Toucanbritz

As others have said, the one way flight cost can be high and almost the same as a return fare, so do factor that in when doing your costings. We did a westbound TA on a different line a few years back and loved it. Now booked for an eastbound one on RCI next year and really looking forward to it. 

We had multiple errors on both our mid-cruise and final bills on our most recent trip. In fact on the final statement, the credit and debit entries didn’t even add up to the cited total credits and total debits, nor the overall total - how does an accounting system do that??? We immediately flagged the errors to reception and were told both times that the accounting system must have glitched when our statements were run and that this often happens! Sure enough when they reran the statements, the entries were correct and so was the math. As a result we watched our credit card for any erroneous charges, but luckily there were none.

You were given incorrect information. We have been on the Star Legend twice and both suites had double sinks. Our suite on the Star Breeze also had double sinks. It is my understanding that only the handicap-access suites have one sink.

That’s odd; both staterooms I’ve had on the Legend (forward on deck with staterooms numbered in the 100s - not handicap access suites - most recently in April) had only one sink. The officer who told us would have known based on his role on the ship. It was only once he mentioned that the Legend’s bathrooms only had one sink that it dawned us that we’d had 2 sinks when on the other motor yachts.

The deck plans for Star Legend show 208, 209, 304 and 305 have shower, no tub, as do the four staterooms equipped for the disabled. This appears to differ from Star Breeze and Star Pride where 126, 127, 224, 225, 320 and 321 are indicated as having shower-only.

 

 

There is also a triangle symbol on the Star Legend deck plans stating "Star Legend has a single sink," but I don't see the symbol on her deck plans anywhere so I don't know to which staterooms it refers. This symbol does not appear on Star Breeze or Star Pride deck plans.

We were told by one of the officers on a recent Star Legend cruise that there are 2 differences between the Star Legend and its sisters, the Star Pride and Star Breeze:

- it’s slightly longer

- all of the stateroom bathrooms only have a single sink whereas the SP and SB stateroom bathrooms have double sinks

So the triangle symbol applies to all the staterooms not any specific ones.

Looking hard at Star Legend Tokyo to Beijing in October. Looking forward to getting back on Windstar, but am not seeing much in the way of comments on trips to Asia. Wondering if they may still be working out some bugs on port calls and excursions, just because these are pretty new stops for Windstar. No excursions currently posted for this trip, but looked at one in April also gong to some of the same port calls and excursions seemed to more expensive. Anyone with experience on itineraries in this area or additional thoughts. Will need to study the ports more to see what independent excursion options there may be.

We did the Grand Japan itinerary in April and went to some of the ports on your itinerary: Hiroshima, Busan and disembarked in Osaka. We were due to go to Shimizu too but that port of call was cancelled due to rain and high winds. The Japanese people are very friendly and welcoming - it’s the only country I’ve cruised around where large numbers of the locals come to welcome you and wave you off, even braving wet, cool weather to do so, which was the case when we departed from Yokohama. At the ports of call, there were tourist information booths or people on hand to help give directions. Most of the Japanese ports also provided free shuttles to get to/from downtown (Windstar gave out the shuttle schedule for each port at the reception desk). The port authority in Busan (South Korea) also ran free shuttles which was a great help as the port is quite a distance from the downtown area. That one dropped us off across the road from the fish market, which is definitely eye opening!

I see that like us you have a relatively short stop in Hiroshima, which makes going to Miyajima, the Peace Memorial Park and Museum extremely difficult. The majority of people opted to do one or the other. If you only want to see the A-Dome and go to the museum there is absolutely no need to pay for a WS excursion. Just take the free shuttle bus to it and explore at your own pace. The shuttle bus drop off/pick up point was right outside the museum; the memorial park is next to it. If I recall correctly the free shuttle bus also made a second stop at a shopping mall, but as that wasn’t of interest to us I can’t be sure. As we had been to the Atomic Bomb Museum in Nagasaki earlier in our cruise, we didn’t want to go in the museum in Hiroshima; however, we did want to see the A-Dome and go to Miyajima. So as soon as the ship was cleared by the local officials, we disembarked and got directions from the tourist information people on how to get to the nearest ferry terminal to go to Miyajima. We basically had to walk along the pathway on the shoreline and then followed the signposts for the terminal, which took about 20 minutes. Note, this was not the JR ferry - that terminal is much further away. It would be worth looking up the ferry times online before you leave for your cruise. Ticket sales start about 20 minutes before the departure time; unfortunately all of the announcements in the terminal were in Japanese only and we only realized that ticket sales had started when another passenger kindly informed us in English. We opted to buy a single ticket as we had read that a different ferry company ran a boat from Miyajima to the Peace Park. We then walked down to the dockside. Multiple ferries go from the same dock and one came in a few minutes before ours was due to depart. So we, together with some other WS cruisers who were waiting for the ferry went to get on. Luckily the port employee realized that we were trying to board the wrong ferry! Ours came in a few minutes later, bang on time. The ferry made one stop before heading over to the island, which turned out to be much closer to where the Star Legend was berthed and some WS cruisers who had arranged private guides boarded there. I’m not sure though if their guides had pre-purchased the ferry tickets or if there was someone selling them there.

