My wife and I sailed on the Star Princess in mid-October out of Venice through the Greek Isles with stops in Athens, Croatia and Ephesus, Turkey. It was a beautiful ship. The accommodations were very comfortable and the staff, for the most part, quite helpful. We were very satisfied with the ship's tours: they were well arranged with excellent guides. We took this cruise because of the locations offered and came away well satisfied with with where we went and what we saw. This was all to the good but not everything was. There were 2600+ passengers on board and although the ship obviously had room for all of them, there was a constant sense of crowding. Moreover, we and our group --- we travelled with 4 other couples --- were part of the 8 PM Dinner Seating. At least three times during our cruise, this seating started late, once almost 15 minutes late while everyone waited in the halls and on the stairs. Even when we were seated on time, there was a constant sense of being rushed as waiters hurried by trying to serve everyone. More than once we were obliged to leave before dessert so that we could make the 10:15 show. The best we could say for the food is that it was ok, nothing more. As one of our group described it one night, "This is like eating in a cafeteria."
We made sure to get copies of our ongoing bill every few days from the Purser's Office and I recommend strongly that anyone cruising do this. The very first print-out contained a charge that was incorrect: we were charged for using a water taxi from the ship to Venice on the morning of our sailing. My wife went to the Purser's Office to contest this. They told her that they had placed two water taxi tickets in our room and unless they were returned, you were automatically charged. She pointed out that l) we had never seen the tickets and 2) how could we have been in Venice that morning when we were on a ship's tour of Murano! The charge was removed but not on her first visit. They insisted that she search our room for the tickets and return them. When she returned the next day with no tickets and insisted that the charge be removed, it was removed finally and reluctantly. The people in the next cabin had the same problem. Don't miss the method the ship was using here: they leave you the tickets and presume you use them unless you return them. Is this any way to do business?
Now we come to what constitutes the heart of this cautionary tale. A few days into the cruise, I was returning from a tour and, following instructions from Security, placed my camera on the X-Ray belt. The person in front of me was wanded and while I was delayed 30 to 45 seconds, my camera was stolen from the belt, presumably by a fellow passenger. This was bad enough but how it was handled by the ship's personnel made matters much worse. The immediate response of Security was, "We didn't do it" and "Go to the Purser's Office and fill our a Loss and Damage Report." I did that. There is no "Stolen Property" report. The following day, the manager of Passenger Relations contacted me and through her, I received the loan of a digital camera for the rest of the cruise plus the assurance that the ship would develop the pictures gratis. (They did). I told her that I had asked at the Purser's Office for someone from Security to contact me and no one had. She arranged for that to happen the following day. The Security person who called me at 8:15 the next morning told me that they were reviewing the tapes of the incident to see if they could determine who had taken my camera from the belt. That evening the Passenger Relations manager called me with a request from Security: Security had determined that I had reentered the ship 2X on the day of the theft and wanted to know at which time the camera had been stolen. This question told me that when the Security person said in the morning that they had been reviewing the tapes, he had not been telling me the truth. It was more than 48 hrs. after the incident and only now was Security trying to ascertain when the camera had been stolen.