The Star has got a large wrap-round open deck 7. The front part is covered in around the bow, but the stern part of the deck gives superb views and you can move across from side to side if something catches your eye.  On the outbound leg (if it is not already dark) the sun will be behind the ship and you will get the best view of the sunset.  It will take about an hour and a half for the ship to get to the open sea, so you can factor that into your plan to be outside between eating and the main theatre show.

The run into and out of Kotor is also about 90 minutes and the view from the stern section of the open deck 7 is priceless.  The last time we did it I spent the whole of both directions going back and forth across the stern.  There were fantastic views on both sides, but I felt the starboard side had slightly more interest on the outgoing leg.

Now I am really confused.  The wrap-round outside Promenade deck is Deck 7 on both the Star and the Pearl/Jade Jewel and whilst I agree that the front is enclosed by those big front steel plates (as it is on the Jewel Class ships), the rest of that deck has rails to the ocean that go right round (on Star past where that silly woman jumped off near the stern in the summer).  I spent the best part of an hour on that Deck 7 aft area as we went round to and to an from Kotor in the summer and the views were fantastic. There are now even a few tables and chairs on that deck outside the new "5 O'Clock Somewhere Bar on Star.  On the Star, Deck 13 also has a lot of ocean views as long as you count looking through the running track glass enclosure.  We didn't go on the Star, before the big refit but I do agree that the loss of the Spinnaker in exchange for a few suites looked definitely a backward step for the rest of us.    The Jewel ships have the running track on Deck 13 but not enclosed by those glass windows and we were very glad to see that the Spinnaker survived the last big update on the Jade.

The Star now has the new Spice H2O at the stern on Deck 12 with views to the ocean, although the best views are from the two elevated hot tubs whereas the Jewel ships have that super outside "Great Outdoors" area round the stern.

I can't remember what the Getaway looked like when we went on her, but I have to say that we really missed the views outside on the Epic.  Apart from the Posh and the fore sundecks and the few open areas on Decks 15 and 16 and 7 it always seems so enclosed, especially when you are inside that big area with the entertainments, food and casino.

21 hours ago, 4774Papa said:

The Star is OK, except its design is one of my least favorite.  It has no aft sunset bar just outside the buffet, since the spa and fitness center are there.   Also, there are few places on the ship to see out to the ocean, like on the Dawn.

Haven't been on the Pearl.

Pearl goes to Rome, which is one of my favorite cities.

I don't understand the ocean view comment. Both Star and Pearl have full wrap-round promenade decks with excellent views around the stern as well as lots of places higher up the ship where you can sea the ocean.

The weather issue is largely irrelevant because it can be so variable depending on the jet stream variations. We went on the Star in late September and had cold weather throughout the whole cruise and a Medicane (Mediterranean hurricane) as well around the southern end of the Adriatic.  We were on Jade last year on the same week and more or less same itinerary and it was perfect very warm weather.

Rome airport is pretty good but there is that long trip to Civitavecchia port to consider to and from the ship.  Venice airport is a complete zoo but the port run is short and that sailout along the Giudecca Canal past St Marks Square is a top bucket list experience. If you have never done that sailout you have yet to experience the best sailout anywhere on the globe.

5 hours ago, Shacky316 said:

Where is concierge located on Jade?

They do not have a fixed base like they do on the megaships.  Most of them tend to use the area around the entrance to the breakfast venue in the morning so they see the majority of the suite guests there.  The majority of them also spend evenings moving around the specialist restaurants.  We find that the relationship between us and the concierge is more personal on the smaller ships. That might be because they have not got a desk to live behind and they have to work a bit harder to go and meet guests rather than always having guests standing opposite that desk on the megaships.  It is also easier for the concierge to  be seen when they are around the ship on the smaller ships. 

13 hours ago, Shacky316 said:

Hello.  Just to clarify.  For non Haven suite guests (ie. SC cat), no Haven access, yes to butler/concierge, yes to Cagney's or Modern B-fast/lunch.

 

Also, Is there a private sundeck for non-Haven suite guests?

