Norwegian Star Feb.26/07 Itinerary Change

[lolastar]

Although we had a great time on this cruise, we were very disappointed with the itinerary change and how it was handled. Manzanillo and Mazatlan were a disappointment, especially when expecting Acapulco and Ixtapa. How do others feel?

[Don Haynes]

Having problems with an apizod, NCL has to slow the ship down to 20 knots to keep its insurance, and the apizod running, or the ship may lose the apizod entirely. Since the ship no longer has the speed to reach Acapulco or Ixtapa in time, what else could NCL do but to shorten the cruise considerably with differnet ports of call?

 

NCL may have to schedule a drydock and cancel a few cruises. Other cruise lines do the new ports, which in my opinion are better ports than Acapulco. I'm sure many think otherwise.

[onegraham]

My wife and I are sailing on the Star on 3/14 (next Wed., yeah). Wondering when NCL told you of the ports changes and if they gave extra time in PV or other ports. Have you heard about how long they intend to keep to these new ports ? Nice that you enjoyed the cruise anyway. JG in Moab, Utah

[Don Haynes]

There are several ships having apizod problems. From a recent review, the apizod experts were on the cruise last week, and it does appear a drydock will be needed. Notice it took the experts a few cruises to see the damage. An opening for a drydock on the west coast may take months.

[rabys]

I asked a contact at NCL about the engine problems on the Star. Got this response a couple of days ago... "I have heard and it is only going to be the next couple of sailings and they will have it taken care of. Your sailing is still going as planned."

 

This couple of sailings would include the 3/6 sailing. I'm sailing on 4/23/2007. Guess we'll know more soon.

 

stan

[lolastar]

They didn't tell us until we were already aboard. The ship was 3 1/2 hours late coming in so we couldn't board until after 2:00 pm. Some people were lined up for 4-5 hours ouside the terminal. They did give us $50.00 each on board credit and the option to opt out but we had to take another cruise by Dec/07. We had flown to LA from Canada already so we had already incurred a fair amount of expense. I suspect they will continue to follow this route with the new ports for a while. We weren't impressed with the new ports.

[melika091900]

They didn't tell us until we were already aboard. The ship was 3 1/2 hours late coming in so we couldn't board until after 2:00 pm. Some people were lined up for 4-5 hours ouside the terminal. They did give us $50.00 each on board credit and the option to opt out but we had to take another cruise by Dec/07. We had flown to LA from Canada already so we had already incurred a fair amount of expense. I suspect they will continue to follow this route with the new ports for a while. We weren't impressed with the new ports.

 

 

the same thing happened to us on NCL star last jan, in 2006, and so we booked NCL star again in nov 2006 and got to see ixtapa and acapulco,

acapulco is nothing, we didnt miss anything from not seeing it the 1st time,,

i was just glad that they added ports ,,, when we went on carnival to the caribbean , we missed cayman islands, and all we got was an extra sea day, no extra stop, so at least NCL is adding the other places for people,.

im sorry you didnt enjoy the other places. but at least you had them to go to,,

take care everyone

Melissa

[crazy4tweety]

We were very disappointed at first too especaill since we had alot plan in

acapulco but I enjoyed the new ports. We really loved matzalan we walk all around I love the little squares where just sit and listen to the music and the quaint restuarnts around the square. We met a man from canada there who lives there 6 monhts of the year he told us what to see we don't likealot of touristy thing which the golden zone there is we didnt go there we went to thing like the flowers factory they had beautiful flowers where they make all diffent shapes. We went in the market we walk along the boardwalk and made it in time to see a cliff diver. I guess we like the new ports because they remind us of old mexico. In Manzanillo my husband really got to use his spanish trying to get things across his spanish is not great better than my because my is zilch but we walk and walk there on backroads also so got to see how the peole lived and to us this is an experience. I do agree the wait to get on the ship was horrible they did give us a free tour around LA because they said the ship was not ready but when we came back we stilll sat on the bus for an hour.

I guess we can be thankful we did get the ports and not extra sea day than we would of had alot of upset people.Tweety

[CRUZIN TOM]

We were on the Star for both sailings, one with Acapulco and one with out. We found that Manzanzillo is a cute little town, not much there in the way of Jewelry, but a very nice place to visit. You will miss nothing in Acapulco except for the cliff divers, which we didn't see. The cost is too much on the ship and there is nothing to see in town. This is a very large city and does not do much today for the tourist industry as in the past years ago. Mazatlan is your typical mexican stop for shopping, Be sure and go downtown, if you want to see what the city is really like. The golden circle that the ship pushes for shopping is your typical tourist shopping. :)

[MsMiMi]

Yup, I was on the Star for this sailing. I was very disappointed because of the way the situation was handled by NCL. Mainly because this was not a NEW problem that just happened, NCL knew they were having troubles for weeks before this happened and didn't bother to inform any of us sailing until after waiting 4-5 hrs to get on the ship. On the Feb. 11th sailing, they had the same problem and reversed the ports and drove in reverse to Cabo, and supposedly fixed the problem, and finished out the regularly scheduled ports. Just seems like to me, that they could have informed us a lot better than they did. All we got was a muffled, low monotone announcement by the captain 30 minutes before sailing... it could have been handled much better than it was.

I was glad that they did replace the 2 ports with others, if they had just added sea days, I would have been really upset! And yes, we did get more time in these ports - which was nice. Manzanillo was 10-6pm, PV was 7am-6pm, Mazatlan was 8am-6pm, and Cabo was 7-3. (Cabo could have been a lot longer- felt like we were there no time - tender port.)

Also, interesting enough, both engines were going strong at night and on the return trip to LA.?!?

 

For those of you getting ready to sail on the Star in the next couple of months, I'd say you'll be doing the same itinerary we just did. (Going by what the staff onboard was saying - the "real workers", not the ones working the registration desk and repeating what they are told to tell the public.) Having said that, lemme say that I made the best of the itinerary change and really did enjoy myself at these ports. Manzanillo- not so much, but liked Matzalan alot. If you are like myself and book excursions privately and through the internet, my suggestion to you would be to do your research for all of these ports and make your plans accordingly. This was the biggest frustration for me. I had to use their 75cents/min. internet to change all my plans... and at that price I really couldn't do any research for the 2 other ports. In the end, it all worked out... but I would have been much happier if I had known that this was a possibility and could have been a little more prepared for these 2 other ports.

 

I will be posting my review for this cruise soon. If anyone has any questions for me, I'd be happy to answer.

Anyone who has this cruise coming up, I'd strongly recommend purchasing travel insurance!!!! Too much uncertainty. Our itinerary also had us back in LA at 9am instead of 7am - which was stressful for those of us flying out of LAX early afternoon. We did make our flight with no problem, but it would have been nice to have the insurance to change to a later flight without any stress.

[G&L in WPG]

I keep reading repeatedly that there are problems with the "engines" and/or the Azipods on the Star (note that is spelt Azipod, and not Apizod). Last week at our meet and greet on the Star, we were told by the Captain and Senior Officer's that the problem was with one of the four motors that generate electricity to run the engines (and everything else on the ship). The housing of the motor is actually cracked. The motor is under warranty with General Electric, but if they run the motor while knowing it is damaged, it will void the warranty. The damage was discovered while doing scheduled routine maintenace. This results in not having sufficient electrical capacity to run the ship any faster than 21 knots.