Cabin Review

Our initial perception of the cabin was highly favorable. The Penthouse Veranda was more like a hotel room than a cruise ship cabin. There was plenty of storage for all our clothing and baggage. Admittedly, I'm more of a clothes hog than my wife, so I had two suit cases, she had one. We still didn't fill all the drawers in the cabin. There is storage in the desk, veranda, and under the safe/coffee maker. Plus the closet has shelf storage above the rail. Our hanging clothes didn't over tax the space in the closet, there was plenty of room to breath.

The bathroom was amazing from the start. Plenty of room for one. The key being one. We would not recommend two people trying to get ready at the same time. What's nice is there is a lighted makeup mirror in the desk and the hair dryer is also portable allowing my wife to use the bathroom first and shift to the desk, freeing up the bathroom for me. The shower is pure bliss for a cruise ship, hotel, visit to your brother-in-law, I don't care where you go. The only one better is the one you build for yourself at home. There is always sufficient hot water, an adjustable shower head, both up and down, and for intensity. It is like a rain shower head so much water comes out. And there is a tiny bench to sit on for the men, or a place for the ladies to put the foot up on to shave their legs, depends on your perspective. The sink is a shallow, farm house style, with counter space on both sides. There are drawers and shelves on both sides, for both of you to have your own space for your stuff.

The living room area is nice for room service meals and reading. We also used it for watching the view out the window, both sea, and in port when relaxing in the cabin. Opposite the window is the door to the veranda which is plenty big enough with two chairs and a table to share. We had coffee and the occasional glass of sparkling wine while watching the world sail by from the veranda. The further north we sailed, the less we used the veranda. It isn't as much fun at 50 degrees with the wind blowing off the North Sea.

The lights and electronics in the room were the only shortcomings. The lights just didn't have enough independent controls, nor any type of dimmer capability. It was all or nothing with the exception of the headboard reading lights. Oh, and the bathroom nightlight that took us two nights to figure out how to turn off. The switch is next to the bed on the side closest to the veranda. The TV worked fine for us the entire leg with the exception of one morning when it was out for three hours for an upgrade. When it came back on there was a new safety video and a "Ship Locator" application that was not yet working, but I'm sure will be soon. The movie and TV show selection was limited but sufficient for our watching needs. There was an interesting mix of classic and quite recent films. As well as a variety of television shows. There was also some live channels, but since we were on vacation, live TV, especially news, isn't something we were interested in, so I'm not sure how well they worked. The coffee maker produced adequate espresso and coffee. We usually went to the World Cafe and made lattes their and brought them back to the room, but occasionally I needed caffeine just to get out the door. The mini-bar is stocked with soft drinks and some mini bottles of alcohol. In the Penthouse Veranda you may have one refill per day. Given all the choices on the ship, we rarely took from the mini bar.

The wifi worked well in our cabin when it was working well on other parts of the ship. As our leg was the ride into Bergen, there were many travel press individuals on board who had priority on the wifi so our access suffered. It wasn't that important to us, but understandably, it was to others. I do activate global access for my cell phone while in Europe and we did utilize that when in port if the wifi was not sufficient. The ship itself has an above average wireless network. It is the connection from the ship to the internet that causes issues. The fact that the IT staff on the ship can allocate bandwidth to individual channels proves there are good capabilities on board, they just need more bandwidth, and less press personnel. Which will clearly be a short term problem. So the future looks bright for wifi on the Star.