Booked with a Group. Ship overall is average. Guest Service at Registration desk is poor, seemed bothered with any questions. Bar, Restraurant, and Fitness personal very good. Food is average. Stops at ports were changed frequently which caused some adjustments to booked tours. Learned to check also on how many ships will be in port at one time as many of the stops were extremely overcrowed. Many of the ship personal had little knowlege of aspects or ammenities of the ship if it was not their department. Internet access is poor and non-existant. Don't even bother paying extra for it. Over $200 charged and little or no connection and down completely most of the time. Ship personal were not caring about the wi-fi. This was very difficult do to communication obligations we had. It is very unfortunate about the cruise experience considering the beautiful ports of call. Will most likely not be back to Norwegian. Read Less

We chose the cruise as we had cruised on the Star before in Asia, which was fab but also the destinations looked great with Greece, Croatia and Montenegro. This was our first Med cruise however we have been on several cruises before this in other parts of the world. First of all the destinations were excellent. Can't fault any location. A bit difficult with logistics in Venice getting to the port but ok there are ways and means if you are mobile enough. Tragically the time allowed on each destination amounted to between 2 and 3 hours only. The main reason for this was tendering. You are not communicated any of this information until you read the daily magazine after an evening out on the ship. So you have be up by 05.30 to get your tender tickets at 0700. The queue is halfway around the ship so there's an hour at least. You wait an hour and more to get off the ship. Ship location means you tender to shore which on average is another 30 minutes. You do exactly the same coming back. Queues! Queues! Queues!. In Santorini you can add another hour and a half queuing time for the cable car as there were 4 cruise ships in at the same time. So stress time on this cruise was around 4 hours each tender, Off and On. Allowing 2 to 3 hours onshore. Absolute circus. You can of course jump the queue by buying a ship excursion but that will set you back $200+ each person. The standards from two years ago have dropped dramatically. There's a huge lack of staff. They are obviously overworked and this in turn affected the quality. Incidentally you had to queue at the Sky bar for drinks. If you didn't it was a "Get in Line" from either the barman or a nice person from across the pond. The barman who served me thought a "Bloody Mary" was vodka and tomato juice. I had to show him what was actually in one. Spirits that were predominantly served were unknown brands. You had to specifically ask for a main brand although the choice was poor. And we had the top drinks package. Food in the Versailles was poor. Cold and bland. For dinner it was a 2 hour affair as the staff were overloaded. Breakfast was the same. A long wait. Thank god for the 3 nights speciality restaurants we had. The buffet food was ok but chaos at breakfast time. Just too many people not enough space. Food and service in the Irish bar was ok. But compared too two years ago, it was "Just ok". Total lack of communication from the cruise director and his staff. Didn't see any of them the whole cruise. And finally the clientele. Cruising used to have standards. Not bathers and shorts and towels wrapped around you in restaurants. Anything goes on this ship. The fact there's no formal night should have given us a clue. The etiquette, manners and friendliness is out the window now and the standard of a huge portion of the clientele on this cruise was ignorant, manner-less and loud, Gone are the days of having a normal conversation at a normal level of voice. No voice control on this ship. I will let you make up your own mind where the majority of them were from. First Med cruise. Last. Definitely the last cruise with NCL. Basically this was a "Package Holiday" A circus on the sea. Something I don't want to be part of. Read Less

