NCL Star Trip Report 2/28-3/6 Monkeys, Sloths, Dolphins, Aborted Medevac, Oh My!

[PyrHeaven]

You got me hooked. I'm really enjoying your review.

 

Thanks for reading! Alot more to come

[PyrHeaven]

We're also on the Star in 8 days. More review. More review. :D

 

Woohoo!! Awesome. Enjoy your cruise. I'll do my best to get this completed in the next few days, although I go back to work tomorrow, so we will see how this goes. :D

[PyrHeaven]

Awesome! Can't wait to read mode

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

 

Thanks for reading! Much more to come soon:D

[PyrHeaven]

Enjoying your trip! We take our daughters in a month!

 

Fantastic!! Enjoy your cruise :)

[PyrHeaven]

Saving my place, good start on the review. Patiently waiting for more.....

 

Thanks for reading. Day Two coming right up!! :D

[PyrHeaven]

Thanks for your report.

 

Thanks for reading!

[PyrHeaven]

This is great so far! Will be on the the Star on April 10th. First NCL cruise for myself and my parents.

 

Could you put a regular small coffee filter and coffee grounds into the in room machine?

 

Awesome! I'm sure you guys will have a great time!

 

Unfortunately, the coffee pot is something I never touched. I saw it sitting on the desk, but that's about as close as I got to investigating it further. We never drank coffee on the ship (not big coffee drinkers). Hopefully someone else can chime in on the coffee pot filters for you!

[PyrHeaven]

Day 2 – Day At Sea

 

Today was a lazy day at sea. So lazy in fact, that I’m really lacking photos from this day. I woke up about 6:30am, and the sky was dark and stormy, and the seas were white capped. I debated on staying up or heading back to bed, and I chose back to bed. The rest of the fam was still asleep after all. Woke up again at 9am. My DH called guest services to check on our chocolate cake (the important things in life), and at first they didn’t understand what he was saying, but eventually came to the conclusion that room service would deliver it today. WOOHOO!

 

Alex and I headed to the buffet for breakfast at about 10am. Apparently everyone else on the ship ALSO slept in because it was packed!! Luckily, there was no shortage of food (is there ever?) and we got ourselves some delicious breakfast items. I’ve always loved the breakfast buffet on NCL, and the Star was no different. Traditional breakfast fare – potatoes, hash browns, scrambled eggs with and without vegetables, made to order eggs and omelets, bacon, sausage, pancakes, waffles, french toast, fresh fruit, oatmeal, cream of wheat, the best whipped cream ever, etc. I could go on and on about the breakfast :D

 

Then, it was back to the kid’s pool. We hung out there for about an hour and a half. DH met us down there. I do love the kid’s pool area on this ship. The only thing it’s lacking is seating for the adults. There is really only one “bench” available to sit at where you can actually SEE your kids. There is seating ABOVE the kids area on Deck 13 that allows you to see PART of the area, or benches and picnic tables surrounding the kids area, but these spaces do not allow for 24/7 viewing of your kids. Not great for those for younger children (which is the “age range” of most kids using this area). They have a cute little “Ice Cream” area right outside the kids pool, but it was never open when we were there! Not sure if it’s because the lack of kids on our cruise was lacking, or if they only offer the “hard scoop” ice cream at the outdoor buffet by the main pool area. Weather was a little windy today, but warm with the sun out.

 

Can you guess what we did next? Yep, you guessed it. Lunchtime! Sea days are great for eating as much as you possibly can  They had a barbeque outside by the outdoor buffet in the main pool area. They were offering a seafood pasta dish and BBQ Chicken on the big grills/wok. I didn’t try it, but many others were. Unfortunately, I saw it too late and was too stuff to try it.

Back to the room we went after lunch, or I should say – I dropped off DH and DS and headed up to the pool deck by myself to catch some rays. The area near the pool (stadium seating) was filled (which I expected), so I ended up going to the bow of the ship on Deck 13. There is a hot tub up there that was nice and quiet. We never did go in it, but saw when I was staking out my lounge chair. I finally found a spot front and center at the bow. HOLY HOT – Not one bit of wind up there. My whole body was on fire. Needless to say, I only stayed up there for about 10 minutes. I have NO clue how the other 20 people up there could stand it! This Midwestern girl was melting. I found a new spot on Deck 13 that was on the port side of the ship, and allowed from some wind. This was MUCH more comfortable.

