Star Princess Review
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The crew on the Star Princess was the friendliest, most helpful, best skilled that I have encountered in the 15 cruises we have taken on five different lines. My wife has an allergy to gluten and the crew went out of their way to accommodate her needs. They would search her out at breakfast and lunch to give her specially prepared gluten free items. They turned it into a game with a "Hah, I found you" greeting just before giving her the latest goody that the kitchen had prepared. I enjoy a cocktail before dinner and the server in the Piazza made great effort to ensure that it was available in time and was properly prepared. Our experience in the two specialty restaurants was excellent, the food, service and ambiance were worth the extra cost.
The 15 day cruise included 10 sea days. The daytime activities for people that had been to Hawaii several times before, who didn't gamble or don't play bingo, i.e. many of the passengers, was minimal. There was one lecture series given by an Astronomer from the Mt. Wilson observatory was great. Other that some movies and trivia contests, those lectures were were the only events available.
The cabin was a near disaster! Because there was only one bedside table the only way the beds could be fashioned into a queen size was to push it up against the wall, thus ensuring that if the person sleeping on the side toward the wall they would have to climb over the other person. This was not the worst element of this cabin (and I suspect of every ocean view cabin on the Plaza deck), During periods when the ship was encountering moderate seas, the noise in the cabin was intolerable. It was not the normal creaking that we have had on many other ships, it was a crashing noise that was strong enough to make the pictures on the wall and the items on the tables rattle and move in sympathy. This extremely loud crashing noise would occur once or twice each minute. The passenger service staff did offer to find another cabin for us to sleep in on the nights that sleeping in our cabin was impossible.
Cabin Review
Do not accept this cabin. It is located in near proximity to the cargo loading door on the deck below. Moderate seas hitting that door apparently cause a resonance to build in the space behind the door. That resonance becomes a crashing noise that is transmitted through the structure of the ship to the cabins above. That crashing noise is so strong that it causes items to move in the cabin and threatens to knock the pictures off the walls. This is NOT the normal noises one hears on board a ship, it makes it impossible to sleep or even rest in this cabin. Princess should not sell this cabin (or others that suffer similar crashes) without warning the potential passengers of the intolerable condition they are about to experience.