1. the food was bland and the selection subpar. 2. There were 5 ports that required tendering. This is a mistake, and a bad choice by this cruise line to have so many tender ports for one itinerary. Each day, there were a couple hundred people waiting on line for tender tickets!! The first port was Kotor. Got to port at 2 pm, they started issuing tender tickets at 9am that morning. Got there at 8:30 thinking we were doing well. We received group 5, so we had to wait until our number was called to leave the ship. There were not enough tender boats supplied by the Kotor government, so we used the ship's life boats to tender in. There were so many people waiting to get off, that by the time it was our turn, it was almost time to get back on the ship! . On the second port tender, we got smart, and waited in line earlier than the call time.( 6am) Well everyone else did too. Received our ticket, which was group #2. Group 2 was not called for over an hour because of the amount of people waiting to get off. The 3rd port tender we waited in line, this time starting at 5am! (5 am??!! This is crazy). This time, we received #1. Good, Right? Wrong. We docked early, and they were already calling #3 even before we got back to our room!! This meant we docked at around 6:30 am, however none of the shops or points of interest were even open yet, (not until 9am) so we lost over 2 hours just walking around the town aimlessly. 3. Our room was 9060 port side balcony. Mind you we paid close to $4,000 for this stateroom on the 9th floor. We choose it because it was far away from the dining rooms, etc. Each night, there were different machine/equipment/grinding noises coming from behind the closet in our stateroom. Another night the HVAC was on the fritz. They could not change our room because the cruise was booked to the max. They attempted to fix the noises, but could not. I find it hard to believe that no one else who has stayed in this room before us, never complained about this room before we started this cruise. This leads me to believe they knew about it and chose not to disclose it due to the full capacity. We purchased ear plugs so we could sleep. HORRIBLE. 3. On a positive note, the staff who were assigned to our rooms was awesome and helped us feel as comfortable as possible and were genuinely wanting to help in any way possible. We will not be cruising with Norwegian again, nor will our friends. Read Less

We were a group of 19 and for most of us it was our first ocean cruise. We salute the awesome crew. They are there to work hard and make it your best vacation. We prefer the food in the Garden Cafe and the late snacks in O’Sheehan. I love the quality of the green salads and fresh fruits in the Garden Cafe. Thank you to all the restaurant crew of Aqua and Garden Cafe! We took the Star Explorer Package for the excursions and really made our short visits to each port memorable. Despite of the long queues, I appreciate that the crew greets you with warm smile and cold face towel to freshen up. The quality of the shows were superb! Just for the show alone you’ll appreciate the value you paid for the cruise. Although the disembarkation process needs to improve, overall we are happy with NCL and now planning the next cruise. Read Less

We decided on this cruise for our honeymoon and loved it. This was our first cruise and first time to Europe, so nothing to compare too, other than our south all inclusive trips. We had an ocean view picture window room number 5616, we thought it was great location, midship, 2 doors down from stairs and elevator, we weren’t sure about high traffic area, but didn’t hear anything, and getting off to ports were great as we only had to go down one set of stairs if elevator was busy. Getting to restaurant and entertainment was also easy. Our room itself was compact but very functional, lots of space and storage for everything, never felt cluttered and lots of charging spots, no need to bring extra. The only thing is we wished regular daily announcements would be in our stateroom as well as public area. Our maid was very nice and kept our room clean, had turn down and even made some towel art for me. The food was awesome from buffet to Versailles, Aqua, and o’Sheheens ( burgers are awesome here). We also ate at tepennaki, Cagneys steak house and Moderno’s, all were excellent and great atmosphere, Every single worker on ship were amazing, always so friendly, helpful and smiling! Entertainment was great throughout the ship, always stuff to do. Lots of dancing, music, karaoke, games and shows in the theatre. The pool was clean, a little cooler but refreshing but very small and had nice hot tubs as well. Embarkation and disembarkation were pretty straight forward. We stayed in Venice two days prior to cruise which was great and easy to get to cruise port from hotel principe which is walking distance and we took NCL shuttle back to airport. All our ports were great, Montenegro> got cancelled so docked out In water for 2 hours and it became a sea day, Corfu> we went on our own on a hop on/off bus 19$ each which gave a bit of a tour a d we went to a beach lol, was more like a local wharf lol but had a great swim anyways. Mykonos> resembles a little Venice, took free shuttle and explored on our own and had an awesome desert, we woulda went to beach if we realized it was so close. Santorini> very very busy, we did Oia and winery tour, got to sample wine with light snacks, got to see the famous blue dome and white building and ended in Fira had a lunch and some shopping (great prices here) and cable car down to ship. It was so busy here, kinda been there, done that but would love to see the other side of Santorini, I think would be much more enjoyable, not the sunset was absolutely beautiful. Argostoli> one of our favourite spots, Area was more lush with greenery, seemed like a much More relaxed area. We took a taxi to a beach called Makris Gialos Beach- costa costa beach. Absolutely beautiful and only cost $10 both ways plus chair and hut rental of $15 or $8 for the less comfortable ones. There’s a little place that serves food and great cocktails, also bathrooms. Dubrovnik> we done the tuk tuk tour, got some great views and information from our tour guides then walked through old town where game of thrones was filmed. Another extremely busy area but nice. So conclusion, cruise was excellent, ports were great but a few hours isn’t long enough to see the areas. We met so many great people from across the world, it was a perfect honeymoon for us and would choose NCL again as we love the more laid back, comfort level of this ship. We knew it was a smaller ship when we booked and didn’t have the big wow factors but we loved it! Read Less

