Norwegian Star Cruise Review by Spaniel Lover

We cruised in early April, and the weather was cool in Los Angeles but great in Mexico! The first day of the cruise (an at-sea day) was a little on the cool side, as we were still a bit too far north to get much heat... but by the second day things had gotten very nice. By the time we got to Acapulco on the third day, the air temperature was in the low 80s and even the ocean water temperature was 80 degrees! Quite a change from Los Angeles, where the air temperature was in the 60s and the water temperature was 60 degrees.

This was our third cruise, and first with NCL. About three months prior to this cruise, we did a 5-day cruise on the Carnival Elation down to Cabo San Lucas... so that cruise was very fresh in our minds, and it was easy to see some differences between Carnival and NCL in general and between the Carnival Elation and the Norwegian Star in particular. Much of this review will focus on those differences.

Right off the bat I have to give NCL a bunch of points over Carnival just based on the itinerary. Carnival's 5-day cruise on the Elation only makes two stops: Ensenada and Cabo San Lucas. Ensenada is a complete waste of your time, and NCL does not stop there. So, that right there is a nice advantage for NCL. Both stop at Cabo San Lucas, which is a great place where you can have LOTS of fun. Our 8-day NCL cruise also hit Puerto Vallarta, Zihuatenejo/Ixtapa, and Acapulco... which puts the 8-day NCL cruise way ahead of the 5-day Carnival cruise. Of course, Carnival does offer a 7-day cruise to the Mexican Riviera... which is one you might want to consider instead of the 5-day.

Besides the differences in itineraries, the other big thing that NCL has going for it is the whole Freestyle Cruising thing. We found that it was a very good fit for our lifestyle. Our biggest complaint about the Carnival cruise was the fact that if you wanted to eat in the main dining room, you had to sit at a big table with a bunch of strangers. Small talk at dinner with a bunch of strangers is just not our idea of fun... let alone having to be dressed up for it. So we really loved the ability to get a table for two for each and every meal on our NCL cruise, even the ones in the main dining rooms. That's a huge advantage in our book for NCL over Carnival. The other thing about freestyle cruising that we really liked was the overall more casual level of dress. Formal night on a Carnival ship means some seriously formal dress. Formal night on an NCL ship (and there was only one in eight days) meant people dressed nicer than normal, but I don't recall seeing even one man in a tuxedo that night. Forgetting formal night and just focusing on the other 7 nights of our cruise: I brought along a pair of Dockers and a few long sleeve dress shirts and that was just fine for the fancier restaurants. In fact, there were an awful lot of guys in nice blue jeans and Caribbean shirts in the nicer restaurants. It was definitely a more casual dress code than dinner on a Carnival ship.

Speaking of meals... here's where we start to run in to trouble for NCL. I have to say that I enjoyed the food on the Carnival Elation much, much more than I did on the Norwegian Star. There were a couple of times on our Carnival cruise where the food tasted so good that I was truly impressed. That never happened on the Norwegian Star. In fact, a lot of the food was just "bad cafeteria" quality... and I'm not just talking about the food in the buffet restaurant. One of the big things about Freestyle cruising is the ability to choose from so many different specialty restaurants. Great idea... in concept. But after having two not-very-good meals in two different specialty restaurants, we just ate the rest in either the main restaurants (Aqua & Versailles) or in the buffet restaurant (the Market Cafe). In addition to an overall impression that the food on the Norwegian Star just was not that good, the other thing that struck me was that the portion sizes (in the non-buffet restaurants) were small. For example, we had breakfast on several different mornings in the Versailles restaurant, and I ordered hash browns with my meal. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the serving size of the hash browns was the size of a small post-it note: a rectangle, 1.5 x 2 inches! Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, and I've probably had breakfast in a hundred different restaurants over the years... but never had an order of hash browns that small! The next day, we tried Versailles for breakfast again... only this time I got smart and when I ordered the hash browns I asked for three servings. But unfortunately, when the meal arrived there was only one portion of hash browns... and it was the exact same size as it had been on our previous visit. The only large portion I had in any of the restaurants on the Norwegian Star was a fairly large steak at Cagney's steakhouse. However, it was a bit undercooked and as far as taste I would have to give it a four on a ten scale. But what really annoyed me was the size of the baked potato that came with it: a big steak deserves a really big baked potato, but that's not how things work on the Norwegian Star. It was small. The other thing that I found odd was the Star's fascination with chilled butter. Every restaurant on the ship featured chilled butter... sometimes on ice. Do they realize how hard it is to spread chilled butter on a piece of French bread, or to melt it on top of a baked potato? A good restaurant on land would serve softened whipped butter.

