We saw only a dozen or so cruisers. The prices in this area were noticeably less than on the other side and the clothing and electronics seemed to be the best buys.

Trinidad

After much research and queries on this newsgroup, I found nothing of interest to do in this port. There are some excellent beaches, but they are at least an hour away (about $80 in taxi fare). Having such a port intensive itinerary, we were quite content to just lay around the pool all day.

Those who went ashore and spent the big dollars to get somewhere said they enjoyed the island despite the costs and time to get to someplace nice. Port of Spain itself is just a big industrial city.

Barbados

This is where we did our only cruise organized excursion...The Jolly Roger Sailing Party. What can I say. Lots of Rum - Lots of Fun. (Except for the woman who broke her leg disembarking at the end of the party. She ended up being left behind in a Barbados hospital to get her leg pinned.)

Before the Jolly Roger, we had a driver give us a 1.5 hour tour for $35. He stopped at one of the most expensive hotels to give us a look around. It was very impressive. Incredible landscaping and an incredible beach. $185/night off-season $340/night peak

Antigua

This was one of our least favourite ports next to Trinidad. As soon as you get past the pier, there is a small shopping plaza area which is nice enough, but that's where it ends. The rest of the town is dirty and smelly. We took a taxi over to Dickinson Bay and while the beach was nice, there was little scenery along the way. The island was very dirty and the people appear to be extremely poor. The vendors on the beach are very aggressive and became quite annoying as they don't seem to understand "No Thank You"

Tortola

This is another one of our favourites. The islands are beautiful, clean and the people are very pleasant.

We took the ferry to Virgin Gorda to see the rock formations at The Baths. This was definitely one of the highlights of our trip. We took the trail through the rocks to Devils Bay. Devils Bay was an awesome sight, the water was the warmest I've experienced and the snorkelling was great.

Conclusion

I totally enjoyed my first cruising experience and would not hesitate to do it again, though we'll need to do a couple of years of saving before we can take our next. The positives far outweighed the negatives. As far as recommendations regarding the Dawn Princess, I can't really say as I have no other frame of reference. I can say that the ship is beautiful, we never felt crowded despite the ship being at capacity and the service exceeded anything I have experienced on any of my land based vacations.

Jayson Vadasz
and Heather Lorette
Richmond, BC
Canada