Once we disembarked at Miyajima we saw a boat owned by the company doing the Peace Park route berthed on the other side of our pier. On exiting the pier both that company and the one we arrived on were offering tickets for sale. As these are fairly small ferries they encourage you to get your return ticket for your choice of sailing before heading off to explore. It worked out that there was a ferry to the Peace Park that would give us a short amount of time to explore there and catch the last free shuttle bus back to the ship. So we purchased our tickets and were told to arrive back ahead of the scheduled departure time (sorry can’t recall how far in advance they suggested). Then we went off to explore Miyajima, walking past the JR ferry terminal to head to the “floating” Tori gate. We had time to tour the Itsukushima Shrine, take photos with the tori gate in the background, browse the shops and try a few island delicacies including Miyajima beer, grilled oysters and a maple leaf shaped dessert, which was offered with a variety of different fillings. We then took the ferry to the Peace Park which actually goes right beside the A-Dome. We had just enough time to see the various memorials, including the very moving hall of remembrance. Finding the pick up point for the shuttle to return to the ship was easy - we used the map on the bus schedule given out by Windstar and just looked for other cruisers and WS crew.

We were in Busan for just a day. We took the free shuttle downtown, explored

Ja-Gal-Ch'i Fish Market, took the escalators up to Yongdusan Park and Busan Tower, went into a nice Buddhist Temple we happened to pass, and looked around the stores and stalls. As we weren’t scheduled to leave port until 10 pm, we had made a reservation for Candles. It was nice to eat there with the lit-up Busan Gwangandaegyo Bridge in the background.

We disembarked in Osaka; the section of the port we berthed in was very barren - basically the dockside had a large shed/hangar where people collected their luggage. We headed straight to Kyoto by train. We had contemplated walking to the nearest subway station (about 15 minute walk from the port) to get to the train station, but as we had our luggage we took a taxi instead. There are 2 train options for getting to Kyoto from Osaka - the high speed Shinkansen (15 minute journey) which goes from Shin-Osaka Station and the regular local train from Osaka Station that takes 30 minutes and is quite cheap. Kyoto is quite spread out and a lot of the key attractions are in the north. Kyoto has subways and a good bus system. To get the most out of your visit and see the sights you’re interested in, it would be worth getting a guide to help you navigate the city.

There are obviously a few private tour operators that can offer excursions in each port. What you may not know is that many cities in Japan have Goodwill Guide organizations, where volunteers show you the sights. We had a professional guide for a day in Tokyo and a goodwill one for a day in Kyoto and honestly there was no difference between the quality of the tours they gave.

By the way, Google maps was definitely our “friend” in Japan helping us navigate to places, both on foot and via public transport. We rented a Wi-Fi hotspot for the duration of our stay in Japan which ensured continuous Wi-Fi coverage (although the signal did drop off at sea and we had to switch it off when in South Korea to avoid extra charges).

One thing of note is that you do have to go through immigration to exit Japan before sailing to Busan and again on your return. The officials determine the time window in which all passengers must present themselves. Windstar informs you of the procedures (although they incorrectly gave us immigration forms to complete on our exit) and the timeframe for presentation the night before. This may mean that you have to be back at the ship earlier than you anticipated. For example, our last port before South Korea was Sasebo. According to the itinerary we were in port until 10 pm. Normally this would mean an all aboard time of 9:30 pm, but the timeframe for presenting passports to the immigration personnel was between 7 pm and 9 pm and once you had received your exit stamp, you weren’t allowed to leave the ship. While this didn’t really impact our plans for this port, it would have been nice to know in advance that the real time ashore was shorter.

Hope this helps. Enjoy your cruise and Japan!

We received a personalized email from Windstar after our most recent cruise in April. It says:

“We are offering a Welcome Home discount of 5%, taken off your next cruise, when you book it within 60 days from your last one. This is in addition to the 5% discount you receive for being an Alumni guest.”

No mention of any restrictions on the alumni discount in the email. Is the wording on the site new?

I’ve found that you sometimes get one response from one rep and a different one from another. So it may be worth phoning back. Hope you’re successful!

