new_cruiser

I have been upgraded without being notified by Windstar, but my TA notified me. Two times when that has happened, I have promptly asked her to let Windstar know that we didn't want the upgrade and it has been undone. Once it was because it was from an old suite to a Star Suite - technically an upgrade because the rooms are newer and priced slightly higher but we prefer the original configuration with the living area next to the window. An upgrade to Windstar may not be an upgrade to the passenger. I think the other time, we preferred our original cabin location, but can't recall the specific reason. One time we accepted the upgrade. They do it because a cabin class is sold out and they want to make more cabins available in that class I think. The times it happened to us, the cabin class was sold out.

So they aren't identical in that detail. Star Legend has guest restrooms in the aft part of Deck 3 and I'm pretty sure it doesn't have guest restrooms on Deck 4. The Star Legend restrooms are in the same place that they were pre-stretch so the difference may date from before the stretch. All my sailings on the motor yachts have been on Star Legend - not that I care which of the three I'm on - it's just worked out that way.

Hmm - seems to be an inaccuracy in the plan. There is definitely a pair of restrooms between the spiral stair and Amphora on deck 3. At least, I know it is there on Star Legend. I've been on board post stretch and have used the Women's room before entering Amphora on that side. I didn't realize there was a pair by the spiral stair on Deck 4.

Yes, on one of the motor yacht pages like this: https://www.windstarcruises.com/ships/star-pride/ scroll to the bottom and click on "View Deck Plan" not "View Virtual Deck Plan" - the latter has pretty visuals of cabins and areas of the ship but is missing details like which cabins have tubs. The cabins with a bathtub have a symbol "★ ". If I didn't miss any in a quick scan, it is the cabins immediately for and aft of the forward elevator, immediately forward of the mid-ship elevator and the 4 most forward cabins on decks 5 and 6.That is 26 cabins. None of the porthole cabins have a tub.

Only a few rooms have tubs. All bathrooms were replaced in the stretch. I had one with a tub this spring. I prefer a shower, but I upgraded to a balcony just over 90 days before. At that point, the cabins left in the category were one very far forward and one with the tub. Since the cruise included an Atlantic crossing, I took the one with the tub rather than more motion in a very forward cabin. It does have grab bars. I don't generally need those yet in tubs on land, but they are quite welcome when things get bouncy at sea.

I think it is very difficult, perhaps impossible to have a comprehensive list. There are some ports that they can sometimes dock at but sometimes tender because other ships take the dock spots. Perhaps that is why some have spotted ports on the list where their Windstar cruise docked. There are also some ports that Windstar only visits rarely, some of those may not be on the list. Our upcoming cruise has a tender stop in Isles of Scilly and I don't see that on the list. I doubt that anyone surprised by wet landings will be helped by having it listed at the bottom of the tender port list. Wet landings are mentioned on the overview page for the Panama and Costa Rica cruises: "Wade ashore as your Zodiac makes “wet landings” in small ports and on remote beaches backed by rainforest. " I'm fairly sure that wet landings were also covered in our pre-cruise documentation. So, if they don't read enough to see it one of those places, they are unlikely to see it anywhere else.

What I've seen contradicts that. Everywhere that I've looked, the supplement % has been the amount extra that a solo pays over the per person double occupancy rate. No solo supplement means that a solo pays the same as the per person double occupancy rate. So, if two people sharing a cabin would pay 2k each and a solo pays 4k, that's a 100% supplement. A 100% solo supplement is pretty common on mass market lines when they don't have a special that reduces it. Some higher end and luxury lines use something a bit lower (like 75%) as their non-special solo supplement. Note that this will be on the fare. You don't pay extra on the port charges which are usually listed separately. Many cruise lines have a "specials" page. You can look at that to see if they have any no solo supplement or reduced solo supplement specials. I like small ships so most of my cruises have been on Windstar and I've also gone solo on Star Clippers. Windstar's usual solo supplement is supposed to be 75% but it seems that there is a part of the fare that they don't charge it on as when I've checked what they've given me, my fare is slightly less than 1.75 times the pp double occupancy fare. They have some cruises with a reduced solo supplement. Star Clippers usually has a list of cruises with no solo supplement - currently the list has several dozen to choose from.