 

I did grab a few drinks while I was up there. The first one I grabbed at the main pool bar near the yellow slides, and was able to get a drink within 2 minutes. They had multiple bartenders serving, and they were super quick. The second drink I got at the Biergarten, and the line was about 10 people deep. At the Biergarten, then have people line up on the side of the bar, and have about 4 bartenders working. The line was long, but moved quickly. I probably waited about 5-7 minutes. Since I’m on the topic of grabbing drinks, I’ll mention that I thought the bar service was wonderful. It didn’t feel like ¾ of the ship had the UBP and everyone was fighting for someone to grab them a drink. The bars all seemed appropriately staffed.

 

I headed back to the room at 4pm, and shortly after, our cake had arrived. WOOHOO! It was actually quite delicious. Decadent, but not too overly sweet. We cleared the mini bar, and put the leftovers in the fridge. We had reservations at Cagney’s tonight, so didn’t want to fill up on cake.

 

 

[PyrHeaven]

We like to enjoy our sit down dinners without Alex because he just doesn’t do well sitting at dinner for 1.5+ hours. It’s much less stressful and enjoyable on all of us if he eats first, then we drop him at the kids club. We purposely made all restaurant reservations for 7pm for this reason. Tonight, I headed up to the buffet to grab something for Alex to eat. Of course the “kid’s food” options were lacking. It was seafood night, so they at least had French fries (For Fish and Chips). French Fries and Pizza it is – Again! Oh, and watermelon too. They do have kid’s items on the room service menu – Grilled Cheese, Mac and Cheese, Chicken Tenders, but why would I pay $7.95 for a grilled cheese? Not happening. Can you tell this was a sore subject with me? There’s more to this kids food story as the review goes on. So sorry for those that don’t have kids 

DH went to drop off Alex at the kid’s club, and I headed to Cagney’s for our reservations. I knew it was on Deck 13, however, I was thinking it was FWD for some reason, and it’s MID. Because of this DH, beat me there! I recommend you use the mid ship elevators to get to Cagney’s or Moderno. For dinner, I had the shrimp cocktail, bakes potato soup, wedge salad w/blue cheese dressing, 8oz filet mignon with garlic butter and chimichurri sauce, mushrooms, cagney fries and crème brulee for dessert. WOW, was I full when I left!! They almost needed to wheel me out. DH had shrimp cocktail, braised beef confit, baked potato soup, ribeye with Cajun seasoning, and crème brulee. We both loved everything except the baked potato soup. It was a bit too watery and flavorless for my taste.

Photo of the Pool Area Lit Up At Night (Nearly the Only Photo I Took Today!):

Tonight, we headed to the Spinnaker Lounge for the Newlywed Game Show. We arrived early to grab seats, as we know this one is usually packed, and enjoyed the lounge, listening to Exotique. They were pretty good. Some got up to dance on the dance floor. We chose to drink.  The beverage servers were very good about coming around here, so there really was no need to go directly to the bar. This is a good thing because the bar in the Spinnaker was much smaller than what I’ve seen on other NCL ships. The Newlywed Game Show was HILARIOUS, as usual. Unfortunately, we had to cut it short because we had to pick up Alex from the kids club (we didn’t sign him up for the late night service). Luckily, we were able to catch the end of it on our Cabin TV a few days into the cruise. That show never disappoints. The place was PACKED when we left – standing room only, even with additional chairs lining the walls.

Once we got back to our room, we had an adorable towel animal of course, and had to set our clocks back an hour before retiring to bed.

Here is a picture of our Prince that went on a parade through the ship with the kids club tonight!

 

Next Up: Roatan!

[Cruisermom2nick]

That looks like a yummy cake! :) Is this a cake you can only get special ordered? Had you had this already so you knew to order it? :)

[PyrHeaven]

That looks like a yummy cake! :) Is this a cake you can only get special ordered? Had you had this already so you knew to order it? :)

 

It sure was yummy! We did special order it from the "onboard gifts" prior to the cruise. It's called Carlo's Bake Shop - Dark Chocolate Mousse Cake. It may be available to purchase on board at Carlo's Bake Shop on the newer ships that have this on board, but didn't see anything like it for purchase on board the Star.

 

We had never tried it before but DH is a sucker for little in room treats, and this one looked the best to him. It didn't disappoint!

[blueflower1968]

Great review!

[Cruise-mom]

Great review, that cake looks delicious :)

[vstar1100]

We were on the Star 3-6 and used the coffee maker almost every day. It is a 1 cup coffee maker. The little packet of coffee just fits.

[kpms]

Will be on the Star May 8/16 - The Baltics! Love hearing about the Star reviews :) Been planning for almost a year and half now!

[Clarea]

Enjoying the review, looking forward to more.:)

[peshadows]

Me too!