Just off the Star, Dec 12th, Western Caribbean

[davidrod]

Just off the Star this morning, Sunday December 12th, from the Western Itineraries.

 

Here is a little review of what we experienced.

There were two of us, in the late 20s early 30s age range...

 

Overall, I must say that the Star did not meet my expectations. Having sailed on Carnival and NCL before, I had heard so many good things about Princess that I decided to book my next cruise with them... In this review, you'll see a few comparisions as to what I got in Carnival/NCL and how it differed from Princess....

 

Checking in was definetively smooth... After several cruises, I learned my lesson, check in after 12:30-1, less people checking in...

 

We had a Balcony on the Aloha Deck. Besides the closet, I wasn't really impressed by the cabin at all. The decoration was pretty simple. They do get extra points for the 19" TV and the extra TV Channels... (Espn, CNN, CNNfn, TNT, USA, Cartoons, CNN en Espanol) plus a few more excursions, information, etc tv channels...

 

The cabin didn't seem much bigger than in the other ships, in fact, it seemed a little bit smaller, but I guess that would happen with that big old closet in there!!!

 

The ship looks very well maintened, very clean, and the staff very attentive, but I can't say that I remember anyone going the extra mile, or trying to do something for us that we would remember later... In past ships, those memories were always full, and we ended up giving extra tips on board. I can't say we experience that here. I'm not saying we were treated bad, it was just average....

 

The ship probably had 80% passengers over 50, many over 70... There weren't many young couples and even less kids...

 

As for the ports... First off, I didn't book any excursions throughthe cruise ship because they are a big rip off... IF I have the choice, I rather do it on my own, this is not always the case, but at least on this cruise we did not book any excursions with them...

 

Here are our thoughts...

Costa Maya...

In development... Nice looking beaches, but not much infraestructure to go around... We booked a one hour snorkeling excursion at the pier ($20 with your own equipment, $30 if you didn't have any)

The boats were pretty small, the sea was a little bit rough and there wasn't much to see there... After we returned to the beach, we were trying to get a couple of extension chairs to spend the day at the beach and couldn't find any (there weren't many available)

 

The service has a lot to learn, nothing like Cozumel, but it seems like the little fishing village felling is long lost....

 

Besides us, there were 2 more ships at the Pier, the Grand and a RCCL one.

 

Taxi ride into town was $3 in and $2 coming back. You can get it inside the complex, no need to go outside and fight the plethora of taxis....

 

Cozumel...

Knowing Cozumel is always busy, we had an early start. Got off the boat by 7:30am and then took a taxi to Chankanaab for some very nice snorkeling.

The ship sells this excursion for $26 or $29... can't remember, and you still need to get there on your own...

 

Taxi was $10, and it was $12 to get in... As always, very nice place. Very well maintened, clean, and lots of fishies and stuff to see in the water....

 

In the afternoon we took a taxi to downtown... Boy, has Cozumel changed.... Most of the little street vendors are long gone, and now it's just a bunch of stores everywhere you go... Prices have catched up too, what used to be a very good place to get some good bargains is now gone... Traffic was a mess, of course, with 10 ships in town it can get like that...

 

I got to say that I was very impressed with the area at the pier (Punta Maya) last time I was there, it was pretty empty. Now there are many shops and restaurants there...

 

Grand Cayman

This was by far the biggest dissapoiment in the whole trip. And yes, I know that it would have happened whether we were on Princess or any other line, but I think they are just as guilty as the Cayman Government. Grand Cayman simply cannot accomodate more than 3-4 ships at the same time. There were 5 on Thursday, and it was HELL.

I had booked my own excursions through Captain Marvins because I wanted more time snorkeling. As told, we got our tickets by 11:55am and waited for an annoucement to be made so that we could tender. Well, the announcement didn't come in until 1pm, and once on the tender, when we reached the port it was hell. We ended up getting off the tender at 2:20pm... Needles to say, I lost my excursion that I had pre arranged, so I went with another company that was there in the pier (shorter, more expensive)

 

Suddenly, the 6 hour "day" at grand Cayman was turned into barely 3 hours... The streets were crowded, and there were lines everywhere (people trying to get back to their ships) I have been there many times before and I gotta say that it was by far my worse experience there and my worst experience of the whole week...

 

I can't blame princess for it, but you know what, the reason why I chose this itinerary was because of Grand Cayman, I paid good money to go there, and ended having a very short stay...

 

My recomendation is that you book (and it hurts to say this) any excursions there through the ship as you just don't know when you will get to land....

 

Ocho Rios...

Got off the boat and took a taxi (inside the terminal) for $5.50 per person round trip to the falls. By mistake we went outside of the gates, and the taxis there wanted to charge us $22 one way... Stay inside the gates, very professional drivers, pretty decent cars and a good price...

