Short Review: NCL Star

[PDX2Cruiser]

My wife and I got back from a wonderful cruise on the Star last week. I've been on 4 cruises and this one was our most enjoyable. I won't go into blow by blow detail about the Star, it's already highly rated and our experience concurred with that rating. So here are a few comments:

 

Food - Food was great with rare exception (and those were usually because I was trying food I'd simply never tried in my life). We ate in the two main restaurants, the buffet, Endless Summer (Tex Mex), Ginza (Asian Fusion), and Le Bistro. We had very good food at every venue we tried. Ginza was my favorite. I actually preferred the food at Endless Summer (free Specialty) over Le Bistro (normally $15 each, but free for us via a special). But we enjoyed Le Bistro as well.

 

Entertainment - I've always viewed cruise ship entertainment as fun and always worth going to because it's free. I was shocked that the musical entertainment wasn't just average or good, it was excellent. They had two different kinds of singers on board and they were both great. The bands were great too. Let me say I've never come remotely close to considering saying that good about music on any cruise ship. They also brought in the Second City Comedy Troupe. We saw every act. The first was a staged act, the rest were improvisation. I laughed so hard I was in tears and had to stop to make sure I was still breathing. Overall we were both shocked at how good the entertainment was on this ship.

 

Staff - I thought the service was average. Not bad, but not great either. The staff on the Sun two years ago was better. However we had no bad service experiences on this ship, we just didn't have as many special service experiences.

 

This is a big, wonderful ship with a great layout. We're thinking about sailing it to the Mexican Riviera.

[Fisical1]

How was your cabin? Did you have trouble making reservations for the restaurants?

[mommyof2]

Thank you for the review! I love hearing everyone's opinions! Did you do any excursions? What did you think about them?

[PDX2Cruiser]

How was your cabin? Did you have trouble making reservations for the restaurants?

 

We had an oceanview balcony. We were satisfied with our cabin. It was very similar in most respects to the one we had on the NCL Sun 2 years ago. Space for clothing can be relatively tight, you have to use every shelf (I recall 7 shelves and 3 small drawers, plus 18 hangars). Balcony chairs are better than on the Sun, however they're slightly too large for the size of the balcony. I'd rather have these chairs than the smaller ones on the Sun.

 

Some restaurants are more popular than others. You can make reservations the day before. Expect a need to be assertive to make reservations at Cagney's, Le Bistro, Endless Summer, and La Tattoria the free Italian restaurant (I might be murdering the name). Ginza tends to be easier, not sure about the others. We tried 3 times to make reservations at the Italian restaurant and struck out all 3 times (I kept not calling early enough). Later eating times tend to be available regardless. Keep in mind that after 9pm it's 2 for 1 at all specialty restaurants.