We were on this ship last year and loved it so we booked again, they renovated the ship and it became worst, everything is very tight, tables in buffet are to close as well as around the pool, room steward was very slow and not very friendly, we had other issues and way to many to mention, the guy taking pictures asked to hold my phone which was clipped to my belt, so i let him, he dropped it and broke my clip, had to put my phone in my pocket for the remainder of our Cruise, Omelette Station needs to be improved, very confusing, not sure if we will sail Norwegian in the Future, 24 hour deli would not seat us @ 11:00 am because they were getting ready for their lunch menu to change, made no sense, open 24 hours but couldn't get a seat, they have also gotten rid of the slide at the pool. Read Less

We really wanted to love this cruise but Norwegian falls short. We upgraded to a balcony room to recieve the free at sea offers. Balcony room was good. It was very clean and our room staff was wonderful. We wanted to arrive in LA a couple days early but our flights could only be booked for 1 day early. I called 2 months early to ask if we arrived in LA early on our own, could we skip our departure and just use our return flight. I was advised to call when I arrived in LA, as long as i called within 24 hours of the flight I could cancel the departure. Well we arrived in LA only for norwegian to say sorry we dont care what we told you, we are cancelling your flights. So we had no flight home! When we got on board we stood in the long line to ask guest services if we had to use the shore excursions credit on shore excursions, or if it was a credit to our room. We were told it's just a credit to the room so throughout the cruise we thought we were using a credit, only to find out on the last day there was no credit because we didnt book any excursions. The food was by far the best part of the cruise. I would say even better than royal carribean. The entertainment was hit or miss. Overall the customer service felt like a cheap cruise. The staff seemed overworked and unhappy. Usually my favorite part of a cruise is meeting and getting to know the bartenders and wait staff but none of them were that personal. Overall it was a cheap smaller cruise with a company that needs to nickle and dime its customers to stay afloat. If your looking for a cheaper option I would recommend carnival everytime over norwegian we were not impressed at all. Read Less

Cruise Director Dingo Dave was great, and is team is outstanding also. The entertainment was fabulous. The best part of the cruise. The comedian was great. Specialty Dining was good also. I think that if your going to have free style dining you should allow others to sit at the tables to because there was lots of empty seats one night and they was handing out pagers and you should at least ask guest if they mind if they would mind if others could sit with them.. I didn't like that. The Japanese steak house was my favorite the chefs were very entertaining during the cooking and the presentation of the food was great and the food tasted wonderful. Not sure why but no towel animals were put out on the beds could be cut back on the ships or this may only be done in rooms with children only. Read Less

Before I even boarded the ship my information and onboard picture were changed with another passenger. I went to board the ship and had a womans picture show up on there computer. I had to stand in a long line to have it retaken. When I tryed to log into the wifi service I once again found myself in a long line to find out there was another person's birth date listed in my information once again. I took this cruise because my nephew was getting married onboard NCL took great care of there wedding! But this is not a cruise line for me. When you get on board they make the drinks way to strong and make up for it by under poring towards the end of the cruise. What is so hard to make a consistent drink? my room was 11110 and my cabin steward would come around 1pm and 8:30pm if he did come by the room. Only cabin steward I never tipped on a cruise because he never did anything. I left the room ten times cleaner then NCL can get it! If I was not with my family I would have flown home from the first port. The food was good but just in the buffet. My trips to the dinning rooms left me hungry and heading up to get something I could eat. They sent a review e-mail to me but never ask why I didn't like there cruise. This is a cruise line for younger people that haven't been on the better cruise lines! Read Less

This cruise was awesome. Im so glad I did it. Everything about it was smooth. To getting on, to getting off. No problems. Food was delicious in the buffet. And in the restaurants as well. Never a long wait to eat. My boyfriend and I went to the gym, soaked up some sun went to see a movie. And a show. We even went to shore and did some excursions. But my favorite part was the casino. I will definitely sail Norwegian again. My cabin steward was Paul. He was very sweet. Very attentive. We needed some distilled water. He was on it. Had it in the room when we returned from dinner. Another thing we told him our names the first day and he remembered us the whole week. I did the seven day Mexican Rivera. Next I want the Norwegian Alaska Cruise. I can’t wait to set sail on my next adventure. Read Less

