Star Princess Christmas Cruise review

[OnVacation11]

We just returned from 10 day cruise on the Star Princess (12/18-12/28). It was our 2nd Christmas cruise and we had a great time. We had an outside cabin on Emerald deck. Here are some highlights:

 

- St. Vincent - I did the Whale and Dolphin Cruise - did not see any whales but we saw a lot of dolphins very close to the boat. We also ventured into town but it was very crowded, noisy and extremly dirty so we went back to the ship and enjoyed some quiet time by the pool.

- Grenada - We did the "Spice Island tour". It was interesting but our guide did not give a lot of commentary and let us wonder on our own at all the stops (we saw other people on the same tour but in a different van being led by their guide). We did see a lot of damage from the hurricane.

- St. Lucia - our favorite island !!! We did the 4x4 Safari and had a fabulous guide "Pete" Peterson. What a character. He really loves his island and his enthusiasm is very contagious. We had a great time on this excursion.

- Martinique - our 2nd favorite. We did the St. Pierre and Rum Distillery tour. The tour was only so-so. We did not like being on a large bus with 40+ other people. The tour lasted about 4.5 hrs so we spent a lot of time sitting on the bus. Bad choice on our part but it did not spoil the charm of the island for us. Martinique definitely has a character of its' own and we are looking forward to coming back on the 2006 Christmas cruise.

- St. Thomas - Christmas day - we stayed on the ship and again enjoyed quiet time by the pool.

- Princess Cays - it very lovely - we went for a long walk on the beach and collected some shells. Went back to the ship at mid-day.

- Food - we ate breakfast and lunch in Horizon or had pizza (very good) by the pool. Breakfast did not have much variety from day to day but I usually had fresh fruit (loved the papaya and pineapple), yogurt and pastries. Lunch had different items each day so we always found something good to eat. The salad bar was very good - I don't know how they keep their lettuce so fresh and perfect for 10 days !

We ate dinners in Portofino (deck 6) and Capri (deck 5). Portofino had a line almost every night so we went down 1 more deck and could get into Capri without any wait (we always shared a table). We usually went to dinner around 7pm.

Service in the dining room was ok but not very consistent. Some waiters were very attentive, always went over the menu and offered to bring additional items, others did not even introduce themselves and did not really say much. We were usually done with dinner in 1.5 hrs except on the last night it took 2.5 hrs for a table for 6 (our waiter was working without his assistant and it really made a difference in service).

In our opinion the food in the dining room was fine. We always found something to our liking. Our favorities were the melt-in-your-mouth lamb chops and lobster (very tender and moist). One time dinner was a disappointment was grilled halibut which was very dry and creme brulee was not crispy on top.

Favorite desserts were chocolate-hazelnut souffle and hazelnut ice cream.

- Staff - we needed a battery replaced in our safe so I called the Purser's desk and they sent someone to our cabin within 10 minutes.

We assumed our room steward did not speak any English as he never introduced himself and never spoke to us (he did smile a lot when he saw us in the hallway) but he did keep the cabin very clean.

- Entertainment - the 2 production shows were very good (they were repeated 3x during the cruise). There were also 3-4 comedians/jugglers/ventriloquists that were marginal (OK if you needed to kill 45mins but would not go out of may way to see them again)

 

Overall it was a great cruise (our 6th on Princess) and we are already looking forward to our next Christmas cruise on the Sun Princess in 2006 !!!

[Coolmama_1]

Thanks for the review! Sounds like you had a great time. Thanks also for the tip on the Capri dining room. We will be on the Star 1/8 with a party of 6.

[SC Minnie]

We were on the same cruise and on the asme tour in Martinique!

 

We did a private tour in Grenada that included the spice tour. Very good job.

 

I got sick half way through the trip and spent several evenings in the room.

 

Our cabin steward (Philipe) was very good.

 

We had Anytime Dining and our party of 11 was always seated immediately. We usually ate between 6 and 7. We didn't do any of the production shows and saw the comedian one night-- Jim McDonald or something like that. He was only OK, I would not have paid to go see him.

 

The hit dessert at our table was the Love Boat Volcano from the kids menu. DD was the only child at out table and ordered this the first night. It is HUGE. One of the uncles ordered it later in the cruise and couldn't finish it.

 

We had a great time overall. Several in our party had never cruised before and were just getting into cruise mode by the end.

[snorklgrl]

My husband and I were on the same cruise and we were on the big comfy A/C bus with you on Martinique. This island and this tour were darned better than the other tour we took on a small non-AC bus with our knees up under our chins on Grenada for five hours. Only take that Grenada Explorer tour if you like bucking broncos, you're thin, young and agile and you don't mind being eaten alive by flies while you sniff burning asbestos.

