Star Princess, not many comments on it.

[minniemom]

I read so many posts about so many other ships. I almost never read about Star. Lots about Golden and Grand her sister ships, but I wonder about Star. We are going on Star in June to Alaska, and wanting to hear some good reviews about her...

The Golden was going out 1 day earlier than the Star but it was about $300-500 more per cabin so we went with the cheaper one. Any comments Did I make a mistake?

[rugbypopsie]

I read so many posts about so many other ships. I almost never read about Star. Lots about Golden and Grand her sister ships, but I wonder about Star. We are going on Star in June to Alaska, and wanting to hear some good reviews about her...

The Golden was going out 1 day earlier than the Star but it was about $300-500 more per cabin so we went with the cheaper one. Any comments Did I make a mistake?

Hi we cruised on the Star just after her launch in 2002 and it was absolutely great. Our cabin was quite comfortable (BB balcony) the food was fantastic, Sabatinis was great night out, Steak House was pretty good too. The waiters and all the staff were friendly and accommodating and as an Aussie I loved the Margarita making demonstration (we dont usually have those drinks) delicious.

I particularly loved the fact that it is a large ship but never felt crowded, there was always somewhere you could go to have a quiet read, the library was good and the forward lounge area a great place to just watch the sea.

Dont have any concerns I am sure you will have a lovely time. I would sail on her again any time.

[cruise fairy]

I read so many posts about so many other ships. I almost never read about Star. Lots about Golden and Grand her sister ships, but I wonder about Star. We are going on Star in June to Alaska, and wanting to hear some good reviews about her...

The Golden was going out 1 day earlier than the Star but it was about $300-500 more per cabin so we went with the cheaper one. Any comments Did I make a mistake?

No you did not make a mistake:eek: . We've sailed the Golden, Star and Caribbean. I think the Star was my favorite so far, although I do love MUTS on the Caribbean. Star never felt crowded, looked beautiful, great service, clean....loved it! :D

[crusdiva]

I read so many posts about so many other ships. I almost never read about Star. Lots about Golden and Grand her sister ships, but I wonder about Star. We are going on Star in June to Alaska, and wanting to hear some good reviews about her...

The Golden was going out 1 day earlier than the Star but it was about $300-500 more per cabin so we went with the cheaper one. Any comments Did I make a mistake?

minniemom,

No not at all - she's just our little secret.;)

We have sailed the Star 3 times and are planning our fourth for the fall.

The reason you don't hear a lot about her is that she sails (IMHO) some of the most varied itineraries in the fleet. She literally sails world wide with 12 day itineraries for the most part. In the last year we have cruised the Baltic, Western Caribbean and the Aegean and Egypt onboard the Star. She is currently sailing South America and Antarctica with Alaska and Mexico up next.

It is our experience that she has one of the most loyal crews of any Princess ship, she is beautiful, well cared for and provides a fabulous cruise experience. You will not be disappointed. :)

[Cathy p]

We were on the Star last year and she is wonderful. We had the D102 cabin which I was affraid since it was so far up front we would have a problem with the wind, however, it was great. I hope you enjoy and we would love to go on her again.:D

[Dr.MomW]

We loved the Star last April in the western Caribbean! Had rooms on Aloha aft and loved them. Great service, food, and kids program. It never felt crowded! We did not try specialty restaurants. We would definitely visit her again....

[gooch47]

Recent reviews would be best, of course. We've been on the Star three times. The second one, I believe, was bad enough that we considered never sailing with Princess again. The others were fine. Things vary so much from cruise to cruise and with different crews. I just realized that cruise and crews are homonyms! :rolleyes:

[jb008]

We were on Star about a year ago and loved it! She was clean, service was friendly, prompt, and efficient. The ship never felt crowded, and service areas were always reasonably staffed and moving quickly.

 

We enjoy our honeymoon cruise so much I was able to talk DW into buying the Future Cruise Credits (FCC - Definitely consider them since they are sufficient to hold a reservation on a room, rather than a 20-30% deposit) and pick out our next cruise while we were still on the ship :)

[teripp]

I too was on the Star in April last year for Western Carib. cruise. I loved the ship. It was not an issue with kids and the food was good. I loved the ambiance and It was my first so I had nothing to compare it to but my travel companion said she had done other cruises and this one was up with the best. Friendly staff. I did not like Sabitinis but that was only because they got my order wrong and had to make a new steak but no biggy. That happens anywhere. Enjoy the cruise and please do not worry. You are on vacation that is all that matters.

[lel5344]

We're going to be on the Star on the first cruise after drydock. It's also our first Princess cruise.

