Dear Generals Wizard,I sailed on Dawn Princess last month for two weeks from 15th to 29th December and I hope I can help.
You will enjoy all your ports of call, they are all worth visiting.
We took a half-day afternoon tour on St Kitts to the gardens of Romney Plantation, the Caribelle Batik Factory and Brimstone Hill fortress – the coastal drive to reach the Fortress was beautiful and well worth the cost of the tour in itself. We also took a seaplane flight-seeing tour on St Thomas, which flew over St Thomas, St John, Virgin Gorda, Tortola and Jost Van Dyke – an extraordinary experience, although expensive at $108 per person.
Aruba and St Thomas are classy places – tell the ladies in your party to polish up their credit cards ready for action, and then lock your own credit card up.
I had heard that St Maarten was the “best” in the Caribbean, price-wise, for shopping but I found the shopkeepers in St Maarten to be aggressive without offering what I considered to be keen prices, so I waited until St Thomas to enjoy the more relaxed St Thomas shopping style. In St Thomas you can shop at the mall next to the dock, Havensight Mall, or you can walk or take a taxi/jitney - $3.00 each way - to the downtown shops. I preferred the downtown shops – more picturesque and more variety. Boyfriends and husbands can be parked more easily and in more comfort at the bars downtown too.
We enjoyed St Thomas and Aruba – both were classy places. We had a wonderful lunch at an Italian restaurant on the seafront in Aruba, Don Carlos.
La Guaira in Venezuela was the port for the city of Caracas. We were in La Guaira on Christmas Day. Some passengers took tours to Caracas and the Murano glass factory and they came back with mixed reviews, some people had loved the tour and some said they would have rather have stayed on the ship.
(I apologise for the next four paragraphs if you are not interested in dancing or the gym and this turns out to be more information than you really want to know. I prepared some of this text earlier for someone who asked specifically about these things and I thought I’d just leave it in).
We had the opportunity to do some dancing during the cruise, in one of the ship’s bars, the Wheelhouse Lounge. There were two bands which played alternately there. The Don Sauro Trio played crooner-type songs to which you could waltz, foxtrot, rumba, samba and cha-cha. They also played a little tango, but no Argentine tango (although by the end of the cruise we had almost worked up our courage to ask for one). A group called Legacy played mostly up-tempo songs which were good for jive and cha-cha and they played a lot of merengue requests. Both Don Sauro and Legacy were approachable and happy to take requests for specific styles of songs. We found the dance floor could get crowded after dinner with the "boozy-clinging-shuffle" couples (“Why aren’t these people in the disco?” we wondered. I am smiling as I write this, but if you are a ballroom aficionado you will know what I mean). Although this was good exercise in practicing our floorcraft, it was not always satisfying when trying to waltz, tango or foxtrot where you really need to get around the floor. We liked it better when we went to the Wheelhouse to dance BEFORE dinner, when there were few (if any) other dancers and we could take full advantage of the dance floor.
The gym is good. It has two old fashioned rowing machines (the ones with animated screens where you either compete with a pacer or the shark chases you), at least six stationary cycles, three of which are recumbent, four stairmasters and at least seven, maybe more, treadmills. You must sign up in advance for the treadmills. There are also a couple of sit-up benches, a rack of freeweight dumbbells and a multi-gym. There is an annexe to the gym which is an exercise studio - it has mats and additional dumbbells. Some of the classes are free, and some (yoga and one other I think self-defence) attract a fee of $10 per class. The gym is supervised by a couple of young British guys who like to pretend to be drill sergeants and shout at you: “Are you working hard enough, people?” “Are you drinking enough water, people?” “Are you enjoying yourselves, people?”. But they were really pussycats and nice guys. Towards the end of our cruise they were unpacking and assembling yet more cycles which looked like the kind used in spinning classes, so you may have that to look forward to on your cruise!
I was on this exact same cruise, at the same time of year, on Dawn Princess the previous year (in 2000). There appeared to be fewer passengers using the gym, at least during the times I was there, in December 2001 than December 2000. Whether this is indicative of the fitness craze going out of fashion, or whether I was on the ship with a bunch of particularly laid-back co-holidaymakers, is anybody’s guess!
I did not use the spa - the massages and treatments on offer seemed expensive, in my opinion. Even taking into account the dollar to sterling exchange rate, I can have the same treatments at health clubs/spas in London at lower prices. I could be wrong, as I did not pay a lot of attention, but it appeared that the cheapest treatment on offer cost around $75.
For what it’s worth, you may be interested to hear about our dining experiences last month on Dawn Princess. We were on traditional second seating in the Venetian dining room during our first week and on Personal Choice in the Florentine during our second week. If you find yourself on Personal Choice, I can recommend that you request to sit in Francisco’s area. He is the waiter who handles the area including tables 21 and 26. He is one of the best waiters I have ever had at sea. He made us feel very welcome and treated us graciously.
Our experience of the traditional dining, second seating during our first week was enjoyable, as usual – nothing new to report.
For our second week we moved to Personal Choice dining due to the ship being “fully booked so far in advance for Christmas week, blah blah blah”- quoteth Princess. We knew in advance we would be moving to Personal Choice during the second week and we were looking forward to it – we wanted to try something new. Although I have read that others have loved their Personal Choice dining experiences, we did not enjoy it as much as traditional dining. My boyfriend and I went to dine each night between 8.45 and 9.15 pm (the Personal Choice dining room is open from 5.30 to 10.00 pm). Each night when we entered the dining room we asked the maitre d’ for “a table for four or six to share with one or two other couples” - we were happy to meet other couples. We got what we requested on only one night out of the seven, when we were sat at a table for four with one other couple with whom we enjoyed dinner and the accompanying conversation. Twice we sat alone just the two of us at a table for four, which was fine - very acceptable - but not what we had asked for. The other four nights we were tacked onto tables of eight or ten, usually two families and us. And, with the exception of the Fantastic Francisco, we felt rushed through the meal by the Personal Choice waiters – one night a waiter even began putting down the cutlery for the next course before we had finished the course we were eating. My dear boyfriend eats more slowly than I do and he had to hang on to his plate a couple of times when waiters thought he had finished – we sussed out quickly the secret to keep the waiters at bay was for him not to put his knife and fork down until he had completely finished!
I know I am being subjective – this is just my opinion - and others might see these types of situations as great social opportunities missed, and that some folks may prefer to dine at a faster pace. Maybe we were just a little unlucky, but it was not our ideal way of dining. However, we were glad we tried personal choice to see what it was all about.
The food itself was excellent and there was plenty of it. In the dining room in the evenings it included smoked salmon, sirloin steak, prime rib, beef Wellington, crab legs, various pasta dishes available as main courses or side dishes and, for desserts, crème brulee, individual soufflés and baked Alaska, although not all this was on offer every night. There were always soup, salads, fish and vegetarian alternatives on the menu. And both dining rooms, the Florentine and the Venetian, are beautifully decorated.
I hope this information is of assistance and I wish you a lovely time on your cruise!