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Live from the Star - 11 day med cruise

Analog187

By Analog187,
in Norwegian Cruise Line

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Analog187 Great Review Rare

Analog187

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LauraS
This post was recognized by LauraS!

"Another from Analog187! Thank you for generously sharing your time at sea with everyone at Cruise Critic!"

Analog187 was awarded the badge '"Live from...."' and 5 points.

We flew in the day before so we had some extra time if there was a flight delay.   We stayed right by the Roma Termini station.  That allowed us to quickly get to and from the airport.  We got to check out the Roman Baths near the station and get some food.  Otherwise, we slept and relaxed. 
 

We got to the meeting point at the airport at 9:40 (was told to get there at 10).  It was easy to find. Waited about 45 minutes.   It was a bit of a walk to the bus.  We waited in line to show our Vax cards and then had to get our luggage tags.  Our luggage got put on a truck instead of the bus.  We then waited in line for the bus. For some reason, they did not allow us to get on the bus so we had to wait around some more.  Finally started getting on the bus at 10:45.  A handful of brought their luggage on the bus.  This just creates more waiting at the port so I'm not sure why they did that.  

 
Despite the bus being mostly full, we waited for some last minute people.  We finally left 25 minutes later.  So this was 70 minutes after the 10am meet up time.   They said the drive was an hour and ten minutes but it wound up being about 55 minutes (12:05).
 
Metal detector line only took a few minutes. Check in line also took just a few minutes.  We were on the ship at 12:30.  After the muster station, we went right to the buffet. A lot of seats were already taken but there was always available seating while we were there.
 
There's more variety from what there was at the Sky. No iced tea or lemonade because they ran out but apparently they'll have it tomorrow.  Burgers, pizza and hotdogs were all meh which is par for the course.  I didn't try the pasta station but I'll see how that is tomorrow.  I assume it'll be the same as other ships.
 
Rooms were available at 1.  First we went down to the shore excursion desk to see if we could book some tours but they were sold out of the ones we wanted.   However, they were going to add one for Volos later. 
 
We got to our room which was similar to our balcony room on Sky except there was just empty space under the shelf by the TV.  No drawers there.  Kinda odd.  The bathroom seems bigger and the shower has a door instead of a curtain so that's nice.  The balcony itself is standard.  I put in for several upgrades and none of them went through which was not a surprise since it seems like they were already booked ahead of time.  No big deal as there are no sea days.  I like these balcony rooms anyway.  There's enough space but a few more drawers would have been nice.  
 
Our plan for today is to relax, explore the ship a little, go to dinner and then the welcome aboard show.  It's gonna be an intense cruise so we want to make sure we don't over do it. 
 
I should have internet access everyday so if you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer them.   
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Day 1 cont.

 
There was a line at Versailles so we went to Aqua where there was no line at all.  Service was fine but it was nothing like what we has on the Sun.  I assume it's because this ship is much closer to full capacity whereas the Sun was at 50%  I don't have any official numbers but it certainly seems busy.  Lots of different languages.  Very diverse crowd. 
 
We both had the steak medallions.  Mine were plain, her's had the sauce.  Now's probably a good time to tell you that I usually don't like the dining room food on NCL these days.  I find it to be very low quality.  I thought the steak was ok but it was bland.  My wife thought her steak with the sauce was bland as well.  
 
For dessert I had the salted caramel chocolate tart which was good.  She had the chocolate lave cake and she loved it.  During dinner I had lemonade which was interesting since they didn't seem to have that anywhere else.  For dessert I had decaf and it took forever to come.  Wasn't great either.  
 
My wife wanted tea so we went up to the buffet to grab some.   While there I noticed a ln orange passionfruit guava drink.  I love guava juice and this was awesome.  Don't remember ever seeing it before.  Hope it sticks around. 
 
We then went to the theater for the juggler show.  I really like this theater.  The theater was about 65% full.  Kinda surprised since there was only one show.  I really like the balcony seats in the front. 
 