Speaking of food... one of the things we didn't like about our 5-day Carnival Cruise to Mexico was that they didn't serve very much Mexican food! My wife and I just love the food in the Mexican restaurants in our hometown in California, and on a cruise to Mexico we expect to eat some good Mexican food. There was just a little Mexican food on the Carnival Elation, and so when we found out about the Tex-Mex restaurant (Endless Summer) on the Norwegian Star, we thought we were in for a real treat. We even fantasized about having dinner at Endless Summer as often as every other night on our cruise. But after our first meal at Endless Summer, we threw that thought right out the door! Let's just say that if we went to a Mexican restaurant in our hometown with this quality of food, we wouldn't go back for a second time. I loved their tortilla soup, but the nachos appetizer was just so-so and I truly did not care for the beef burrito entree. The day before our cruise, I had enjoyed a lunch of fajitas at a "Chile's" restaurant back at home. At Endless Summer, the guy at the next table ordered fajitas and let me just say that it was about 1/4 the serving size and didn't look anywhere near as good as what I had at Chile's a few days earlier. Speaking of "the guy at the next table"... wow, they really cram the tables close together at all the restaurants on the Star! At Endless Summer, the next table was literally less than one foot from our table! It really made it difficult to have a private romantic conversation at dinner.

A couple of nights later they served what they called "Mexican Snacks" out on the pool deck late at night... and I actually enjoyed that a lot more than our meal at the Tex-Mex specialty restaurant. If I could wave a magic wand and change one thing on the Norwegian Star, it would be to offer Mexican food in one of the lines in the buffet restaurant every night. They actually sort of attempt it... there's an incredibly lame taco bar available every night. How lame? There's no ground beef or shredded beef available for the tacos! The only thing vaguely close to it in the taco bar is "chile con carne"... which is chili with a little bit of ground meat mixed in. Imagine opening a can of chili from the grocery store and making a taco out of it. That's just not my idea of a good taco. A taco bar needs some shredded beef (seasoned with Mexican spices) as well as some chicken and some fish for those that don't like beef tacos.

I feel like I've gotten off on a bit of a rant... so let's go to an area where NCL really beats the heck out of Carnival: musical entertainment. Both ships had several places where you could go and see live music performed... we just enjoyed it a LOT more on the Norwegian Star. There wasn't a single musical act on the Elation that we enjoyed to the point of wanting to sit down for a long period and just listen and enjoy. On the Norwegian Star, there were actually several! We knew we were in for a treat practically from the first hour we were onboard. We started exploring the ship and as we walked through the main atrium area there was this great three piece band playing: a flute player, a guitar player, and a violin player. They call themselves "The Manila Trio"... and they were truly talented and entertaining. We sat for long periods and listened to them, and then came back several more times throughout the 8-day cruise to hear them again. They play instrumental versions of old light rock songs from the 70's, 80's, and 90's. We were fans from the minute they played an obscure old song from the 70's that we had played at our wedding in 1981.

The non-musical entertainment (such as the Broadway-style production shows in the main theater, and the comedy acts) were very good and were on par with what we had seen on our Carnival cruise. One aspect of the entertainment scene where we did notice a small difference between Carnival and NCL was with afternoon activities. It seemed like on Carnival there were a few more fun things to do in the afternoons such as game shows and audience participation things. We felt the Norwegian Star could have used a few more "fun" events during the day. But I do have to hand it to whoever does the hiring at NCL: you really picked a good group of folks for the "cruise director's staff". These are the people that are basically the social staff of the ship... they host the events and lead the fun. We liked them all on the Norwegian Star, as opposed to the Carnival Elation which we thought had a very odd group of misfits on the cruise director's staff!

One thing that is way better about the Carnival Elation versus the Norwegian Star is the quality of the beds. Our bed on the Elation was really nice... it may have even been more comfortable than our bed at home. They know their beds are good, too... as they offer to sell you one just like it. Our bed on the Norwegian Star was not even close to being in the same league... it was like something you'd expect at a $39-a-night motel room. Bad! After the first night, we asked our cabin steward to put an "egg crate" mattress topper on the bed... and that helped a bit. But it was still nowhere near as comfortable as the bed we had on the Elation. There's also more storage space in an Elation cabin. My wife ended up just living out of a suitcase on the Norwegian Star, since there really weren't enough drawers for the both of us.

