Our "virgin" cruise on NCL. A review of the Star 7 night W. Carribean 3/20-3/27 2016.

[aenglish1609]

Good morning everybody. This is actually not only my first review of NCL, but it is also my review on CC period! I will try to do it as quickly as possible, but it will probably take a while, as I like to be detailed and I have a lot of pictures(well my wife MADE us take them :D). I will go day by day and will answer any questions y'all may have. Hope you enjoy!!!

 

 

 

Background:

 

We are Drew and Alison, and we are a younger couple(I'm 26, she is 27). We have been married almost 4 years now, and we don't have any kids, but do have one adorable puppy named Sophie.

 

 

 

 

She teaches 7th grade math, and I am a substance abuse counselor, working on my Masters in School Counseling. We both love to travel, and this was our 6th cruise. Before this we had done 4 on Carnival, and 1 on RC(all of them are listen in my signature). We have also done a few AI's in Mexico and the Caribbean, as well as traveled to Hawaii(we want to go back). We have also done several mission trips to Mexico, South America, and Africa. So we haven't seen a ton yet, but enough to know we never want to stop!

Oh and we live in Athens Ga(home of the University of Georgia, and the best football team in the land :cool: ).

 

 

 

Ok enough about us, let's get started!

 

3/20 Embarkation day:

 

So Tampa is only about a 7-7 1/2 hour drive from us, but we happened to find a last minute deal on Delta, so we jumped at the chance to not have to drive. We ended up flying out at 7:30am that morning. Now I know, a lot of people say not to fly in the day of, but I felt really good about it for a few reasons. 1 it's barely an hour flight. 2 It's Delta flying from Atl. And 3. there are like 5 flights from Atl-Tampa before noon that day. So needless to say, we packed up the night before, dropped Sophie off at the kennel :( and headed out about 4:30am.

 

We breezed through with no traffic, and parked at Pre-flight. I HIGHLY recommend them, as they were $50 for the whole time we parked there, it's gated, and shuttles are crazy fast. Plus they are maybe a 5 minute ride to the airport(which is $15/day to park at :eek:). We had a very small wait at the airport. I was worried that I would set off the metal detector. I broke my leg pretty bad in November, and had to have a rod and several screws inserted into my leg(good times):mad:. Thankfully, nothing happened, and we were at our gate about 6:15 for our 7:30am flight. The flight was smooth, and we were at Baggage claim by about 9am.

 

 

We collected our bags no problem, and grabbed some breakfast from Starbucks, as we knew we had to wait a while. We then got a cab to the airport($25 total) and were at the terminal by 10am. There were maybe a couple hundred people in there waiting, and we were given a ticket and our key cards, and then we waited... Until only about 11:30 when they started boarding. This was our first NCL cruise, so we had to wait for the past cruisers, but then our ticket was called, and we were on board with a drink in our hand by 11:30.

 

 

So I need to stop there for now (I know right before the good stuff). But I will pick it back up in just a little bit!

[kandpsmom]

Can't wait to read your review. We'll be on the Star on the 10th...very cute doggie by the way.

Edited March 29, 2016 by kandpsmom

[kpms]

We will be sailing on May 8/16 - and love hearing reviews about the Star!

 

Kris

[NLH Arizona]

Most importantly, your puppy is adorable. Also, thanks for your review.

[daisyh]

I can't wait to read about your trip!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

[3Fluffies]

Looking forward to reading more!

 

I watched your cruise depart, BTW! I live about 5 minutes from the Tampa pier, and love wandering around there and visiting the aquarium on Saturdays and Sundays, seeing what ships are in port.

 

(If you saw a blonde chick hanging out by the railing outside the terminal shortly before sail away waving to a bunch of excited kids, that was me.) ;)

[aenglish1609]

Ok, I'm back. Sorry for the delay, I had to wait on the pictures from my wife, lol.

 

 

The Ship:

 

 

Ok, so we had just gotten on the ship. We always like to get a drink first thing, and then walk around and explore the ship before it gets really crowded.

 

 

Our first drinks were a Miami Vice, and a Bahama Mama. Now I will go ahead and say this, anyone who thinks they don't pour strong drinks, that was definitely not the case on our cruise. Every drink was poured well, and most of them seemed to have a little extra. We also had great service, but I can address all that later. We then took some time to just walk around the ship, and went an explored the Bier Garten(sp?). It was cool up there, but because of my leg, we didn't go up there much again as stairs are still kinda tricky for me. Here is a picture of us up there, that looks out over the main pool area.

 

 

Next we walked around to the atrium and shops, which while smaller than some ships, were very nicely laid out, and looked like they had some nice stuff. I can't comment on prices, because we never shop on cruises, sorry! We went to the gym area, which was again, small, but set up nicely. I can't do any cardio right now because of my leg(I'm not much of a cardio person anyway) but we did go in 3 different days to lift some weight. I think I have some pictures, that I will try to find.