Grunway Tom from the UK was the juggler.  He was insanely funny.  One of the best shows I've ever seen on a cruise.  I was dying laughing the entire time.  Thankfully he'll be doing another show later on in the cruise.  
 
The cabin at night was cold at first and then got warm.  Seems to be a pattern with NCL across ships.  The walls are a little thinner than normal.  The people next door wanted to watch TV at 2am and I was able to hear it.  Kept me up.  There's also a crew door right across the hall from us and they were real busy last night so that was a little noisy.  Hopefully not too bad tonight.  I use a noise app on my phone but the TV was so loud I could still here it.  Just like other ships, the bed was not comfortable even with an egg crate on it.  Par for the course I guess.
 
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Day 2
 
I'm not sure what it is but breakfast was meh.  The OJ tasted sour.  Don't think I'll gain too much weight on this cruise.  
 
They announced that no more tickets were necessary for the tender around 9:30.  We got on right after breakfast.  It's a Sunday after tourist season so St Tropez was kind of a ghost town.  It was nice to walk around and check out the scenery but there wasn't much else to do.  We stopped at a French bakery and got some good food.  After less than 2 hours of walking, we pretty much did a lap around the entire city so we went back to the ship to relax.  Gonna go to OS for some wings and fries then hit the hot tub.  I don't really mind a chill day today since we are going to be so busy the rest of the time.  Really looking forward to the show tonight as it features dancers from dancing with the stars.  
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I relaxed in the hot tub for a little while.  Then went back to the the room for a nap.  Passed right out.  As we were leaving for dinner a house keeper supervisor stopped us to give us his card so we could call with any issues.  I thought that was nice.  Our steward is great so I doubt we'll need to call. 

 
There are two dance shows tonight at 7 and 9 with the Newlywed show in-between.  I wanted to catch the 7pm show so we went to dinner early at Versailles.  No line to get in and really good service.  Two supervisors stopped by to check in on us.  Food came out really fast. 
 
The bourbon bacon chicken was meh. The sweet potato fries were pretty good though.  For dessert we had the After Eight mint chocolate moose.  We've had this before and it was awesome.  
 
Having seen most of the ship now I think it looks good for it's age.  I like that most things are on deck 7.  Makes it easy to navigate.  The casino and art gallery are on 6; two things I don't need.  
 
I also wanted to mention the violin trio that has been playing in the atrium.  They're great.  Unfortunately I haven't had time to really sit down and enjoy them but you can hear them if you're anywhere near the atrium.  The atrium elevator area has this cool balcony thing that let's you look down.  It also allows you to hear the music as you wait for the elevator.  
 
I've noticed that the guest services desk usually has a long line. I don't know if it's because there's more people on this ship than my last two cruises but it never seems to go down.  I'm curious what's going on with that.  
 
Likewise, there seems to always be a long line at the shore excursions desk but I suppose that's to be expected with all the ports we're going to. 
 
The dance show was good and I'm not always into this.  Apparently there is going to be another show later in the cruise.  We'll go to that. 
 
We then went to the Newlywed show.  Funny as always.  It never disappoints. 
 
The lemonade saga continues.  Yesterday I asked the bartender at the buffet if he had lemonade and he said no but he has Sprite.  I thought that was odd but whatever.  Before the show started today I asked for lemonade and the waiter brought me a Sprite.  I literally had to explain what lemonade was and he said something about lemonade meaning lemon soda in certain countries or something like that.  So after we were done ready to head up to the cabin, I stopped at the buffet to get some lemonade.  Still none.  Really bizarre.  I'll have to nail down a place where I can get it easily. 
 
Day 3 - Livorno
 
We had a tour booked on Viator with Tuscany Bus which is the same bus that takes from the port to the city center.  It was for 10:30 but we figured we'd get there early.  Good thing we did!  The bus left about 20 minutes early.  Not sure what would have happened if we got there at 10:15 like they suggested.  There's really not much to do over there so we just walked around while we waited for the bus to get there.  It was a great tour.  Our guide Kiki was really nice.  Lucca was awesome.  We had a great time, climbed up a tower to take some awesome pics and we had the best sandwich ever.  It was just enough time to see everything, about 3 hours.  The ride to Pisa was about a half hour.  Other than taking a pic of the tower and going into the cathedral, there isn't much going on there.  Still a fun stop to say we did it and get our pics but boy was it mobbed.  Can't imagine it in the summer.  Ride back was good and we got right on the ship.  
 