I chose this cruise because it knocked out many places in a short amount of time. We had never been to europe and were eager to use the help of a cruise to get us to various places. However, the ship was small, overcrowded, and the guest services team was terrible. The food was decent, the pool was terrible, salt water and freezing, hot tubs were closed one of the days for unknown reasons. The casino was the saving grace. It was a long cruise, with a poor guest services staff. The excursions were also poorly planned. We would have been better off finding our own excursions. Poor communication from the excursions teams on how we would get to destination, should we pack snacks, what is the exact itinerary. Cabin was fine, we had a balcony, so did not feel stuffy. Not a good idea for a honeymoon. Most people were couples celebrating 50th birthdays. Read Less

I chose the cruise because of the itinerary, which was very good. The food was horrible. I mean, the specialty restaurants were good, but you should not have to pay more to get a decent meal. In O'Sheenans, they can't make a good hot dog, a hot dog, not joking. The bar staff was good, Emerson and Danno espeically, Also, KK was very nice. The ship was okay, simlar to others. I thought the sailing crew did a good job and the maintenance on the boat was definitly up to snuff. It was clean and they were always painting something. Other than the food, the reservations people are just incompetent. Sorry, no other way to say it. They got our reservations wrong so many times I lost count. And yes, after weeks of problems a supervisor did try to make it up to us by giving us a ship credit, which was appreciated, but the problems continued. Also, it took 60 or so phone calls, inumerable emails and a dozen hours of my time to get it fixed....so, what they gave me was appreciagted, but it was not a fair exchange for what they put me through. The bottom line is the Norewegian staff doesn't know their own rules and if you rely on what they say, you will be punishied. I know I was and in the end, they admitted they were wrong but just couldn't do anything more to help. They seemed frustrated by their own incompetence and just could not wait for my trip to be over. Food and customer service (reservations staff primarily) was very bad, but other than that I guess it was an average cruise performance. I spent a lot of money for a lot of frustration; won't do it again, not on the Pearl and likley not ever with Norwegian again. Read Less

I liked the itinerary of this cruise and it did prove to be wonderful. However, our experience on board was less then stellar! Service was downright bad! Everyone already has their tips so why bother giving us a great experience. Nobody on this ship is putting in any effort. Restaurants in particular had horrible food and horrible service! I did not have a hot meal in 11 days. It came to the point it was not worth going to dinning room and waiting for the inferior service and food. When a buffet is better then your dinning room.... you have a problem! Want room service? Sure.... pay for it! You want to go to specialty restaurants? Sure, going to cost you prices on the menu or a 40.00 up charge ( these restaurants were not much better and service was terrible! We did not even get luggage tags in cabin... had to go get them. The tours are like hurdling cattle. And some where nothing but a bus ride at 100 a person. Just a bad cruise experience. I have been a latitudes member for years but will never travel NCL again. Read Less

I booked this cruise because of the itinerary ( which was great). That being said I was very dissapoinedwithe the food and the entertainment I’ve been on many cruises and have never experienced such a poor choice of options in the dining room as well as the buffet. I only ate in the dining room 2 times for dinner and the buffet options did not suit my taste at all. The shows were disappointing as well Six out of the 10 nights were the same entertainers: a very bad magician ,a violinist and an operetta group. The other night shows were good The ship was very clean and most of the staff was efficient with the exception of my room steward wh was less than attentive and failed to do normal steward requirements. I think the captain did an outstanding job in getting us to the Greek island ports. It was very windy and our ship was the only one out of 5 to make it in. Read Less