I was onboard in April and would say that while on the whole the ship is in good condition, there are signs of age/tiredness. Our bathroom was tired looking - in addition to black mould in the caulking (which was rectified), there were rust stains on the marble walls around the tub. Apparently Windstar knows about the tired condition of stateroom bathrooms and will be updating them at some point in the future. There was also a cracked window in the Yacht Club and the crew had to put towels down to soak up the water that came in on our unexpected extra day at sea (due to rain, wind and sea conditions). Some other windows in that area were becoming opaque. We were told by some other cruisers that water came through their stateroom window when we had the bad weather. These were not “deal breaking” issues and on the whole the ship is well kept and the soft furnishings in the common area are great. As long as you expect her to be in good, rather than great condition, you won’t be disappointed. Glad to hear that the improvements in service that they started to make towards the end of our cruise have continued and that the issues seem to have been resolved.

I'm on Star Legend now and service has been prompt and attentive.

 

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Glad to hear that! As I mentioned, things did improve during our cruise in response to feedback provided and of course WS has since received the surveys. Your captain though is different from the one we had....wonder if that has an impact too? Enjoy the rest of your cruise!

We were on the same cruise and noticed that a lot of little Windstar touches were missing and service in the dining rooms lacked attention to detail, e.g. server walked back to his station without giving the “extra” menu in his hands to my husband who wasn’t provided one; filling my glass with water and walking away without filling my husband’s glass with no communication/explanation; waiting for 20 minutes to be offered tea or coffee in Candles despite only a few tables being occupied; the one professional server we had in Amphora was run off her feet trying to look after her own tables and refill water glasses on other servers’ tables. The change in the level of service (this was our 5th WS cruise and 2nd on the Legend) led us to think that the changes made by the corporate head office included a reduction in crew levels. We surprised to learn from the hotel manager that they had actually increased the staff numbers for this cruise. For us though the main point that sticks in our memory was the black mould in the caulking around the bath and sink in our cabin on embarkation. How this was missed by both the stateroom attendants and their manager we do not know. The caulking was immediately replaced when we reported it, but seriously should it really be the customer who points this out to the crew? Other WS touches that were missing at the start of the cruise (such as wet towels on your return to the ship; being asked if you wanted still or sparking water; being offered freshly ground pepper instead of being left with salt and pepper shakers; and the band playing in the lounge before the daily destination talk) began to reappear once feedback was provided to the hotel manager. It’s these little touches that made WIndstar Cruises 180 degrees from ordinary and different from the big lines. It would be a shame if they are lost and they become yet another company where the “bean counters” at head office are so focused on the bottom line that they lose sight of what attracted and retained their clientele.

Think it really depends on the sea and wind conditions rather than the size of the ship. I’ve done about 7 cruises on larger ships (2500 passengers) and just did our 5th Windstar cruise. While I’ve felt the motion before, our 5th WS cruise was the first time I’ve been affected by sea sickness; however we had high seas and gale force winds for 24 hours. The Captain had to cancel our first port of call due to the conditions. A high number of passengers and a few crew were feeling under the weather that day. That being said, that was the first time I’ve been on a cruise with such weather conditions; I could have reacted in the same way on a bigger ship. I’ve seen people on bigger ships not feeling well even when there’s only a slight swell while I just found the swell to make it more fun! Fortunately the rest of our recent WS cruise was smooth sailing and we had a great time.

The Concorde museum is immediately next to the airport. You literally walk across the airport’s parking lot to get to it from the terminal. It has one of the retired Concordes in it and you board it as part of the tour. It’s a nice way to spend time out of the heat before checking in for your flight.

Dear Toucanbritz,

Thanks for your advice and for taking the time to respond. Things have worked out well with the help of our TA and suggestions like yours.

Glad to be of help and that things are sorted. Enjoy your cruise 😊

Hi Toucanbritz,

 

Just wondering if the following part of the WFPAP applied to your request and cruise? I read the following to mean any new amenities they are offering.

 

 

WINDSTAR FARE PRICE ASSURANCE POLICY: .................(the bottom half of the policy states:)

 

Guests who select reimbursement will be eligible for any complimentary inclusive features (e.g., hotels, air, tours) associated with the new fare and will forfeit any complimentary inclusive features associated with the original fare. All requests for reimbursement must be made directly to Windstar Cruises at 877-276-6895 (during regular reservations hours) at least seven (7) days prior to sailing. Windstar reserves the right to modify or terminate this policy at any time for bookings not yet made.

