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Chris Dickon

Age: 59
Occupation: Media Producer
Number of Cruises: 8
Cruise Line: NCL
Ship: Star
Sailing Date: January 8th, 2005
Itinerary: Mexican Riviera

We weren’t sure how this cruise would go after reading reviews on this site and others. It was a mixed experience, but more positive than otherwise. The embarkation at Long Beach was a brutal experience, the worst in 8 cruises including two others from this port; long, snaking lines in the rain, then another long snaking line on the ship. Then they kept insisting that the life boat drill would take place at it’s scheduled time although several hundred people were still in line. They called the drill and those already checked in streamed out to the decks in the rain with their life vests. Then they called it off and rescheduled it to reflect a new departure time.

Once we got going things got better. It’s a very comfortable, well maintained ship and easy to navigate once you get it figured out. There are conflicting reports in these reviews about the food and service. We found that the food in the main free dining rooms (Versailles and Aqua) was very good by the standards we’re used to in 15 years of cruising, service great, too. .Some have said that the absence of direct tipping of waiters (and cabin stewards) had led to a decline in the quality of their work, but we didn’t find that to be the case at all. Everyone working on the ship was as friendly, helpful and professional as we’ve ever experienced.

Food in the Market Grill was as uneven as others have said, and we tried the Mexican Endless Summer which was not as good as our neighborhood taco joint. We said so to our waiter, as did folks at another table, and we were asked to fill out critiques on the spot which I did happily. I had the feeling that they knew it wasn’t good, and needed some written evidence to give to someone responsible. We spend a lot of time on the outside decks and these are well laid out, very usable and it’s easy to get away from the crowd. After dinner we try to do a mile walk around the upper deck which is very easy on this ship with a well marked quarter mile track.

The cruise and itinerary were pretty good. Once we got a day south of LA the outer decks were warm enough to sit and read for long hours. The ports gave me a much better sense of Mexico that I’d been able to get in a life in which most of my Mexican experience was in the border towns in younger years. Acapulco is a big, sweaty city, but worth seeing. Our favorite excursion was the Folklorico out of Xihua because it went inland a bit and took us to real rural places where people worked hard off the land, and to a beach restaurant that seemed like a place Mexicans would go to as well as cruise passengers. Worst was the Carleta’s Hideway in Puerto Vallarta. This is John Huston’s Mexican home on Banderas Bay, but the trip seemed to be more about singing and dancing on the boat out to the place, with a ten minute comedy routine on how to use the boat’s bathroom, and incredibly loud music, but not much about Carleta’s which was not a very impressive place.

All in all the cruise was great diversion and had some of the best qualities of cruising, which for me is the journey through the ocean and the sampling of new places. I recommend it.

NOTE: If you are someone who needs Internet access on a regular basis while on a cruise like this you’ll need to take out a second mortgage. Access from the ship is .75 per minute which I think is basically disrespectful of NCL of its customers. We are Latitudes members, but we found that to be mostly a come –on to get us to buy more stuff, including something like 100 minutes of Internet for a reduced price of several thousand dollars (I’m exaggerating of course). If you need to use the Internet on this cruise wait until Acapulco where a shop in the cruise terminal gives you a half hour for $3, and In Cabo you can find reasonable Internet.

 

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