September 22, 2019 Norwegian Star Upcoming Trip Report

[nutocruzing]

Ok, so I'm finally back! It's been exhausting adjusting to the jetlag and being back at work and the sub-zero temperatures and snow have not been helping morale haha.

 

On to the report!

 

Final Preparations and Pre-Cruise

Approximately one week before we were set to leave, I received an email in my inbox advising me that the company I had booked our first hotel in Venice through had gone bankrupt and that it was likely the hotel would cancel my reservation. I had booked the hotel in April! Unbeknownst to me, this particular third-party company didn’t pay the hotel ahead of time and after multiple emails and phone calls I was able to confirm that the hotel had in fact cancelled my reservation. I did manage to find another hotel room for only slightly more money at Hotel Citta de Milano which worked out to be a bit of a blessing in disguise (more on that later). Unfortunately, I was unable to recoup any money from Visa as the purchase had been made so far in advance, and my travel insurance didn’t cover bankruptcy. That’ll teach me to be prepared! While I do think this is a good lesson to be careful about who you’re booking through online, the reality is that any company or hotel could have gone bankrupt over the course of 6 or so months. You win some, you lose some, I guess!

 

With that settled, I was off bright and early on the Friday morning from Calgary headed to Toronto. I met up with my mom at YYZ and we headed to the Premium Plaza Lounge where we enjoyed some free lunch and wine to pass the four or so hours before we were to board our flight. It was lucky we got there when we did because shortly after we got there a huge line developed. We ran into a couple of lovely women who were also off to Greece, and even noticed some NCL baggage tags for the Epic on the carry on of another couple. Before we knew it, it was just about time for boarding – and the first of many long lines on this trip.

 

In the end, Air Canada Rouge wasn’t that bad. The seats were tight, but not too tight and the food was more than satisfactory. Both mom and I were able to get a bit of sleep on the flight over. As we neared VCE airport we got a spectacular view coming over the Alps. When we finally landed, we had to bus to the terminal where we were met by a very long line for passport control. On the other side of Immigration we searched around for signs to water transport. There are aqua coloured signs posted all over the place so it wasn’t too hard to track down the way to the Alilaguna port, although it was a pretty long walk. We purchased two tickets to Venice but opted not to get the round trip (a good choice in the end). I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this method of travel to the island – it was a very slow, very long trip with insufficient luggage storage and the windows were up so high you couldn’t really take in the views; I would save the money and take the bus instead. We finally made it to the San Marco stop around 10:30 or so in the morning.

 

 

 

Our new hotel, Hotel Citta de Milano, was located in the San Marco neighbourhood and was indeed about a 5 minute walk to the hotel from the square – once we found the entrance which was down a rather sketchy looking back alley. Note: Google maps is pretty much useless on the island because the streets are all so close together; if you get lost, I recommend asking a local for help. We hoped to be able to store our luggage but in fact they were able to check us in right away! The hotel room was bigger than expected and had excellent internet. We were able to freshen up a bit and organize ourselves before heading back out to explore.

 

I had purchased passes for St. Mark’s Basilica for 3 pm (no line reservation), so we had lots of time to kill. The plan was to wander down to the Rialto Bridge and then take a vaporetto from Piazzale Roma to St. Mark’s to listen to a Rick Steeves audio tour. We did get quite lost trying to get to Rialto but you really need to just expect and accept that in Venice. In the end, we made it to St. Mark’s just in time to catch our reservation (look out for a sign with no line that says online reservations or something like that). The Basilica is… I’ll call it impressive. Certainly, the mosaic inside is stunning, but I can’t bring myself to call the building beautiful. To me it seems too much of a clashing of designs and materials. I will also say that they do try to charge for every little thing. Around just about every corner was another line for something that cost extra. We did end up paying the €5 to go up to the second-floor museum. There was some interesting historical/preservation information and the view from the balcony outside was worth the money but it was up an awful lot of uneven stairs so mobility impaired individuals might have a hard time with it (and most old European buildings I suppose).