 

 

The access to the private sundeck is from the courtyard and so not available to non-Haven guests. There are other public sundecks for everyone else.  Not sure if mentioned recently, but there is a butler who looks after the courtyard and sundeck and they will serve breakfast, lunch and drinks if you want to stay there.  There is also a casual snack bar in the courtyard with tea/coffee and hot or chilled water plus things like cookies and sometimes M&Ms and small cakes  The Jewel ships courtyard also has a moveable roof so if the weather is a bit cool or wet, it is a great area to chill.  We really missed a courtyard roof on our Getaway Caribbean cruise and the courtyard was pretty useless on that trip, so big is not always best.

On 10/31/2018 at 3:47 PM, jvsnana said:

Hi Nalagh...I heard back from the Pre Cruise Concierge and Suzana Bajramovic will be the Concierge onboard the Star when we cruise on Nov. 19th. 

We sailed on the Star a few weeks ago and we found Suzana to be a bit of a mixed benefit.  She was always contactable and if you asked her directly to do something she always seemed to do her best to sort it.  She is very much not a touchy feely-person but does have a pleasant personality.  We had issues that, unlike the best concierges, she did not anticipate anything we wanted because she never established a personal relationship with us and so had to fight from behind all of the time to solve issues that need not have arisen.  That sometimes meant that unless we did things for ourselves we missed out on some meal reservation choices because we did not see her one-to-one for the first few days at all.  Her style was to prefer getting groups together and addressing them en-bloc.  We never saw her when we were dining in the evening or at breakfast, even though those times had always been ideal for contact with other concierges we have had.

She was not the worst concierge we have had, but neither was she anywhere near the best.

The URL https://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/ is showing:

and is showing an IP address of 172.31.44.69

The Star was sailing in and around the Medicane Zorba around Greece last week. The winds were over 100 mph at times on Thursday and Friday around southern Greece. However the captain managed to get the ship into Piraeus along with lots of Greek ferries that were there because they could not get to the islands and all of the Star's excursions went ahead although there were lots of strong wind warnings on the roads and heavy rain to the north of Athens itself.

The Star left Piraeus and headed south to go round the southern edge of Greece on Thursday evening. The turn North towards the Adriatic during the night again put the ship into very strong winds and the Captain took a decision to run quickly to get North of the storm as quickly as possible as it grew even stronger to the South. As it got light on Friday morning the ship received a message that an unfortunate lone yachtsman was in serious trouble around 10 miles south of the Star and as the nearest ship it was asked to go to his assistance so the ship reversed course for about 30 minutes until the boat was spotted.

Once the boat had been located the captain put the Star to windward and acted as a wind break whilst the sailor tried to recover from a broken mainmast and a failed engine. The Star stayed with the boat for around 45 minutes with the rescue boat being prepared to rescue the sailor from his ailing boat whilst being sheltered from the storm winds. However, it was decided that a Greek Coastguard rescue boat heading to the position was better placed to take over the rescue attempt and the Star was released to return to head back to the North-west on her sea day towards Split. Extra speed during the sea day allowed the ship to catch up on the schedule and she docked on time on Saturday in a relatively calm Split.

The Coastguards apparently could not repair the yacht and the weather was too bad to tow the boat to shore so the yachtsman was taken aboard the Coastguard boat and safely returned to the Greek mainland minus his boat that was left adrift in the Ionian sea.The captain and crew of the Star displayed excellent seamanship throughout this very stormy passage and their actions may well have saved this unfortunate and very tired sailor by being able to find him quickly and hold to the wind to shield him from the worst of the storm using the Star as a very effective windbreak until he could be rescued. The captain kept us up to date with what was happening and gave a final update once he was able to get the word from the Greek Marine Rescue Centre. Well done all concerned.

I am amazed how few people ever mention the huge private sundeck that can be accessed from the main courtyard on the Jewel Class ships. It is probably larger than the actual courtyard and has exclusive sea views from Deck 15. The Courtyard Butler will be able to get you drinks and snacks whenever you want and if the sun is shining, it is a fabulous private space for Haven guests. After the re-fit, the Jade has cabanas with large beds on the sundeck but I am not sure if the others have the same but there will definitely be plenty of sun loungers up there. We have been on both Epic and Getaway and although the Haven is bigger on them and they have the restaurant, the Haven on the Jewel ships is just as good in other ways, you will have to use the services of the Butlers a bit more to get the most out of it, and who needs a concierge desk when you have one on the end of the phone anyway.