 

We then decided it was time for lunch. We decided to do O'Sheehan's as we had plenty of days to do the buffet, and figured O'Sheehan's would be less crowded today. It is a beautiful restaurant/pub area, and we really enjoyed the times we ate there. It has a lot of window tables/booths, which we really enjoyed being able to look out over the water while we ate. The menu is the one posted all over these boards and different websites, so no surprises there. The food we thought was EXCELLENT. We tried a few of the sandwiches, and all of them came out fresh and hot. We also did the artichoke dip, and nachos, both of which were good. But the best part was hands-down the wings. Oh my gosh, they were great! We tried 3 or 4 different flavors, and though the Texas BBQ were the best.

 

 

 

So after lunch, we mostly just laid out, drink some more delicious drinks, and waited to depart. Of course we had to wait through the muster drill. I know it's important, but geez is it boring. Also, I thought the setup was poor on the Star compared to Carnival. We were in the Stardust, and I had to walk all the way to the bottom for our group. Normally not a problem, but my leg was aching from all those stairs. It was also very crowded trying to get out, and took a while to get all the way up and out. Oh well, it's such a minor thing that I had another drink and forgot all about it.

 

 

 

We then changed and got ready for supper, which we decided to do O'Sheehan's (again) because it was prime rib night. Man oh man was it good.

 

 

 

After that we skipped the show, because we are not big fans of the generic singing and dancing shows. Plus I feel like all welcome aboard shows(regardless of cruise line) are kinda the same. So we just hung out, got in the hot tub, and had a few more drinks. We also sat out on our balcony for the sunset. I forgot to mention that we were in room 8038, which we thoroughly enjoyed.

 

 

 

So that's pretty much it for the first day. I will be back later today or tomorrow for day 2. I will try and answer any questions y'all may have as I go along.

[Linda the Book Lover]

Sophie is just too darn cute!

 

We sailed last year on the Star so I am interested to hear how you enjoyed your first NCL cruise and the Star.

[Moobaby214]

Liking the review so far, thank you for sharing with all of us! We will be on the Star soon and started thinking at switching our cabin, with 8038 being an option. Do you have any pictures of the room?

[BudMan79]

I'm sailing on April 10th so it's great to see another recent review! This will be my 10th cruise but 1st on NCL. Did you have any favorite bartenders and if so do you remember any names or what bar?

[Clarea]

Nice start, beautiful photos.:)

[marathonrunner123]

Great start. Can't wait to read more.

[aenglish1609]

Sophie is just too darn cute!

 

We sailed last year on the Star so I am interested to hear how you enjoyed your first NCL cruise and the Star.

 

 

Thanks, we love her to pieces!

 

We really enjoyed it! I plan on going through some of the highlights after I have gone through the day-day stuff. We are booked on the Epic in November, so we are excited to try one of NCL's newer and bigger ships.

[aenglish1609]

Liking the review so far, thank you for sharing with all of us! We will be on the Star soon and started thinking at switching our cabin, with 8038 being an option. Do you have any pictures of the room?

 

 

 

Thanks, I pretty sure we have some(I think). I will find them form my wife as she is the picture master, lol. I can tell you that it's a pretty standard balcony room. We didn't experience any noise from neighbors, or the theater below us, so we were pleased with that.

[aenglish1609]

I'm sailing on April 10th so it's great to see another recent review! This will be my 10th cruise but 1st on NCL. Did you have any favorite bartenders and if so do you remember any names or what bar?

 

 

I'm sure you will have a blast!

 

Yes we did, his name was Jilmer from the Philippines. We was at Topsiders(the main pool deck bar) during the day, and normally at Spinnaker(the smaller lounge at night). He was fantastic!

[aenglish1609]

3/21- Sea day:

 

 

So I know I mentioned I'm a substance abuse counselor, what I forgot to mention is that I'm at work between 5-5:30am every day. So it's kinda hard for me to sleep in on cruises. My version of sleeping in is maybe 6:00?? Because of the multiple time changes on the ship, the first few days I ended up waking up at like 4:30. So anyway, there is not a whole lot to do on the ship before 6am, and it's a little too early to start drinking... Maybe, lol. So we normally just sat on the balcony, or walked around the ship a little.

 

 

We then got to the gym in the morning around 6am. Again, it was a very nice gym, a little bit small I thought, but not too crowded at 6am. They had a couple different sections of cardio equipment, including a line of treadmills and ellipticals that overlooked the ocean. They then had a section of weight machines, decent selection, but lacking a few things. They had a free weight section with 3 adjustable benches and weights from 5lbs to 60 lbs. Again, kinda surprising they didn't have higher weights, as most gyms will go closer to 100lbs dumbbells. However, I just grabbed the 60lbs for mt bench and added in a few extra reps, no big deal. They also had a smith machine, and a cable crossover. So no way to do barbell squats, bench, deadlifts, etc. but still enough to get you through the vacation.

