My wife and I just got off the dawn, and the ship is barely 10 years old and looks in pretty good shape. The crew were engaged in ongoing maintenance varnishing the hand rails, painting etc. as they should be.

The meeting with the cruise critics was opened by the "Company man" flanked by the skipper, saying that the comments that the ship was unsafe were very unfair. They arrived in Miami with 2 engines, someone told the captain that the faulty engine was fixed, the skipper took her out and the engine failed again. They sent out a repair crew to "fix" the engine and the cruise continued on 3 engines. The comment from one of the passengers was "why don't you tell us what is going on?" Good question.

The stop at Samana was a dead loss for us. I walk 4 miles a day and thought that I'd walk on shore to get my mileage in, not! They have the most annoying and aggressive sales people I've ever encountered. There was nothing at the place we stopped to see so stay on board or try one of the tours. Read more