The Dawn is a beautiful ship. It is very classy and is maintained quite well. Although several times the public restrooms, when you could find them, were clogged. There didn't appear to be as many restrooms on this ship as other ships we have cruised on in the past.
We were very disappointed right off the bat when we had to sit in the cold, uncomfortable pier building for 5 hours upon arrival in New York, due to the late arrival into port. The ship arrived at 12PM instead of 8 AM as scheduled, and it was a mass of people going every which way. We finally got on the ship around 6 PM, and the ship departed approximately 8 PM. We were told the late arrival was due to a medical emergency, however we heard from past cruisers on the Dawn that the ship is late quite often, and the "medical emergency" is a very common excuse used to appease the new passengers trying to embark.
As a result of the late start, the itinerary was changed to delete Barbados from the port schedule. San Juan was added in for the first stop instead. After having been in San Juan several times in the past, we were quite disappointed. However, there's nothing you can do but go with the flow. We also heard from past Dawn cruisers that they rescheduled St. Thomas for Monday because we weren't scheduled to arrive there until after noon on Sunday, and by then most of the stores would be closed. On Monday we would have all day to shop in St. Thomas.