Just got off the Star 14/11/04

[TorontoTL]

Hi everyone, I'm relatively new to this board but have been reading it for a while. My friends and I just got home today after seven wonderful days aboard the Star Princess in the Western Caribbean. I recall several posters in the past month having some bad comments about the Star. For those who have booked or are thinking about booking a cruise on board the Star I would reassure you that the quality is up to Princess standards that I have experienced in the past. If anyone has any questions I'd be pleased to attempt to answer them, although I'm sure most people have read things about the Star in the past on this board.

[jennymcc]

Hi TorontoTL!

 

We are booked on the Star Western Carib in January! I am SO glad to hear that you had a wonderful trip! I would love to hear more about it!! I hope you plan to post a detailed review. Also, it would be fabulous if you could post some Patters if you have them!

 

I know I'm asking a lot, but I am so Star-obsessed right now, it's scary! :)

[clamtown cruisers]

That is so great to hear, we are sailing the Star eastern carib., at the end of Jan. Love to read anything about the ship and ports, can't wait until we go!!!

[coiran]

Where are all the negative reviews coming from?

 

Ron

[mafig]

We're on the Eastern in Jan.

 

Did you have traditional or personal choice? Opinions, please.

How was the food?

 

How was the service?

 

I have to admit I'm a bit relieved to hear you had a good experience.

[sue d. miller]

I had a wonderful cruise on the Star as well!!! :D

[bphawk64]

We are on the Dec 5th Star sailing...thanks for the review. We also are going Star crazy these days :)

[espmass]

So glad that you have nice things to say about the Star and happy to hear you had a good cruise. I hope you got to stop at all scheduled ports. I know the dining subject has been rehashed over and over lately but you can give a fresh opinion. Did you have PC dining? If so, how did it work out? I'd also like a current opinion of the fitness facility if you used it. Thanks.

[TorontoTL]

All of you planning to go on the Star Princess shouldn't be disappointed at all. I was interested to find small changes compared with the Golden. Small things like larger children's area instead of the Arcade in the aft part of the ship. The arcade is now a small room in the casino. Also the ping pong tables are now in the upper level of the covered pool. Actually turned out to be a good location since that area is covered and thus there is no wind to catch the ping pong ball. I love playing ping pong by the way :D .

 

We did PC dining, but on the suggestion of what someone here made I went to speak with the Maitre'D on the first day and he helped me choose a very nice window table that I reserved for the week. This turned out to be a wonderful idea because I found that we always ate at the same time everyday on previous cruises. We had great service from the waiters. They always remembered our names, what we liked to eat, the fact that we wanted milk and not cream for our coffee, who wanted tea vs. coffee vs. decaf. coffee, etc. The menus were great and I was happy that there were some new items on the menu since we last cruised in Apr. 04. As expected the food quality was amazing as I have found Princess to be in the past. We ate in the Portofino restaurant most mornings and lunchtime and found that the food and service were great even with the many different waiters we had at those times.

 

I did use the fitness facilities and found them to be great. No complaints but I should say that I used the treadmill only and not the weights or spa facility. I did check out the sauna, both wet and dry and they were very nice and underused.

 

Regarding the ports. Princess Cays was cancelled and replaced with Costa Maya. The port area is okay, nice enough but mainly just shopping, you know the usual Diamonds International stores that seem to be everywhere in the Caribbean. We took a cab at $3 pp to the local town. It was okay especially if you had never been to Mexico, basically a cute little town with lots of vendors selling the usual Mexican wares. I am told that other people who spent time at the beach there had a much better time. However, I think a day at Princess Cays would have been much better. I love PC and hope that it will be back before I cruise with Princess again.

 

Cozumel was good, we took a tour of the island with a cab we hired at the port and was shown around the island. Those who did tours scuba diving or snorkelling all had a great time.

 

Grand Cayman wasn't what I hoped it to be. The water was very choppy that day and apparently it really delayed disembarkation via the tenders. We waited about an hour in the lounge for our ticket colour to be called to disembark. When we were getting on the tender you could understand. The water was causing the tenders to very roughly bounce up and down as well as towards and away from the ship. This made it take a long time to get people safely onto the tenders. Unfortunately there were a few passengers who lost their tempers while waiting, making it very uncomfortable for others there in the lounge. We stayed in the city and walked around, it is very nice but I think going to sting ray city is the thing to do there. But again, because of the water that day, the snorkelling was cancelled as the sting rays apparently were not going there.

 

From some reason that I still don't understand, Ocho Rios was changed to Montego Bay. :confused: We met a very nice group at the port and went on an entertaining tour around the city. One part of the tour we didn't like was the shopping area they dropped us off at. There wasn't anything really interesting to buy and every five seconds there was a cab driver asking us if we wanted a cab ride back to the ship. It was really annoying to say the least. I can't say that I loved what I've seen of Jamaica so far in terms of the aggresiveness of the cab drivers. When we first got to port we had a couple of them following us around hounding us to hire them to drive us around. They just wouldn't take no for an answer. It was really intimadating to say the least.

