I sailed on the Star Princess on October 28, 2006 to Canada and New England. First let me start by telling you about my cruise history. This was my 10th cruise, and first with Princess. I have sailed on Carnival four times, Royal Caribbean four times, and NCL once. My previous cruises were to the Bahamas, Caribbean, and Alaska. I sailed on this cruise with my dad (54), and my cousin (30). I am 31, and we are all single. My last cruise was on the Carnival Miracle one week before this cruise (please see my Carnival Miracle October 15 review). I spent this summer working for Princess in Alaska (not on a ship), and was excited to finally sail on a Princess ship. This review is rather long, but I wanted to be as detailed as possible.

EMBARKATION We arrived at the Brooklyn cruise ship terminal at about 12:30. My father is handicapped, and uses a wheelchair to get around on occasion, so we reserved one for onboard use, and booked an accessible cabin. A ship employee brought a wheelchair over to the car, and took my dad through the entire process, and wheeled him to our cabin. We were whisked through the security line, and our bags were checked. As our bags went through the X-ray scanner, the agent noticed something of concern, so she told the other agent to check my cousin's bag for a cigar cutter. I told her that would be in a smaller bag, and pointed the bag out. She told me I was wrong and had the agent check my cousins bag. After about 15 seconds of looking through the bag, he told her he saw nothing. She shrugged her shoulders and said, "OK, let them go." Pretty scary security check!! Next we got to the check in agent. She was very nice. She explained that, since this was the last cruise of the season, they removed all of the computers the day before and everything was being done manually. The process was very quick, and we were on the ship within 10 minutes. I also asked about the wheelchair that we reserved for my father, but I was told I have to check with the Purser's desk to see if they have an extra one. My father said he would do without it for the week. Not the service I expected since I specifically filled out the information on the forms for a wheelchair. It is a good thing my father was not relying on the wheelchair. CABIN We reserved an inside accessible cabin. We originally planned on a mini suite, but there were no other accessible cabins available when we booked several months before the cruise. We were on the Emerald deck, cabin E716 which is in the rear of the ship. The cabin was very nice. It was about 330 square feet including a "living room" which had a sleeper sofa, a refrigerator and sink, several large closets, and 2 televisions. The bathroom and shower were large as well. This was the nicest cabin I have stayed in besides a suite on Royal Caribbean, (a balcony was the only real difference between the two). Our cabin stewart was excellent. We are not the neatest group, but he kept the cabin very clean and was very friendly.

FIRST SHIP IMPRESSION The ship is decorated very nicely. The public rooms were very comfortable and the midship lounge on Deck 7 was a nice surprise. We walked around all of the decks prior to setting sail. The only thing I was unhappy with at the beginning of the cruise was the fact that you could not walk across an entire deck straight through. I will tell you more about that later. All in all the ship was beautiful. Read more