We recently cruised from Venice to Rome via the med. The ship was clean which was great, we were also the only ship to visit Mykonos and Santorini, it was extremely windy and 3 others ships chose not to go there. Santorini is such a flying visit that’s it hardly worth it, also it was busy with just our ship, I’d hate to be there when there are others ships too. The biggest disappointment was the food on board, it was just average. We had a specialty dining package where we went to 4 specialty restaurants, only 2 were any good in our opinion, definitely glad I wasn’t paying for it. Staff were not fantastic for the first half of the cruise, for whatever reason they became more approachable and friendly the second half. I did find it strange that vapping appeared to be permitted on the pool deck, even near the food. Read Less

My husband and I have cruised on RCL and HAL many times, first time picking NCL which we did because of the itinerary! (We wanted to start in Venice !) This was our 3rd time cruising to the Mediterranean, first time on NCL. Went with friends who were first time cruisers to celebrate our 60th birthdays. I was a bit worried after reading the terrible reviews, and hearing about the ships mechanical difficulties, however I am very happy to report that the Pearl surpassed my expectations, and we had a very enjoyable holiday. We had a midship 9th floor balcony stateroom with adjoining rooms that was very clean, roomy and comfortable for the time we spent in it. A balcony is a must have on this type of cruise as it was a perfect place to have before dinner drinks as we watched the ship sail away from our beautiful ports and to have quiet time to relax and read when needed! We made 7:30 pm reservations before we sailed in the Summer Palace Dining Room and really enjoyed the food, service and venue. Having made the reservation prior to departure was a good decision for us, with no wait lines as well as a nice routine that we enjoyed. Even though I enjoyed the food, I would have to agree that the food on HAL offered more seafood and soup options. On two evenings we cancelled the Summer Palace (the guys wanted to wear more casual clothes for dinner) and ate instead at the Lotus Garden and O'Sheenans, which were both good choices. We were very pleased with all of the choices at the breakfast and lunch buffet, and had no problems finding tables for the 4 of us. This was a very busy itinerary, with only 1 sea day. We never had a problem getting the loungers that we wanted around the pool deck, and on the sea day we weren't able to sit together, but that was ok. The pool area was never busy, and I was able to sit around the pool and enjoy a refreshing swim almost every day upon return from our port adventures. At first it was annoying that we couldn't have our drinks with us sitting at the pool, but the guard on duty was accommodating and we able to work it out without difficulty. We went with the drink plan option and even though there was an upfront cost, we think it worked out to our advantage and made ordering wine for dinner, and all other drinks worry free. I especially enjoyed the mango meltdown! I can't believe that previous reviews were critical of the ports and tenders. All of the ports were amazing (even though this was my 3rd time at most of them I was awe struck by their beauty). Thorough research ahead is the key to enjoying these busy places! We booked 3 cruise line tours (Cabrio Dubrovnik, Kayaking in Kotor, Transportation to Pompeii) and were very happy with them all. On my own, I booked ahead, skip the line tickets at the Acropolis, Pompeii and the Colesseum and planned the best transportation way to get to each of them. We took city buses, trains, taxis and metros when available and made sure to check out prices and directions to get them before I left home. I also prebooked a taxi to pick us up at disembarkation in Civiteveccia, and at our Airbnb in Rome to the airport. We did attend the cruise port talk and I was disappointed as the focus was mainly on cruise tours, where on HAL you are given information of each port plus a map on doing it on your own. Luckily I was more than prepared but many other cruisers found the ports challenging if they hoped to wing it!! I was also very pleased that the Pearl made every port, while other ships cancelled due to windy conditions. This certainly helped reduce the number of people in port and we got to see all that we hoped. I would have liked more time in Santorini, and am not sure why this port of call was so short, especially since the tenders and cable car lineups take away from your time touring. We found the ship to be in excellent condition, enjoyed the variety of bars and lounges, had fun at the 10:30 dance parties, and attended a few of the shows that were good. Overall, this 3rd sailing for us in the Mediterranean was just as special and amazing as the first 2 which were on the HAL ships. Read Less