Another problem area is the bathroom. It's small... really small. I'm a "normal-sized" person and I felt cramped when sitting on the toilet. I noticed a lot of passengers on the ship weighed in excess of 300 pounds and I have to think that they probably had real trouble using the toilet in their cabin. I was discussing this with a fellow passenger, and we decided that some of the ship's larger passengers probably had to leave their cabins and use one of the bathrooms in the ship's public areas whenever they wanted to use the toilet.

There were a lot of design elements about the Norwegian Star that we really liked, though. For example, we really liked the sloping terrace overlooking the swimming pool, which is full of tables for eating outside as well as lounge chairs for sitting in the sun. That was designed really well. In fact, I found all sorts of little design elements throughout the ship where I found myself thinking "that's really nice!" One of my favorites was a public restroom on deck 12 that had a picture window looking out the port side of the ship. I've never enjoyed such a nice view when doing my business in a men's room before! I also liked the fact that the showers in the cabins had glass shower doors, not plastic shower curtains. There were many little things like that which I noticed were better about the Star than the Elation. For all of those wonderful design elements, my hat's off to whoever designed the Norwegian Star. It really is a well designed ship. I do have to quibble a little with whoever did the interior decorating, though? Why did the feel the need to do all the carpets and bedspreads and couches in a nautical theme? It seemed tacky to me. We know we're out on the ocean... you don't need to put little nautical symbols on the carpets to remind us. Why not just use tasteful solid colors like you'd find in any decent hotel room?

While I'm speaking of the ship's design, I should also mention one other great thing about the Norwegian Star versus the Carnival Elation: balcony cabins. They're are only a few on the Elation, and there are lots and lots of them on the Star. That was another great choice made by whoever designed the Star. On a warm-weather cruise such as a Mexican Riviera cruise, you just can't beat sitting out on your own cabin balcony enjoying the view and the warm weather.

However, one area of design where the Carnival Elation really beat the Norwegian Star was regarding the buffet. The tables and chairs and overall style of the Market Cafe on the Norwegian Star was reminiscent of a food court at a Kmart store. Tacky! Tiffany's restaurant, the casual buffet on the Carnival Elation, had a much classier look and feel to it. The entire buffet dining experience on the Star really needs to be improved. I'll give you a specific example. I like omelettes for breakfast. On the Elation, every day got off to a good start with a made-to-order omelette out on the pool deck. In fact, they had two lines... each with a chef making multiple omelettes... so they could make quite a few omelettes all at the same time, and the lines went fairly fast. Right next to the omelette lines, were self-serve dispensers for beverages such as orange juice, coffee, and ice tea. That's how it's done on the Elation, and it works well. On the Norwegian Star, they also have made-to-order omelettes available out on the pool deck... but there's just one line, so it takes a while, and there are no beverages nearby. If you want a glass of orange juice or a cup of coffee, you have to go all the way indoors to the Market Cafe and get it there. That's just silly. But I do have to say that there's one nice little thing about the buffet on the Norwegian Star that Carnival should mimic on the Elation: food labels. On the Elation, it was tricky to tell what some of the items in the buffet line were... but on the Norwegian Star they had a small label above each food item identifying what the item was. For example, it's nice to know whether that's lamb, pork, or turkey that the chef is carving... or that the thing that looks like lasagna is really apple cobbler.

One of my favorite things in the world is ice cream, and on Carnival I was a bit disappointed. They did have a soft-serve ice cream machine on the Elation, but no "real" ice cream to be scooped. I was excited when I found out that the Norwegian Star offers "real" ice cream cones at a special window at the rear of the starboard side of the ship on deck 12. But let me tell you a little secret that took me a few days to figure out! If you do not specify the number of scoops you want, they will give you what would be a "child's size" portion at any ice cream parlor on land. So, if you like ice cream, ask for two scoops... the scoops are small, so two scoops would be equivalent to a single serving at a normal ice cream parlor. I never tried asking for three, but I suspect they would oblige you. One bit of bad news about the ice cream window at the aft of deck 12 is that it is open only a few hours a day... typically from about 11 AM to 5 PM. The good news is that they often offer ice cream in one of the buffet lines at the Market Cafe at dinner time. Unfortunately, it's served from a 5 gallon container which is just sitting out and the ice cream starts melting the minute they put it out. It becomes more like ice cream soup fairly quickly. If this were the inaugural cruise of the Norwegian Star, I'd understand that... but after having been in service for quite a few years now, you'd think they would have realized that leaving a tub of ice cream out in the open air on a (warm) Mexican cruise would not be such a good idea.

