This voyage was our 4th with Princess out of about 30 cruises in total. However, at 30 days it was by far our longest.

We liked the Star Princess as we had the Golden and Grand on earlier trips. We did feel there had been some cutbacks, particularly in the Horizon Court buffet and possibly slight reductions in portion size and quality of the dining room meals, since our last Princess cruise 2 years before, but on the positive side the Lido deck ice cream bar is now free, an afternoon cookies and milk round has been instigated and the atrium has been brought alive by the addition of the International Cafe on deck 5., This operates a slightly strange system whereby sandwiches, salads, soups, cakes etc are free but coffee has to be paid for. This seemed odd when coffee is free in the buffet but I am reliably told by my husband and other coffee drinkers that the deck 5 fresh filter coffee was much nicer than the buffet version. The system (other than paying by the cup) was to buy a 'coffee card' for $24 which covers 15 speciality coffees and also unlimited filter coffee and hot chocolate for the entire cruise, so was a good deal even though DH only ever has black coffee.

So no complaints at all about the ship, now on to the ports. We are not lovers of tours and prefer to do our research in advance and explore on our own wherever possible and I must say that the port guides provided by Princess were very good. My husband uses a wheelchair for longer distances so that is also a factor in our choice to 'do our own thing' - we don't like to have to request special arrangements or feel we are slowing others down. Read more