We sailed out of Venice in June and went to Kotor so know some of how that trip works, so might be able to shed some light on what happened for the OP.

We are also doing a similar trip again later this year, so we were interested at the time in how the effect of the jumper panned out and were watching both cruises on the web because I wanted to see what could happen if anything remotely similar happens to us next time.

It was very clear that the Star was not going to get to back to Venice until near lunchtime at the earliest. Venice is a bit of a zoo at the best of time and we were feeling for those who were going to miss flights out (much like the fog problem last year). More so, we knew that those waiting to board were going to be very uncomfortable because I have no idea how having all of the incomming passengers in that terminal was going to be handled when many of the ship's staff who would normally be there to do the booking would still be on the Star out at sea. Not something we would have wanted to have to do and we sympathise with both you and the landside staff having to think on their feet to help those 2K plus passengers. The police hold-up only made matters even worse.

Once the Star loaded up and set off, it was something like 6 hours late. We followed her on the web for a while into the night and once out of the lagoon, seemed to be winding up to over 21 Knots, so she was pretty well at top speed. The run into Kotor takes quite a long time and I believe the entire route inland is done under pilot control according to what we were told in June. The Star has to do that run slowly and we were travelling at only about 5 or 6 knots. From the outside coast to anchor at Kotor took about an hour and 45 minutes. Obviously, that run would be repeated as she went back out to the Adriatic. With little chance to pick up much time heading down the Adriatic, the already short time in Kotor would have been seriously curtailed and over half of the time would be after dark or very much curtailed. In those circumstances I would think it was thought better to use the 3-4 hours sailing in and out of Kotor to get things back on schedule for the rest of the cruise.

The stop in Montenegro, normally in Kotor, means a stop outside the EU and so has some very important effects on taxation for these cruises, hence the evening stop in Bar made a lot of sense. It also appears that there were some staff changes due on that stop and not being able to do them could have made a lot of ongoing difficulty for the company. Kotor to Bar by land is quite easy, so that just added to the decision to do it. Once the Star left Bar she was back on schedule. I gather that NCL gave all passengers a $50 OBC by way of compensation for the problems caused by tate very selfish and clearly disturbed individual who caused the whole saga.

We have a great deal of sympathy for the OP and know from experience how even when timings are fine, that Venice changeover is always pretty fraught. I hope that helps put things a bit more into context.

You also may need to factor in a second choke point because some non-Shengen passengers have to go through a second control to check passports on the way to the gates. It took another 15-20 minutes of queuing at the entrance to the gates for our BA London flight in June. Not sure if the US/Canada flights are also funnelled through this checkpoint.

Me too -its how I rack up my Avios points - its rare now to find anywhere in the UK in the cities that doesn't take AMEX

 

And yes - agree above - get a CC that doesn't charge foreign transaction fees and then I use that in local currency and if I should need cash in the ATM's

Yet more complexity and cost - use your CC to get cash at a foreign ATM and you will be charged a cash withrawal fee. Just for example, for UK customers, Amex charge either £3 or 3% whichever is greater and if it is not in your home currency they normally charge a currency exchange conversion charge of 2.99%. Other UK CCs also charge if you more or less the same to withdraw cash using the card. If you have a zero conversion charge Debit Card and use that, you will not be charged anything to draw cash from your account and the conversion back to your home currrrency will be done at the commercial conversion rate. UK banks tend to charge around 2-3% to withdraw foreign currency from an ATM abroad.

The best thing all round is to use the CC for the purchase assuming the trader acccepts CCs (most do now, including taxis these days). We just get a bit of foreign cash to buy the odd drink or snack.

The answer depends where you are from. The rule you need to remember is that every time you convert currency you lose and the banks win, so make sure you only do it once and only do it if you have to.