There were a couple of other areas where I found myself amazed that after all these years of cruising, NCL still really hadn't worked out a smooth process yet. Embarkation, for example: on the Carnival Elation, we were on the ship within about 20 minutes of pulling our luggage out of our car. It was well over an hour for the Norwegian Star. They also had some kind of screw-up regarding the encoding of the magnetic strips on the room key cards. After they announced at 1:30 PM that the rooms were all ready, we discovered that neither of our room key cards opened our cabin door. So, we headed down to the customer service desk in the atrium lobby... where we discovered a long line of our fellow guests, many of whom had the exact same problem we did. The clerk at the desk was real nice about it and was able to provide us with a new set of key cards that worked just fine... but these are the kind of problems that should only happen on the maiden voyage of a ship. After years of doing the same cruises week after week, you'd think they'd have these kind of details worked out by now! However, we did like the NCL system for debarkation better than Carnival's. We live in Southern California, so we just drive to the port. With Carnival, the people who do not have to make an airport connection are the very LAST to get off the ship. On the Elation, they asked us to vacate our cabin at around 8 AM, and we had to sit around in one of the lounges until we were allowed to finally get off the ship at around 9:30 AM. On the Norwegian Star, if you are willing and able to take all your luggage out yourself, you can be in the very FIRST group to leave. This worked well for us. We left our cabin at around 7:20 and toted our luggage through a series of long lines... but were at our car about an hour later. So, it was over an hour quicker on NCL for us than it was on Carnival. However, if you are not willing or able to haul your own luggage, the Carnival system might be better for you.

I'm not a gambler, and my wife really isn't either... but she does get a little kick out of playing bingo on a cruise ship. NCL bingo was just a little too pricey for us, though! To the best of my recollection, on the Carnival Elation you could get three bingo cards for $20. On the Norwegian Star, they push a whole array of super expensive bingo options, trying to entice you to spend well over $100 at each bingo session. The only somewhat affordable option was $29 for three cards. My wife thought Carnival bingo was good inexpensive fun, but didn't feel that same way about NCL bingo at all.

Some people laugh at the idea of bringing a computer on a vacation, but for me it is an absolute necessity to be able to get online at least once or twice a day. There are things I have to take care of, and people I deal with who can not wait a week for me to get back to them. So I loved the fact that both the Carnival Elation and the Norwegian Star had Internet access available 24/7... and it did seem to me to be a little faster Internet service on the Star. One really odd thing was that there was an Ethernet jack in our cabin... but it was dead. I had an Ethernet cable with me and connected my laptop with it, but there was nothing. There's also no wireless Internet access available in the cabins. You have to go to one of the public areas of the ship for that. If someone can point me to a cruise ship with wireless Internet access in every cabin, I'd definitely be interested! I'd even settle for a wired connection via Ethernet.

For those new to cruising, I'd like to mention a few things that you might want to pack and bring along with you. If you're like us and you have electronic items (cell phone, laptop computer, MP3 player) which you will need to charge during your cruise... you should be sure to bring a six-outlet power strip. There is just one 110-volt power outlet in the bathroom and one in the cabin... so a power strip will make your life much easier. I'd also suggest you pack a few extra hangers for the closet. It's extremely expensive to buy soft drinks such as Coca Cola on board the ship, and it's perfectly legal to bring a supply of your own... so if you've got a favorite soft drink and you have some extra room in your suitcase, I'd suggest packing some with you. We brought a 12-pack of Diet Coke with us, and when that ran out we bought another 6-pack at a little market near the dock in Puerto Vallarta. The glasses in the cabins and in the restaurants are extremely small, so you might also want to bring a medium or large sized plastic cup of some kind. Be aware that NCL does NOT allow you to bring your own alcohol on board, with the exception of wine... which they charge a hefty fee for each bottle you bring. Another thing you might want to bring is a wristwatch. There are very few clocks on board the ship, and I constantly found myself wondering how much time I had left until I had to get ready for the next thing on the schedule.

The bottom line... Will I be cruising with NCL again? I won't say never, but I think Carnival will be my first choice. I liked the food better on Carnival, which is VERY important... and I liked the bed better. The main thing I liked about the Norwegian Star was being able to eat every meal at a table for two. However, in reading about the Carnival Pride (which sails out of San Diego) I see that they offer quite a few tables for two and tables for four in their main dining room. Now that I've done the 5-day Carnival cruise to Cabo San Lucas and the 8-day NCL cruise to Acapulco, I think I ought to give the Carnival Pride a try next time and see how that compares. Others have also suggested Princess. Please don't get the wrong impression, though! I did truly enjoy my cruise on the Norwegian Star. I just think there was a lot of room for improvement, and that Carnival did a better job in a couple of important areas.

If you have comments or questions regarding what I've written here, please feel free to email me at jimzim@charter.net