I just returned today from a week on the Dawn, April 27 - May 4. I traveled with my husband, my 5 year old daughter, my sister and a female friend of hers. This was my second cruise.

Embarkation was quite easy. The lines moved as quickly as can be expected. We got in and headed to the Garden Buffet for lunch. The lunchtime buffet food was adequate, not bad and not great. While at lunch they announced that all staterooms were ready, this was before 2:00 PM. We stayed on the 8th floor, mid-ship, in an obstructed oceanview room. I had decided to try that for a savings. The view was quite obstructed, as they describe, but it did allow for letting some light in. The room was small but very clean and I liked the set-up of the bathroom, with the separation between the toilet, sink and shower. The shower was quite good-sized. The beds were pushed together and we pulled the bunk bed down off the wall and set the ladder up and it worked great.

Food: The breakfast in the buffet was very good. They had everything you could imagine there. I especially loved the waffles and the fresh fruit was wonderful. I never ate breakfast in the restaurants so I can't really compare. We had lunch in the buffet one day and dinner in the buffet one night. That was enough for me. First, the food on the buffet just was not very good quality. The pizza was worse than the cheapest frozen pizza. The desserts were not bad, so both times I ended up eating mainly dessert. I'm not a big buffet fan anyway, and it's mostly because people tend to be gross. I observed two people touching food and then not taking it. Anyhow, we had a few lunches at Blue Lagoon, as well as a few midnight snacks, since Blue Lagoon is open 24 hours. All of the food there was quite good for what it was. We especially enjoyed the buffalo wings and the spinach artichoke dip. Not as good were the panini (cold) and the strawberry poundcake (dry). Most nights we had dinner in Aqua and the Venetian, and had lunch in the Venetian on a few days. Both dining rooms had very good food. The service in Aqua seemed to be faster than the Venetian, but wait staff in both were very nice and attentive. We found the food served in the dining rooms to be of very good quality, no complaints there. I would highly recommend taking advantage of the dining rooms for lunch and dinner, although it does take longer. But the biggest dissappointment all week was the chocoholic buffet. We literally ran back to the ship after a shore excursion in order to get in before it ended. The buffet was so bad that there was nothing I could even eat on it, and I am not picky, especially when it comes to chocolate. Honestly, I can't even remember what was on it. I filled my plate with the different items (about 7). Out of that,there was one piece of mocha cake that was edible, but it still wasn't good. All in all, the food was very good, but if/when I go on this cruise again i will do breakfast in the buffet and then go to the dining rooms for the rest. My only prior cruise experience was in July on Carnival Imagination and I have to say that the food on Carnival was a little bit better. Read more