 

 

 

Next up, we went to breakfast every day between 6:30 and 6:45. The main buffet opens at 6:30. The smaller one outside opens at 5:30 I believe. It was your pretty standard buffet. I thought the food was very good. I know some people have complained about runny eggs. There were some, but mostly only if it was towards the bottom of the tray. I felt like you could always get some that were well cooked. They always had a HUGE pile of bacon on top of the toast, so you could definitely find some to suit you. I like mine more undercooked, and my wife likes her more crispy, and we were both happy. They also had really good has browns. Most of the time on cruise you get the more just diced potatoes, which NCL had. However they also had "real" hash browns. What I mean by that, is if you are southern you understand that you need real fried hash browns. They had some that were comparable to Bojangles Bo-rounds. SO good. Sorry for some of the non-southern people who may not understand, but you should try them.

 

 

 

Sorry about the half eaten food, I was too hungry to wait, lol!

 

 

So we are definitely pool/beach people, so one thing we love about cruises is laying on the main decks, because the breeze is so awesome! So we normally found our spot with ease, because again, we are up WAY too early. The way the star is laid out, there are not tons of chairs near the pool, plus you would be splashed by kids all the time, so we normally went like 1-2 levels up. We also didn't want to go to high because of my leg. So it was easy for us to find the chairs. One thing I like on NCL, that I don't recall seeing on RC, or CCL is that they had little tables to put in between your chairs, nice little touch.

 

 

 

So for lunch I didn't take any pictures of our actual food, mostly because it was super boring. Salad, fries, pizza, etc. you get the point. Most cruise buffets are pretty standard, especially for lunch. One cool thing NCl did was the big seay day grills. On the first day, they made this awesome looking seafood pasta. I don't remember all it had in it, but it was a TON of different things, and they had HUGE amounts of it.

 

 

 

So the rest of the afternoon, we just laid around, had a few more drinks, and just chilled. We decided to go to Aqua since it was the "formal" night. Now NCL does not enforce formal wear at all, but I had brought a suit, so I thought why not. Alison looked awesome in her dress, so I had to at least try! We got a TON of professional photos done, because when we booked we got the 50 free photos perk. Holy crap was that awesome! I will talk more about it later, but it was a great perk! So we went o aqua, and honestly, we were a little disappointed. I know that NCL is more relaxed in their MDR's, but it just felt so dated, and very small. The service was great, and the food was very good too, but the atmosphere was just not very good to us. Oh well, supper is more about the food than anything right?? Alison got some kind of asian dish that she wasn't a fan of, and I got the regular steak cooked medium rare. Man oh man, for it to be the normal steak they have every day it was good! Cooked perfectly, very well seasoned, and the fries and onion rings were really good too!

 

 

 

So after supper, we decided to hit the hot tubs for a little bit and just chill. Again the show tonight was not our forte, so we skipped it, and there wasn't really a late show that I can remember either. We did manage to make it to the club, but not for long as we were super tired.

 

 

As you can see we got our friendly little towel animal, and the freestyle daily. One thing that we didn't really like, was the time change. We ended up changing back the first 2 nights, and then forward night 5 and 6. I thought it was kinda strange, as we have never done more than 1 hour forward or back on any other line, is this an NCL thing, or have people noticed it on different lines?? I don't know, and again, it's such a minor thing, that it obviously didn't bother us.

 

So that's pretty much it for the first sea day, sorry it's a little shorter, but not much to tell. The port days will have TONS more info and pictures, so stay tuned!

[mrsfuzzmo]

Some cruise lines change their clocks per the time zones, and some do not. It's actually up to each of the Captains what they want to do. Most NCL ships change clocks per the time zones, but Carnival and RCCL generally do not.

 

The reasoning for the 2 hr difference is that Mexico has recently (last year I believe) changed their daylight savings time rules, so there could be a 2 hr difference.

 

You just need to watch the newsletters each day and make sure your watches match the ship.

[aenglish1609]

Some cruise lines change their clocks per the time zones, and some do not. It's actually up to each of the Captains what they want to do. Most NCL ships change clocks per the time zones, but Carnival and RCCL generally do not.

 

The reasoning for the 2 hr difference is that Mexico has recently (last year I believe) changed their daylight savings time rules, so there could be a 2 hr difference.

 

You just need to watch the newsletters each day and make sure your watches match the ship.

 

Thank for the info.

 

We had no problem keeping up with the time change, as NCl did a very good job of making sure people knew. It was just strange to us. However, like you said CCL and RC usually don't change, so know we will know for our next NCL cruise.

 

 

Coming up next is our day in Roatan!