Which floor on the Star?

[*Blonde*]

Hi,

We are looking at booking our first cruise soon as we can save up to 30% off! Two questions:

 

(1) Should we book through a travel agent (it is leaving from Auckland so we don't need to fly) or book direct with P&O?

 

(2) Which floor on the Star do you think is the best: Aloha, Baja, Caribe, or Dolphin?

 

Thanks for your help :)

[Star-Man]

Baja deck all the way. i say that because thats where our room is for my december cruise.

 

nothing wrong with caribe and dolphin except they are a bit removed from everything but the dining room.

 

if you do book the cheapest possible room you can (dolphin inside) and P&O starts to advertise your cruise even cheaper closer to the sailing date, you might get upgraded (like i have been).

 

ultimately it doesnt matter where your cabin is, all the fun happens up on deck.:cool:

[sweet_successes]

When we went on our cruise on the Star in June we booked and paid for Aloha Midship Outside. It was great - we weren't too far from the pacfic lounge and it was only a few flights of stairs up to casablanca or lido.

 

In fact we enjoyed that level so much we have booked Emperess midship outside for Christmas next year.

 

Cheers and good luck with your choice

Rach

[aussiedisneyfan]

We were central caribe and liked that (5087). Ours was best available so didn't have a choice.

 

I like it because we could duck out to the pursers desk and internet cafe; there were only cabins above and below so no nightclub noise etc; was good excercise to walk up to other levels. The pursers desk was especially good because we could easily check for when there were queues and come back later.

[sarze]

sorry to hijack your thread, but was wondering if anyone has had a cabin on aloha deck and if so did you get much noise from the promenade deck above?

We booked on Caribe deck inside cabin and told them no upgrades as we wanted to be away from excessive noise and wanted an inside cabin so we could sleep-in without the sunlight waking us (end of uni cruise :) )

But we have been upgraded on the cruise personaliser to Aloha cabin 7086 which is an outside cabin. Just wondering what your thoughts are on whether i should pursue getting it changed back, considering we told them no upgrades to begin with? Do the curtains offer much blocking of the light? and do you think noise will be an issue? Thanks everyone

[aussiedisneyfan]

The curtains are really good. There will be a small shadow of light but barely anything. Don't know about Aloha, had friends on Baha.

[sweet_successes]

sorry to hijack your thread, but was wondering if anyone has had a cabin on aloha deck and if so did you get much noise from the promenade deck above?

We booked on Caribe deck inside cabin and told them no upgrades as we wanted to be away from excessive noise and wanted an inside cabin so we could sleep-in without the sunlight waking us (end of uni cruise :) )

But we have been upgraded on the cruise personaliser to Aloha cabin 7086 which is an outside cabin. Just wondering what your thoughts are on whether i should pursue getting it changed back, considering we told them no upgrades to begin with? Do the curtains offer much blocking of the light? and do you think noise will be an issue? Thanks everyone

 

Hi

 

We were on ALoha deck cabin no 7062 - the curtains did not let in much light and we never heard anything. In fact there were times when we didn't wake up until after 10.30 am. good luck with your decision. Rach

[kezza]

Sarze, (sigh) I would love to be upgrade to Aloha. At the moment we don't have our room (am expecting the lowest) so an upgrade would be soooooo nice lol.

 

Hey Aussie, do you know were you girls will be yet?

 

Kerri

[aussiedisneyfan]

Our personaliser currently shows 4016. No outside! :(

[kezza]

Ummm mines still not showing a room no. Wonder if thats a good sign? lol

We pretty much booked on the same day too didn't we. Did you book thru Best Cruises?

 

Kerri

[sarze]

thanks for the replies guys, i think we will stick with the upgrade thanks to your positive replies :)

Our cabin has changed on the cruise personaliser 3 times so don't worry you might still get an upgrade :)

It is getting really exciting now that there is only 84 days to go! (when we booked it was 258) Although kind of scary too cause everytime i log on to here and see the days counting down i realise that exams are 3 weeks before that so they are getting a bit close for comfort lol

[*Blonde*]

Thanks for your answers so far everyone!!

 

Just wondering if you booked your cruise through a travel agent, or did you book with P&O direct through their website??

 

We are wondering which would be the easiest, and have the most benefits, eg those that have been upgraded have you booked with a travel agent, or P&O, or both?

 

Thanks :)

[kezza]

I've booked everytime except this time thru a TA and got an upgrade from dolphin to Bahra on the Sky once. First cruise I booked about 8 mths in advance and the 2nd cruise was about the same time and got an upgrade on that one. Our last one in March - nothing and I booked that one 12 months in advance.

 

This time I've gone thru an internet site so fingers crossed and this was booked 10 weeks before the cruise.

 

Kerri

[sarze]

We booked through a travel agent *Blonde*, just one of the large chains and we just booked at the standard 35% off early bird rate as we were happy enough with this price and wanted to get in early as our cruise coincides with the end of the uni year so we weren't sure if it would be busy. We also found the larger chain to be the best option for us as we could just pop in to our local branch anytime to make a payment and we organised travel insurance through them :)

Also, as students it is quite alot of money still so we liked the fact that the travel agents are accessible anytime to answer any questions we have or sort out any problems should they arise.

[Star-Man]

sarze, thay are the exact same reasons that we booked through the local big branch TA (located a minute down the road from my house and on the home from getting off the bus.)

 

Being year 12 students, it has been really handy to just pop in and pay $50 here and there off it.

 

btw, your cruise is an end of uni cruise and mine is the one straight after and for us it is an end of year 12 cruise. both the perfect way to mark the end of something rather large i'd say.

 

take care,

 

sam

[aussiedisneyfan]

We usually book through out local TA (part of a chain) but this time booked through bescruises because they had the great deal and our TA was away at the time.

 

Kerri, we had the cabin held for us on the Friday and rang and confirmed on the Monday with full payment. Hope you get a good cabin. All our cruises have been a best available and not a certain rate. Last cruise we didn't know the number until about a week before. Our 2004 cruise we didn't know until we boarded.

[sweet_successes]

Both times we booked through the same travel agent - first cruise we got airfares and hotel package as well as automatic upgrade to Aloha. For the next cruise we knew we wanted Aloha so booked that but also got a further discount off the P&O Price Breaker discount and $75 pp onboard credit thrown in as well.

[Skyrules]

We usually book ours direct through P&O, mostly because my partner worked for P&O Nedloyd, and prior to the their sale to Maersk (and total disassociation from P&O) we got discounts on cruises, and the occasional discount offer, usually at short notice, which had to be booked directly with them, so on the last one, which we didn't get any discounts other than the 40% advertised one, we just kept that up as it was easier - with 3 groups of people, one in Queensland, one in Victoria and one group split between NSW and New Zealand, to organise it tha way.

 

Unfortunately we don't get the discounts or cheap cruise offers any more :mad: . But luckily a lot of the advertised specials these days are better than the discounts we used to be able to get.

[Tikibird]

It really depends on what type of cruiser you are. We are a quiet, childless couple so I chose the Caribe Deck which has a high percentage of cabins that are doubles only, don't convert to quads. I also chose an area without cabins directly opposite. Hopefully the neighbors will also be quiet couples. People with families will probably book the deck with the kids clubs nearby for easy access, also more quads are up there.

[*Blonde*]

Thanks everyone for your responses. I have emailed our travel agent to ask if we can (a) get the same deal through them; and (b) if the payments are the same as with P&O, eg deposit then nothing until 60-90 days prior to sailing. It also seems like Aloha & Baja are the most popular so will get her to quote us on those!!

 

We would love to book a mini suite, but can't quite afford that much!! :(