Tonight's show is Band on the Run which is the first of three production shows on this cruise.  I have literally no interest in this as I'm not into the 70s so we may skip it.  Not sure yet.  Will probably check out the Deal or No Deal game.  Those are always fun.  Otherwise, gonna make it an early night as we are pretty tired.  It was a long day.  Tons of fun but very long.  
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di T

di T

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7 minutes ago, stefmaia said:

In Scotland we called all sodas "lemonade".

 

"I'll have a glass of lemonade please"

"What kind of lemonade do you want?"

"Coke please"

 

I know,  🤡 but it made sense to us then.

Always call sodas lemonade in the Uk! Sprite is to us a lemonade😊

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Day 3 continued:

 

Service wasn't as good as it was the day before, not that it was bad just that there is an obvious difference when they are less busy.  Not a big deal for us though.  We had sliced sirloin and "loaded baked potato".  The sirloin was OK, nothing special.  The potato was the size of a golf ball and it was loaded with...........absolutely nothing!  Seriously, it didn't even have butter on it.  Not the end of the world, just comical really.  Not sure what's going on with NCL and their food but that's not what we're here for.

 

We caught a few minutes of Band on the Run and as expected, it was not for us.  For a production show they did put some effort into it.  The theme is that this club just opened and there is a DJ up in the balcony thing and that was kind of a cool concept.  They also had an acrobat do a cirque type routine for a few minutes.  Glad we caught that.  Once that was done we bailed because we just can't handle that music.  We were too tired to wait around for Deal or no Deal so we packed it in.  

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Day 4 - Naples

 

Having been to this area before, we wanted to just grab some pizza and relax since we'll be busy every single day from here on out.  Wow, I knew Naples wasn't going to be great but it makes Newark, NJ look like a fun place to be.  Trash is everywhere and it smells like a garbage dump.  It was insanely crowded too.  Not sure if there was some type of holiday or whatever but there were a ton of locals walking around.  There were a lot of annoying taxi drivers and various other people trying to get money.  One guy touched me and that was almost not a good scene.  Luckily he went away.  

 

We got to Gino e Toto which is a famous pizza place and the line wasn't too bad.  Food was great.  Service was meh which is what you can expect here.  Prices were pretty good too.  Line was much longer as we were leaving.  Stopped for a coffee on the way back to the ship. It was ok.  The ship seems empty so we'll hang out on our balcony and then probably go hit the hot tub or something.

 

Tonight's entertainment is some type of singer from Norway.  Doesn't sound like anything we'd like so I don't know if we'll bother.  We'll probably check out the last man standing game.  Other than that, chill day.  The ship doesn't leave until 8.  There continues to be big lines for the shore excursion desk.  I'll have to stop by in a bit to check on our tickets for Santorini.  Hopefully there's no line since the ship is so empty.   

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Day 4 continued

 

Found a hot tub that was actually a little hot.  Was nice to soak for about an hour.  Had the baked chicken which is one of the items that is there everyday.  It was actually pretty good.  They did a great job with that.   For dessert I ordered the cannoli...which had fruit in it!  That was not listed on the menu of course and I have never heard of that.  I talked to one of the head supervisors as I was leaving and he seemed shocked.  It bothers me that they don't follow the menu and he said that to me without me even saying it.  You should know what you are ordering.  Not sure why this is such a problem on NCL.

 

We didn't bother with the singer but we went to the last man standing game.  That's fun.  My wife did pretty well but she didn't want to win anyway so she threw it at the end.

