Just off the Star

[Love my butler]

As you said, boarding begins around 11:30. So you will spend at least one hour waiting. If it is really important to you to be first on board, show up early. If it is really important to you to avoid waiting, show up later in the afternoon. If you want the full mass-market cruise experience, show up at noon :p

 

I agree. The difference is waiting while standing in line or relaxed in the VIP lounge or a comfortable chair if not a VIP. I loathe standing in lines so being early is always my goal.

[cruisemainiac]

A few years ago we were on Celebrity out of FLL. We were stuck on the ship until 12:30pm waiting to disembark. The power had gone out in the cruise terminal. This certainly was not the cruise lines fault. I imagine folks didn't make it on until at least 1:30pm. Things cause delays that are out of control of the cruise lines. Once you're on the ship don't be shy about voicing issues you may have, just be respectful to whoever you're talking to and give them a chance to fix things before taking it up the ladder.

[oregoncruiselover]

Here goes a longer review of our trip!

Some background we are from Oregon (go figure my screen name). As a family we love cruising. This trip it was myself, my husband, and our five kids. Our oldest is 15 years old and our youngest is 22months. So we had a wide range of experience. We were also traveling with our good friends, they also have two kids that are 13 and 14 years old. Both of us had a two bedroom suites.

Day one:

We flew out of Portland and into Long Beach. We used JetBlue. First time and we loved them. Great small airport and very easy to get off and get our bags. We then rented vans and drove to our hotel in San Pedro. We stayed in the Pacific inn. It was ok. We had two room , what they called suite. I would never call this a suite. Just a motel in my opinion but good for the price. The owners were gone and had a friend helping them and the gentleman was very nice.

A photo of the kids in front of the hotel. Our rooms were not ready so we went over to the Pacific restaurant next door. I think that's the name. It was excellent. So good we went back again. A must do if you have time. After that we went back and went to bed. More to come.

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Edited December 17, 2014 by oregoncruiselover

[irishclover]

by any chance do you still have the dailies? We are sailing out a week from Sunday and are super excited! :) Thanks!

[oregoncruiselover]

Sorry we don't. I didn't think about saving them.

 

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[Freespir8]

 

Over the 14 day cruise I only had one meal in the Aqua dining room that I didn’t like. We also had one night that our waitress steered us away from one of the dishes offered that night. After we had finished our entrée that night she brought that dish out for us to taste and we all agreed it wasn’t very tasty. I’m always surprised when people complain about food in a main dining room on any cruise ship because if you don’t like your entrée you can reject it and order a different one.

 

The buffet on the Star was quite good too with an excellent variety. Actually I was really impressed with the buffet because the hot foods were always hot and they were never dried out.

 

On our anniversary night we had reservations at Cagney’s and the steaks were outstanding. Instead of ordering a dessert that night the staff brought out a small anniversary cake and then sang “Let me call you sweetheart” to us. A nice touch and it thrilled my DW.

 

As I mentioned, embarkation was a terrible experience and I told my DW the rest of that evening we would never use NCL again. By the end of our cruise I couldn’t wait to go on another NCL cruise, it was that good for us.

 

Everyone has different tastes and expectations I guess.

 

This was almost exactly our experience on our PC cruise in October. If there was anything that didn't taste great, we would just get something else. The food on this cruise on the Star was much better than our last cruise on her in April of 2013. I think NCL had made some great changes and I can't wait to go our next cruise in March. The service is spectacular and it wasn't because we were in a suite. Many times they didn't know which cabin we were in and they always made us feel special. The thing I love most about NCL is that they are so good about always trying to say "yes". The make cruising easy and fun...exactly as it should be. ;)

[PathfinderEss]

Sorry your cruise was not all that you hoped it would be.

[oregoncruiselover]

Day two:

Cruise day. We got up and went and had breakfast. We both had to take our rental cars back to the airport. It took us about 45 min to get completely done. Before the cruise I had a hard time figuring out how we were going to get from the airport to the ship. We finally decided that taxis were the way to go. We ended up needing two taxi vans. They cost 45 $ each. Not bad in my opinion. My friend told them that we were going out of Long Beach, but that was not right. Thank goodness I read cruise critic because I knew we were going out of the Port of LA . We got to the Port about 1030 am . I was surprised how many people were there. So we got in line. Eventually they started letting us go into the security area. After that we were sent to another line. We were the only ones in this line. The lady at front of the line made us wait while all of the latitude members checked in...( at least that's who I think they were. I might be wrong). It just seemed like when it looked like it was going to be our turn someone from the other line would show up. So we finally got to the check in counter. My kids are getting crazy at this point. It would be nice if only one of the adults had to stand in line and the other one could do something with the kids. Our oldest son has autism and he just wanted to leave the area. Finally we got done and we were set in a waiting area. The check in person said that the concierge was not ready for us. We probably waited hour. Finally a lady showed up and said something that we could not here and about 10 or 15 people got up and left with her. 20 min later she came back and got us and took us to the same area she had taken the others. Eventually they set up some small snacks and drinks. We waited in this area about 30 more min. The concierge then came and got all of us at once, probably 30 or 40 people. It was chaos, people were rushing and shoving. We had a stroller so they made my husband and I split up. He took the elevator and I took the escalator with the rest of the kids. We were all escorted to the steak house for lunch . It was very busy. One of the staff members said that usually not everyone comes to the restaurant at once. The food was ok. My only real complaint was that my 5 year old ordered Mac and cheese and they took forever to bring it. It did not come until we were all done. This upset him. My husband ended up taking our baby out of the restaurant while he finished. During lunch they announced our rooms were ready. We went down to see our room . We were on deck 11 room 11520. We loved our room and loved our butler Made. He was great. We were so tired that we turned in for the evening..

 

 

 

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[mugtech]

we loved our butter Overall the food was horrible.

Well at least you loved your butter.

Would make a great handle on here.:D

[sassyredhat]

I can't wait to go our next cruise in March.

 

We are on the same cruise, and I can't wait either. :)

 

Patti

[oregoncruiselover]

Ok I might have to change my name!

 

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