Wife and I are experienced cruisers with Princess being the 4th line we've cruised. We had high expectations for this cruise and we were let down.

Booked air travel, hotel and transport (airport to hotel, hotel to ship and ship to airport) via Princess EZair. The flight from Chicago to Vancouver was pretty bad. United has approx 12" of space between your face and the seat in front of you.Arrived in Vancouver, collected our luggage and went in search of our Princess transport. Finally found the Princess desk and were met with a sign that told us to take a taxi, get a receipt and bring it to guest services. Took the taxi to the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Center. Lovely hotel, comfortable beds, used room service to get a quick snack (meh) and go to bed in anticipation of embarking on a bucket list cruise. Called the service desk next morning to find out how to get our luggage picked up and transported to the ship, they seemed a little unsure, went down to do a face to face and they explained how they did the pick up. Five minutes after I returned they were there to do get us moving. It's less than a mile to the pier so we decided to skip the transport (but the bags didn't!) and walk. It's a lovely city but we were a little surprised about the trash everywhere. Made it to the ship during our assigned time (11:30) and were aboard very quickly.

The Star is a nice ship but the old girl is showing her age. There was running rust (old Navy term for rust) everywhere. The edge of our balcony was almost completely rusted, with barely any white paint visible. Being an old sailor I checked her out and there just seemed to be rust everywhere. Very sad actually. Read more