We are an active Floridian couple in our mid-50's with 18 cruises, plus a number of other international trips, under our belts. We stay in shape for our journeys by walking four miles a day - so we are serious about our vacations and plan extensively for each and every adventure. A full transit of the Panama Canal had been a goal of my husband's for several years, and when we saw a great deal for this NCL Star sailing we pounced on it!

Our journey began on Saturday, December 5 when we drove from our home just north of Daytona Beach, Florida down I-95 for our one night stay at the La Quinta Inn East near the Miami airport. We have chosen this hotel for three of our one way cruises. The other two were transatlantic cruises, and we are able to keep our car parked at this hotel for free for our entire trip, plus they provide a complimentary shuttle to the port and free shuttles to and from the airport. The reasonable rates also include a well-stocked breakfast bar. Great deal, especially since parking at the port of Miami is now $20. per day! We registered for the shuttle as we were checking in and so caught the first morning shuttle to the port. We were some of the first in line to be processed at the Latitudes' counter. After we got our room keys we were escorted to a big lounge in the terminal to wait until the ship was cleared for us to board. Lots of folks somehow got in line in front of us, but it worked out fine and we actually got on the ship a bit after 12. What we had never seen before was the very long walk, actually all the way past the NCL Jewel to the Star. I guess they must have had a bunch of wheelchairs for the older less ambulatory folks as we had never seen such a long winding path to a ship before through the terminal.

There was no open lounge for us once aboard the Star to leave our hand luggage as we had on the Jade until the cabins were ready so we took it with us, along with our welcome glass of bubbly, to the main dining room, Versailles. There they had a place for us to stow our hand luggage and we were ushered to a wonderful window table for two. For our first lunch we chose barbecued ribs. These ribs must be similar or the same as the ribs folks rave about in their write-ups of the Soho specialty restaurant on the Star. They were absolutely delicious. What a great start to our cruise! Right after our meal we had a little time to tour the Spa and then to visit the restaurant desk in the Grand Atrium where we asked to reserve a table for 4 each night in the Versailles dining room. We had read about doing this on Cruise critic, but we told by the young lady doing the Star's restaurant reservations the only times available for this are 5:30 or 8:30, so we chose 5:30. We made these with the understanding that we would call the restaurant desk 15 minutes before opening should we choose to eat elsewhere any given night. We also saw the advertisement for the Your Ticket to Dine program where you could choose a 3, 4 or 5 dinner program for the specialty restaurants at a discounted rate. After seeing that program (which I had read about here on CC before sailing) I was fairly certain that the Star was not going to offer any of the 2/1 specialty dining options we had enjoyed on the Jade on our B2B cruises in Jan/Feb. I was correct. Later I found out that the Star and the Dawn were testing this program in Dec/Jan. From what we observed it was selling well on our Star sailing. They also offered a variety of other specialty dining one-time events throughout our sailing, including: first night only free cocktails with dinner at "selected" specialty restaurants (choice of one of three different cocktails); Soho Jazz Brunch; Murder Mystery Dinner (held in La Trattoria Italian - $20. pp charge; Endless Summer (Tex-Mex) panoramic Panama Canal viewing lunch; One Romantic Night - Soho; and Taste of India Dinner - Soho. Read more