Anyone cruising the Norwegian Star 11/13 to 11/21

[Julie B]

Hi - would like to hear from anyone who might be cruising the Norwegian Star November 13 to November 21. This will be my first cruise and the 2nd cruise for my friend Cheryl who is going with me. I won this cruise from Cooking Light magazine

[Julie B]

Hi - would like to hear from anyone who might be cruising the Norwegian Star November 13 to November 21. This will be my first cruise and the 2nd cruise for my friend Cheryl who is going with me. I won this cruise from Cooking Light magazine

[Standiego]

We sailed this ship in Hawaii last year.

I would give it a good 8 on a 10 scale. The crew was great. The food was good; we decided to avoid the pay for eating restaurants and buffets. No need to pay for meals already paid for and the buffets offer too much food. We had better meals in the main dining room and avoided overeating. NCL offers a killer fruit cobbler. I asked for biscuits and gravy and got got a dinner roll with turkey gravy. The foreign crew thought it an odd order. Main dinner meal has small portions, order extra if you want larger serving of lobster/prime rib. Eat all the desserts. Wine is expensive, take your own and pay corkage fee. Open dinner seating is OK, join same people, Makes for better dinner conversations.

Avoid the pay for soda program. Waste of money; we drank ice tea and juice (ordered early morning room service). If you do get soda card, get 1 and share. Take an insulated coffee cup to carry around. (Be sure to put name and cabin number on it) Don't overpack. Limited storage space and you don't need 12 pairs of shoes and a different outfit each day. Take hangers!!!!

The cruise lines try every trick to charge additional money. A root canal is less painful than BINGO.

The quality of people on the NCL ships is lower than you find on other lines. (One guy went to buffet without shirt or shoes...no crew member challenged him. Totally unclassy.

Congrat on winning trip. Enjoy!

[Standiego]

I see from other writers that taking your own wine aboard is a NONO. Sorry about bad advice and bad NCL policy.

[Karen Knowlton]

Bringing your own booze is generally a no-no, but if you bring your own wine (a reasonable amount, anyway) and pay the corking fee, that's ok and you weren't breaking any rules.

[Julie B]

Thanks for the tips! We are getting excited! We are hoping to avoid some of the extra costs on the ship, such as drinks and meals at the alternative restaurants, to give us more money to spend on our shore excursions.

We will try not to overpack! I always overpack for trips. A friend said we will probably be hanging out in our swimsuits and shorts or a wrap most of the time anyway.

Thanks again! I will try to post a review here of our cruise once we get back.

Julie

[ellen]

We're going on the same trip. We went on royal caribbean's western and did excursions every day (dunns river falls, sting rays, ruins) and loved it. Next we went on royal caribbean southern (no excursions) and didn't enjoy it as much. We had a long flight from California to San Juan and felt that we were running behind the whole time. This time we are really trying to plan ahead to make sure we don't miss anything. It's hard because there are few reviews for this itinerary. We would like to do shotover boats, zipline, atv's, parasailing, snorkling etc. I'd like to know what is the best thing to do at each port... Good or bad experiences. We love cruising. Go and have a great time. Do the excursions, buy the soda cards and play bingo. You don't want to come home and regret not doing something and not getting the most out of your cruise. By the way there are always places and time to shop inbetween your activities in most of the ports that I have been to. Have a great time. Only about 1 month to go. Yeah!!!