 

 

By this point it was around 4 pm and we were exhausted from jet lag and lack of proper sleep the night before. We wandered a bit trying to find a restaurant and ended up deciding on the one right outside of our hotel. We each ordered pizza for dinner and filled ourselves up before wandering back out to try to waste some more time before we let ourselves fall asleep. We found some gelato and a full sized bottle of shampoo (fyi, European pharmacies really stick to medicine so you might be best off looking for a grocery store for the toiletry items you want). We found some sunscreen but it was absurdly expensive and only SPF 15 so we decided to pass on that. Note: I brought some sunscreen in a stick form that was SPF 50 and waterproof. Because it was solid it didn’t count toward my liquids as we did carry on only luggage. This was a wonderful purchase. It was so easy to apply and we didn’t get burnt even once – I highly recommend this especially for carry on only travel! Around 7 pm we headed back to the hotel room to sort ourselves out a bit, chat with family back home and get some sleep. The square outside our hotel room was a bit noisy until 11 pm or so but it didn’t stop either of us from getting a good sleep in.

[nutocruzing]

Day 1 – Venice and Embarkation

 

The next morning, we were up by 6:30 or so. We got ourselves all packed up and ready to check out and grabbed some continental breakfast. The plan for this morning was Doge’s Palace. I had purchased the 11 museum pass online. Unfortunately, I printed off the wrong confirmation. I was a bit panicked about how we were going to be able to get into the museum but we went back to the hotel and were able to get the concierge to print it off for us which was greatly appreciated.

 

 

 

Doge’s Palace was lovely and we took some time to enjoy the Reubens exhibit they’re also currently housing. We had arrived at the museum by around 9 am and our checkout back at the hotel was at 11. By 10:30 we were convinced we were permanently lost in the prisons. After some short-lived panic (mom announced several times she had had enough of the prisons) we found our way out and were able to make it back to the hotel on time to check out. We then went to the San Zaccaria Alilaguna stop (to the east of St. Mark’s Square) and purchased two tickets to the cruise ship terminal. There was a great deal of confusion over whether we were in the right area or not but there seemed to be lots of people with Norwegian baggage tags so it seemed a safe bet.

 

We arrived at the port around 11:30 a.m. and moved fairly quickly through the embarkation process. By the time we were all checked in they were calling boarding group number 20 or so. We had opted in the end to bring our luggage on ourselves as I wanted the opportunity to grab my rain jacket (it had started spitting) and some other things. Although I had originally thought we might be able to get back off the ship, (still not sure if that’s allowed or not) I was quite plagued by the jetlag and some seasickness (thanks water buses!) and wasn’t really feeling up to it. We dropped our bags outside of our room (that’s where they leave them anyway so it was no more or less safe than the bags would otherwise have been) and wandered around to find food. As a general rule we like to avoid the buffet so we tried to find an open MDR. The Versailles Dining Room was open at the back of the ship (you have to go to the back of the ship on deck 7 as the galley is in between the two restaurants on deck 6). We shared calamari (not the greatest) and I had the shrimp salad while mom had a tuna sandwich. It was an acceptable though not outstanding lunch. Near the end of lunch they announced that the rooms were ready so we headed back down to the room to unpack a little.

 

 

(Link to video tour of some of the ship)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd2-im-_PJk&t=85s

 

This was my mom’s first time travelling in what I fondly refer to as “steerage” – inside cabin, bottom deck, and she was surprised with how happy she was with the room. I will say that we could definitely hear the shows and rehearsals in Stardust but it wasn’t too bad. The rest of the time the noise and movement wasn’t bad at all… EXCEPT for when we got to port. I don’t know exactly what was going on but sometimes when we were at anchor it literally sounded like a jet was taking off next to us. Luckily being in port usually meant we wanted off the ship so it wasn’t too inconvenient and I wouldn’t hesitate to travel in one of the forward low deck inside rooms again.

 

After checking out the room we headed upstairs for the spa tour – they will try to sell you on all of their products but they weren’t pushy at all and we got a free short massage out of it. We also got tickets for the spa raffle. Mom wasn’t optimistic about our chances of winning but we filled them in anyway. After the muster drill we explored the ship a little bit and grabbed some drinks at the bar by Spice H2O. Marcello was our first bartender of the trip. It was too funny as my mom asked if they made caipirinhas and we hadn’t even noticed that he was Brazilian; of course he knew how to make them! He was charming and funny and it was too bad we didn’t seem to ever run into him again on our cruise. By now it was getting close to time for the raffle. We headed to the spa where they tried some more sales pitches between draws. Note: there is more than one spa certificate drawn for, so there should be 5 opportunities to get a discount on your spa experiences. Many times they drew names for people who hadn’t shown up – remember, you can’t win it if you aren’t there! Funnily enough, they drew my mom’s name for the very last certificate. She couldn’t believe it! What a great addition to her birthday trip! Note: there are lots of restrictions on the use of these certificates, port time only, not combinable.

