Norwegian Star Review

4.0 / 5.0
2,583 reviews

Not so

Review for the Mexican Riviera Cruise on Norwegian Star
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bigjac52
First Time Cruiser • Age 70s

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Sail Date: Oct 2008
Cabin: Mid-Ship Oceanview Porthole Window

We tried Norwegian for the first time on October 18th for a 7 night cruise out of Los Angeles to the Mexican Riviera. We flew Southwest from Harlingen, Tx, boarded prime time shuttle $32.00 round trip per person to the cruise port in San Pedro. Thanks to other reviews we saved about $100 over using a cab. We arrived at the cruise terminal about 1:30, the line to check in was all the way down the sidewalk. Took about 90 minutes to get checked in. We proceeded directly to our cabin and found that our luggage had already arrived. Went up to the Market buffet to get some food and stayed on deck until we sailed.

Our last 8 cruises had been on Carnival so we were excited to not be locked into a dinner time. We opted for the Aqua restaurant on the first night. Food was ok nothing great the service was slow and fairly unresponsive. Followed dinner with a trip to the casino. Found the slots to be tight, played some craps and blackjack and headed to the cabin. The bed was hard making for a difficult night of tossing and turning. I asked our room steward for pad and he put and egg crate pad on that afternoon making the bed much more comfortable. Sunday night we decided to give the Aqua restaurant another try. Again the food was average but the service was even slower and not friendly. This remained a constant during the cruise. I think the servers know that they probably won't see you again during the cruise and they just don't seem to care. We scored Free Style Dining a "C" and believe that assigned seating nets better service from the servers. There are several choices for up charge restaurants on board ranging from $15 to $25. Cagney's steak house was good but definitely not worthy of the $40 SURCHARGE. The Blue Lagoon open 23 hours a day served up good comfort food (burgers, wings etc) but was always crowded and had very limited seating. Midnight buffets non existent, room service your best bet for late night snacks. The NORO Virus reared its ugly head on Tuesday and from that point on you couldn't even get your own glass of water. Speaking of which it was hard to find water, ice, tea, coffee or juice without going into one of the restaurants.

Entertainment was lame, Second City from Chicago was the only true professional act on board for two nights. Their first night scripted show was definitely good, but they followed that up with two very uninspiring performances. If you like Karaoke this was obviously the wrong ship to be on. They had maybe 45 minutes per night couldn't quite figure that one out.

Cabin Review

Mid-Ship Oceanview Porthole Window

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