Star Princess Transatlantic 9/22/06 Gen Thoughts

[alabama ghost]

I decided to do a slightly different review of our trip. If you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer them.

 

Background: Group of 4, ranging in age from 56-85, all platinum with Princesss.

 

Pre Cruise: Used frequent flyer points and booked early for flight from Atlanta to Copenhagen. Spent 2 nights at Adina Apt. Hotel in Copenhagen. Expensive city. Had been there before so limited touring. Embarkation was best ever, very easy and fast.

 

Miscellaneous Thoughts on Onboard:

1. Ate in dining room for lunch first day, not advertised.

2. Over 1000 passengers from previous Baltic cruise.

3. Had traditional first seating dining--excellent steward, Izabella.

4. Ate in dining room many times for breakfast & lunch, some good experiences, some just so so.

5. Overall, food was good, but not excellent.

6. Wonderful room steward, Monghan.

7. Had inside cabin, missed balcony, would have used it a lot since the weather was nice most of the time.

8. Few days had rough seas, but not really bad, much calmer than I had been worried about.

9. No "laundry bag" specials, but chose my times for doing laundry when it wasn't crowded and was no problem.

10. Really enjoyed free internet. (Because of platinum status) Sometimes crowded, but most I had to wait was maybe 5 minutes. Was never unable to get on internet.

 

Ports & Tours:

1. Dover - Took Princess tour to London, Pub Panorama. Stopped more than I thought we would, good overview of the city. Since I'd never been to London this gave me a good idea of what I want to come back and see.

2. Falmouth - No tour, took free shuttle into Falmouth. Interesting small town.

3. Waterford - Princess factory tour. Really enjoyed it and the time in the gift shop.

4. Greenock - took Princess' "Edinborough on your Own" tour. Went to Edinborough Castle and Royal Mile. Very good day, but like London, long.

5. Belfast - went into town on shuttle, visited city hall, Titanic memorial, shopped a little.

6. Reyjavik - took Princess' "Golden Circle with Lunch" tour. Only drawback here was the 20 buses of tourists, no real shopping when everyone's in a small gift shop at the same time! Wonderful scenery with steam vents, geysers, waterfalls. Lunch was great with salmon.

7. Quaquatoq (spelling?) - We were all excited to be able to tender into Greenland. Great small town with the locals setting up various activities for tourists such as a kayak exhibition and drum dancing. One of my favorite stops.

8. St. Johns, Newfoundland- had lunch with relatives who live there. What was a surprise was trying to get back on the ship and having to wait because of the security breach. Some passengers had to wait 2-3 hours to get back on the ship. Crew brought out chairs, blankets and towels--it was cold!

 

Post Cruise

Debarkation was fine, no problems. Had transfer to Penn Station which was close enough to our hotel to walk.

 

Overall this was a fantastic cruise. Went many places I thought I'd never see and which I would like to go back to and spend more time. Limited activities on sea days, but after 4-5 ports in a row I was ready for a break! Weather was good for the most part, much warmer than I thought it would be, except in Greenland, Iceland and Newfoundland. Would really recommend this trip.

[Druke I]

We did similar itinerary several years ago, on the late great Royal Princess, and enjoyed it very much.

 

We did hit heavy fog between Newfoundland and NYC - fog horn blasting every 30 seconds. Loved it!

[BLS]

We too were on that cruise (had also done the 10 day Baltic-so 25 days on the Ship)

We love the trip--especially the weather.

the food in our opinion was so-so most days:(

But over all it was a wonderful trip

[mr green]

I was on the same cruise, the weather I gave a 9.5 out f 10. It rained after we left Lock Lomond, but that was all, well just a wee drop in Iceland. I am from the Old Country, and weatherwise I feared the worst, but got the vey best. The seas also for the most part behaved themselves. We did get a few large icebergs on film.

One problem that I had with the cruise, that I DID expect was the overall crowding and waiting for tours, due to the size of the ship, and the way that Princess failed to address some problems. For example in Iceland it seems that no less than 36 full sized busses were supposed to be loaded up between 9.00 and 9.15am. We were late getting off on the in Golden Circle', which was great, but, we were also late getting back, so the Star was an hour late, getting away.

I wrote a review on these bourds stating in part that there was nothing that the Star had done, that the Coral Princess could always do better, at least while I was on her.

One brief word about our tour guides, the ones from Waterford, Greenock, Belfast, and Reykjavik were among the best that we had ever had, if not the very best. In Dover we hired a car for the day, where I visited my home town of Bexhill. Falmouth? That 'River' tour had a lot to be desired, and in St Johns, well lets say that they do better "Newfie Jokes' therethan tours. Itwas the first time that we were ever on a tour, riding in a old and very tired city 'bus. john

[cwtravel]

What was the security issue?

 

Also, I was on the Golden earlier this year. The number of busses in Le Havre for the Paris and Normandy Tours was incredible. Unfortunately, all the busses returned at virtually the same time so the wait to re-board was quite long.

