trip review from Star Princess 6/21 part 1

Hi Everybody:

Here is my review from our truly wonderful trip on the Star Princess 6/21 to 7/03. The trip included Venice, Turkey, Athens, Naples, Rome, Florence, Monte Carlo, Barcelona and a wrap up in London.

We didn't use any tour guides, so this is not a phoney report.

Well we are back from the Star Princess 12 day Mediterranean Venice - Barcelona June 21 Cruise. Wow, oh boy and wow again.

We selected this trip because I just finished a busy semester with lots of equipment installations, negotiations and productions jobs, I also just concluded a course in Art History. Marla also finished a special 12 week course so we were both pretty bushed. And then this sell-off came up for $800 Cdn per person and we couldn't resist it. Neither of us had been to Europe before so we jumped at the opportunity for a 12 day cruise.

Getting to Venice -

We left from Vancouver and flew for 15 hours to get to Venice via London. With the time changes we left Vancouver at 8pm and arrived in Venice at 10:30pm.

First Blake boo-boo. I forgot the confirmation for the vaporatto tickets for waterbuses. Oops and dang it.

In the meantime we took the Alilaguna to St. Mark's and then the vaporatto to the Accademia.

TRAVEL HINT: DON'T BUY Alliguana return tickets. The tickets from the cruise ship are sold separately. And they are very different routes then where you go on regular boats.

Ship Transfers - We didn't buy Ship Transfers since we were coming in on our own and it is rather easy to get around Venice (So we were told.) Also it was alot cheaper. The alliguana was $10 Euro each, the Vaperatto was free late Saturday night. Too many people on board were to check and we couldn't find anyone to pay. If we did, it would have cost $3 Euro for the two of us. Still much less than the Ship's Transfer. For getting to the ship from Venice, it is really easy. Catch the Vaperatto to Pte. Roma (you would have a pass if you came in early and purchased a three day Vaperatto pass which is almost a necessity and a great travel bargain). Then there is an unidentified free bus to the Cruise terminal.

TRAVEL HINT: Spend more time pre or post cruise in Venice, it is wonderfully overwhelming and impossible to do a goodly portion of it while the ship is in port.

VENICE: We stayed at the American Hotel, it is really nice. It had a very good breakfast and the rooms and location was wonderful. Quiet, in a peaceful area and good to get to. Venice can be really crowded, so plan your day efficiently and you will feel better. Do the touristy stuff really early in the morning, in the afternoon relax, go to the out of the way back street places, in the evenings, take in the architecture and walk the allies in the nice light when all the tourists are out for supper, finally eat late. Eating in Venice: If you can, try not to eat all your meal in one place. Start at one spot for Appies, then move to another for prima platti, another for second plate and finally a fourth restaurant for dessert or just buy some Gellato on the street. Gellato is a gift from the Gods and is not fattening, at least that was my excuse to buy more.

CRUISE CHECK IN: Checking in was very easy and efficient. This was the easiest check in of any cruise we have been on. Last February when we were in Las Vegas we got these free document holders from McCarran Airport. They are little envelope/wallet things that dangle around your neck and hold your documents (Passports, Boarding Passes, Tickets) in a convient space about your neck and with a little bit of creativity they will also be safe.

VENICE on the Boat: The ship will provide transport for $10 each, use it often, the views are great and the trip is nice.

Second Blake boo-boo, I forgot to pack the underwear we set out to take with us, so we don't have stuff aside from our emergency stuff from our carry ons. But it was a good excuse to go shopping for something that wasn’t a souvineer.

COKE CARDS:

Buy your coke card ($30 for 10 days) as soon as possible. By the way, they sell fountain coke and you run a 50/50 chance that it will be lousy. On our trip the coke go so back they went to service coke from cans. For about three days it was wonderful real coke, then they went back to fountain drinks and it was awful. The best we could do was complain and they would either fix the pour or serve us from a special big bottle of mix they had nearby.

STAR PRINCESS:

Okay so the ship looks like a big shopping cart, but that's cool. It stands out while you are in port. The ship is a beauty. The staff is great. Food is okay and entertainment is totally unintesting. We had a great time, but frankly we did it our way. Star Princess is rated to hold 2,600 passengers, we had 2,808 people including over 600 children. The maximum capacity of the Star is really 3,100 but the ship would be busting at the seams.

AT SEA: I love being at sea and we had two days of it before we went to Turkey.

