Wind Surf - Yachtsman- Jan 17 2015

[meg5]

First and foremost, I loved this cruise. One of the most relaxing vacations ever. I would have given this a 5 star rating except for some of their front office customer service practices and policies( see below)

 

 

PROS

 

itinerary - spectacular - the smaller British Virgin Islands - loved, loved it

overall friendly casual atmosphere of ship and ship mates

overnight in ports - wonderful added to the relaxation of the vacation - no rush to get off the ship to see the island

embarkation/disembarkation - effortless, no line ups - this alone is enough to convince me not to return to big ship cruising even with our preferred status on the big cruise lines not nearly as good as on Windstar

the ship was beautiful, well appointed - lots of space , chairs available, never waited seating mind you there was only 220 passengers on a 300 capacity vessel.

cabins - one of the loveliest I have had - well appointed, ample storage, well designed. I thought I would really miss my balcony but not so much

Motion - you could feel it. You knew you were on a ship. I like the motion nothing that . The ship hardly made a noise.

service on the ship - very friendly, so many of the staff knew our names after the first day

very few upcharges - specialty restaurants, soft drinks, specialty coffees all free

sports deck - free use of sports equipment, sailboats, water platform off the back of the ship - awesome

captain- friendly, professional, engaging was present among the guests all week, was at the end of the gangplank to say goodbye at disembarkation. Best captain ever.

bridge open

Closeness to the water - bow of the ship dark at night - stars spectacular- again felt like you were on a ship and not a floating hotel

laundry package - was a good deal and very handy to have your clothes washed or pressed.

just a souvenir shop not a lot of shopping. Again feeling of being on a ship not in a shopping mall

Deck BBQ -wonderful food, festive atmosphere.

Island BBQ - great food, great beach….crew work really hard to make this happen slugging all this stuff off the ship and to the beach. It was great.

Yacht club sandwich and coffee bar was great for a quick snack or drink after returning from shore

Room steward was excellent

BOSE sound system in room and DVD , free use of ipods, and DVD library

still send paper based cruise tickets….. love it.

 

 

 

 

 

CONS

 

 

 

customer service front office - didn’t ever seem eager to get or keep my business . Refused to honour AARP discount “because the price was already low - yet price went down significantly again after my booking”

 

price drop policy - I am well aware of the cruise lines not dropping prices after final payment and I am fine with that. However Royal Caribbean has always honoured any price drop post final payment with upgrading me to a cabin that my fare would buy at that price point, sometimes they will give onboard credit. Royal Caribbean does a good job of recognizing my early booking. They understand that if I feel disadvantaged by booking early then I will either chose another cruise line that is interested in ensuring that that I am treated fairly no matter when I book….or.. I will always book late. Windstar clearly has no interest in building customer loyalty from the front office perspective. Totally different philosophy once you are on the ship. They want to do everything to be sure you are satisfied and have a great experience. Kind of a Jekkyl Hyde thing going on. Many of the people that we met on the ship had booked last minute.

 

pool - hot tubs not available at night. The outdoor evening restaurant which is a wonderful feature is situated around the pool and hot tubs. We always enjoy hot tub at sea under the stars. Just doesn’t make sense why they set up here.

 

dining room - food was good, not great, not as good as dining room on Royal Caribbean

 

wait staff dining room- very friendly, eager to please but not as good as Royal Caribbean - English seemed to be more of a barrier in the dining room than on larger cruise lines

 

drinks were expensive even for a cruise ship. Once we get on the ship we refuse to think about costs but in the end I think the drinks were over priced

 

yoga - impossible in a small gym with machines making noise around you.

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

 

Would I recommend. Yes in a heart beat.

Would I sail with Windstar again? absolutely but will book last minute

[DaKa2002]

Thanks for this review. I have been trying to convince DW to try Windstar and we usually plan and book year(s) in advance. Yet the cruise part really sounds fantastic! Not sure if we will really go for it now; will have to review the potential cruise with our TA again.

[Lobes1]

We have done three Windstar cruises and will do our forth in April. I agree with almost everything you have written, although we thought the food was good to excellent. The dinners are great, the lunches often mediocre, and the breakfasts very good. We were very pleased with the service everywhere, including the dining rooms. We found the drink prices to be very reasonable. Probably it is a matter of expectations. We recently did a cruise with Crystal, and they are quantum level above Windstar in all respects.

Edited February 22, 2015 by Lobes1

[Windstar27]

We just sailed the same route 2/14 to 2/21. Very accurate summary. I can't speak to price drops since we always book less than 90 days ahead, but then we usually have to pay higher prices for airfare.

 

On our trip, Candles dining moved to the Star Deck outside the Veranda for a few nights because of rain squalls & wind. It's a better location than the pool area. They used clear plastic barriers to protect against the elements. Even with the barrier in place, we had a lovely view of another sailing ship, the Sea Cloud, which was lighted beautifully at night.

 

Also worth noting:

WiFi is slow and expensive, which I expected ($50 for 100 MB; $100 for 250 MB). The new internet plan--which measures megabytes rather than time used--is confusing. I could never tell how much space I had left. I was able to check email on my tablet in our suite, but not on the Yacht Club desktops. Conversely, I was able to view Facebook in the Yacht Club, but not in our suite.

 

Mixed drinks were expensive, averaging $9 and $10 with the automatic 15 percent gratuity. On the plus side, the variety of wines by the glass was quite good--even better than we found on Seabourn. The free latte and cappuccino drinks were well-made. They were available in the dining room and at the Veranda as well as at the Yacht Club coffee bar.

 

Don't cut your arrival for departure too closely! Our paper cruise ticket gave the all-aboard time as 6 p.m. But when we boarded the ship, we discovered that all-aboard was at 5 p.m., with sailing scheduled for 6 p.m.

[marama]

This also happened on our recent Windsurf cruise. We left an hour late from St Maarten because 6 couples were late. Four of them had been told sailing time was 7pm on their tickets when in fact it was 6pm. Having said that they were cutting it pretty fine, even then.