Star Princess Review
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My wife and I took the Star Princess cruise around the Baltic Sea and then back across the Atlantic in September 2006. Due to weather problems in Chicago, we missed the flight to Copenhagen and thus the ship. We had to spend the night at the airport since there were no hotels available due to the number of people stranded. We met up with 7 other cruise bound people at the airport and stayed together as a group. We were all on Princess travel insurance and the response from them was to keep your receipts. The next day we were booked on a flight to Stockholm, the ships next port of call. We were left on our own to get hotels and transportation to the hotels. Despite the assurance of the SAL agent that our luggage was properly transferred to the Stockholm flight, when we arrived, we learned that all of the groups luggage, except for one, had gone to Copenhagen. We never got it until the next day, just before boarding the ship. We had three different quotes on the cost of a taxi from Stockholm to Nyashamn and from speaking to other guests, everyone paid different rates. Ours cost us $90.00, which Princess Insurance would not reimburse. The policy does not cover ground transportation.
Being late for the cruise made embarking easy with no line ups. We got settled in our cabin and accustomed to the ship. However, it seemed like we were walking in on the middle of a movie and it took a few days before we seemed settled in for the cruise.
Overall, the cruise itinerary was a great cruise itinerary. We did think that the time was very short in Oslo and would have enjoyed a few more hours there. We took few organized ship tours except where the ship was docking far from the city. We only booked the two day St Petersburg tour, Gdansk Poland old city tour, Belfast Ireland past and future tour and the Iceland Circle tour. We enjoyed all the tours except the Belfast tour, the latter because of a poor guide. Most of the time, we did our own thing, Taking hop-on, hop-off bus tours, boat tours on the canals and exploring the cities by foot. In Greenock Scotland, the local tourist association offered a free 2 hour tour of the area, which they said they were not permitted to publicize on the ship. We found out about it when we walked off the ship.