We loved this cruise, it was our first time . The room, the food, the entertainment, the service, all the specialty restaurants, fantastic... met some wonderful Aussi’s , and people from all over ! Loved the itinerary and all the tours we did .. We used Italytours for 3 of our tours and they were great especially Lucca, Ludo our tour guide in Pompei..... we are now looking forward to cruising somewhere again ........ Definitely go see all the entertainment that is offered its great .... We had dinner in almost all of the restaurants that were offered ! Loved hanging in the Atrium for cocktails, people watching and getting info on your next port . My dream trip was to sail the Greek islands and it certainly didn’t disappoint me, yes I would have loved to have spent more time in some of the places like Santorini and Mykonos..... My husbands favourite place was Pompei...... Read Less

I'm surprised there were so many poor reviews of this cruise-ship as my husband and I thought it was amazing! Perhaps b/c the cruise contains primarily older people (>50years) they are less impressed or adaptable? My husband and I are in our 30's, we stayed in a room with a port window on the bottom deck but still found this trip amazing. The ship was very clean including our staterooms.. The staff were professional, warm, and welcoming, and efficient with all services. We thought all dinning options (exception of the sushi/lotus-garden) were delicious - even the daily buffet had a lot of variety and good quality food. The on/off for shore excursions were well organized. We were disappointed in the limited amount of time we had on Santorini - it was only 4 hours but we could have used 8. The entertainment was good but not great (we loved the solo violinist!). We would definitely recommend this cruise to anyone. Read Less

We always wanted to do a cruise to Venice and the Greek Islands. Norwegian offered this cruise which suited us perfectly. The ship and crew were great. Great food lots of restaurants to choose from. Cabins 9076 was great with a great guy who cleaned up our room every day. Lots of bars to choose from. Also great entertainment in the Stardust Theatre. Shore excursions were great but found them a little expensive. We would definitely choose Norwegian again. Great trip. Embarkation and disembarkation went very smoothly. Found the crew very friendly and helpful. Great choice of single entertainers. Ship was very stable no rocking. Seemed very organized when tendering the passengers to places that the ship could not port. Very pleased the captain went into Santorinni even though it was very windy and other ships cancelled. That was one highlight of the trip. Also great port to start out in as we went 2days in advance to Venice. Really enjoyed it. Read Less