 

We're really looking forward to it for a couple of reasons:

 

1. It seems like Princess has a great program for buying deposits for future cruises.

 

2. We love the Princess itineraries, the variety of ship sizes and the fact that they seem to have very competitive prices. We also prefer 10-14 day cruises and Princess has a great selection.

 

3. We like the idea of anytime dining combined with a couple of formal nights. We enjoy dressing up and we really enjoy watching people in their fine attire getting their photos taken (one of favorite on-board pastimes).

 

4. We think it will be kind of fun to be on a ship that has just been upgraded - see how the crew handles it and listen to the comments of pax who have been on the ship before.

 

I'm sure we'll come up with many more reasons. Perhaps you great CC contributors can give us some more reasons to be enthused!

[pshrynk]

We're leaving Santiago (Valparaiso) on the Star in exactly 11 days, so I'll post when I get back.:D

[4cats4me]

We loved the Star -- sailed in 2003.:p

[bubbadog]

yep, gooch hit the head,it varies from crew to crew,but i almost never hear of any complaints about the star,thats a good thing,and i am sure you will have a great cruise,so no need to worry my friend,you will love it;)

[victory2020]

Recent reviews would be best, of course. We've been on the Star three times. The second one, I believe, was bad enough that we considered never sailing with Princess again. The others were fine. Things vary so much from cruise to cruise and with different crews. I just realized that cruise and crews are homonyms! :rolleyes:

We sailed her when she was about 8 months old, & hated it so much we have not been on Princess since. Before that we had been on 2 Princess cruises in the prior 8 months - thought those were the best cruise we had ever been on (out of 6 cruise lines).

[lel5344]

We sailed her when she was about 8 months old, & hated it so much we have not been on Princess since. Before that we had been on 2 Princess cruises in the prior 8 months - thought those were the best cruise we had ever been on (out of 6 cruise lines).

 

Why?

[phtktz3]

We sailed her when she was about 8 months old, & hated it so much we have not been on Princess since. Before that we had been on 2 Princess cruises in the prior 8 months - thought those were the best cruise we had ever been on (out of 6 cruise lines).

 

 

What did you hate about it? Can you elabortate a little bit?

[minniemom]

I was feeling great, until I read the last 2 posts... What was bad about it???

[Gator83]

I was on the Star in Dec. 2006 and I do think it was a nice ship but the service was not very good....others on the ship also felt this way. Of course crews change so it may be different now. I do like the layout of the Coral MUCH better than the layout of the Star but the ship was in good shape and was very clean. I would go on the Star again but as I said, I do like the Coral much better.

[jean s]

We've been on the Star twice and thoroughly enjoyed each cruise. We had a mini suite both times and both rooms were clean and comfortable. The food was very good and the service was excellent.

[crusdiva]

I was feeling great, until I read the last 2 posts... What was bad about it???

 

Why would you ignore all the positive posts here and focus on the two vague, negative posts? :confused:

And yes, I am waiting to hear their reasons as well.

[Toto2Kansas]

We have sailed on the Star twice now. The first was for almost a month from LA to Sydney a few years ago. Second was the end of last year.

 

For us, the Star is a typical Grand Class ship. Service and entertainment vary from month to month but as a whole, it is good. Although we are not all that fond of the larger ships, each cruise has been great on the Star.

 

If you search long enough, you will always find someone or two that have had a bad experience onboard any ship. This could be from a small mishap to something large. What is best to do is to look at the big picture and the majority of passengers that have sailed on any one ship to make your own decision. But ask for specifics if someone really hated a ship, sometimes the reasoning behind it is not what you expect.

[otogocruisin]

We sailed on the Star in November. This was our 5th cruise and our 4th on Princess. We did not have a good experience on this cruise. We had to be moved from our mini suite when several attempts to remove the sewage odor could not be removed and I started to feel ill. :( This took 3 days for them to do. Once we had moved things did improve. We did find the food to be the worst of all our cruises. It was interesting that the Maitre d steeered us away from certain dishes. He was wonderful and very helpful. We were also sailing when many staff were at the end

of their tenure and were leaving with us. Maybe there was a little of a not caring attitude.

Although we did have negatives, we did not allow this to ruin our vacation and did make the best of it. :) We also realise that things change week to week and are pleased to see that things have improved. For us we would not choose to sail on the Star again. This does not stop us from sailing Princess again as we sail on May 30 on the Crown and look forward to it.

You will hear positives and negatives about every trip. Princess did investigate along with the 1st Purser and we are pleased to say that we were taken care of and they took the situation very seriously after the 3 days.

