Live from the NCL Star July 23-August 15, 2023. Will I survive 23 days without the beverage package?

[kitkat343]

15 hours ago, YVRteacher said:

Stop #3

 Very tiny and very crowded Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society.

 

This is where we could leave the tour and make our way back to the ship without the bus. 

The walk is supposed to take about 20 minutes but I took about 90 minutes because there were 3 big distractions:

1. 1. The grocery store
2. 2. Reindeer on the sidewalk and in the fountain
3. 3. The beach 

I went into a cafe next to the polar bear place but it did not look yummy at all. I hadn’t had breakfast and was hungry, but not hungry enough to eat non-yummy food.

 

The grocery store was beautiful. Lovely fresh produce.

 

Look what I found!

I don’t know NCL’s stance on bringing whole frozen cakes on board and I didn’t have a fork!

I don't know their policy on frozen cake, but I had leftover jerk chicken confiscated when I sailed the getaway last January in St. Kitts.  I was really sad because the food on the getaway was better than what you were served but still mostly cold and not very good, and it took a lot of searching through the buffet to find edible food, so I really wanted to keep my jerk chicken.  Not purchasing the cake was a good call since you might have wanted to cry if they confiscated it given the fact that you have so few options on board for food.

[laudergayle]

We watched a cute couple have to abandon a full box of pastries that they had purchased for the crew in Bermuda.  The gangway crew wouldn’t even accept the pastries for themselves.

[YVRteacher]

6 hours ago, RosieCanberra said:

I board today, after reading your thread on and off the past two weeks I'm dreading it. 

To be honest, I was in the botanical garden today in Tromsø. I could see the Star and hear the announcements from the ship. My heart sank at the thought of getting back on.

 

To be clear, I’m not having a bad time. Quite the contrary. The ports have been outstanding. Truly a life experience to treasure. The ship is horrible and all we can do is advocate for better food, service and entertainment, spend time with great people and enjoy the ports.

[YVRteacher]

Grilled cheese sandwich. Bread, cheese, butter. Simple and delicious, right?

 

I ordered a grilled cheese once back on board from a fantastic day in Tromsø. This arrived:

 

 

This photo has not been altered in any way. This is what I was served.  You bet I asked for the Restaurant Manager to come and take a look.  I think he almost cried! I also showed him my omelette from this morning. He said “it looks like they didn’t care.” 

 

[cruiseny4life]

2 minutes ago, YVRteacher said:

Grilled cheese sandwich. Bread, cheese, butter. Simple and delicious, right?

 

I ordered a grilled cheese once back on board from a fantastic day in Tromsø. This arrived:

 

 

This photo has not been altered in any way. This is what I was served.  You bet I asked for the Restaurant Manager to come and take a look.  I think he almost cried! I also showed him my omelette from this morning. He said “it looks like they didn’t care.” 

 

There are no words...

[wally4ever]

21 minutes ago, YVRteacher said:

Grilled cheese sandwich. Bread, cheese, butter. Simple and delicious, right?

 

I ordered a grilled cheese once back on board from a fantastic day in Tromsø. This arrived:

 

 

This photo has not been altered in any way. This is what I was served.  You bet I asked for the Restaurant Manager to come and take a look.  I think he almost cried! I also showed him my omelette from this morning. He said “it looks like they didn’t care.” 

 

I'm sorry but I just have to laugh at that.  Like... how?  How does that happen?  How does somebody think that's okay to serve? How does a waiter not go, "Uh... this ain't right?"

I'm not one to complain about food, but oh my goodness, the absolute least... LITERALLY the absolute least... you can do is make sure a sandwich is a sandwich.

[TPgal]

"The whole damn ship is creaking so you make a note to record the sound to post on Cruise Critic and you vow never to choose this cabin again."

 

OMG!  That poor experienced cruiser.  

[lgdesign]

54 minutes ago, YVRteacher said:

This photo has not been altered in any way. This is what I was served.  You bet I asked for the Restaurant Manager to come and take a look.  I think he almost cried! I also showed him my omelette from this morning. He said “it looks like they didn’t care.” 

 

 

Execrable... defies belief!  How did you manage to pick your jaw up from the floor?  I feel like I would have burst into tears of furious frustration had that been presented to me after all the conversations you've had about the issues.  How does that even make it on to a plate let alone a table?

