Loved it for adults, would leave kids home next time

There were so many nice things about the Dawn.  The recent refurbishment made the boat look new again.  Although we had never sailed on the Dawn prior, we heard of the many great changes that were made.  We enjoyed the entertainment so much - all of the shows were done so nicely and a lot of fun.  For the food, I found the buffet to be a little boring, too much of the same thing and I found that certain areas in the buffet didn't have enough "stations", i.e. pasta station and omelet station were only able to accommodate one person at a time and the wait times were a bit long.  The food in the specialty dining rooms were amazing - we tried Moderno, Cagneys, Tepinyaki, and La Cucina.  I have to say that Cagney's probably had the best filet I had ever tasted, hands down, my favorite meal on the ship.  We did also eat at the Venetian - I found it to be a bit too formal for my liking and found the service to be very slow.  Overall, the room is beautiful.  Now for our cabins - we are a family of 4 (2 adults, 2 kids) and I was very concerned about space.  We had an oceanview room and I was pleasantly surprised at the use of space.  We had just enough room for all of our clothing and items.  The cabinetry was well thought out and made the best possible use of every space there.  Lastly, my comment about leaving the kids home - I found that the clientele on our itinerary was a bit older.  There were very few kids on this cruise (1st week back to school is likely why) and I found that most of the adults weren't thrilled that there were any kids around.  The "kids" pool was definitely for much younger kids (5 and under) and with my kids being 10 and 11, they found themselves in the bigger pool with a lot of adults who didn't want them there, not very enjoyable.  And while the pool is nice to lounge in, there's nothing special about it - just a basic pool that 5 feet deep all around.  And lastly, with the kids, I didn't find that there were enough events going on to keep them busy all day - for that reason, I would probably make this cruise Adults only next time and take them on a Disney cruise or vacation instead.