 

We ate in Capri every night. The first night I had a piece of raw salmon delivered to me. On the second night we hooked up with Pompi and Ricardo who were our wonderful waiters for the duration. I had the lobster thermidor. About 11:30 p.m. I started feeling queasy. At 12:30 I was violently puking my guts out. I went back to bed and I thought, "Oh, no, I've caught the Norovirus on only my second day." At 2 a.m. I threw up again. Went back to sleep. Awoke a few hours later feeling just fine!!! I thought, "Well, it wasn't the virus, must've been the lobster." But two other people at my table ate it and they were NOT sick. Later, my mom overheard someone else say they got sick from the lobster thermidor. Evidently, some of it was bad and some of it was okay.

 

Played lots of trivia and enjoyed the people who played. On Christmas Day, Princess was extra generous and gave out prizes to all of the losers. I'm usually on a losing team, so I enjoyed this perk. Princess (I mean Santa Claus) also handed out hundreds of stuffed snowmen bears to all of the kids aboard -- I thought that was nice.

 

Our room attendant was Som from Thailand. She gave us a gorgeous Christmas Card of the Madonna bordered with black velveteen. We gave her a St. Thomas t-shirt and later we tipped her an extra $20. How anyone can be super cheerful doing that job day after day, I haven't a clue. Kinda makes me feel a little too spoiled. On the first day, our safe was locked when we went to the room. It took THREE HOURS for the d***ed guy to show up. Meanwhile I lugged my backpack around with me. A minor inconvenience.

 

The best entertainers were a twosome called Live Wire with Michael playing a stunning looking guitar and Claire on some crazy-looking electric violin. I'd rate these two A+++ they could really play those instruments AND they could sing. They sounded great, played songs I loved and they had their act down cold. Most of the other entertainers were comics, jugglers, ventroliquists or combinations of all three. I'd give every one of 'em a B-/C+. They say dying is easy, comedy is hard. I believe it. We had seen "Dance" on another cruise. It was good the first time and good this time too -- esp. the "Sara Lee" number.

 

Upon arrival back at Ft. Lauderdale we hung around an extra hour looking for my garment bag. The rep couldn't find it and neither could we, though we even searched the other warehouse. Filled out a report. Yesterday I got a phone call from Lost and Found. The Princess liaison didn't identify herself. She launched into the call by saying, "You were on the Star Princess?" (Yes.) "Can I have your credit card number please?" (No!) "It says here that you abandoned your bag." (No, I spent an hour looking for it and filled out a form.) "Oh, okay, we'll send it to you. You'll have it in a couple of days." It arrived today via DHL and though the bag looked like it had been through a dirty game of football, my clothes inside were there and they were fine.

[steins]

I too was on this cruise.

I got sick with the lobster thermidore, thought it was from the crab on top however. I had traditional dining with excellent service but the food was inconsistent. One night the menu said the dish would have morrell mushrooms but ordinary button mushrooms were used. Another night, black mushrooms or something was on the menu-button mushrooms again. Some dished sounded very fancy but resembled ordinary pudding or canned vegetables. The lobster was perfect as was the baked alaska. There were many, many very good dishes however

 

The tour desk was rude and never updated the board indicating which tours were sold out. They were never open when you needed them, and had long lines when they were. I signed up for tours that the board indicated were not booked up twice and waited for tickets to show up. I went to the desk and stood in line only to have the guy say, just wait and the tickes would appear. I asked if he could please check the computer instead since i had just waisted 30 minuted of my vacation standing in line. He angerily checked the computer and told me it was sold out. I asked why the board had reported openings for the past 24 hours and he said because they were too busy to take the 30 seconds to cross it out. This happened again with a second tour on a different day again! We ended up not getting any of the tours we had requested and would have had a better selection if they would have notified us the tours were full or took the 30 seconds to cross out the tour on the board when it was full. The guy also had no sense of customer service and was plain rude. Used mandoo tours in Grenada which was good.

 

We had a great room steward grace who always greeted us by name and was very efficient.

 

Entertainment was great. But we missed the midnight chocolate buffet and towel animals one gets on carnival! Also felt the slot machines were not half as loose as on carnival!

[snorklgrl]

You're the first person I've ever heard of who thinks Carnival is preferable to Princess in any way, although, as I'm sure you're aware, Princess is owned by Carnival now. Shore excursions are our one bugaboo and I assume that is because Princess subcontracts and probably doesn't even want to be doing them at all. On this cruise we were waitlisted for the St. Vincent snorkelling and we never got to go at all -- in other words, they didn't hire other snorkel outfitters to pick up the many extra people who wanted to snorkel.