We chose this cruise only for the ports of calls. We have had less than stellar experience with NCL in the past but thought we would try them again. Only to confirm our thoughts of NCL not the choice of cruise lines we would choose again.
The staff was very friendly and helpful. The port of calls were amazing. But the Star ship definitely has been neglected terribly. The food was edible but ...
This ship is just not comfortable. Firstly our outside cabin was very small and required the double bed to be separated to have any room at all. Also there was no comfortable lounge in the cabin as there usually is, instead there was a hard backed vinyl chair. You had to be quite agile to manage the constricted toilet. In summary too small and uncomfortable. Secondly the ship has no inside lounge ...
We chose this cruise for the new and exciting ports of call on the original itinerary. However, in Dec 2016, the NCL Star had one engine problem forcing them to drop Ho Chi Min City and Bangkok from the itinerary. We only found out about this by reading Cruise Critic This occurred after final payment and NCL would not give us a full refund to cancel the cruise, they only offered a $200 onboard ...
We planned this cruise for over a year. We saved so we could afford it and enjoy seeing the Far East side of the World and we booked back to back cruises to continue on the ship for the Australia/New Zealand cruise. We have sailed with Norwegian for more than 25 years and have never been so disappointed with any cruise line as we were with the responses received from NCL regarding the problems ...
Have cruised NCL several times before with few problems. Wanted to see Australia and New Zealand.
The ship lost one of its two engines in early December. NCL never informed us of this. I found out from on line reviews. It continued to sail on one engine.
Our Jan 16 cruise had two ports dropped. NCL hoped to fix it in Singapore on Jan 22. They say they fixed it. Some 32 hours later, a ...
We joined the ship in Hong Kong having selected this cruise as a special holiday to celebrate our golden wedding anniversary. We had already been advised that two ports of call were cancelled because of an Azipod engine problem. When coming back on board we at Bali we were told that three more stops were cancelled due to ongoing problems. The initial compensation offer was pathetic but was ...
We have cruised aboard the NCL Star before and this cruise had the usual friendly yet often terrible service. Even in the specialty restaurants NCL expected one server to serve our party of ten along with another table of 4, 6 or 8. It is impossible for anyone to serve food to 14 to 18 people and keep up with demanding drinkers on the drink package. Dinners often lasted over 3 hours with no ...
Really not a lot to laud about NCL's Asia cruise on the Star. First, the Star itself is an antiquity, particularly when compared with any vessel in Royal Caribbean's fleet, and I'm being truly objective. The Star and the Jewel are well below industry standard and NCL doesn't seem concerned a bit. We've cruised on the Star twice in the last three years and the Jewell once, to Alaska, last year. ...
We chose this cruise based solely on itinerary. We have a dozen cruises on NCL which we prefer because of its informality and its short, port heavy itineraries. And the food quality, presentation and choices have demonstrably improved over the recent past. So it was disappointing how NCL handled the engine failure on the Star that occurred 3 weeks prior to embarkation. The itinerary had to be ...
We had experienced one cruise previously, on the Jewel, so that is all I can compare to.
Despite several itinerary changes due to a failed azipod drive, more days at sea, no Thai stop and no website excursions, we were still attracted by the extra stop off days in Vietnam.
After boarding we found in our cabin a list of excursions to choose.
What looked like two days at Ho Chi Minh City ...