Star aft 8176 and 8676 and mini review

[DareTooDream]

Alright - maybe not so mini of a review;) We enjoyed our cruise and will likely go back. Some of my comments may seem a bit random, but they're things I noted due to reading questions/comments on here. I'm trying to give back!

 

I had posted to someone on the board that I would take some cabin pictures. Here's the link (hopefully it works) to some pictures of the cabins. The cabins are similar of course and so probably all the pictures weren't necessary. Oh well!

http://community.webshots.com/album/570689510VQgDNh?start=0

 

These are aft balconies, next to each other, but do not have an adjoining door. We had asked for the balcony divider to be removed. They said it would be done while in port. It never was. We didn't press it. The center of the ship is between the cabins so you have a different cabin steward and different muster stations (one port one starboard).

 

We didn't notice any ship/engine type noise. When on the balcony, the water was pretty loud though. It was not disturbing - just sounded like you were sitting by a waterfall or a rushing river. When inside with the door shut though, we didn't hear it. We'd had an aft balcony once before on Carnival's Destiny. We don't remember hearing the water like that. Possibly because the back of the Destiny is angled and we weren't directly above the water.......don't know. I only noticed soot on the railing once and that was the last day or so - it was only little bits. I don't know if there was some everyday and our steward cleaned it up before I saw it, or we were just lucky. There were two chairs and the back had a few adjustable reclining settings. There was a little round table. This is only a guess but I'd say the balcony was about 5' by 11'.

 

There was a small fridge. We asked the stewards to remove all the mini-bar items (including a few snacks out of the fridge). We also had them remove the coffe pot and accessories. There was a hair dryer. I believe it was 1000 watts. I did not use it. There's a tiny vanity type area with a stool and a mirror where the hair dryer is. I don't think the lighting was very good for applying make-up, but I didn't need that much:) There is one plug there. It was the only one we could get to besides the one in the bathroom. My son tried to see what was behind the tv but it wouldn't move. We always take a power strip because of needing to charge cameras, video, lap tops (not phones:)). Fortunately is has a long enough cord so when we were downloading pictures and the like on the lap top we could sit on the little sofa or the bed instead of the vanity. It wouldn't reach to the balcony though.

 

You can get bar soap for the shower from your room steward. Being plus size I tried a rough measurement of the opening into the toilet area. I used my arm - elbow to fingers. Problem is I don't remember exactly where it hit. Anyway a guesstimate is that the opening is about 15"-16". Although it's not roomy, it's suitable inside. The opening for the shower was wider - about 20" or so. I think it was about the roomiest cabin shower I've been in.

 

We're not fans of the Bliss Beds. We think they're hard. However, we were able to get an egg crate topper put on by the steward. There was ample drawer and closet space. The safe has key pad - no need to worry about the magnetic strip on a card. We liked the location. Although in the back, it was convenient to most things.

 

Food - I suppose there's something for everyone somewhere on the ship. We tried Cagney's and Endless Summer (good guacamole). We enjoyed Blue Lagoon numerous times.

 

We partook in two wine tastings (I think three were offered?-italian, french and old world), one beer tasting (I think two were offered?), and one martini tasting (I think two were offered?). We enjoyed them all. I don't particularly recommend the wine tasting and the martini tasting in the same day. They were scheduled at 12:30 and 2:30 respectively. We did grab about a 40 minute nap in between. :D We did not partake in the mojito/muddling tasting nor the whiskey one!

 

Two of the 4 of us did one ship excursion - the ziplining in Puerto Vallarta. They enjoyed it.

 

In Cabo we pretty much just hit spots I'd read about on here. Tendering - they were to start giving out tender tickets at 9:30 in the Endless Summer. You have to walk through there to get anywhere from our cabin (unless you take go up/down a floor) and we coincidentally ended up there about 9:25. The line wrapped all the way around - basically from the check in area of the restaraunt roughly near the center elevators, around the restaraunt passing by the other side of the elevators and going down the stairwell. We went ahead and stayed in line. It didn't take terribly long, but I didn't note the times. After our buffet breakfast we were going back to our cabin and the staff person was still there to hand out tickets to straglers and we stopped to talk to her a bit. She said the first person got in line at 7am. I did not ask how quickly the line grew after that.... I imagine that person had their own excursion booked and needed to get off the ship perhaps. She said it takes roughly 1 hour for 1000 tickets/people to get off. There were 1000 tickets per "color". We were in the 2nd color, #80-#83. I didn't notice the time when they announced we had been cleared. It was about 11. Our tender #'s were called about 12:15. We were in Cabo by 1. Someone in our party wanted to start at Cabo Wabo - we had 4 alcoholic drinks, two cokes (the second one was basically a refill), chips and salsa, and nachos (I don't think they really count as nachos). We only ordered the little bit of food so we weren't drinking on an empty stomach;) Our bill was around 650 pesos - I don't remember exactly. We found Gordo Leles. Wonderful food! The best all week! We had two beers, two sodas, 7 tacos, and 2 quesadillas. Our bill was only 200 pesos. Javier and Raul(?) were very nice. We mentioned to them we were going to have the "hot tub size" margarita (read about here) at the Corner Cafe and Raul said hesitatingly...o.k... I asked him if we should go somewhere else. He said the Monkey Bar (or maybe Monkey Business). He said it's just past Gigglin Marlin - there's a place called Sangrias and then there's this little open area with a few shops. The bar is an open air, thatched roof place. Fernando makes wonderful margaritas. He uses fresh lime juice, fresh orange juice, a few bottles of stuff. Yummy. He's good entertainment too. We had 8 margaritas total (not each:D) and the bill was $59. We were headed back to the ship when we passed Slims. Of course we had to join the 4 customers in there so we could fill the place to capacity. We had 3 beers total - I have no idea what the price was.

 

In Mazatlan we took a taxi to the Golden Zone and walked around a bit. We parked ourselves at Joes Oyster Bar (the ships shopping guy suggested it). It's near the Ramada. We had shrimp and chips and of course beer.

 

Numerous people did the self disembark/carry your own luggage off thing. How's that for verbage! The gangway was on deck 6. The line went up the center stairs to deck 7 and down the hallway forward all the way and double backed on itself at least back through the photo area. I observed this because I went to buy a picture I'd been too late to get the night before. I think that was about 8:15am - not too sure. We had the first color of luggage tags that wasn't spoken for - like for suites, or shore excursions, etc. We were off by 9:30.

 

Hope this is helpful to some of you!

[zimmerjulie]

Thanks for the review. We sail the day after tomorrow!

[hello]

I enjoyed your photo's and review -- thank you!

[faithsdave]

Thanks for the comments and the photos. Both very helpful.

[rsohn65820]

Thank you for the review and the pictures. We are in an aft balcony on the Star in October cabin 10230. It is great to be able to get an idea of what the cabin will look like. We can't wait. Thank you.

[ehschief]

When we did this cruise a few months back, we went to the Monkey Bar..agreed a great place.

[rikatine]

Thank you for the cabin pictures. Never too many for me to look at. Question. Did you have to ask to have the beds separated in the one cabin? My sister and I will be cruising soon and I wondered if they have a way of "knowing" to separate the beds or what. Many say they really don't see their cabin steward so...Thanks for the review.