 

We headed back to the room where mom called to make her spa appointment and we awaited for sail away and further unpacked. We headed up to the deck around 6:30 and we had only just started pulling away. Note: for the best shots you might want to find a place at the aft of the ship where they have railings without the glass blocking the view. Sail away was sprinkling rain but quite pretty. One of the strange sights along the way was a gigantic luxury yacht that was frankly a bit of an eyesore. We heard rumours it belonged to a Russian billionaire. It was really interesting during sail away listening to all the many languages and accents around us – so much more international than the Caribbean cruises I’m used to.

 

 

 

 

After sail away we got dressed for dinner and headed to the Aqua Dining Room. There was a half an our or so wait before we got in. I really liked this dining room! It had wonderful modern ambiance and the twinkling ceiling lights were a great touch. This night mom and I both had scallops (too undercooked for my liking), mom got the stuffed pepper and I got the porkloin (delicious!). We skipped dessert as nothing on the menu really appealed too much. In the end I ended up ordering room service dessert before bed. After this we went to the spa for a bit. Mom was completely blown away by the spa – she knew we had passes but didn’t realize the extent of the facilities. We definitely got our moneys worth this week from the spa, and it was rarely full. We headed to bed around 10:30 which meant the shows were all over and we were pretty quickly able to fall asleep.

[ollienbertsmum]

There were similarities in our experiences.  We had rooms very close together.  My first time 'in steerage' since my first cruise.  We were right beside the Stardust - I really never heard a thing.    I would confidently book an OV another time.  A balcony is not a 'necessity' for me - on a cruise like this where the cost of a balcony was so much higher than OV.

 

I  know exactly how your mum felt in the prison.  I fear heights but have never been claustrophobic.  At around the same time the previous week I started to panic that I was stuck in that prison.  I still feel anxious about it.  We all escaped!!  

 

Your sailaway was a little earlier than ours so you can make out more of the buildings.  It was still lovely for us.  

 

Looking forward to the remainder of the cruise.  

[themnms]

On 8/23/2019 at 5:20 PM, Stealthdog said:

We did the museum pass this summer for our stay in Venice post cruise.  Definitely worth it.  They have several options for museum passes.

 

My partner had a good time with the spa on the Star.  It was one of his favorite spas on NCL.

 

Kotor is very easy to do on your own.  Walking to the city walls and buying the tip separately is definitely doable.  Hope they port there on your cruise!

Hey, Saw your note on the Spa. Does it have the heated loungers now? We loved them on the Pearl and the Breakaway. We are taking the Star for a South American cruise in Feb and wondering if we need to get Spa Passes.

 

Thanks in advance

[nutocruzing]

18 hours ago, themnms said:

Hey, Saw your note on the Spa. Does it have the heated loungers now? We loved them on the Pearl and the Breakaway. We are taking the Star for a South American cruise in Feb and wondering if we need to get Spa Passes.

 

Thanks in advance

 

Yes! There are about 6 of them! I definitely think the spa passes were worth it though they were fairly cheap this cruise. 

[themnms]

that is great to know. I could not find that information anywhere and we fell in love with them on the Pearl! 14 days will go very quickly on them!!

[Stealthdog]

On 10/7/2019 at 2:30 AM, themnms said:

Hey, Saw your note on the Spa. Does it have the heated loungers now? We loved them on the Pearl and the Breakaway. We are taking the Star for a South American cruise in Feb and wondering if we need to get Spa Passes.

 

Thanks in advance

He thinks the spa on the Pearl was better, but the Star was definitely worth the passes.  Also - your sailing will probably have a lot of sea days, so may make it even better value if you use it a lot.  

Edited October 11, 2019 by Stealthdog

[Travelbudds]

Hey nutocruzing! Fellow Canadian here! So did you end up stopping in Kotor? How was Santorini? My husband and I are leaving on the oct 27th sails date to do the same trip and would love to read more tips and your opinion on the ports and any issues you had or recommendations! We’re gonna DIY all the ports! Thanks!

[AFsouth]

On 8/22/2019 at 6:43 AM, All4chaneys said:

I will be on the Star in March/April next year on a 9 day Southern Caribbean itinerary.  I too have struggled to find any good information on this ship. Thank you for taking the time and consideration to keep us informed.  I am looking forward to following and reading your review.  Have an awesome cruise!!

 

What room are you booked in?  Thanks.  

We're on the same cruise!