If you are from the USA going to most of Europe (particularly on Epic Western Med) just take Euros. You can either get them ahead or if you have a free conversion credit/debit card you can get local currencies at any ATM shoreside. As has been said above, for UK you will need to have UK Pounds. If you are heading to the Eastern Med and are likely to go to Croatia you will need some Kuna but you can easily get this when you get off the ship. This advice really only applies to relatively small purchases such as local taxis, drinks and snacks. If you end up buying something big then use your credit card, but again as has been said above the Amex charges in Europe make it expensive for traders and will rarely be accepted even in cities such as London. One thing to be very aware of is NOT to ask for any credit card payments to be charged in your local home currency. The rates used by traders to offer you home credit card payments are very poor indeed. This advice is very important for non-dollar tourists in the USA because you will end up paying way over the odds to have the credit card machine work out the charge. Always ask to use the local currency charge and take the transfer charge on you home card.

Most Europeans will have been used to having to change currency to get around different counties, even after lots moved over to the Euro so do not normally need any advice.

As far as using cash on the ship (almost exclusively only for tipping) - remember that exchanging metal coins is virtually impossible for ship's personnel so always give tips in notes.

Does anyone know who will be replacing Monica as concierge on the Star when she goes on leave next month?

Normally Kotor is on the itinerary to make it a VAT free cruise. Missing the port has it had any affect on cruise VAT status?

Maybe that is why they stopped off in Bar on Monday evening - still Montenegro and so non-EU. The run into Kotor would have been very slow and time consuming but going to Bar meant that they could get there at full speed because Bar is right on the Adriatic coast.

Montenegro uses the Euro but is not inside the EU. When they became independent the government felt they were too small to support their own currency, so they opted to tie the economy to the German Mark and when Germany changed to the Euro, Montenegro went with them.

The National Geographic article had the sentence -

Overboard incidents are most commonly reckless or deliberate accidents induced by drunkenness.

Whilst I can accept the point about drunkenness, what is a ‘deliberate accident’ - surely an oxymoron.

Emergency services in the UK used to race to "Road Traffic Accidents (RTAs)" They then decided that few of these were actually "accidents", because it turned out they were caused by deliberate action, albeit incorrect and/or dangerous. Nowadays they race to Road Traffic Collisions, so you would now hear of them "racing to an RTC" instead.

As far as I understand, there are statistically almost zero Overboard Accidents from any type of passenger vessels, they are Overboard On-Purposes :D Incidents yes, accidents no.

Whilst I have no wish to spread "false news" I have read in the UK press that she is no longer an air hostess - although she did previously work for Virgin Atlantic

Still apparently doing the air hostess bit (for now anyway) but not with Virgin - doing it on small business jets according to reports.

So we can start her tab at $100,000.

Makes for $700,000 now added to Andy's mum's figure

Back to the point.

The rules about what you are entitled to in this case are country dependent (the EU is treated as a country for this). The main issue for EU bookers is that you are entitled to be re-booked on another flight and provided with accommodation if required only if you have booked both flight and cruise as one package. If you book your flights yourself you have very little redress with either cruise company or airline. Being an EU regulation it is more complicated than that because if you booked your flight separately from the cruise via a travel agent and you did both at the same time, you are treated as though they are linked and you are entitled to assistance if the cruise is either coming from or to an EU port.

Most insurance policies have lots of information about missing your holiday at the start because of delays getting to the departure port, but presumably because very few cruises are badly delayed back in port by jumpers there is very little about cover in those cases. The amount of delay is apparently important and for a 7-day cruise a delay of a "few" hours is not considered relevant in a lot of cases. The fact that you may have to re-organise complex return flights etc is left pretty well ignored and you are largely on your own.

Putting yourself is NCL's position for a bit, it is clear that most of their workers and effort is going to be spent looking after the passengers for whom they have direct responsibility. The key is to make sure you are in that group! This particular event will have disrupted the best part of 5,000 travel plans coming and going with half of them having to be dealt with before the ship docked and was released with most of the staff needed for this still at sea and those few staff on land having to provide some sort of food, drink and cover from the sun for the next lot of passengers while they wait for the ship. The other 2,500 people and probably the better part of 5,000 cases or so then arrived and needed to be got away with no flights booked or now available because the aircraft have departed without them. Not an easy thing thing to do.