My Windstar Alaska cruise was a Cruise Collector starting in Japan and ending in Vancouver so I didn't travel from Anchorage to Seward that trip. We had done a cruise in Alaska before Windstar started cruising there and that time did a pre-cruise land trip. We felt that there was enough to do in Seward that it was worth spending a couple of nights there. We took the train from Anchorage to Seward as others have suggested. My cruise was Windstar's first Alaska cruise and was booked absolutely full. There were enough kayak and zodiac excursions for everyone who wanted them. They were in the fjords for all day so were able to add enough times for anyone who wanted the excursions. The kayak and zodiac excursions get you a lot closer to the glaciers. My trip didn't go to Hubbard. I took a zodiac and a kayak excursion in Kenai Fjord and kayak excursions in Tracy/Endicott Arm (Tracy in our case as Endicott wasn't workable that early in the season) and in Misty Fjord (not a glacier stop). There were different wildlife spotting on each trip. In Endicott Arm the wildlife was mostly marine and some birds. In Kenai Fjord there is non-glacier covered land that you get close to as well as the glacier. We saw bears and other wildlife on land there. Maybe College Fjord is similar. IIRC, we saw black bears at Kenai Fjord and brown bears at Misty Fjord but it may have been the other way around. Both areas have both types of bear. There were dolphins and seals in the water near us at Endicott Arm and seals when we were at Kenai. There was an Orca in Misty Fjord with us. I was happy that I'd booked an excursion at each of these. Most of the excursions had good availability. There was a whale watching excursion that sold out temporarily but they were able to add an additional boat so everyone could be accommodated. If you have your heart set on a helicopter excursion, that might be something to book in advance. (Though don't get your heart too set on one because weather can interfere.)

Not full unless they have changed their COVID policy. They have been holding some rooms for quarantining passengers.

Oh, now I see. I'd missed the year in your post. It didn't occur to me that they would be adjusting that far out. I hope you find something that works once they have posted the new cruises.

I've had similar experience to BellaBay when the ship was tendered or docked a ways from town in the Mediterranean. In other cases, we were docked or tendered into the center of things so no shuttle was needed. Also had a free shuttle for one port in Alaska where we were docked a ways out of town and for some ports in Japan. I can't recall any cases where we had a free shuttle in the Caribbean, but generally there the ship is located where no shuttle is needed.

Star Legend in the spring for the crossing and first Europe cruise was pretty lightly loaded. There were about 130 for each of the two cruises. The next one must have been pretty light too as some people were able to extend their cruise on board to the next one at a quite good price.

How disappointing. We had several cruises cancelled during COVID and finally managed to get one last fall and I was able to do a solo this spring, but so much uncertainty remains. Which ship was this on? We have an August 20th cruise on Star Legend that starts in Dublin and haven't received any notice of change so I'm hoping it wasn't affected.

Apparently, COVID has hit Wind Star now. Someone posted on Facebook that their June 4 Treasures of the the Greek Isles cruise was just cancelled due to too many of the crew having COVID or with exposure to COVID.

It doesn't matter whether you take the all inclusive package since laundry isn't included in the package. They reduced the all-in package price $10 and took laundry out (possibly because enough people get free laundry anyway that the package made more sense without it). Cruise over 14 days get free laundry. Four Star Yacht Club gets free laundry. Two and Three Star get a discount on the laundry package, 5% & 10% IIRC. We have always gotten the package on cruise even it wasn't free and like doing that. Others have noted that the per piece prices are reasonable (better than typical hotel prices anyway) enough that the pay less not doing the package. But it's nice not having to think about it. We sometimes arrive on the ship with most of our clothes needing laundry due to pre-cruise travel and leave with almost everything clean.

The 7-for-7 deals vary. Some are just a slight discount and others get really deeply discounted. I assume it varies depending on how much they want to get additional passengers on the ship. Some weeks none of them are great. The invoices for my last cruise and one of my upcoming cruises have the fares reduced by "ONE WEEK SALE Tier 5" and "ONE WEEK SALE Tier 3," respectively. So that shows that they have different tiers of discount that they can apply. The Tier 5 discount was quite good - it resulted in a price for the 23-day ocean crossing Cruise Collector that was less than the fare for the 10-day segment included in the cruise. I watched the cruise from the time I booked it until final payment (~ 9 months) and that was the only time the discount got that low.

Confirming what the others said: The original cabins still have the layout with the sitting area by the window. The original cabins have new bathrooms and have been spiffed up some but are largely unchanged. The connecting cabins aren't connected by a door in the cabin. The cabin doors are recessed from the hallway leaving an entry area. There is a third door on the hall that can be closed if you want to use a pair of cabins as connecting cabins. The only case where there is an internal door connecting two cabins is between the living area of the Owner's Suite and the adjacent cabin (640/638 and 641/639) so the Owner's Suite can be combined with the adjacent cabin or the two adjacent cabins. If you look on the deck plan, you can see a layout of the Grand Owner's Suite showing the door between 640 and 638 as well as the typical 3 door layout connecting 638 and 636.

Maybe not all the old cabins are the same or the outlet you mention is hidden? I was on Star Legend in one of the original balcony cabins in May/April and didn't see any outlet by the bed. There was one US and one Euro type on the desk and one in the bar cabinet and a shaver outlet in the bathroom.