[bstreep]

We are on day 3 on Spirit in Alaska.  The food here is an order of magnitude better than we had last year on the Star.  Almost excellent. And that’s in the free restaurants. On Star we resorted to specialty restaurants about 4 or 5 days in, because the food just wasn’t even “fair”.  I can’t believe the food 2 NCL ships could be so different.  

[WestCoastDeb]

1 hour ago, YVRteacher said:

Grilled cheese sandwich. Bread, cheese, butter. Simple and delicious, right?

 

I ordered a grilled cheese once back on board from a fantastic day in Tromsø. This arrived:

 

 

This photo has not been altered in any way. This is what I was served.  You bet I asked for the Restaurant Manager to come and take a look.  I think he almost cried! I also showed him my omelette from this morning. He said “it looks like they didn’t care.” 

 

They figured out cheese on one of the pieces of bread. That feels like luck. What a mess. 

[YVRteacher]

11 minutes ago, WestCoastDeb said:

They figured out cheese on one of the pieces of bread. That feels like luck. What a mess. 

Did they though? There was no point of contact where the cheese and the bread were attached!🤣

[YVRteacher]

20 minutes ago, lgdesign said:

 

Execrable... defies belief!  How did you manage to pick your jaw up from the floor?  I feel like I would have burst into tears of furious frustration had that been presented to me after all the conversations you've had about the issues.  How does that even make it on to a plate let alone a table?

That is the conversation we had! I didn’t cry. I stayed calm and polite and steady. 

[WestCoastDeb]

3 minutes ago, YVRteacher said:

Did they though? There was no point of contact where the cheese and the bread were attached!🤣

Oops! I thought the one half slice in the back had cheese on it (I was trying to figure out how you got 3 half pieces of bread)

[YVRteacher]

1 hour ago, YVRteacher said:

Grilled cheese sandwich. Bread, cheese, butter. Simple and delicious, right?

 

I ordered a grilled cheese once back on board from a fantastic day in Tromsø. This arrived:

 

 

This photo has not been altered in any way. This is what I was served.  You bet I asked for the Restaurant Manager to come and take a look.  I think he almost cried! I also showed him my omelette from this morning. He said “it looks like they didn’t care.” 

 

Just adding that when the restaurant manager arrived and sat down with me I said, “what do you think this is?” Not with attitude. I wasn’t being rude at all. I just wanted to see if he knew we were going for the essence of a grilled cheese sandwich (remember Friends? The cushion is the essence of the chair!)

 

His guess? A Reuben.

[YVRteacher]

Just now, WestCoastDeb said:

Oops! I thought the one half slice in the back had cheese on it (I was trying to figure out how you got 3 half pieces of bread)

Well, it sort of has cheese draped across it, in a kind of sultry paint me like one your French ladies sort of way. Maybe I’m being too picky but I kind of like the cheese to have some gooey attachment to the bread.

[WestCoastDeb]

1 minute ago, YVRteacher said:

Well, it sort of has cheese draped across it, in a kind of sultry paint me like one your French ladies sort of way. Maybe I’m being too picky but I kind of like the cheese to have some gooey attachment to the bread.

I dont think that you are being too picky. They missed the mark completely. 

[YVRteacher]

 

 Twelve Rules for Collecting Beach Glass in Hammerfest (inspired by one of my favourite picture books, Everybody Needs a Rock by Byrd Baylor)

 

 

Choose your own beach glass.  A woman offered me some of her glass. It was a big chunk with wire. My glass needs to be small enough to fit through the opening of a tall thin glass jar. Also, I prefer my glass to be wire-free.

 

 

Be patient. I heard a husband say to his wife, “let’s get out of here; it’s starting to rain!” thus ending her beach glass collecting session.

 

Don’t go beach glass hunting on an empty stomach. Planning for a Norwegian bakery cake experience, I didn’t eat breakfast before the Hammerfest Panorama shore excursion.  One needs sustenance for an epic beach glass collecting session. There’s a lot of bending, squatting, pawing through sand and decision making. The mind and the body should be well-nourished. Despite my current food situation on the Star (bread, water, eggs, cheese, vegetables) I persevered like a well-trained athlete ready for the beach glass collecting Olympics.

 

Bring a bag so your pockets don’t bulge. This is especially pertinent if you are using a shirt with two frontal pockets. Trust me.