Small group of friends cruising together made for a great time during Spring break. On board, there was plenty to do on the Star when or if we wanted. We found room in the hot tubs, especially enjoying the one in H20 Spice area. We had no trouble finding a lounge chair for sunning. We loved meeting up at Gatsby's for a cocktail and good music. (I love piano music!) We thoroughly enjoyed Cagney's, the Teppanyaki grill, and LeBistro, along with what we felt was special treatment in the Versailles dining room. I tried some new flavors and some different dishes that I wasn't familiar with and of course, I made sure to order seafood, especially seafood appetizers many times. Each port of call delivered warmth, fun and interesting sights, good food and beach time. We did not do any excursion as we just wanted to look around on our own and land at the local beach. Took a cab to town in Puerto Vallarta, a pulmonia in Mazatlan and water taxi in Cabo. NCL took care of the planning of our flights and transfers. Everything went smoothly including embarkation and debarkation. Read Less

This was our first time ever on a cruise. We got a great deal, so we ended up booking the family suite. It happened to come with a concierge and butler. We thought that was pretty cool, except the concierge was completely useless. He booked 3 reservations for us and made huge mistakes on all of them. The butler was pretty great, he came when we called him, but otherwise he never called or popped in to check on us. It was obvious the staff on these cruise ships are super overworked. We saw some employees in multiple restaurants spanning 13+ hours throughout the day. They get about 5 hours of sleep per night and see their families every 8 months. I am not sure how I felt about that. The suite we stayed in was nice, but there were some things that were not the luxury suite it was sold to be on the site. The phone was so incredibly filthy, most of the curtains were ripped off their holders (they use curtains to divide out the "rooms" within the cabin), and the carpet had stains that looked to be quite old. Definitely not what I was expecting after paying $6000. We were charged $10/phone for the internet service to be able to communicate with one another while on the cruise, but the NCL app is SO incredibly bad that we ended up hardly using it at all. We will cruise again, but not sure we will dish out the extra money - doesnt seem like it was worth it. Read Less

We booked this itinerary as it lined up with a conference we were attending in California. It is one of the smaller ships we have sailed on. Embarkation was fast and efficient. The staff was amazing. Somehow we were bumped up to concierge level. Suzana was wonderful, reminds one of your favorite aunt, Food Service The food was excellent. We did Cagneys and La Bistro. Both were great. We used the Venetian as our main dining room. Food service and quality was excellent. My only feedback is that we had reservations for 5:15 PM and the Venetian only opened at 5:30. Did understand the timing. The casino was extremely smokey. This limited my time in the venue. The smoke stuck to your close merely walking through. Entertainment - excellent The 5 O'Clock Somewhere bar was ok. I preferred the Mondavi Wine bar on the Dawn. They use this location for live music, I would suggest they improve the sound system as the sound did not carry through the bar. Beverage Service The bar tenders were great. We were disappointed with the lack of options on the by glass wine offerings. Every cruise we have done over the past 2 years has continuously decreased the offerings. They had many bottles at $30 ish and they would give a discount of 20% with the package. They also increased the costing on premium liquors, IE Ron Zacapa 23 went from $17.95 to $22.95. The nickle and dimeing has to stop... Peurto Vallarta We did a discover PV tour. Great little tour. Mazatland We hired a cab for a 2 hour tour. Cleanest city we have ever been in. Beautiful scenery. We will go back. Read Less