It costs $10 to get into the falls, $5 for the locker, and you spend a good couple of hours going up the falls....

 

After that, we went to the Island Village where the margaritaville is located. Nice little complex, looks a lot better than the other two.

 

Pretty nice cruise indeed, but in my mind, it isn't that much better than Carnival and NCL, so pay accordingly. I won't say I won't cruise with them again, and just need to find a price more close to the services that we actually received..

[Guest Host Tink]

Hi David,

 

Thanks for that wonderful review, I appreciated it because I'll be on nearly the same itinerary in Jan '06 so it was good to read.

 

Happy Holidays!

[espmass]

Davidrod, sorry you seem somewhat disappointed but it still sounds like you had a nice time. Did alot of men wear a tux on the formal nights or were they more casual in suits?

[joanne1]

Thanks for posting how you felt your trip went and what was important to you. I am really surprised that there weren't that many young people on the ship. We did the Grand - Western Carib. a couple of years ago at this time and there seemed to be plenty between the ages of 18 - 30, we are in our early 40's so I don't think that my estimates were that far off :D . It seemed like Western, 7 days always seemed to attract a younger crowd.

[martyz]

Thanks - great review, I am going on 01/02/05 - i can't wait. Did you go to the alternative resteraunts? How was the food, did you do traditional dinning? Did you go to any shows?

[davidrod]

Davidrod, sorry you seem somewhat disappointed but it still sounds like you had a nice time. Did alot of men wear a tux on the formal nights or were they more casual in suits?

Yes there were, besides the restaurants, there were many places where you can get your picture taken, plus they also offered many services like portraits, black and wait, sephia... Lot of stuff with photography...

 

On the formal nights, you would see mostly a younger crowd in the regular attires at the Horizon Court...

[davidrod]

Thanks - great review, I am going on 01/02/05 - i can't wait. Did you go to the alternative resteraunts? How was the food, did you do traditional dinning? Did you go to any shows?

I was very surprised to find the same food at the Horizon court that was being served at the dining rooms. That truly was a nice touch since we didn't miss on the good stuff.

 

We never went on tradicional dining since we were waitlisted and ended up in anytime, (which is really where I wanted to be) When I'm on vacation, I don't like to make any plans, just take it as it comes, which is probably why we could never get a table at the Steakhouse... We tried 3 nights, and every night was sold out... Yes, we could make reservations for the next day, but I didn't want to do that since I don't know if I'll be hungry at 5pm or at 8pm....

 

I heard that the food at Sabatinis was very good. I heard people saying that they would bring out about 6 different appetizers, give you a little bit of each, and then bring on the menu... Sounds interesting, but to tell you the truth, the food at the other places was very good... There was a lot of variety which didn't justify paying more...

 

However, if you want a steak, then I suggest you go to the steak house.... I got a strip from the always available menu in the dining room, and it didn't look it's best....

[davidrod]

Did you go to any shows?

First night we saw "Philadelphia" Stand up comedy... That guy was AWESOME! Don't miss it!!!

 

We saw about 2-3 Musical shows... They were ok, I'm not a big fan of them.

 

James "The Kid" Michael has a few magic/comedy shows on board... He's ok... He's got good material, but a little bit out of this world... He's intense.... I liked him, but some of the tricks took forever...

 

There was another guy, a juggler that also did some comedy.... Can't remember his name, but he sucked! big time!!!

 

Rodney Rogers did a show towards the end of the cruise, stand up comedy... He was ok, but Philadelphia was definetively the best...

 

Other than that it was the casino for blackjack every night :)

[coiran]

From your review it sounds like most of your dissapointments were with the ports of call and your independent booked excursions - yet you indicate that you were dissastisfied with the Star?? Which was it or am I missing something? We are going on the Star in February.

 

Ron

[davidrod]

From your review it sounds like most of your dissapointments were with the ports of call and your independent booked excursions - yet you indicate that you were dissastisfied with the Star?? Which was it or am I missing something? We are going on the Star in February.

 

Ron

Hi Ron,

I had visited 3 of the 4 ports already and knew what to expect there. I included the info on the ports because I know that there are many people asking about the same things that I went through...

 

My "Dissatisfaction" with the Star came from the fact that it was very well recomemded, and that I read on this board how Princess is so much better than Carnival or NCL.

 

Based on the fact that it was better, I spend more $$$ that I would normally spend to go with them, and the truth is that I didn't see much difference.

 

Yes the food was above average and the ratio passenger/space was much better than at the other ones, but I found a lot of areas that were the same or even worse than it other cheaper lines.

 

I did recomend using the ship's excursion in Grand Cayman, because otherwise, you barely get any time on the island...

 

I'm already booked on the Norwegian Star for next March going to the Mexican Riviera. I hope my mind will be fresh enough to compare the two cruise lines and perhaps make some more comments in here...

