Star Pride aground off Isla de Coiba

This from Windstar this morning:

On December 22, at approximately 6:15 am CST, Windstar Cruises, Star Pride, experienced a grounding while coming into anchor at Isla de Coiba, Panama. All guests and crew are safe. Guests were disembarked as scheduled for the day’s private island event. Windstar’s technical team inspected the ship and identified some areas of the hull that are damaged, making the ship unable to sail.

As the safety and security of guests and crew is of the utmost priority, the current Star Pride cruise is canceled. Because of Isla de Coiba’s remote location (an island off the coast of Panama), the lack of infrastructure in the area, and the lack of other support vessels, Windstar arranged for sister ship, Star Breeze, along with the Terra Moana (also sailing nearby) to transfer the guests to the mainland. We are grateful and appreciative for the support of the Terra Moana in this time of need.

Star Pride guests are currently en route to Golfito, Costa Rica. From there they will be transferred to San Jose, Costa Rica where they have the option to stay in Costa Rica for the remainder of their vacation, or to fly home early. Star Pride guests were refunded 100% of their voyage, as well as a 100% of cruise fare paid for future cruise credit. The crew of the Star Pride will join the Star Breeze on Wednesday, December 23rd.

The ship will be towed to the port of Balboa in Panama for further inspections and repairs. At this time we are also cancelling the December 26th Star Pride voyage. Letters and call outs will start going out when our Vacation Planning department opens at 6:00 am PT.

Hope it doesn't affect your cruise!

Fortunately, it won't, we will be on the sister ship Star Breeze and not until March.

I would guess that Balboa has some pretty serious ship-repair facilities available, and the Pride won't be out of commission for too long.

There are 3 dry docks at Balboa, 2 smaller ones and the main dry dock which is the one the Pride would probably use. The main dry dock in Balboa is the same dimensions as a lock chamber... 1000'x110'. Not knowing what the damage is, I suppose there is the possibility the repairs could be made without taking the ship out of water.

I had a friend on this cruise. They said it was handled poorly and no one said anything about a future cruise payment. They actually slept on loungers on the beach one night!!!

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Sorry to hear this.

Keith

I had a friend on this cruise. They said it was handled poorly and no one said anything about a future cruise payment. They actually slept on loungers on the beach one night!!!

DH and I were on this cruise. I am in complete agreement that it was handled poorly. Very poorly. However, we were told about the future credit, both verbally by staff while still on the beach at Isla de Coiba and in the letter we were provided once we reached the hotel they took us to in Costa Rica. And we were not on the beach overnight. Passengers were transported to one of two ships that arrived to rescue us. One arrived at around 8:30 pm and the other at around 10:45 pm.