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Embarkation
CAST OF CHARACTERS: My wife Patsy, and I are 52; Susan, our daughter, turned 22 on the cruise; her best friend and our frequent travel guest, Amy, is 22; Matt just turned 19. He, my wife and I have cruised once before (on Sun Princess to the Western Caribbean in April 1997.) The girls are first-timers.
CHOICE OF CRUISE LINES: Not difficult, really. We thoroughly enjoyed our other experience with Princess. The itinerary was secondary to the cruise experience. The many verandah rooms on the Sun/Dawn ships are an important consideration.
PRE-CRUISE: We flew into San Juan on Friday, January 2, on Princess-arranged flights from Springfield, MO via DFW to San Juan on American. Flights were fine, no glitches. We scheduled our own lodgings and would probably go with Princess next time. We stayed at the Crowne Plaza Holiday Inn, as we have had very good experience with the chain in the past. The hotel is located very near the airport so the noise level is a consideration, although they do stop flights after midnight or reroute them or something so we slept well. Nothing really wrong with the hotel and, with three rooms, we saved some $$$.
Breakfast buffet, the only available food at or near the hotel, however, was appalling. Cold, runny eggs, with strips of meat upon whose identity we can't agree, likewise cold greasy bacon and beef (?!) sausage patties accompanied some adequate pastries and toast-it-yourself bread (with one toaster and about 50 people eating in the casino lounge, there were disagreements about just whose toast it was -- my wife was, I'm afraid, guilty of toast rustling.) Almost forgot the piece de resistance -- cold frozen french fries heated in grease with onions and peppers. Gaaaahhh! Next time we sail from San Juan we will stay at the Wyndham-Old San Juan. It's just across the street from the dock (bellmen take luggage directly from the hotel to the ship) and looks elegant. The Condado is close and looks nice, too.
EMBARKATION: Totally painless and quick. About noon, we taxied ($30.00) to the dock with our 12 pieces of luggage and a porter took our bags and promised faithfully to personally see to them so I gave him $10; what a bargain! As it turned out, the bags were in our rooms by 2:30. We were able to get in our rooms by 12:30 p.m. We had a lovely lunch in the Florentine Dining Room. For some reason, all the crew members we asked told us that lunch was only available in the Horizon Court (buffet) but we remembered a fantastic embarkation day lunch from the Sun Princess and showed up at the Dining Room and, surprise, a very few lucky souls had a fantastic lunch. Some food items are only available at this lunch, such as a mixed smoked fish appetizer, great beef tenderloin filet, and a vanilla soufflé that is my favorite dessert of the whole cruise.
We're docked at Pier 3 next to the Bolero(formerly NCL Starward) and the Thomson line's Emerald to the west and CCL's Fascination and RCCL Rhapsody to the east. Bolero is an older, smaller vessel and looks kind of worn around the edges. Emerald is also older (I classify any ship with portholes in passenger cabins as older) but appears very neat and shipshape. I've never heard of Thomson but will look them up. We watched both ships get underway before 6:00. Fascination and Rhapsody of the Seas are very classy, new megaships but, in my never-to-be-humble opinion, not as good as the Dawn. We then walked into Old San Juan for some supplies - bought the quik-shop on the dock out of Dr. Pepper (my wife has a major DP jones.)
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ACCOMMODATION: The old folks had a verandah room on the Aloha (11th) deck. Just can't imagine a cruise without a verandah, but our kids did OK. Plenty of room for clothes, suitcases under bed, etc. The bathroom small but adequate. We tried to upgrade to a mini-suite but none was available. Susan and Amy were in an outside room on the Dolphin (8th) Deck - no complaints from them. Matt was a last minute addition (his trip to Israel canceled out the last minute) and we got him an outside economy room on the Plaza (5th) Deck. Small, but quite adequate, especially for a single.
SAILING DAY (DAY 0): {note: I'm drafting this opus as the days go by on my trusty laptop, so there may be lapses of tense, syntax, etc., and it may get a little verbose, but I like long, detailed cruise reviews, so a couple of you may, too.}
First night dinner reunited us with Jose Amaro (from Portugal), our waiter from the Sun Princess. Quite a coincidence, considering he just moved to the Dawn a couple of weeks ago. Very professional, friendly waiter, never a glitch in orders. Junior waiter is Roland Lesko (from Hungary) young, very smiley and attentive (possibly Susan and Amy had a little to do with his attitude.) Dinner was excellent. Appetizers included a prawn and bay shrimp cocktail with tomatillo salsa, spring rolls, fresh fruit with Armagnac Champaign. Entrees included chicken cacciatore, New York strip steak, Virginia ham and a lovely seafood pocket in puff pastry with scallops, baby squid and shrimp. Desserts included apple strudel, rum raisin ice cream, profiteroles with boozy berries and a flourless chocolate cake. The kids had a cold piña colada soup that they really liked. Excellent coffee.
SAILAWAY: We left port about 11:30 after Rhapsody and Fascination and a Celebrity ship I couldn't identify. As we rounded Fort Morro Point, we hit 12-foot waves and medium gale force winds up to 40 knots. This was quite a change from dockside tranquility. Most deck-side passengers scuttled below, unable to grow sea-legs instantly. The kids, with their cabins in the bow, rocked and rolled a bit the first night; we're a bit more stable amidships.
Continue on to Section 2; Day 1, At Sea
Embarkation; At Sea;
Barbados; St. Lucia; Martinique; St. Martin;
St. Thomas; Disembarkation