Decided to take the family on a cruise during spring break, which was a little earlier than most, so we were able to get closer to off-season pricing. What was really exciting is that they had great deals when we booked on guaranteed oceanview rooms, which we've never tried. That was a real plus (ended up with picture windows), were able to see lots of good scenery, my daughter saw a group of dolphins looking out their stateroom, added a nice element we've never had with inside. Service on the ship was great, with a couple of exceptions I'll explain later. Room stewards and most dining experiences were great. Had the dining options on another ship, nice to see they were there as well. Pros: Loved the updated dining areas, such as O'Sheahan's and Ginza, in addition to the Main Dining Rooms and buffet. Didn't try the paid dining. Staff was very on top of things 95% of the time and very friendly First time in the Mexican Riviera, loved the itinerary and ports Oceanview! Had a Mexican cultural show that was amazing, acrobats were good as well. The communication features on the app were more than worth the $9.99/device. Huge plus. Staterooms had USB chargers, so easy for kids to keep devices charged. Cons: As I've read in other reviews, the layout of the ship is weird. It's because they added the newer dining and other amenities (which is absolutely worth it), but it was often hard to navigate the ship to get where you wanted to go (for example, not very direct entrance to kids club). Related, the main buffet area feels very cramped and doesn't hold many people. It doesn't need to with other options, but that's a problem. Needed a reservation for everything really quickly. For example, really hard to get into Ginza. Service in some dining areas was really slow. I think that they just had too many people for what they could handle. I would say overall felt very crowded. I've been on bigger ships that felt less crowded than this one. Lots of lines for the same things. I'm more conservative, but the music shows weren't to our taste, a little too frisky, glad we didn't take our daughter to the first one (skipped the second one). Didn't have some of the bells and whistles that my active kids would have liked (no splash pad, water slide, ice skating, basketball had a low net, things like that) For the app, didn't have a place to check the schedule for the kids. Also, could have had an option to get more detailed informaiton about an activity on the schedule, similar to the description seen in the print guide. Rough sea day on the way back, I hear that's normal. It's a cruise so I'm always going to enjoy it! I hope NCL could take some of this feedback and fix things (though some things they can't fix). I enjoyed it and would take this itinerary again. I would go on this ship if the price were right. Read Less

