Star cruise March 10th-Very long(sorry)

[Rossland]

Just back from the Star! This is our second cruise and first one with Princess( 1st cruise was with Carnival)

Embarkation-Left the Renasaince at 1:30 and in our room by 2:00. This was unbelievably quick. It took less than 10 min. to get thru all the procedures.

Ochios Rios- I was looking forward to Jamaica as I have never been there. We booked the day at Sunset Resort as we had our 8 year old daughter with us. Great place and well worth the extra money.Beware that they don't let you in till 10:00am. We were off of the ship by 8:15 and took a cab into town for $18US for 3, round trip. Downtown was a suprise! Very poor and run down. People were polite and not too pushy.

Grand Cayman- This was my 3rd time to G.C. The first time was for power restoration after Ivan and the 2nd was with Carnival. Rented a Jeep from Cayman Auto rentals(walking distance from the pier)Great price and good service! We were at Rum Point by 9:15. Spent the day their as there were 6 ships in that day.The town is really busy with only 3 never mind 6.

Cozumel- Went to the private beach at Nachi Cocum. Had a great time. Food was excellent but watch the Marg's, they have a way of sneaking up on you.

Princess Cay's- Superb!!! We were one of the first ones off and loved it. Don't stay on the ship and miss this one. Lots of chairs(sun or shade)

The ship- Food- I thought it was a bit better than Carnival, my wife thought it was about the same. Sabatinis was great. Almost too much food! Tequilas was also very good. Our waiter in the dining room was 10 times better than ours last year.We requested him each night.Went with the anytime dining(this is the only way to go-very flexible)

Cleanlyness- Not as good as last year. Eveything was always clean but it could have been better. We had a wine stain on our deck door that was there the whole cruise. Parts of the ship seemed to be neglected for the whole week.

Kids program- 1st class and a big thank you to the girls in the class. My daughter had a wonderfull time.

The dreaded smell- unfortunatly is was there! I smelled it once or twice on the deck, but I woke up on Thursday night and smelled it in our room.I didn't tell my wife about this problem until we were back. She told me that she woke up most nights and smelled it. They shut off the AC in the rooms at night and we found them warm(I don't know if this has something to do with the smell getting into the rooms) We were on the port side Caribe deck mid ship.

Debarkation- Called at 8:10 and sitting on the bus at 8:25.

Overall- You are not kept up to date on things like you are on Carnival so read the hand-outs. I would rank this ship just a bit higher than the Valor(last year) The crew members are better but the layout of the ship takes a bit of getting use to.

Still had a good time and would do it again(even on the Star)

[KKB]

We, too, noticed a waft of smell on a couple of occasions...would not have commented on it if others hadn't before.

 

A/C is NOT turned off in all rooms! I kept putting it too low & DH was sleeping in his sweatpants!:p

 

Personally, I never noticed anything but a pristine ship. Too bad about that stain though...

 

Thanks for the review!

[Coolmama_1]

Good review. Thanks for sharing. I just figure the smell is 2600 people eating way too much rich food all week!:D