New to NCL,not new to cruising,some questions...

Hi everyone.I've looked at Norweigan more than once but wasn't ready until I saw the recent offer,and a good price on a sailing in a minisuite in October.We're sailing to the Western Caribbean on the Star in Oct. We've sailed on Disney,and do our 2nd Carnival next month.Somehow I found Norweigian calling my name this time around! Love the idea of the Freestyle dining and not having to wear a suit or fancy dress once in awhile. We're in our 60's still working,so I think this will fit the bil!;) Are there any perks to having a minsuite?We'll be on Deck 11,miship Starboard side.

Do the ships have laundry rooms for our use? Also any tips on whats good or bad about this ship would be greatly appreciated!;)

Haven't been on the Star, just Gem and Pearl...no perks to the minisuites on those.

There are no self serve laundry on NCL. There are some "fill the bag" laundry offers at times.

No special perks with the mini-suites (although sometimes they have larger bathrooms with bathtubs ... but I'm not sure that's true on the Star). Sometimes you get a slightly higher OBC with the mini-suites. There are no self-laundry rooms on any NCL ship.

The Star is a nice ship; we did a Pacific coastal to Alaska on her a few years ago. We thought it had an odd pool area with a stair step kind of area for lounges as shown at about 1:03 in this video:

We had no complaints about the ship, though. Very nice crew, the food was acceptable and the entertainment good. It is different from all other NCL ships in layout as it was intended for Star Cruises (the NCL Spirit may be a sister ship to it). So keep that in mind when comparing it to your Carnival cruises (Disney is in a class by itself IMHO and it's hard to compare anyone to them).

As I learned the hard way last cruise, a mini suite is simply a larger cabin. You get no suite perks whatsoever.

I was OK with doing it because the day we booked it was $20 pp more than a plain balcony. There was no where to go in terms of upgrades however. The balcony prices dropped. The minisuite went up. The next rung was Haven which was about $2000 more pp.

Did the Star a few years ago. It was a nice ship. Totally different than Breakaway, Getaway, etc.

You will love Freestyle and going to dinner when you want.

Hi everyone.I've looked at Norweigan more than once but wasn't ready until I saw the recent offer,and a good price on a sailing in a minisuite in October.We're sailing to the Western Caribbean on the Star in Oct. We've sailed on Disney,and do our 2nd Carnival next month.Somehow I found Norweigian calling my name this time around! Love the idea of the Freestyle dining and not having to wear a suit or fancy dress once in awhile. We're in our 60's still working,so I think this will fit the bil!;) Are there any perks to having a minsuite?We'll be on Deck 11,miship Starboard side.

 

Do the ships have laundry rooms for our use? Also any tips on whats good or bad about this ship would be greatly appreciated!;)

As others have mentioned, there is no self service laundry on board.

Aside from extra room and a nicer bathroom, mini-suites have no other perks.

This month, the Star is heading into dry dock for some refurbishment, so those of us who have cruises on her this fall will have an updated ship to explore. The plans are to convert the deck 8 area of blue lagoon and Moderno into O'Sheehans, and move Moderno to deck 13 across from Cagneys. This will be a nice change :)

It appears that as of this moment, the Star is indeed on its way to Portland, passing San Jose right now and should be in Portland for dry dock tomorrow!

Sorry if my response is off topic a tiny bit, but with NCL's current sale that's going on, just wanted to remind you to check the suite price too.

I was going to book two balconies like I usually do, but when I priced out the suite for next April's cruise, it was only $500 more for 6 people, and the suite price includes all four freestyle choices, instead of just one (dinner plan, beverage plan, tips pd for two people, and OBC), so for my family the suite will actually end up being a better deal than the balconies! You may want to look into it for yourself.