Pam

[gooch47]

Sorry I was "vague." I thought the point was that any cruise can be wonderful or not so wonderful and reviews can change drastically from cruise to cruise.

 

Our problem was mostly service and efficiency issues.

 

We tried to make reservations for a table for 2 in Anytime Dining, and it wasn't allowed. But we saw plenty of people just walk in and go directly to a table for 2. It turned out it was an overflow from Traditional Dining and most of the tables for 2 were used for that. We were taken to a table for six several times (for just the two of us) when we passed many tables for four. It was just annoying.

 

At Falmouth, there was mass confusion. There was a huge line to get back on the tender boat. Other people were trying to get off the tenders and ended up in the same line to get back on instead of for their tours. And there were two lines for the tenders but they were only taking people from one of them. There was a near riot. A man gashed his head getting on the tender and NO ONE except other passengers helped him.

 

At Greenock, when we arrived back at the ship, we got into what we considered to be a fairly long line to get back on the ship. They only had one machine to scan incoming packages. When we got back to our cabin and looked out the balcony, the line was 10 times as long as when we went through. All the tours had returned at once. People were getting seriously rained on, too. Probably not the ship's fault except to have all the tours return simultaneously.

 

Their audiovisual department was sloppy. We watched a movie called Wimbledon. The last few minutes are very intense with the guy trying to get the last winning point. TWICE they cut the movie off before it ended. The same with the list of 100 best comedies. Once they cut it off right when the last one (the best) was supposed to be announced.

 

We received notice that we had to report to a lounge at 6:00 a.m. on the day we reached New York to go through Immigration! We got to the place where the Immigration Officers were working and the line was unbelievable! They apparently told all the passengers to show up at the same time. And we weren't even allowed to get off the ship in New York.

 

From New York to Ft. Lauderdale the seas were really horrible. Weather wasn't the issue. The ship can't control that. But the TV kept saying the seas were "slight" with a "stiff breeze." Another small thing, but we couldn't help thinking it was another strike against them.

 

We knew the night before that the ship would be very, very late getting into Ft. Lauderdale. Since there was no hurry to get up, we slept in and finally had breakfast around 9:30 a.m. I checked on and off during the night to see if we had received any information on hotels but didn’t see anything in our mail tray. We stayed in our cabin until around 12:00 noon hoping we would be told what was going on. We went to a lounge and my DH went to the Purser’s office to see if we had missed our information. No. They hadn’t put out anything. Nor did they ever come on the PA to tell us what was going on. They finally started calling for people to get off but still no information on hotels. They were just dumping us on the dock. When we were finally called we got outside and there were some very harried ladies trying to answer questions. But I asked two different ladies and got two very different answers. We were told to go stand in this long line and “whatever bus you got on, that was your hotel.” But people had flights going out of both Ft. Lauderdale and Miami. “It doesn’t matter … all hotels are in Ft. Lauderdale.” We got on a bus and they tried to force us to get off it. “This bus is for people going to Ft. Lauderdale Airport, not Miami.” We were NOT told there were different busses for the different airports, in fact we were told exactly the opposite.

 

At the hotel there was no one from Princess and the hotel people didn't have the slightest idea (not their fault) about arrangements for the next day. We got up the next morning and thought we'd just take a taxi if we had to. There was a bus for us ... a whole, full size bus, just to take the two of us to Miami. And it was timed so that we thought we'd miss our flight. We found out that they had cancelled our 6:00 a.m. transportation for some reason. It was a holiday (nobody working) so traffic was light. That was the only thing that saved us.

[victory2020]

What did you hate about it? Can you elabortate a little bit?

Many things- service was the worst I've had in almost all categries. I believe they were burned out as it was the 8th month of the sailing & all had been aboard the whole time. Little things happened: room steward vaccumed EVERY morning at 7am. Kids overran the ship- I called purser because some were throwing ice down the stairway(thought it was dangerous)- they told me they cannot do anything to control kids. They were also overunning the show rooms with no supervision. Someone had actually smuggled a dog onboard & it was running around the spa area! Called the purser again(& I'm really NOT a complainer) told it was brought onboard by a very good customer & she had been reprimanded. Lines everywhere for everthing - not very organized. As we all know you can request anything on the menu for future meals. I had orderd cobb salad 3 days in a row. That night I preordered for lunch the next day. Was told that I did not need to preorder(odd), so when I went to lunch & requested it the maitre'd berated me, telling me that I have to make such request ahead. Told him I did. He asked who I did it with, but I didn't know his name. I was so embarassed I actually left crying. These are just some of the things I can remember at the top of my head.

[FLACRUISER99]

All ships know how to annoy you at some time or other.