This was my third sailing with Norwegian after cruising on the Escape and Getaway. I was a little worried that the ship would be too small and that there wouldn't be enough activities on board for our two teenagers. The teens had an amazing time at the Entourage Club and made a large group of friends that they hung out with the whole cruise. I found the Star to be a wonderful ship for many reasons. First off, embarkation out of the San Pedro port was VERY fast and so easy. The friendly staff on board the ship continually went above and beyond. Secondly, it never felt crowded to me. There were always lounge chairs available and never had to wait long at bars for drinks. In fact, waiters actually came around and took drink orders which is something we rarely experienced on the larger NCL ships. DINING (Gluten Free Perspective I'm going to start by saying that the dining was way better than the other competing cruise line that we've sailed on three times. I have a NCGS (non-celiac gluten sensitivity) and it's always a worry that I'll experience symptoms while on vacation from accidental exposure. This was the BEST NCL experience I've had as a gluten free cruiser. Every evening they had a special diets coordinator named Valan come and meet me at dinner to take my order for the next evening. Usually on cruises they forget to do this or I have to make a special trip to MDR to place the order myself. I did not have to do this and Valan always knew where and when I was dining and found me to bring me the menu. We ate at Moderno, Sushi Bar, Teppanyaki and Le Bistro and I never had a problem ordering something that I liked. My youngest son celebrated his 15th birthday and they even made a special gluten free cake so that I could enjoy it as well. I never asked for this and it was such a thoughtful gesture. I had to eat lunch at the buffet a couple times but I just asked to speak to a chef and he pointed out all the options that were safe for me to eat. I never experienced any gluten exposure symptoms the entire cruise. Most of the Indian food options (except bread of course) were always safe and were very delicious! We did eat at the Topsiders Grill a couple times but I'd be careful if you are celiac as the mayo and condiments in open containers were definitely contaminated with bread. We just ate the burgers with lettuce and other veggie but again be careful if you are super sensitive as the tongs may come in contact with bread. We also ate at O'Sheehans for both lunch and breakfast. They do have gluten free bread if you ask but the hashbrowns are not GF friendly because of the fryers. My husband and boys are not gluten free but both my mother in law and myself are and we had no problems. Amost all requests were accommodated with ease. Food takes a little longer as it is prepared in the allergy free kitchen but it's always come out fresh and tasty. My husband is SUPER critical about food and a bit of a snob and he commented on how the food was really good on this ship and we only had a few things that were mediocre. ENTERTAINMENT and ACTIVITIES We enjoyed seeing most of the shows on board the Star. We saw Paradis, Band on the Run, a comedy act, and an Acrobatic show with a husband/wife team and their son. All shows were enjoyable and the costumes were incredible! We also did karaoke and merengue dance lessons. We enjoyed the live music throughout the ship. I did book a Thermal Spa pass at Mandera Spa. It was very uncrowded but a little small. I still enjoyed it but I didn't use it as much as I would have liked to. The gym is a little small and is missing equipment like kettle bells, slam balls and medicine balls that other ships have. It does have a lot of cardio equipment but the weight lifting area is so tiny and gets crowded. The group classes were a little pricey in my opinion. I personally don't feel $20 for a 30 minutes class is a very good deal but if you book a class pack (only offered on the first day) you would save money if this is something you are interested in attending more than 3 times during the week.They at least have a gym but it is not the nicest one I've used on a ship. I was happy to find out that they recently added a Spice H2O to this ship with two hot tubs. I liked that it was covered by an awning but if you wanted sun you could go up the stairs to the helicopter pad for lounge chairs. We also enjoyed the Sky High Bar at the top of the ship because you could listen to the music and enjoy the views. We went up here on a sea day with family traveling with us to play some card games. We enjoyed all the bars on the ship but we particularly we enjoyed Sky High, 5 O'Clock Somewhere and Bliss Ultra Lounge. We were disappointed that the Sugarcane Mojito bar had very limited hours and didn't open until 5:00 but you could order your drinks to go and take them with you to enjoy poolside. SERVICE Our cabin steward did a great job cleaning our room each morning and turning it down for us at night. We rarely saw him or talked to him and he really didn't go out of his way to introduce himself to us. This doesn't really bother me at all and is really just an observation and comparison from previous cruises where the steward went out of his way to talk to us. Our cruise director was Dingo Dave and he was a fun guy. I would see him around the ship and he came to our Cruise Critic Meet and Greet. They had a very entertaining Meet and Greet and all the officers introduced themselves and even gave us their numbers to reach them. They were all very funny and it was nice meeting other cruisers from this forum. As I mentioned earlier, the staff was very accommodating and friendly. We did run into two staff members (O'Sheehans and Versailles) at the end of the trip that were a little grumpy at first but after making small talk with them and joking around a little bit, they came around almost instantly and they were smiling and happy. The staff members all work so hard and I always give a little grace and extra smiles if they seem to be having a tough time. I can only imagine what they deal with on a daily basis. PORTS This was my first Mexican Rivera cruise and I enjoyed all of the ports. We don't typically book our excursions through the cruise line. We go through reputable outside websites and find the excursions less crowded, less expensive and more personable. We went to the Marriott in Puerto Vallarta for a day pass. It was only 650 pesos and 500 of those pesos go toward food and drink. It was a beautiful hotel and not too far from port maybe 10-15 minutes. In Mazatlan we booked a city tour and the guy gave us like an extra 2 hours! It was awesome. We went to Tabascos Beach Club in Cabo and it was uncrowded and they had 2 for 1 drinks for about 145 pesos. My in laws ordered breakfast and it was huge and they said it was delicious. We had the beef nachos and they were so good. I ended up getting an hour massage for $35 and my husband and son rented a jet ski for $40. You can totally haggle on prices with them. I would do this itinerary again because we enjoyed all these ports so much. SUMMARY The Star has had a brand new makeover and she delivers on friendly above and beyond service and a relaxed fun experience. If you want things like rock walls, water slides, mini golf and ropes courses then this would not be a good choice for you. If you want an uncrowded ship with relaxed activities, delicious food and friendly service the Star provides great value and an enjoyable smaller ship experience. Read Less