The Dawn has far less on-board activities and things to do than any other ship I've been on. We also spent much less time in port and then wasted time barely moving at all to get back to Boston. The Northeast to Bermuda trips on other ships only have 1 sea day each way which is far better.

The food was average and none of us (there were 68 people in our group) were big fans of it. We ended up spending a ton of money eating in Bermuda instead of the food we'd already paid for on the ship. The Garden Cafe and Blue Lagoon are the worst of it and they're usually already out of a lot of things by the second day. In the main dining rooms and specialty restaurants the food was much better but be prepared to wait, sometimes a couple hours, for a table for 2-4 people. In concept Freestyle Cruising is great but then you end up with all 2000+ people on board trying to eat at the same time.

The one redeeming part of the cruise was The Second City. DO NOT MISS THEM. Best comedy show I've ever been to. If you have kids they also do another family show and an improv workshop. There's an adults only show the last night too. On the other hand though, don't waste any time on the other comedian, Dave Heenan, who's by far the worst we'd ever seen. The "V" Show is also terrible, just some random singers tossed together one after another. Very slow-paced and didn't even have an MC. Most of their singers are pretty good but one with an extremely baritone voice that we just couldn't stand kept showing up in every singing show. Read more