Catering / dining experiences on Norwegian Star 08 Sep to 15 Sep 2019, Cabin 11568 Sun Sep 08 1600 hours Drinks rip off. Package I bought is up to $15 drinks only, any extra is chargeable. Not one of the four agents I talked to prior to me paying mentioned this to me neither excess gratuities. Speciality Moderno Churrasco Restaurant Reserved 2030 hours One server per table, very, very slow service. Chicken was extremely dry; flank steak was inedible, filet was completely overcooked. I asked for a rare, what came back was raw. We both ate around it and got food poisoning with extreme diarrhea the next day. Mon Sep 09 Breakfast room service, OK. Continental breakfast only - not explained previously. Coffee is absolutely terrible. Versailles Restaurant Lunch 1300 hours Poor lunch. Clam chowder was cold and had no clams. Really just bacon and potato soup, and the bacon was rancid. Salad was OK. Greasy fries and meat. Very, very average. Tue Sep 10 Specialty Le Bistro Restaurant Reserved 2000 hours French food, supposed to be special but they can’t deliver, even on getting in we had to wait. The wine provided was incorrect. Getting it changed took about 45 minutes. Finally, the steak was under cooked and had to be sent back to be re-cooked. When it returned the vegetables were cold. My fish was sent back to keep warm; it was cold on return. Poor, poor, poor, poor , no concept or substance. Wed Sep 11 Aqua restaurant Asian salad was delivered with no dressing. Pot stickers were so well cooked that they were inedible. Staff argued about the dressing with me. Pork belly was just fat no meat. Impossible to eat. Fish was as dry as a chip. Went to Garden area for dessert. Garden Dessert, banana cake was fine. Back to room. Pool party on deck above kept us awake to midnight with Salsa and Latin music booming. Thu Sep 12 Specialty Restaurant La Cucina Reserved 2030 hours Long, long wait to get in, even though we had made a reservation some months before. Some clown ‘Teddy’ from the Caribbean had no idea how to take dinner orders, to serve wine, bread, water. He called me ‘man’, like ‘chill out man’. I was absolutely furious. Eventually we got Neil the Assist Maitre’d who took care of us. The meal I had was still inedible; veal like rubber - overcooked; potatoes under-cooked, spinach so salty I couldn’t eat it. Another NCL fiasco. Fri Sep 13 Cagney’s Reserved 2030 hours My expectations were very low going in. And even that low standard wasn't met. I asked for nothing special or unusual. Steak was flavorless and extremely well done, lobster tail was flavorless and hard to extract from its shell. Service times were OK. How disappointing yet again. Sat Sep 14 Teppanyaki Speciality Reserved 1715 hours The only small thing that was pleasurable was the interaction with other passengers eventually and the cooks. NCL didn’t arrange that, we did. Cooked food quality was tasteless and bland. Summary: After experiencing FIVE specialty restaurants on board during this trip, I can say that I am extremely disappointed and they are all unremarkable, universally bland, usually cold, over and under-cooked, overprices and served by staff who, in general, have no idea how to serve food to people. Your claim to specialty dining is farcical. You just don’t know how. Excursions Mon Sep 09 Disembarkation Kotor 1430 hours What a complete fiasco, no one knew what to do, no-one giving instructions, about 1000 people lining up, sitting down between decks, trying to get off. A 45-minute boat round trip, 80 people at a time, three boats. It took hours and we had a tender ticket. I did not want to go at all. We went. Walked round the old city, thousands of tourists, all buying souvenirs. Came back to the boat early to avoid the crush. Not worth the aggravation. Tue Sep 10 Corfu 1100 hours Ship was alongside finally. Went on a hop on /off bus tour around the old town. Traffic was very, very congested. I can get this at home. Took an hour and a half to get back. Lots of vessels in port, security backed up. Got back on boat at 1330, sail time 1600. Departed quite late due to missing passengers. This has a triple effect; first it sends a signal that departure time is not fixed; second, late depart means less time elsewhere for everyone; and finally less time elsewhere means hurry for those who stand by the times. What is really scary for me is that NCL had to PA the missing passenger names to see if they were on board! NCL don’t know who is on Board??? Where is the ISPS security process? So, the message is, who cares about being late? Who gets on without authorization? How easy is it for anyone to disappear and reappear on this vessel? Wed Sep 11 Santorini 1300 hours Met in theater at 1300. Patronizing and insulting crew member with a microphone. He managed to insult everyone continually over the course of an hour. His instructions were inconsistent and conflicting. He was from Latvia. This person should never ever have a position giving information to adults. He should be fired. He MUST, MUST get fired. Akrotiri Good sized tender to the bus. Good bus and tour guide. Very enjoyable and interesting visit and wine tasting. Fira was heaving with 8000 passengers from other cruise ships. People who went to Eio said it was almost shoulder to shoulder with people, impossible. Cable car back to port had a line stretching to the horizon. My wife didn’t want to walk down the donkey path. I waited and then walked down through donkey pee and shit. Supposed to be good luck.I just think it stinks. Return to cabin No water in cabin at all cannot shower before dinner. Thu Sep 12 Mykonos 0800 hours Got up very early to get tender (again) tickets. Already had processed hundreds of people before the published start time of 0700. I got group 8 at 0705. Call the correct time for god's sake! Just after getting the tender tickets the captain announced ship cannot enter port, high seas and strong gales. Shore excursions cancelled, waste of time getting up at all. These conditions were known to the vessel (I hope!) way before the line up.... Fri Sep 13 Argostoli Excursion to Kelaphonia, we were alongside the dock for once. Bus ride was long. The guide never, ever, ever left a moment of silence. Talking non-stop about nothing, she talked incessantly even on the most twisting part of the road about frying food and onions, garlic, eggplant, local fried fish and meat pies and how they are prepared. There was vomiting on this bus. Going back to port this commentary ontinued, more people had the urge to throw up. She never stopped right up until the last minute of the tour. No awareness of anyone else but herself. She should not be allowed to operate a microphone - anywhere, ever Sat Sep 14 Dubrovnik Excursion to Game of Thrones, yet another tender. What is wrong with NCL that they can’t tie up alongside? Tour was OK, short on time and the last half an hour was just a promo for getting tourists to buy something. We tried to leave and get back to the port before then but were given an excuse to stay with the group. Long, long, long, long……. line up for tender. Looks like I joined a cruise that is just comprised of queues and lines. I HATE lines for anything. This was never mentioned in the brochures. Read Less