KUSADESI TURKEY:

We didn't do the shore excursions to Ephesus so we stayed in and shopped. I wanted some new shirts. If you can be the first purchase of a day at one of the stalls, watch the guys do their "Bless my day" performance with the money. They will rub the new money on what you bought, on themselves, on the floor and whatever else they would like to sell. Watch out! These guys are expert salesmen. They WILL separate you from your money. That's okay, buy something you want, make sure you haggle. You will get screwed but keep aware and you will be happy with your purchase. Kusadesi is great for soft leather coats, remember they will take up a lot of room in your luggage but the prices and quality of the work is excellent. Also, look for Pashima’s. They make great scarves and wraps. Especially if you buy the predominately silk ones. Ours cost 5 Euros each. In London, lessor quality ones sold for over 50 Pounds. Of course the really cheap wool ones are an even better bargain but they feel crummy compared to the silk one.

ATHENS:

We did the short excursion to the Acropolis. I really recommend doing this by the ship transport unless you know Athens. The Acropolis was hot, hilly, crowded and wonderful. Parisi, the port where the ship will dock, is huge, over populated, and difficult to get around. We thought of catching the Metro into town but gave up on the idea when it became obvious we simply could not physically get there without a thorough knowledge of the crowded port.

NAPLES:

We don't like doing long day excursions so for this trip we decided to just take a taxi to Pompeii. I originally wanted to take the train, but frankly it became a lot easier to take a cab. We shopped around a bit, if you take a cab right at the ship terminal it will cost you 100 Euro for a 3 hour trip out to Pompeii and a little city tour. We walked to the street when the taxis that do not have a service agreement with the cruise company and there they charged 80 Euro for a four hour tour. They will take you to at least one cameo factory whether you want to or not. The nice thing about the taxi rides over the boat busses, is that the cabs can go through the Spanish Quarter. It is a fascinating ride, don't go there ALONE. Also be very very careful walking through Naples traffic, they are crazy drivers who appear to drive buy an unknown law of the universe. It is possible for two taxis to take up one space.

ROME:

Remember Rome is 2 hours from the boat. So if you are in port for nine hour and take away 4 hours travel time, take off another hour for shopping and/or eating. So you have 4 hours to see one of the greatest cities in the world. We stayed on the boat. It was wonderfully quiet except for a couple of bad kids and irresponsible parents (one of my pet peeves).

More of this review is included in my next post

FLORENCE:

Totally cool. Again take off four hours for travel time but this is another one of those cases where if you go with the cruiseline excursions, you are sure you will be getting back on the boat. On our trip there was a train delay that caused nearly 150 people to be over an hour late getting back to the ship. Fortunately the ship did wait for the people to come to the port, but there were places where independent travelers were left behind.

From the oh damn department - I got pickpocketted near the end of our day in Florence. But I only lost my driver's license and one credit card. That is all you should have on you and that's what they tell you to take and leave your other valuables on the ship. Great advice. BTW, the folks at Michelangelo leathers are really helpful.

In Florence you can go to the Accademia or the Uffuzi Gallery, but here is a hint. At either place you can stand in line for an hour or more. Do this, make a reservation from home before you go or go visit the Bargello (http://www.museumsinflorence.com/fi...f_bargello.html)

It is easy to get to, easy to get into and a great visit.

MONTE CARLO: We didn't expect much from Monte Carlo so we didn't plan much. After a nice morning on the boat we took the tender into the city. Monte Carlo is just plain pretty, but we went in and walked up the hill to the Palace. By the way, don't bother with a ship's tour to the palace; it is a relatively easy walk. It is about a half hour walk from the tender's berth and the views are great.

The Palace is wonderful, Great art and moderate sentimentality.

BARCELONA: Again we had no plans for Barcelona, so we went into town.

Once in town we caught the Bus Touristic. We got on it, hopped off at the things we wanted to see, hopped back on and did more. We did this for seven hours. It was great! And it only cost 16 Euro each.

(http://www.barcelona-on-line.es/eng...istic_rutes.htm)

ANOTHER HINT: It is going to cost 3 Euro each to take a return bus to the Columb Circle (town center), if you take a taxi it will cost you 5 Euro. If you can share a cab like we did, you will save a bundle of Euros and time.

LEAVING BARCELONA: How can I put this politely, the staff at British Airways in Barcelona are.... idiots. Five ships were all leaving the same day all between 11am and 1pm. did they put on any extra staff? No. Did they plan for this? No. We stood in line for three hours. It sucked.