 

 

 

 

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We hadn’t received any bonus extras (e.g. OBC, free hotel) for that cruise at the time of booking and no complimentary extras were being offered for new bookings either - it was a pure price drop issue. They gave us an upgraded cabin and OBC to compensate for the price difference. They get to choose what they offer you. The only complimentary event was the private BBQ on the beach and all cruisers got that irrespective of when they booked.

Thinking about it, when I called about the fare dropping on our cruise I did mention the name of the policy, which is Windstar Fare Price Assurance Policy. Perhaps you have to mention those “magic” words? By the way, this policy is still cited on Windstar’s site but appears way lower on the page than their new policy for bookings made from now on. Definitely try again; hopefully you’ll have a more positive outcome this time.

I see that Windstar has changed its price drop guarantee for new bookings made from Nov 8, 2017 where they will only drop the fare price on request 120 days out. However you should fall under the previous policy where they would make an adjustment for price drops as long as the request is made at least 7 days out from sail date. You should be able to find it if you do an internet search. Windstar can decide how to reimburse you for the difference. We got an OBC when there was a substantial price drop 2 week’s before our cruise earlier this year. It’s worth you or your agent phoning again. Good luck!

We might purchase a bottle of wine at dinner once or twice but probably not every evening

In case you don't know, the wine waiters will label unfinished bottles of wine with your room number so that you can enjoy the rest of it the following evening. We're not big drinkers and find this system works well for us.

We had the opposite experience. AC just rescheduled us home from Barbados on December 23 with no exchange fee. Westjet would not waiver the change fee for Dec. 7 saying they are resuming flying to SMX on October 29.

 

 

 

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That's odd as Westjet still has this notice up on their Web site:

Flexible Change & Cancel - Santa Clara, Cuba - Cayo Coco, Cuba - St. Maarten, Netherlands Antilles Flexible Change & Cancel is in effect for:

- Santa Clara, Cuba - Cayo Coco, Cuba - St. Maarten, Netherlands Antilles

We're here to help you, so we've implemented flexible change and cancel rules for those guests who booked on, or before September 12, 2017 for travel until December 31, 2017. To review your options, please call

In light of your experience with Air Canada today, we will give them another call.

We cancelled our Dec 9 sailing yesterday. I was told that as I was transferring the money to another existing booking that there was no fee. Today I get an email saying they've successfully transferred the amount, but it's over a $1000 less than I paid. �� Now waiting to hear back from them to resolve it. Fingers crossed it was just a typo. .

Pleased to report that all resolved satisfactorily - the confusion arose due to the way WS had to track the changes in their system and the invoice. Kudos to the customer service rep for taking the time to look into the issue and explaining their process; and to Windstar for dealing so well with a situation that is beyond their control.

We cancelled our Dec 9 sailing yesterday. I was told that as I was transferring the money to another existing booking that there was no fee. Today I get an email saying they've successfully transferred the amount, but it's over a $1000 less than I paid. Now waiting to hear back from them to resolve it. Fingers crossed it was just a typo. I love the WS ships and crew, but find their front office to be sorely lacking.

And remember travel insurance will cover these things as well!

True! If we do stay on this sailing it looks as if WS will be picking up an air change fee as Air Canada is insisting that flights will probably be going to SXM in December. This is despite the fact they had a hard job finding our booking in their system as it's been configured to prevent further bookings for this destination. Westjet on the other hand immediately offered a full refund, which we totally didn't expect; so kudos to them.

Got an email too. Phoned to get more information on options. Front office took a long time finding out as information had only just been provided to them despite the fact that the emails had been sent out several hours earlier. Disappointed that WS will charge a change fee if you decide to move your booking to a different sailing as impacted cruises are now in the "cancellation window". No word either on providing refunds for excursions booked for ports no longer on itinerary.

Thanks! Glad to know you can get them; DH prefers having several cappuccinos throughout the day over alcohol/sodas.

We're contemplating doing a cruise on Wind Star (the ship). We've sailed on the Wind Surf and all 3 of the motor yachts and one feature we really enjoy is the Yacht Club and being able to get specialty coffees there. As there's no Yacht Club on the Wind Star, where can you get cappuccinos, etc and are they available throughout the day or only during meal service? Thanks!

There's a small fort on Pigeon Island that's worth going up to for the views - pathway up is quite steep and then the final section is a short vertical ladder that you need to climb to access the fort. There were taxis available outside the gated entrance to Pigeon Island. Some cruisers who went into Castries said the taxi fare was around $30 US each way, but your voyage director should be able to give you a better idea of current taxi costs at your nightly port talk. There is a beach on Pigeon Island itself, but if you want to go a bigger one, Reduit Beach is nearby.