Norwegian Star Review

4.0 / 5.0
2,583 reviews

NCL Star doesn't shine

Review for Alaska Cruise on Norwegian Star
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txgibsongirl
First Time Cruiser • Age 60s

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Additional details

Sail Date: Aug 2008
Cabin: Mid-Ship Balcony
Traveled with children

In 2008, a corporate website should be included in a review of any customer service experience. That being said, I should have known that I was going to have issues with NCL from the first time I logged into the NCL website. The servers were not available, or slow, and many times would not log me on even though my login/password was entered correctly. We were not able to reserve shore excursions online. Shore excursions and dinner reservations could not be booked via the TV in our cabin either.

We booked two rooms; a balcony and an interior. We expressed concern (at the time of booking) to the travel agent representative that the rooms were by the crew service areas but was assured it would not be an annoyance. At check-in, we realized it was a problem. The area around our rooms was crowded, and full of staff trying to be in one place or the other. When we entered our interior room expecting to see two upper and lower bunks for our 4 children, we were surprised with a set up for 3. We were not greeted by our stewards at check-in. Our balcony room beds were set up incorrectly. When we did not find our steward for awhile, we went to the purser desk to resolve the 4 bed situation. Unfortunately, they were not able to resolve the situation. We resolved to move the youngest child to our pull out sofa. We later found out a trundle bed was stored under one of the lower bunks which created a cabin floor with no walking space, and an upper bunk with no ladder access which I considered unsafe. I tried to laugh; I had three teenagers sleeping boy-girl and told my husband, I guess this was the only time in life I would ever give my daughter permission to sleep with two guys at the same time. I enjoyed the balcony restroom. The toilet is separated from the shower, so it was easier to be used by 2. I also enjoyed the bath robe and the spa toiletries in the shower.

The dining experience was very disappointing to put it politely. The Market Cafe was awful on the day of departure. Tables are for 6, 8 or more people and most people acted like they were not happy to share. The tables were not kept cleaned, the ice machines never worked, and the food was not good. There were many choke points, and the layouts of the serving lines were a very tight cafeteria style.

Cabin Review

Mid-Ship Balcony

Cabin BA

Good balcony room with nice restroom, too noisy, across from crew service entries, poor steward service.

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