My husband and I were very excited to take our first cruise. We were told the Windstar Star Pride was a new ship and that idea was only furthered by Windstar’s promotions.

We did not expect to walk onto the Star Pride and immediately notice from the furnishings and smell that it was NOT new in any way. I remember saying to my husband, “ I think this is a huge mistake.” Apparently the ship was new in 1988 and in dry dock for about 18 days where carpets were replaced and common areas were "refreshed".

Our Classic Suite, which we paid an additional 4,000.00 to upgrade to, was in extremely poor shape and run down. We had been told there were floor to ceiling windows yet there were regular sized portholes looking out onto a public deck. Our bathroom consisted of yellow rust stains, tape peeling off from the mirror as well as large ugly patches of caulking. I didn’t ever dare to look at the state of our mattress. Our satellite phone, which was always on the charger, wouldn’t hold a charge and would beep whenever we attempted to use it. When we called for a late night snack we were told that after 10pm only cold food was available. The bath towels were something you would find at a car wash. Above our bed the ceiling panels were not put together correctly and had dark handprints on them from maintenance workers. The furnishings were old and outdated. I put our valuables into the safe and when I went to retrieve them the safe would not open because the batteries had died. We had to call maintenance and wait for them to unlock the safe. Flat screen televisions are advertised and the TV we had in our bedroom was from the 90s. Read more