March 2023, SS Dawn Review

[thebigcruiseguy]

We wanted to share a brief review of our experience aboard Silversea Dawn in early March, 2023 from San Juan to Bridgetown.

 

Context: This was our very first SS cruise. We have sailed on Crystal Serenity, Seabourn Ovation and a few Celebrity ships as well.

 

Getting to the point: SS Dawn is a gorgeous ship, definitely the most elegant we have sailed, although there were some shortcomings which may give us pause on booking another.

 

Overall Impressions:

 

Silversea has done a remarkable job on the design on SS Dawn, this ship is an elegant beauty from top to bottom. Of all the cruises we have taken in the past, Dawn takes first place in terms of the physical appearance of the ship. She feels like what you would expect from a newer Four Seasons Hotel. The venues are gorgeous, the ship is comfortable, and the pretentiousness we might have expected was not felt by fellow guests or the crew.

 

We had very high expectations for SS overall, knowing it’s the pinnacle of cruising brands. Overall, we would rate the experience as a 7.5/10. The primarily reason for a less than excellent score: The Food and The Entertainment. The latter you could possibility be more forgiving as SS is known for more low key luxury, but the entertainment was just down right bad. That said, the quality and experience of the ship’s physical appearance was stellar, as was the service throughout.

 

The Food:

 

Wow, we were shocked at how “bad” the food really was for the highest end cruising brand in the industry. We’re not talking one or two meals bad, but I would say nearly 60% of our meal experiences left much to be desired. Could this really be, on SS? Food is highly subjective as we all know, and perhaps they were having a bad week, but we felt the overall quality and variety of food was just sub par for the brand. By comparison, Crystal (when we sailed in 2019) was leaps and bounds ahead of SS, Seabourn was also ahead in terms of food, and so were our Celebrity experiences.

 

Where SS did do well in terms of food: Caviar on demand (a nice touch of course), Spaccanapoli and La Dame. La Terraza also deserves recognition as we thought it was much better and “restaurant like” compared to the other “cruise food” tasting venues. The buffet options at La Terraza were also quality oriented.

 

Where did SS do poorly in terms of food: Kaiseki, Atlantide and the absolute worst: Hot Rocks. We tried our very best not to be critical, and in fact it was a consensus in our group that these venues were just down right disappointing. Flavorless, poor quality cuts of steak, seafood that did not taste fresh were among the comments we had for these venues. We tried hard to identify the source of the issues- was it staffing? Was it quality of the raw ingredients? Perhaps a combination of things, but SS really does need to assess things on the food front. 

 

Drink Offerings: this is where we thought SS really outdid themselves! Compared to other luxury lines, SS nailed the drink offerings. Mixology was stellar, the best example of course being Salt Bar. Presentation of drinks (love the linen napkins!) was stellar, as was the selection of spirits. Wine offers were also quite nice, although our only complaint was that the staff was pushing 1 selection of each type of wine in the venues, and if you didn’t ask- you would never get to try other types of wines on the included lists.

 

Entertainment:

 

Again, setting expectations here is key. Of course luxury lines will not have the level of entertainment options by virtue of the audience and number of guests on board. SS is intended to be subtle luxury- yes we get that, but the quality of the entertainment (with the exception of one venue, Silver Note), was the worst we’ve experienced on a cruise. Very few deck band appearances (Seabourn by comparison did a great job!), and the bands throughout were literally playing synthesized pre selected songs on keyboards. Come on SS- step things up! The acts in the theatre were also average at best. SS could easily maintain the subtle entertainment approach they have by also adding in a few more options, by the pool for example and in the main venue areas.

 

Conclusion:

This is not intended to be an exhaustive review, yet just a quick perspective on our experience. Overall, we would love an excuse to give SS another try, but based on the food and entertainment alone, we would be reluctant do to so.

 

Highlights however did include, fantastic service throughout (The suite butlers as an example were lovely), beautiful ship with modern “hotel like” venues and of course a small initiate ship environment you would expect from a luxury line. At this point, we’re more inclined to give Seabourn or Crystal another try for our next luxury cruise experience.

