Norwegian Star Review

4.0 / 5.0
2,583 reviews

Never On NCL Again

Review for Alaska Cruise on Norwegian Star
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CruiseGeek123
First Time Cruiser • Age 70s

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Sail Date: Jul 2008
Cabin: Mini-Suite with Balcony

As a first time cruiser I was very excited to go to Alaska. We where celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary and looking forward to a wonderful time. We flew out of Ontario Airport in California on Alaska Airlines. My wife requires wheelchair assistance as she cannot walk very far easily and on the trip out had wonderful help. I had booked us a limo service to take us from SEATAC to our hotel, the Marriott Waterfront, with Classic Town Car Service and for $45 each way is worth the money. The Marriott only had rooms in the concierge level and I will book this again as the service is wonderful. Our room was great overlooking the bay with a small balcony but we where able to see the 4th of July fireworks from our room and that was nice. The bellman assisted us with our luggage walking across the street to the cruise terminal and this is where the fun stopped! The person that was checking us in for the cruise could not handle my wife's passport and green card without assistance and it took 30 minutes just to get checked in. We finally get on board and we are directed to the Market Cafe to wait for our cabin to be ready. This is the buffet? Please let it be because it's the first day of the cruise and they are a little rushed. But sadly no the cold "hot" food, flavorless, stale bread, and little variety is what was on the menu the two other times we tried it. Our cabin was larger than I expected but we packed way too much and did not have room for all of our clothes. We took advantage of the pressing service for the first day and it was reasonably priced. Now I have to say my wife and I enjoy eating out in restaurants and we where eagerly anticipating the great food everyone raved about on cruise ships. We where bitterly disappointed along the way. We found the food in the specialty restaurants Cagney's and Ginza to be only fair and not worth even the cover charge. My rib eye was boneless and not very flavor full and my wife, for an additional charge, had the surf and turf with a very tough lobster tail. Ginza was ok but I would not return if it was in my home town. We did get good food and service in Le Bistro and Soho, but they could not make up for the rest of the food on the rest of the trip. The free dining rooms where overcrowded with food that would be sent back in a Denny's. Now the room service was the real joker. My wife loves room service, her idea of roughing it is a hotel without room service. The room service is limited to cold cereal in the morning and omelet, come on people no bacon, no sausage, and we are going to Alaska, how about at least oatmeal. Lunch and dinner are even worse 5 cold sandwiches, hot dogs and hamburgers. You cannot even get the food that is being served in the dinning rooms. The shore excursions where very expensive, our first trip the crab boat in Ketchikan, I would highly recommend to any fan of Deadliest Catch, with Captain Dave and Kiwi. We had a great trip on there boat and the bald eagles where fantastic. My wife was not feeling well in Juneau so we where out the money for our whale watching tour. The Skagway train ride was pretty good and we went to the Salmon Bake in Liarsville that was way better than the food on the ship. We did meet a couple in Skagway that was raving about the food on Princess so we will try that next time. We will definitely go on a cruise again, but you will never ever catch me on Norwegian Cruise Line.

Cabin Review

Mini-Suite with Balcony

Cabin MB

Hallway too noisy. Kids running up and down the hallway.

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