Star to Bermuda review - 9/2/12 - lots of pics and food!

I love writing reviews and trip reports, so welcome to my review of the Norwegian Star to Bermuda! I have a lot of photos and plan to get a bit detailed, so it will probably take me at least a week or two to write this - hope you're in for the ride!

To start, introductions: I'm Becky, 24 years old, and my husband is Jason. I am finishing up my masters in library science and he is a computer software engineer. This cruise we were celebrating our first wedding anniversary on 9/3. I had been to Bermuda back when I was about 12, and Jason had never been. We were hoping to make it, but weren't sure if Hurricane Leslie might have other plans! We started off visiting my parents on Long Island the day before we left, and then my dad drove us to the port.

We arrived around noon and waited in the check in line for probably about half an hour. We checked in, but instead of giving us our room key the man told us to go to the VIP section because we were VIPs! I'm not really sure why or how, but when he asked he just told us not to question it! So we went to the VIP lounge, got our room keys, and were immediately escorted on board the ship. Our escort led us right to Versailles for lunch.

The first thing I will mention is that the lunch menu in the main dining room was the same every day. This was a change from our previous cruise on Carnival, where the lunch menu in the main dining room changed daily, just like the dinner menu. I started with the spring rolls, which were delicious. The plum sauce really made that dish. It was a little difficult to eat elegantly though!:

DH started with the fried calamari. It came with a chipotle mayo dipping sauce. That mayo was so good, and I normally can't stand any sort of mayo!:

For my main course I had the shrimp Caesar salad. As a salad, it was pretty delicious - the dressing was amazing. However, they skimped on the shrimp - only three in the whole salad. I think you can get it as a side or a main, but the size of the salad and the amount of shrimp felt pretty small for a main, even though that's what I asked for. There also were not croutons, which I normally expect form a Caesar salad:

DH had the shrimp and salmon salad sandwich (both the name and the meal itself are quite the mouthful!). It was a large sandwich and he couldn't finish it, but enjoyed the flavor. It came with sweet potato chips, which I ate most of since I love them:

For dessert I got the strawberry shortcake. This was just okay - it was a little bit dry:

DH had the vanilla bean panna cotta. Neither of us had had panna cotta before. He thought it was okay, didn't love the texture, but I really liked it. I ate a bit of his dessert. It was served with a bit of raspberry sauce:

Then lunch was done, and our room wasn't ready yet. So we decided to explore the ship! They hadn't made any mention of not going to Bermuda, so we assumed that was still on and we were relieved not to have been changed to the Bahamas. We visited the theater, the library, and looked a few other places before hearing the announcement that our room was ready!

I had arranged ahead of time to have it decorated for our anniversary as a surprise to DH. He liked it, and it was nice having some decor, but I have to say it was a bit skimpy. But still a nice touch, and when you add in that you get a cake it's not the worst deal in the world:

We unpacked for a bit, did the lifeboat drill, and then headed up to the deck for the sailaway!

We got a glimpse of the pool before it filled up with people later on in the trip. It was a pretty small pool. I joked that most of the time the pool looked more like a wet dance floor because you couldn't actually swim, people were almost shoulder to shoulder and all you could really do was bob up and down. We never went in it because during the day it was ridiculously crowded, and at night we were too busy doing other things. There are also four hot tubs right near the pool and two water slides.

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New York is a great port to leave from (better than Baltimore, the last place we left from) because there are some very interesting things to see. We got a bit of a late start (didn't sail away until almost 5), but it was nice just hanging out on deck and drinking Bahama Mamas. We got to see the skyline, Ellis Island, Statue of Liberty, Freedom Tower, and under the Verazzano Bridge. It was a beautiful day out too. Here are some of my NY shots:

To be continued!

Love your review and pictures. Can't wait for more! We'll be retracing your path on September 30!

Fantastic review so far- I'm in for the ride!! :D

Looking forward to the rest of your review!!

A very good start to your report. Let's keep it going.

I love that fried calamari! Every lunch I eat in the dining room, I get it.

Interesting. They tell you that you are VIP then immediately escort you to the MDR? Cagneys was open why not eat lunch there? Maybe later in the review we will learn more about your 'VIP' status.

You are a very cute couple.:) Congrats on your Anniversary!

We sailed from NYC on the Gem to Bahamas. Sailing from NYC is amazing! Our favorite port now!

Cant wait for more of your review.

Looking forward to the rest of your trip. You are off to abgood start. Thanks

http://luv2cruise.blogspot.com

I want more!