The bottom line surrounding what can be done or what compensation can be received is that since this sort of situation happens so rarely, there is probably no small print covering what is or what is not due so apart from those covered by EU travel Regulations for those on linked packages and those with insurance policies that cover this situation, most will be on their own in new territory. The problem then is that getting money from an un-married unemployed ex-pat air hostess is unlikely to yield much cash, even if you win your case!

Facts:

If you fell from the stern of that ship you would do yourself serious damage on the stern kick-out and probably drown.

If you fell off any of the decks forward of the rear quarter and you would probably be sucked under into the azipods and drown at least. Fall off the side near the stern and you will fall clear of the pods and with the ship doing about 20 knots you will quickly drop behind and probably be swept away from the wake.

The sea is just below Deck 4 so a fall from Deck 7 is about 10-15 metres above. 10 metres is the height of the top Olympic diving board, so fall from there is no problem as long as you enter the water vertically.

The water temperature of 25-30 degrees means max survival time is at least 20 hours.

Apparently females float better than males because they have an extra layer of fat making them more boyant and allows them to float in the high salinity of the Adriatic and a very calm sea makes it relatively easy to float on your back and breathe.

Those facts in her favour explain how this lady survived long enough to be rescued. Whether she was lucky or not depends on the motive for the departure in the first place. She certainly had plenty of time to ponder her story in the event of rescue.

How did she manage to miss the section of the stern that’s angled outward? I wondered that from the photos showing the entire stern.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

The reports say "the back of the ship", but from the photos of the area roped off it looks like she left the ship over the side rails on decking "near" the back of the ship The section of Deck 7 round the back are even higher than the side sections that are about 4 feet high. That section across the back is plating and so has no step mechanism to climb it and it is around 5 feet high. The kick out at the bottom of the stern would probably have badly hurt anyone falling down from a cabin above - but she didn't despite the graphics in the papers.

I was on the Star recently and spent quite a long time on that Deck 7 Aft area while we were transitting in and out of Kotor and if this lady departed the ship there it was definitely not an accidental fall. There are no chairs and the side rails are much more than waste high. The rails round the aft loop are even higher and are chest high. Additionally, there is CCTV cover all round, so NCL should know exactly what happened from recordings, even though they clearly did not see anything live, otherwise they would have turned back immediately.

This story is probably only going to come out if NCL have evidence of unauthorised action that could be subject of a claim one way or the other.

I have been patiently (not really) awaiting publication of Jade and Spirit as this has the potential to set my retirement date. I'm wondering if they ran into a snag with the ports since these are not their normal ports of call.

Must be serious because the Jade itineraries are still not on the system now over a week after they should have been announced. I just hope they don't start messing with the ones already announced for earlier in fall of 2019.

Too many variables for a definite answer. For instance if it is a cooler time of year you could find the balcony too cold to sit out if the side is facing north wheras a south facing balcony will get sun for most of the day (unless you are south of the equator of course!). On the other hand, if it is high summer the balcony facing south might be much too hot to use. Check the route map and work out which way the ship will be facing when it is on the move. I guess the direction the ship is when it is in port is more of a lottery, so you will have to take pot-luck.

Bottom line is that neither side has a monoploly on goodness. Some people even decide which side they like by whether the cabin is right or left-handed. Just enjoy whichever side you are on because both sides are on the ship anyway!

Done both. Our first one was in Grills on QM to Norway. There were two formal nights so I bought a new (larger!) DJ suit for the trip. Only issue turned out to be that when I got dressed for dinner I found that I had packed the old one! No problem because the buffet was very good and I was by no means alone either.

The main difference we found was that Cunard goes much more for enrichment rather than tinsel. We had several very interesting speakers and there was also a fantastic 3-D film concert one evening in the Planetarium as well as an informed star gazing session in there one night. Having said that we have also seen some wonderful shows on NCL and really enjoy the likes of "Burn the Floor".

We always dress reasonably for dinner on holiday (even when we have been on Safari in Africa) with open-neck collar and slacks for me and what I call a "nice" dress for my OH, so that is probably why we do not feel uncomfortable on either line. If you know what to expect in both cases, and wear you choice with confidence you will enjoy the differences rather than feeling threatened. It's more a matter of being confident in your surroundings and if you can only do that in tee shirts and scruffy jeans, stick to NCL and do not worry if you are the only one looking scruffy.