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Windstar legend star collection cruise.


ranchojosh
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I just returned from a Windstar Legend 14-day alleged star collection Cruise. From the beginning of this booking over a year-and-a-half ago until the completion of the trip there were countless issues with Windstar and how they handled this trip. There were very few excursions posted in advance when they were finally posted they were not listed correctly in the website. I brought it to their attention and weeks or month later they finally fixed the order of the excursions and thank me for pointing it out. They added pre and post excursions 3 to 4 months prior to departure when many people like myself book our plane reservations with award travel 11 months in advance. Then the worst thing that Windstar has done and will prevent me from every booking another star collection trip is that they divided the 14-day special trip into two seven day trips thus changing the whole dynamic of the star collection and moving the ship mid stay in the island of Phuket in order to be able to transfer luggage on and off for the 50 people who were leaving and 50 who were boarding the port they took us to have no taxis no services and was a two-hour ride in bumper to bumper traffic to get back to the beach side which is where we were originally booked. There was no security on board this ship only swiping our name cards but there was no x-ray machine at any of the ports to check people's bags as they reported the ship. There was very poor advance planning as some of the excursions were poorly planned were not of good quality and there were quite a few issues with these locations immigration long wait lines to get off the ship in Singapore and excursions that had eight or nine hours of bus travel time and 2 hours of tour time. The overall experience with Windstar Legend was of a greatly discounted trip that was reflected in all the many ways that Windstar has cut back to save money everything from the choice of three wines that are served at the reception which are very poor to very mediocre meals at dinner. The receptions for the repeat customers usually include very delicious foods there was none. We were told that the water platform hadn't been opened in 4 weeks. In many ways my opinion is that Windstar has diminished in every area of former luxury and planning. There were people who were left at their hotels and not picked up with their pre packages in Singapore. Many people like myself were given very wrong or different and conflicting information by the Seattle office and in some cases it impacted people's ability to do the things they wanted to do or they were told the wrong things about flight times. Although we really enjoyed our time with really great people and then nice staff, the overall experience was much less then all the previous Windstar experiences I've had for 25 years and the move that they made by diminishing the special star collection will prevent me from every booking such a cruise again be very wary of what they are doing in their pricing you get what you pay for. And that may be just fine for some people but for others who have experience with the more luxurious when star of the past they may be greatly disappointed.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I wonder if the above issues are why Windstar has not released most of the Star Legend 2019 cruises. It looks like they are the only cruise line, including the small ones, who have not done so. Many people, especially with popular itineraries like Japan, book more than a year in advance. Does anyone know when the rest of 2019 will be available? I called the Seattle office but they were clueless.

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I don't think so. We were on the Star Legend in 2017 for Spanish Serenade and I don't agree with the issues the OP commented on. Food and service were wonderful.

 

First off, I find it very strange that anyone would book a Star Collector cruise without knowing what its name is (Collector, not Collection) and without understanding that it is a "Collector" because it collects 2 or more b2b cruises into a single cruise booking. It is clear when you look at the cruise schedules on the Windstar Website that the Star Collectors are two (or more) cruises put together. The Star Collector includes a complementary laundry package and usually has a lower fare than the sum of the fares for the component cruises.

 

Windstar ships are small ships. They don't carry X-ray machines. That has never worried me. (On our spring cruise, some ports have X-ray machines and one had to put bags through to access the port - but other ports didn't and there was no bag X-ray. If you want that, go on a large ship with the herds.) They scan your badge when you reboard and that brings up your picture so they know it is you.

 

Windstar is doing their first season in Alaska after many years and debuting their Signature Expeditions program there. I expect that they want to see how those cruises work out before finalizing the 2019 schedules for the motor yachts. I think the Asia sailings were new this year too.

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My husband and I have recently returned from a Star Collector cruise on the WindSurf in the Leewards and Windwards (Caribbean). We sailed from December 23 to January 6...out of and into Barbados. Our experience was par for WindStar Cruises, with our having cruised on 25 sailings since October 2009. We are fans of this cruise line.

First point: When a "new" itinerary is opened I personally would expect there to be some glitches with ports and excursions as with the Asian itinerary. I would expect the same in Alaska and Canada. Feedback is strongly encouraged by Wind Star Cruises after each excursion and port. Such is how the star level is achieved. If they don't know, they can't fix it!

Second point: We ALWAYS use a travel consultant, one with many years of travel experience and who is affiliated with an industry leader. Our agent is our advocate, before, during and after the cruise has been completed.

Make every day a great memory!

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I guess Rancho didn’t have a good day out of the fourteen. Maybe not perfect but we just returned from a 34 day BtB and my description of our experience would be weighted much more positively than Rancho.

I was on parts of that same cruise and I don’t know what restaurant he was eating at or what captain’s reception he went to because he did not describe our experiences.

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