Norweign Star Reveiw 08/08/04 sailing Part 1

[alonzo14]

We had a wonderful time. I hope to include some useable information in my review. I am doing this in parts so please bear with me. Embarkation Day: We flew in to Seattle at 10:00a.m. Sunday. We had reserved town car service to the pier. They met us at baggage claim and helped us with our luggage. It took about 20 minutes to get to the pier. The set-up outisde the terminal can be confusing. You go to a room to the right of the terminal building and go through security. Then you turn in your bags. After this you must go back outside to another room which is the cruiseline check-in entrance. We are Latitudes members, so we were directed to the Latitudes line. Check in was quick. Our ID's checked, credit card taken, and our picture taken in the check-in line. After this we were directed to a waiting area and given a boarding number. It was now 11:a.m. After a while they directed a wedding party to the ship. They said they would be boarding at 11:45-12:00p.m. We sat and waited as many people poured in. They started calling boarding numbers and the first group lined up. However after a while the line was growing longer and longer and our number had not been called yet. We finally realized that people were just coming in and getting in line to board the ship after they checked in and they stopped giving out boarding numbers. So we decided to just get in line. We would have been on sooner if they had been more organized about boarding. There were people that got on the ship before us that got there after we did. But we were on vacation and we did eventually get on the ship about 12:15. I would suggest that you watch carefully after you check in. We boarded the ship outside on the promenade deck which was unusual as we have always boarded inside the ship. We had our card scanned and took a few steps to the photographer ahead of us to have our embarkation picture taken. Then proceeded to a representative who told us which door to enter. There was one for certain decks and she suggested we take the other door as it would be faster. A little farther up there was someone who took us in and directed us to our stateroom. Soon we mwt our stewardess and her assistant. They were serving lunch in the buffet on deck 12 aft. You could also go to a full sit down lunch in the Aqua restaurant. This is what we did. The restaurant was not very full and we had a pleasant lunch. The food was good. One thing that the waiters in all of the restaurants did the first two days was try to sell bottled water and mineral water as well as wine. But this tapered off after the first two days. After having lunch we started exploring the ship until the 3:45p.m. lifeboat drill. On your embarkation card it tells you where to meet. Ours said the Stardust Lounge Group J. We weren't sure what this referred to until we asked someone after we checked in at the terminal. We never went outside. They just took names and went over how to put on your jacket and saftey rules. By the time we got up out of our seats in the Stardust we were ALREADY sailing. I was dissappointed that we were not able to be up on deck when we shoved off. We ran to our rooms and put away our lifejackets and went up to the pool deck for the sailaway party in progress. I must say it was a glorious day for sailaway. The sky was all blue and it was warm. They had a poolside BBQ with salads,braed, ribs, burgers., hotdogs and steak. The Ironics were really jammin. They are an inpressive band and play all kinds of music. Our cruise director Kieron Buffery introduced himself and got the crowd going. We sailed right on time at 4:00p.m. They had the usual ship and spa tours and the casino opened 4 and 1/2 hours after sailing. After we had lunch we made reservations for the Teppanyaki Room in the Ginza and for Le Bistro the next day. There was just one other couple with us that evening. The food was very good. We had the imperial feast which was 5 prawns, 4 shrimp and a seven ounce sirloin steak with veggies and fried rice. You also got an appetizer, salad and dessert, which was ice cream or fruit plate for a 15.00p.p. cover charge. During the evening they had a slot tournament, the shops opened at 6:p.m.. There was pub team trivia, free gaming lessons in the casino at 8:00p.m., Karaoke at 9:00p.m. and the welcome abord show at 9:45 only. They also showed Agent Cody Banks 2 at 8:30p.m. in the cinema. There was a Bon Yoyage Dinner in both restaraunts. Stay tuned for Part 2.

[seahorse]

Thank You so much for your review.

 

If I may make a suggestion? Can you please use paragraphs:)

 

These old eyes find it difficult to read a "run on" single one:eek:

[TamaLee]

Thanks for the review. I don't know if you noticed this, but from the back of the ship could you tell if the corner aft rooms had balconies that wrapped around? These would be the rooms on deck 8 and 9. Thanks!

[didan]

Alonzo,

 

Thanks so much for posting this - I'm taking notes as we are leaving on th 8/29 sailing. Looking forward to the rest!

[Zeno]

My kind of review - lots of detail ! Keep going - I want to hear more.

[alonzo14]

Thank you all for your kind words. Seahorse: Yes I will try to use paragraphs. Tamalee: No they do not wrap around. They have a metal wall there where they would continue wrapping around.

[cruise 'n shopper]

Thanks for your very detailed report! The advice about embarkation was very helpful. I would have been sitting there until our number was finally called since I naturally try to follow all the rules.

 

Less than two weeks to go!

[pcann]

Where's part 2?

[zimmerjulie]

Thanks alonzo! See you in part 2