My girlfriend and I are in our early 30's. We sailed the Mexican Rivera on the Norwegian Star November 22nd thru November 29th. We took the same Thanksgiving cruise last year on the Star. Last year the cruise was 8 days and had a slightly different itinerary. As a ship, I like the Star. This was my 19th cruise and my fourth with NCL. This is my fifth cruise this year - three with Norwegian, one with Celebrity, and one with Princess. Three were short weekend cruises and two were weeklong cruises. My favorite ship that I've ever been on is Royal Caribbean's Radiance of the Seas, which I took in 2002.

FOOD I'm a vegetarian. The food on the Star, in general, was mediocre. * BUFFET: The selection of vegetarian food on the buffet was poor. I really like that Princess has the 24-hour buffet - this buffet was often closed between meals during the day and closed for the night at 9pm. Why so early? My favorite buffet food was the pasta station and the Indian food. The cookies were absolutely great. They are using a completely different recipe then they did last year - they were exceptional. We did not see an omelet making station when we went to the breakfast buffet. I am always very disappointed that in the buffet area there are no cold non-caffeinated drinks other then water and milk available. They have the juice in the dispenser at breakfast. Why take it away? Celebrity offers lemonade and fruit juices all day long. If I ordered a pizza at home and got what was on this buffet, I would send it back. Is great pizza really that hard to make? Why can't any cruise lines do it? To be fair the Star's pizza is not the worst cruise pizza I have had.

* DINING ROOM: The wait wasn't usually bad, however, we did have to wait about 30 minutes to be seated a couple of times. A couple of nights the service was extremely slow with very long waits between courses - but the other nights were good. The service at Versailles tended to be better then the service at Aqua. The food was plated beautifully but it didn't taste nearly as nice as it looked. Many of the vegetarian options are curries. I love curry but not every night. Why can't they make a hot vegetarian soup instead of these cold fruity ones? Royal Caribbean knows how. Does anybody really like cold soup that much anyway? Last year the Mexican and Italian restaurants were free. We went to both of them last year and were not that impressed. This year you had to pay at both like all of the specialty restaurants. From what I overheard from people who went to them, they still aren't good and defiantly not worth paying extra. This change was disappointing and made the dining rooms busier. The dress code seemed to be much more lax this year compared to last. It made the dining room look unprofessional. I heard some angry people complaining that they could not get in with shorts. My opinion is if you want to dress like a slob, go to the buffet. If you want to go to the dinning rooms, have some class. Nobody is asking you to wear a suit and tie. Read more