 

Thanks for the review,

Chris

[Trece]

We were on the same cruise and had a fantastic time! We had private guides in every port and while their style & flavor differed from one another, we enjoyed each and every one. Since we do very few ship activities (no shows, no casino, no ship excursions) we never get the "big ship" feeling. We thought the food was fine (granted my feeling is that if I don't have to cook it, how bad can it be?) and our cabin steward was fantastic. Our Caribe balcony was one of the biggest we've had on any ship. I loved gaining an hour pushing the clock back so many nights, and we disembarked the cruise in our time zone with no flight home to dread. The free internet for platinums is such a bonus, as is starting the cruise with shipboard credit from using a future cruise booking. I was excited about the itinerary from the first time I saw it, DH less so, but now he is raving about the great time and how he'd like to do a transatlantic (with a similarly good itinerary without a lot of consecutive sea days) again. It was a wonderful experience and a real treat to get into Greenland. We will be on Royal Princess next year where we get to combine great itinerary AND the small former Renaissance ship and we are looking forward to that as well!

[GBeret]

I was on the same cruise. I didn't think the Star Princess dinning room food choices, etc. were up to the standards of other Princess ships. The service in the dinning room, wasn't either. Lunch in the dinning room at sea , was good but was VERY over crowded, mostly because they only kept one dinning room open, causing people to have to 'Que' up.

 

Our disembarkation was a disaster! We stood on the parking lot in the Brooklyn, NY terminal, for well over one hour in the cold and wind waiting for a bus. We had to wait for buses returning from the airport. This was the worst debarkation, on Princess that I have experienced!! VERY poor planning! :eek:

[mr green]

What was the security issue?

 

Also, I was on the Golden earlier this year. The number of busses in Le Havre for the Paris and Normandy Tours was incredible. Unfortunately, all the busses returned at virtually the same time so the wait to re-board was quite long.

 

Thanks for the review,

Chris

 

As far as I understand it a person was seen boarding, and or leaving the ship via the garbage disposal. Three strange packages were also found on the ship, [all rooms were searched]. The bomb squad was called in, and these passed inspection. Three divers were sent down to examine the hull. While this was going on, those on board were sent to their muster stations. Before we went, I took Princess bag, emptied the contents of the safe into it, along with anything else that we did not wish to loose. Life jackets were not required. I don't know how long this took as the search was in progress, when we boarded. I had just got dressed after taking a shower, when we were called out. At a guess the process lasted about four hours. john

[Trece]

GBeret, I guess it depends on which type of disembarkation was done. We did the express, since we had no flight home, meaning we were able to keep our luggage in our cabin the night before and take it with us when we got off. From closing the cabin door to getting in a cab to Penn Station, it was a matter of 15 minutes tops. Our longest wait was to get an elevator on the ship, since obviously they were full of passengers. We thought it was one of the best disembarkations ever!

 

CWTravel, there's a thread somewhere on here called "Security breach on Star in Newfoundland" with some links to newspaper articles about it. I don't know how to add the thread to this post, sorry.

[BLS]

We too were on the Ship dutring the breech, but were never sent to our muster stations. so I find that posting a bit odd.

Folks we unable to reboard for awhile and some elevators were unavailable.

[mr green]

We too were on the Ship dutring the breech, but were never sent to our muster stations. so I find that posting a bit odd.

Folks we unable to reboard for awhile and some elevators were unavailable.

 

Not so odd if you have a wife who can hardly clime stairs!!! john

[patlanta]

We, too, were on the Star Princess TA cruise. We thought it was a very comfortable cruise and we were pleasantly surprised that the weather crossing the North Atlantic was as calm as it turned out.

 

The only thing I'm surprised no one has commented upon was the poor quality of the tissue and toilet paper on the ship. The tissue was a Georgia Pacific brand that was like raw bark.

[BLS]

Sorry if you misunderstood my "odd" comment. I only meant that it was odd that some folks were sent to thier muster station and we were not.

My husband too has issues with stairs.

[alabama ghost]

Disembarking: We had a transfer to Penn Station and the biggest confusion we faced was what line to get in for our bus. There were several long lines for buses and no signs. Once we discovered our bus we were able to get our suitcases to the driver and get right on board. Some of those getting on later had some trouble getting their suitcases on board the bus, but it eventually all fit.

 

Shows: I really enjoyed the production numbers, mainly because of meeting one of the dancers during a tour--he traveled with our group. Made it a totally different experience.

 

Movies: We saw many great movies, all fairly recent, which helped us kill time during some of those sea days. The Vista Lounge wasn't the best venue for movies, but the Princess Theater was very good.

 

Copenhagen - Did anyone else experience a surcharge for using your credit card there? We ended up using more kroner than we had planned on because of the 5-10% surcharge for using a "non-Danish" credit card. (Avoided credit cards whenever we could.)

[bubbadog]

hmmmmm.....veeerrryy interesting(johns post):rolleyes:

[bubbadog]

oops meant mr greens post lol:)))):p

[DougH]

Almost took this cruise this year, but am now signed up for the Grand Princess TransAtlantic Sept 2007.

 

Will probably do the "Grand Circle" tour, sure sounds like most of the ship did this one with 20 buses!

 

Doug