[sailing lady]

DavidRod,

Did James "The Kid" Michael still have his skunks? Saw him on the Grand in January and really enjoyed his shows. Hope he is still there in Feb. with some new material.

[bphawk64]

We also were on the Star Princess for the western Caribbean ending on Dec 12th and loved just about every minute of it. There were a few glitches with it at first as we had a group of 54 and had to switch our seating arrangements the first couple of days. Some of the musical shows were average at best but other than that the entire cruise was fantastic. The comedians were all good and even though I didn't see the juggler act I also heard it was BAD! The entertainment on this ship was probably a notch below that we have seen on Carnival but that would be about the only area we can say that.

 

We were married at sea on the Monday of the cruise and have to say that Princess did an excellent job wth the wedding. They told us that wehad the largest wedding at sea onboard the Star to date but they handled all the details very professionly and made it seem easy. If anyone is thinking of doing a wedding at sea with Princess we would highly recommend it and you should ask to have Laura be your photographer...excellent job!! The Captain ( Tony Yeomens ) did a really nice job and is a really down to earth guy for his position. We can't say enough good things about the wedding on board this ship.

 

I actually expected the crowd to be older on this ship and was pleasantly surprised. We are in our late 30's and were quite happy with the age mix on this cruise. There weren't alot of kids but there were enough. We had 6 teenagers in our group and they all seemed quite happy to us :) I will have to admit that it was refreshing to not have so many loud drunk people around as we have found on Carnival...don't take that wrong as we had FUN and had our share our drinks but there didn't didn't to be many sloppy drunk people around.

 

Yes, Grand Caymen was a mess and they had to many ships in port but who can blame them for trying to get their gorgeous little island back on track again. We booked our excursion from the boat due to this and found it to be very well organized. A few members of our group didn't book thru the ship but somehow managed to get off the ship easy enough...not sure how they did that.

 

I'll write a detailed report of the cruise later in the week but overall I found this cruise to be a pretty good cut above Carnival. Better food, classier and more elegant with plenty of smaller areas to keep it from seeming so big and a nice mix of passengers.

 

Already booked again while on board.............woooohooooo!

[Georgetown Mike]

My wife and I were also on this cruise. Some observations:

 

Sabatini's was outstanding - attentive service and excellent food - well worth the $20 pp surcharge.

 

Entertainment was better than expected - liked Philadelphia, Live Wire and the production shows (although the dancing was vastly superior to the singing), LiveWire is a talented duo. The juggler should stick to kid's birthday parties.

 

I was an older crowd than expected, I was told there were only 150 children on board which didn't bother me since I celebrated my 60th birthday on the ship. However, the rest of the crowd actually made me feel young.

 

Personal Choice dining worked well - no waits, good service and food - although HAL offers more of a feeling of elegance on formal nights.

 

Had a Dolphin deck mini suite - no issues with the uncovered balcony and the extra room and the excellent storage spaces and the bathtub make it worth the upcharge.

 

My somewhat unscientific study indicated a very high percentage of "dress up" on formal nights. When we were in the dining for each of these nights I saw only one gentleman that was not wearing a jacket and he was wearing a formal shirt.

 

Costa Maya cannot handle the crowd from three megaships - Grand, Star and an RCCl simultaneously. Besides, if you have seen one Diamonds International, you have seen them all. Have the great nachos or tacos at Mamasitas then take a cab to town - $5.00 round trip. The town is uncrowded, quaint with friendly people, and a great beach - and the Coronas are two bucks.

 

Grand Cayman is trying to put its best face forward, but is still recovering from the massive devastation. The North terminal is still under repair and the tendering operation takes longer than usual. We took and excursion to Hell (lame) and the turtle farm (okay - but not great).

 

Ocho Rios was a nice stop - went to Dunn's River falls (outstanding) and Coyaba River garden (beautiful). Friendly, knowledgeable guides.

 

Finally, things have gone a little downhill on Princess, but only a little. Example: last year on the Grand I won a miniature golf tournament at Princess Links and was rewarded with a medal and a bottle of champagne. I won a similar tournament on the Star last week and was rewared with a certificate for a plastic sports water botttle (not the ones the sell for six bucks, but a cheaper model). Another nit is the ice cream - I don't mind paying for it IF it is high quality - it's not.

 

Despite these very minor complaints, I thoroughly enjoyed the cruse, had an unobtrusive, but efficient Cabin Steward (Gerry) and remain loyal to Princess. I would do this same itineray in a heartbeat, but will probably do a full transit Panama Canal next year.

[mafig]

Georgetown Mike, Happy to hear that personal choice worked well for you and that there were no waits. What time did you chose to dine?

[Georgetown Mike]

Other than at Sabatinis we ate in the Capri as early as six and as late as seven.