 

Oh I almost forgot to mention, for some reason they were having a special at the internet cafe. Internet acess was I think 35 cents for one minute which I believe is pretty cheap for a cruise ship, correct me if I'm wrong. I never used it but noticed that they were advertising this price at the internet cafe.

 

Hopefully this information is helpful to those going on the Star in the near future. I had a wonderful vacation and I'm looking longfully at the brochures that I took home with me thinking about my next cruise.

[Lvmango]

Thanks for all the info! I am wondering if you could look at your patters and tell us night by night what main event was happening. Example: Formal night, Island Night, etc.

[DEERINH2O]

TorontoTL,

 

I leave on the Star this Sunday, Can't wait, so excited, but I have a few questions,

I know PC is cancelled, but when did you find out you were going to Costa Maya, Princess still says we are going to PC, but I find that hard to believe,

 

As far as MoBay, did they announce the change or did it just happen? I saw it on the Kroooz-cam and was like ??????

 

I am easy going, but would like to know at least where we are going? How was your weather.

 

thanks,

[OutSyder]

TorontoTL, I am curious what time you ate dinner.

[espmass]

One more fitness center question. I have asked this before but nobody seemed to know. Maybe you will since you are just off the Star. When I was on the Constellation the fitness center opened at 7 but the door was always unlocked so that I was able to get in at 5 or 6. How about the Star? Any idea what time you can actually walk in? Thanks.

[davidrod]

We are on the Dec 5th Star sailing...thanks for the review. We also are going Star crazy these days :)

Going star crazy is the right word. I live about 25 minutes from the port and have been there a couple of times just to look at the boat. This will be my 4th cruise, but ever since the first one, when I saw the Grand, I felt... "That's the cruise I want to be in" what am doing on this one :mad:

 

Thanks TorontoTL for the info. Very nice review....

 

I thought I was the only one checking out the brigge cams to see where the ship was going last week... Glad to see I'm not the only freak :)

[DEERINH2O]

davidrod,

 

Oh some would say I am cruise crazy......I live near San Pedro, and I always go down and watch ships set sail on Sat and Sun... I watch the kroooz-cam and my DH would say I need to get a life:D but yet enjoys every cruise I book.....:rolleyes:

 

Can't wait to leave this Friday.......

[TorontoTL]

Unfortunately I don't still have the patters, but Formal nights were the first day at sea, day 2, and the day we were in Jamaica.

 

A friend of mine on the cruise went to the gym before 7am so I believe it is open. I don't know if it is open 24 hours a day or not though.

 

We booked dinner reservations at 6pm, we asked for 630 pm but were told that would be a little too late. On the other hand, we didn't always show up right at 6pm we were up to 20 mins late and our table was still there for us.

 

We always found service for food and drinks in the dining room to be excellent regardless of the time of day we went. They were always there with water for us before you noticed that your glass was low.

 

We knew about PC being cancelled before hand. It was already posted on the Princess site under your itinerary. The change to Mobay was announced the day before, that way new excursions could be arranged.

 

The weather overall was good. Nice warm days and evenings.

[Tiki_Man]

TorontoTL

 

Thank you for the insight - couple of questions.

 

We were on the Grand in March with our 11 yr old daughter (she loved the pingpong area on the stern and the arcade area during one of the rain days.) We are on the Star for New Year's with our daughter again.

 

Does the arcade have the games that you can "drive,ride,play" or is it just video type games now? The Grand had several "race car" types and a couple of air hockey tables - are those now gone?

 

Which pool area received the ping pong tables? Was it more crowded and harder to play? Did this take away from deck chair space?

 

Fitness ?? - how many treadmills? Were they crowded?

 

Tiki Man

[KKB]

Arcade had some drive games...don't remember air hocky.

Ping pong was on an upper deck, not really next to any pool, so doesn't take away from chairs.

Sign up for treadmills. DH did at 9AM, then found he wanted to go about

7:30AM, but all were full.

My experience was as good or better than above post, though this is our first cruise. Can't wait to go again!

We did traditional dining (late) and LOVED it--will always choose it (unless bad tablemates, but ours were a BLAST! found some we sat w/ at breakfast would not have been as fun, but we had a pleasant time for one meal)

Looking forward to another...I keep looking for a good deal!

Kristin

[TorontoTL]

The arcade did have an air hockey table I think but I could be wrong. There was one game there that seemed to be a driving type of game. On the other hand the areas for children are larger on the Star than the Golden and I believe they had nintendo there for the kids. The children also now have their own ping pong tables in the aft area of the ship. The other two ping pong tables were in the conservatory area above the calypso pool. This area is never that busy so it really doesn't decrease the number of lounge chairs for passengers. If anything the area is better for ping pong I thought.

 

In terms of treadmills I never found it to be busy there but I wasn't there early in the day. There were plenty of treadmills when I went around 1030 am.

[bphawk64]

Hope to see you there DavidRod....less than 3 weeks to go!!

[Coral]

Thanks for your great comments. I will be on the Star Princess soon.