AFTER our trip, we did a post cruise in London. I don't have a rear end left since I walked it off in London.

Over all it was a great trip.

PEEVES:

Unattended children. Parents supervise your kids; I stopped two 12-year-old boys from jumping from the hot tubs into the pool on top of a little girl. One kid broke his leg running through the atrium. Kids ended up in the adult pool at the spa playing basketball with the Buddha fountain and some ping-pong balls that fell from the deck above.

People who don't dress for dinner. There is the horizon restaurant for casual dining, go there if you don't want to respect the ship, her dining room staff and your other cruise-mates.

Yeechy coke. See above.

Signs that say people are not to wear beachwear in the Horizon Restaurant that no one pays attention to.

SPA: Marla used the SPA for a couple of treatments. According to her the spa staff were not as pushy as other ship spas, and they were very friendly. She liked the services and would use them again. She especially liked the after spa treatment the “Grotto” showers and relaxing benches were most welcoming.

HORIZON COURT: The Horizon Court buffet is near the rear of the ship. It is really two major restaurants on either side of the ship and two more dining area’s behind the buffets. The food there ranges from average to mystery meat. I think the biggest problem is that even though it is a rapid service eating place for hundreds of people, the atmosphere is very industrial. For some reason, and I am sure this is just me, but it always turned out that whichever side of this ship I would go to to enjoy the restaurant, it would be closed. We never had a problem finding a place to eat and the service staff was present and moderately efficient. Because nobody was working with tips in mind, the service felt a lot like it would at a “King’s table” or Vegas buffet.

CAPRI/PORTOFINO DINING ROOM: I really liked anytime dining, so we didn’t have a particular dining plan in mind. I liked the variety of times being available to dine and loved all the new dining companions we shared tables with.

HAMBURGER BAR: We both liked the Hamburger/Hot Dog bar by the pools. The service was pretty good and the food was excellent.

GYM: I used the gym at 7am most mornings. Frankly on the Mediteranian cruise there is so much sight seeing and walking going on that you do get lots of walking exercise ashore. I liked the clean bright facilities. It got crowded in the afternoons.

ROOM SERVICE: Room service was a necessessary but also a disappointment. We used the service for 10 of the 12 days we were on the trip. They go our order right once. We also made a point for ordering cold food since when we did try to order a hot sandwich it came cold. That is with the exception of the coffee and hot chocolate. They were always hot and good.

HOT CHOCOLATE: We ordered hot chocolate from room service each morning. There was no charge and it was very good.

MIDNIGHT BUFFET: This was the first cruise we were on that didn't have a midnight buffet. I missed it. actually I didn't miss the buffet as much as I missed the opulence that goes with it. All the ice carvings and artistic food display.

LEARN ITALIAN: It amuses the locals. Get a basic vocabulary, please, thank you, etc. Also it helps when reading some of the signs.

LAUNDRY: Laundry services are pretty good on the star princess, we pack light so I always plan on doing a couple of loads each trip. It costs $1US for each wash load and $0.50 for each dryer. But the dryers need two runs at clothes like Jeans or some heavier t-shirts. There is also a change machine in each laundry room to turn Dollars into quarters.

PRAISE:

Great staff. All nice people doing a great job.

Knowledgeable and helpful desk staff.

Beautiful ship with great pools.

You can see pictures of our trip at http://community.webshots.com/user/rorythedog - Blake and Marla go to Europe.

Enjoy,

Blake thank you for your posts and the link to some very nice photos.

What hour of the day were your pictures taken in Venice which said "sunrise" and showed the Star Princess arriving?

Hi

I am one of those who likes to get up real early and walk city streets. So on this particular morning I was up at 5:30am and walked through St. Mark's Square. It was incredible, by this time it was 6 and the only people in St. Mark's were myself and three street sweepers. The cleaning guys there use these brooms with long straw sweeping brooms, the kind the wicked witch of the west would ride. As I was just about to leave, one of the guys started singing an opera tune. His voice just rang through the square.

Anyhow, I turned the corner and walked up to the canal to see the Star Princess coming in. Usually the boat docks about 7am and lets passengers off for their tours at 8ish. The folks stay ovenight in Venice before departing.

There you go, a story and the time.

B

There you go, a story and the time.

I enjoyed your review and photos. Thank you for sharing.:)

Hate to bring up negatives, but how were you pickpocketed in Florence? Perhaps we could learn how better to prevent? Thanks.