As a break away from the farm my wife and I together with our daughter aged 7 and son aged 5 We began our cruise in Melbourne. Our local friends whom we stayed with the night before dropped us off at the port. We were pleasantly surprised to find that we could drive right up to the embarkation area so didn't need to walk far at all. Once on board we soon found our cabin easily. As we booked only 3 weeks before departure we had to take whatever cabin was available , however, we were very satisfied with our 4 berth window cabin on Riviera deck 5. The only issue we had was some machinery and trolley noise below us when docking at the ports. Otherwise all was ok. We then began the usual exploration of the rest of the ship. I stopped off at the reception desk to cancel the automatic gratuities (along with many others as this is foreign to us Aussies) giving us the freedom to decide. I also took the opportunity to put my name down for the Ultimate Ships Tour which I was lucky to get on later in the cruise. I heard about this on Cruise Critic and am pleased that I had a chance to participate. My only gripe with this tour is that it started at 8-30am while the kids club only starts at 9am so that meant that my wife had to pull out so as to mind our kids.

Food on the ship was generally very good in both the restaurant and buffet. Of course there are always some exceptions. Past reviews of the Dawn Princess mentioned that the buffet area was too small. We however had no problems with this and in fact found it easier to get a table than we did on our last cruise (P&O Ventura).

The Entertainment was great. We thoroughly enjoyed the production shows by the resident singers and dancers. Most evenings we then listed to the fantastic pianist/singer/comic entertainer Tom Franek - highly recommend! The Vista lounge shows were generally not to our liking and possibly aimed more at the older audience. Read more