I had your lunch on the Gem last year to Bermuda!!! (except the spring rolls). I remember thinking it needed more shrimp and grill them more too. Too funny.

Going on the star in a few weeks, waiting for the rest of your review.

Great job so far!!

Great start - love the food pics! Excited to hear more and thank you for posting!

Enjoying the review... thanks... can't wait for more.

Thanks for posting, can't wait to read more ! :)

Great start. We'll be on the Star in October so I'll be following your review.

Love the details and can't wait for more!:)

Thank you for posting, can't wait to hear the rest...Happy 1st Anniversary to you both!

Great start to the review, thanks for posting!

Can't wait to read the rest! :)

oooo...now I'm hooked! Gonna be refreshing this page daily, 'til you come back...LOL!!! Great review and pictures so far. Congratulations on your anniversary!! Wishing you many many more!!

We leave in less than like 20+ days...can't wait

Keep those words and pictures coming! Thanks!

We leave in less than like 20+ days...can't wait

You'll have a great time!!

Interesting. They tell you that you are VIP then immediately escort you to the MDR? Cagneys was open why not eat lunch there? Maybe later in the review we will learn more about your 'VIP' status.

Good point... I never even thought of why they didn't bring us to Cagneys (at the time I had no idea that was even a "perk" of being a VIP). Luckily we had lunch there a few times during the trip :)

I had your lunch on the Gem last year to Bermuda!!! (except the spring rolls). I remember thinking it needed more shrimp and grill them more too. Too funny.

Going on the star in a few weeks, waiting for the rest of your review.

Great job so far!!

Glad to hear I'm not the only one that thought that!

After leaving New York, it was just about time for dinner! We decided to try eating in Aqua this evening, since we already got a peek at Versailles during lunch. So we headed there and got seated no problem. Aqua has more of a modern feel to it, with abstract art on the walls and a cool ceiling with little lights all over it. We were seated along the wall, where one side if like a booht and the other is a chair. However, the tables were very close together which made things feel a little strange - it felt like you were "with" the people sitting next to you, even though you weren't really seated with them. For that reason I personally preferred dining in Versailles (plus Versailles has large windows that I like). But DH preferred Aqua because it was a little less stuffy in theme and feel. Anyhow, here's some of the decor:

My appetizer was the fingerling potatoes and shrimp in lime sauce. It was kind of a unique combination for me. I enjoyed it, although it was a bit weird for me to be eating potatoes cold. Definitely something a bit different.

DH had the smoked salmon tartare. I'm not a huge fan of smoked salmon so I didn't sample this, but absolutely adored it. He ordered it at least two or three other times throughout the week:

For the entree we both had the lobster and snapper. It wasn't the best lobster ever (I know I've seen plenty of discussion on the lobster around here before), but it was still lobster! And the snapper was actually surprisingly good. They came and asked DH if he would like more lobster, and they brought him a second plate.

Dessert for me was chocolate panna cotta - I'd enjoyed it so much during lunch that I wasn't going to pass up getting it again! I'm much more of a chocolate person, so this one was fantastic for me. I also loved it with the raspberry sauce.

DH had the cheesecake. He liked it but didn't love it. He's pretty picky when it comes to cheesecake, and said it was pretty standard as far as cheesecake goes - nothing outstanding.

After a quick nap we went to check out the Welcome Aboard show in the Stardust Theater. First, my thoughts on the space of the theater - it's a very good space. It's big (never got completely packed but always looked pretty full), and it's beautiful. The seats are sloped a lot so that you never have a problem seeing anything. There's also a small upper balcony seating area (the "Lincoln seats" as I heard them called) where we sat once, and while the view is cut off from some of the seats there it was still a cool perspective. The only thing I would say is that on our Carnival cruise they had little tables in front of all the seats in the theater. Here they still had people coming around serving drinks before the shows, but there was nowhere to put them. I didn't really want to hold a glass the whole time so we never had drinks during the show, which I would've liked. But in the long run, not a huge deal! Here's a few shots of the theater:

The Welcome Aboard show was basically introductions, a few song and dance numbers, and a mini show from Shark Bait, the comedy juggling duo. Their preview show was a bit silly (none of the really cool stuff they do came until their main show), but it was all right.

After that we had some ice cream and a few small snacks at the buffet and then decided to call it an early night - we had, after all, gotten up early that morning to head into NYC to catch our ship!

Here are some other shots of areas around the ship that I took. The main atrium:

A fountain off to the side of the atrium:

Gatsby's Bar:

Loving the review so far & all the pictures! Keep them coming. Only a few more weeks until my family & a couple friends will be on the Star!