 

Make sure your ratio of coloured glass to white glass is  visually appealing. You don’t want a jar of mostly white glass with only a few flecks of colour. You want a plethora of coloured beach glass. I prefer cool colours to warm colours. Purple beach glass is a joy to find!

 

Leave the sharp glass behind. Beach glass is smooth with rounded edges. Beach glass collecting should not be a Bandaid-inducing event.

 

Take the colours you like and  leave the beer bottle browns behind.

 

Bend down.

Lower.

Even lower. 

You aren’t going to find beach glass standing tall like a flamingo. You need to turtle the heck out of this hobby.

 

The best beach glass collecting experience for me was on the island of Murano while waiting for the Vaporetti. The broken and excess glass from the glass blowing studios gets thrown away and tossed into the canal. It washes up on the postage stamp sized beach. Each piece of beach glass from Murano is like a miniature piece of art. Not every beach glass collecting day will be a Murano.

 

All beach glass looks good wet from the ocean waves.  Will it still look good in the jar in your bathroom or in the little glass bowl beside your bed? 

 

Avoid the reindeer poop. Reindeer poop is brown, pebbly and squishy. Beach glass is translucent, flat and firm. It does not smell like recently digested grass, weeds and Christmas carrots.

 

Heart shaped beach glass is a rare find. Some people take strength from finding hearts in rocks and beach glass. I’m not one of those people so I leave the hearts for someone who needs it.

[Happy fool]

I hope NCL pays attention to cruise critic. They can do better. They do better on other ships. 

[lgdesign]

4 minutes ago, YVRteacher said:

His guess? A Reuben.

 

Seriously? 

 

That pile of badly mishandled ingredients barely looks like a grilled sandwich... but mistaking for it a Reuben leads me to think that perhaps the lack of quality and extremely poor execution problem starts with upper restaurant management. 

 

How could that possibly be mistaken for a Reuben unless a person clearly doesn't know what a Reuben is?

[YVRteacher]

32 minutes ago, bstreep said:

We are on day 3 on Spirit in Alaska.  The food here is an order of magnitude better than we had last year on the Star.  Almost excellent. And that’s in the free restaurants. On Star we resorted to specialty restaurants about 4 or 5 days in, because the food just wasn’t even “fair”.  I can’t believe the food 2 NCL ships could be so different.  

Please say hi to the Maître D Luke in Onda from Yvonne.

[YVRteacher]

33 minutes ago, bstreep said:

We are on day 3 on Spirit in Alaska.  The food here is an order of magnitude better than we had last year on the Star.  Almost excellent. And that’s in the free restaurants. On Star we resorted to specialty restaurants about 4 or 5 days in, because the food just wasn’t even “fair”.  I can’t believe the food 2 NCL ships could be so different.  

I hope you have a wonderful cruise on the Spirit. She’s a special ship with a stellar crew.

[lgdesign]

3 minutes ago, YVRteacher said:

 

On to happier subjects... Love your beach glass!

[Happy fool]

I had a Rueben on our recent cruise on the Star. I’m not sure what the meat in it was, but it not corned beef. It was not good. 

[YVRteacher]

2 minutes ago, lgdesign said:

 

Seriously? 

 

That pile of badly mishandled ingredients barely looks like a grilled sandwich... but mistaking for it a Reuben leads me to think that perhaps the lack of quality and extremely poor execution problem starts with upper restaurant management. 

 

How could that possibly be mistaken for a Reuben unless a person clearly doesn't know what a Reuben is?

It was his best guess!  He knows I’m not eating meat, maybe he thought it was a Reuben minus all the ingredients? I don’t know.  It’s just baffling to me that a paid chef made that and that a waiter served it and the maître d looked at it and asked me how it was.  Baffling. 

[YVRteacher]

Would now be a good time for me to tell you that there are toenail clippings on the carpet in the new cabin?

 

There are toenail clippings on the carpet of the new cabin.

 

Would this also be a good time to tell you that when I went to the Cruise Next desk today to register for the Behind the Scenes tour she told me it was full?

 

Would now be a good time for me to tell you that the room steward said that since I am back to back I don’t get the Diamond Latitudes coupon book for the two free meals and the laundry.

 

Would now be a good time to tell you that there were no chocolate covered strawberries and Flow Water boxes delivered today? Nothing.