Star Princess Review
Very Good, Not Excellent; Nice Itinerary and Port
Rating by category
Additional details
We sailed on the Star Princess from San Francisco to the west coast of Mexico ("Mexican Riviera) in February 2015. Our choice was motivated by the time of year, the departure port, the itinerary (Mexico Pacific coast) and it wasn't Carnival.
We booked through a travel agent in Canada. Administratively there were no glitches at all, but we did drive our agent crazy with price drops. After booking, we signed up for a Cruise Critic Price Drop notification. And notify they did. Princess must have grossly over priced our cruise at the outset, because we went through SIX re-bookings including two upgrades before the price finally locked in (three months before sailing is normal). In the end our fare went from about 3500 CAD to about 2500 CAD.
Stayed over in San Francisco at the SW Hotel on Broadway at the entrance to Chinatown. Quite serviceable and reasonably priced, overall we gave it a 4.
Cabin Review
Balcony
Layout was out a lot better than other lines and ships: made better use of the small available space. Despite the age of the ship most of the furniture and fixtures were un-damaged, solid and they worked.The balcony in the "BB" cabin while small was certainly adequate for the two of us. Don't spend the extra money on a "premium balcony" cabin which is the same size room, but a much larger balcony.