Norwegian Star Review

Ship was very nice, but . . .

Review for Alaska Cruise on Norwegian Star
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Julia's Child
First Time Cruiser • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Jul 2009

ON THE POSITIVE SIDE: the ship itself was wonderful.  It was very clean, the cabin (mini-suite) was a nice size, and the exercize room and spa more than met my expectations.  The food was surprisingly very good.  I say surprisingly because I've traveled other cruise lines before and the food was pretty bad.  We always ate at one of the "free" restaurants and were more than satisfied.  Also, the captain was very nice and gave us an update everyday, until, unfortunately, one of the comediennes made fun of him in her act.  ON THE NEGATIVE SIDE:  What I didn't like was the constant sales by the ship's crew.  Come on, this is our once a year vacation that we need for relaxation.  This sales crap is nothing new to cruising.  Constant harassment.  The first time in the spa, the person tried to sell me the oil she used.  So, I  have to say "no thank you".  Then she hands me the check to sign, with the 18% tip already charged, and says that there is another line in case I wanted to add another tip.  Che???????  So, there went my 25 minutes of relaxation out the port window.  Also, during certain festivities, they would hand us a drink as we walked into the room and if we took it, they said that will be $7.95.   Che??????  Back went the drink. And, as someone mentioned in a previous post, bingo boy was always trying to get us to play bingo.  I did play the last day.  And, it is on a machine.  I haven't yet decided if I like the machine or not.  But, I did start to like bingo boy by the end of the cruise.  The biggest rip off, though, were some of the land tours.  The rail road train in skagway is very expensive, boring, over priced and, just a plain waste of time.  And, they don't even take you to the end.   But, there was something worse than that.  We took the "Best of Seattle" land tour on our way to the airport.  It was approximately $69 each.  All the friggen bus did was drop us off at Pike's Market (across the street from where the boat is docked) and dropped us off at the Space Needle (about .5 mile from the boat) and then dropped us off at the airport.  Cost of the Space Needle was included.  We tried to get the cheaper tour, "Seattle City Tour" for approx. $49 but they told us it was sold out.  NOT!  They apparently told everyone that.  It was a Bait and Switch my friends.    There was a Seattle Shuttle that charged $12 per person to the airport.BOTTOM LINE:  I would go on an NCL cruise again, would take a balcony room (really not much difference from a mini-suite), would ignore all of the sales pitches, and would find my own transportation to the airport. 

Cabin Review

mini-suite:  lovely.  very pleased with this room;  nice sized balcony with 2 chairs, shower and tub were better than we have at home, water pressure was excellent, lots of shelf and closet space.  (This coming from someone who lives in a small apartment in Manhattan.  If you life somewhere else, you might think otherwise.)

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