 

[Mr Luxury]

Lovely picture of Seabourn Ovation.🙂

[etual324]

We were on the MOON in Sept and the MUSE in  Dec  and our cruises were almost a carbon copy of your review

[dawntrdr]

Thanks for your review and the photographs which brought back happy memories.  Agree that the entertainment needs to be improved and I understand that there is a new company or team starting to handle it.

[saminina]

Good review and not too far off the mark from my opinion.   You are much more impressed with their caviar product. 

[Mr Luxury]

8 minutes ago, saminina said:

Good review and not too far off the mark from my opinion.   You are much more impressed with their caviar product. 

Better than posting here and moaning I suppose.

[labrasett]

She certainly is a beautiful ship.   We dont care for "entertainment" so werent in any way disappointed in that respect and I hesitate to suggest that music by the pool except perhaps at lunchtime or in early evening would be unwelcome for many, peace and quiet has have many merits.   As for food, well my main complaint would be that the meat portions were just too big for me, I cannot face a large piece of meat on my plate so didnt have meat apart from sharing a fillet steak with my husband at Hot Rocks on one occasion.   I ate lobster perhaps five or six times in various venues, I had wonderful turbot, salmon, cod and prawns also in a variety of venues.   All the fish dishes were, to me, surprisingly good considering they must have been frozen at some point but were nevertheless succulent and appropriately flavoured.  The lunch buffet in La Terrazza never failed to offer something delicious including some really wonderful quiches and also some spicy hot dishes.   Overall I didnt feel the food was disappointing but mainly not to my taste.

[saminina]

5 minutes ago, Mr Luxury said:

Better than posting here and moaning I suppose.

Exactly.....let someone else do the dirty work for a change.

[erikzen]

The food might not be great but you wouldn't know it looking at your pics. They at least seem to do a good job with the presentation.

[labrasett]

50 minutes ago, erikzen said:

The food might not be great but you wouldn't know it looking at your pics. They at least seem to do a good job with the presentation.

The pizzas were out of this world delicious.

[drron29]

Yep food is subjective. Your 3 worst restauants are our 3 preferred and the ones you thought good are our lowest 3. How a buffet can be considered fine dining intriques me.

On our last 2 cruises, Dawn and now Moon .The steaks have been very good. Cooked as asked tender and flavoursome. We have tried most of the top ranked US steakhouses. The only difference is size of the steak.

Kaiseki. Well we have only had 100n trips to Japan and we think the lunches are excellent. Our experience of Asian restaurants in the US is they cater for US tastes which usially are not authentic Asian. There are of course exceptions.

Edited April 16, 2023 by drron29

[les37b]

Thanks for your review and taking the time to do so. 
 

We were on the sailing onwards from your disembarkation port of Barbados.

 

Agree with you on the Ship. Dawn is splendid.

 

Entertainment, it’s very rare we go to any shows, but did see one this time. I expect some might enjoy the “Queen” tribute. It was ok at times, but not for me. 
 

Food, as Drron said, is subjective usually, but not always. On my second night in Salt, I sent back both starter and main course. The starter was stone cold (literally room temperature and did recheck it was meant to be hot!) I got that changed. The main was Luke warm, but under cooked. I chose not to replace. Service was slow and wasn’t going to stave so left it. This is the first time on any SS cruise I’ve sent food back, so really not good to have 2 in a row.

 

It did pick up after that and that meal the only meal of notable dissatisfaction.

 

Drinks, I’d usually agree. But was surprised at no Peroni (on an Italian ship at the pizzeria.) They had none on the ship available anywhere. It happens I know, but some things you’d expect not to. Our fridge was sparse… and not restocked. I did manage to get 2 bottles of Asahi beer, but never replaced. No big deal, but not good either. Beyond that, Al as expected.

 

Staff as always were excellent, but there were far more than usual getting up to speed.

 

Highlight food related was the death by chocolate which was stunning.

 

Will you be booking another?

 

 

.

Edited April 16, 2023 by les37b

[Lois R]

Food is so funny. I have been on Spirit for the last 10 days and sans 2 service issues, the food overall has been some of the best I have eaten on any of my sailings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lois R]

I will write some sort of review after I get home.