 

I stopped by the shore excursion desk to check on my tickets for Santorini.  The person I spoke with was different than the other person I spoke with a few days ago.  He said that we probably won't make it on the tour we are waitlisted for and now the Spanish tour was full (my wife is fluent).  I was so livid but I was nice as he was as well.  I told him that it was really messed up that I could have booked the Spanish tour a few days ago but the woman standing 10 feet away from him told me not to bother because I will get on the other tour.  There wasn't much he could do.  As I don't take no for an answer, I went over to guest services and spoke with someone who wrote a very lengthy message to the SE manager explaining how the woman at the SE desk gave me the wrong info.  Sure enough, I woke up this morning to our tickets waiting for us outside our door.  It pays be firm but nice.  I didn't flip or curse anyone off or cause a scene but I was very firm that NCL is the ones that screwed up and I should not suffer as a result.  That approach surely worked.  

 

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I'm really enjoying your posts, thank you. We're getting on the Star in a couple of weeks, first time on her and only our 2nd ever NCL cruise (1st one was on Getaway back on 2017).

I've got a couple of questions if you have time to check them out and get back to me? No worries at all if you can't, obviously I'll find out in a couple of weeks anyway. I just liked to be prepared! They're along the same theme, as we're strictly gluten-free, so it's to do with that (neither of us were gluten-free last time we sailed, so it's a big change).

Do the menus in the main dining room have allergen markers on them at all for gluten?

In the buffet, are dishes marked up with any allergen markers? Or any markers of any kind, such as vegetarian etc?

If you do get chance to have a look and report back that would be great, but as I said, no problem at all if you can't.

The final question is were is the slightly hot hot tub located please?!

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1 hour ago, Ladyshopper23 said:

The final question is were is the slightly hot hot tub located please?!

 

They are all by the pool.  Although I think one or two are in Spice H20.  I only went through there once as there is no real reason to go there on this ship.  

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On 11/8/2022 at 5:10 AM, Keata said:

At Spice H2O is there a smoking section near the bar?

 

I don't know if I'm going to get over there as there is no reason for us to there.  I did see smoking by the pool and at the bar on deck 13.  

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Day 5 - Sicily

 

Most people here, including us, go to Taormina.  However, most people go on a tour and I think this one is easy enough to do on your own so that's what we did.  10 minute walk to the train station.  9 euros for 2 people one way, 18 RT.  About 50 minutes to get there.  Nice ride right along the coast.  Once you get there, you can either walk or take a taxi.  The walk up has got to be horrible.  We took a taxi which was 15 euros.  Sucks that it's so high given that it's a 10 minute ride but whatever.  This is a really nice historic town but it's very touristy.  The historic amphitheater is really cool and the views are amazing.  See my FB page for the pics.   It's 10 euros a person to get in there and it will take you about a half hour to walk around and take pics.  

 

A lot of the restaurants prey on tourists so we wanted to avoid that.  We went for lunch right outside of the gates to the historic part and found a nice restaurant that served good food without costing a fortune.  Wasn't crowded either,  mostly locals.  Real nice.  We were there for about 3 hours and that we the perfect amount of time.  We wanted to take the walking path down to experience it and for blog purposes.  Not sure I'd do that again.  It's about 5 to 10 minutes of steps and then 20 minutes of very steep pathways and I mean very steep.  Unless you are crazy in shape, it's gonna make your legs a little weak.  My feet were pushed into the front of my shoes the entire time.  Even though it was upper 60s, we got a little sweaty.  Can't imagine what it's like in the summer.

 

Once you get down to the street, the sidewalk comes and goes so that isn't too fun.  There's a little bar/pastry shop right there at the end of the train station.  We hopped on the train back and now we are back on the ship.  Gonna hit the hot tub up again after all that.  Show tonight should be good.  

 

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We are still having a problem with the people blasting their TV until 3am or later keeping us up.  Although we gave up on complaining for now, guest services did reach out to us to see if we want to switch rooms.  It would be an accessible room on deck 9 forward (we're on 10 midship).  I feel like this would be a downgrade so we are going to say no for now.  

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