My new husband and I chose this cruise because we wanted to spend our honeymoon in Greece and thought a cruise would allow us to see more islands then traveling directly to the island. We were very wrong. The first issue with this cruise is that almost all of the locations require you to tender from the ship to the island. This requires passengers to wake up at 6am to get tendering tickets to be on one of the first tenders out. Although they have 3 tenders, the tenders only hold about 125 people and some islands its about 50 minutes round trip from ship to island and back to pick up more passengers. First day in Montenegro some people didn't get off the boat until 4 PM and we were only there until 6PM. Montenegro was nice to see, but I wouldn't go back. Corfu: Second day we did a beach excursion in Corfu. The beach and water were nice, but the bus forgot to come back and get us. Everyone on ht excursion was left standing on the side of the road for an hour while they tried to figure out how to pick us up. Luckily we didn't have dinner reservations that night. Santorini: we were supposed to be in Santorini for 9 hours, so we booked a 2 1/2 hour volcano excursion, thinking we would have time to do both. DUe to the poor planning by the cruise, our excursion turned into six hours which left us very little time to actually see Santorini, one of the places we wanted to see most. This was another tending location which then required a cable car lift to the town. (The cable car only holds 36 people each trip and there were 3 other cruises in dock, so imagine the lines and time to even get from the dock to the island) Mykonos: We thought this would be our redemption for a good time. We waited for our tendering tickets at 6 am, then they decided at 7am to announce that they couldn't stop there today due to high winds. According to a crew member this was the fourth time the ship didn't make it there this season. Argostoli: actually had a port. Beautiful little town. Food was really good and prices were cheap.Try Pan Nik for lunch. Croatia: typically when getting tendering tickets you have another our to get your family, eat, then get off the ship. This day they announced to everyone in line that if they're collecting the tickets they needed to get off the boat immediately and if they didn't they would need to get to the back of the line for a new ticket when they were ready because they had docked early. Peoples families were still sleeping, people were in pajamas, and it was an absolute uproar of guests yelling at crew members. Croatia itself was beautiful, very cool to see Game of Thrones locations. Food: the food was average, nothing to write home about, a lot of it seemed salty to me. Le Bistro was a specialty location we tried which was delicious. Room: we had a balcony room which was clean, modern, and plenty of space for two people. Shows: The individual performances were very good, but the larger productions were not good. Performers did the best they good with the trash shows they had to perform. Paradis was confusing and slightly offensive. Crew: Most of the crew were nice, but we did get attitude from a few of the bartenders. Also the ship was a majority of older guests. We are 27 and felt that often times we would be ignored at the bar or restaurants while they helped the 50-60 year olds. We paid A LOT of money for this cruise so to be treated like second class citizens was irritating. OVERALL: If you want to see Greece, don't book a cruise. We talked to another couple in the airport who did another cruise line and has cruised often and said they did not like the Mediterranean cruise either. Just fly to these islands to experience the beauty of them. Read Less

Chose NCL Star because it started in Venice which is a city I have wanted to visit and sailed to a number of Greek islands I also wanted to see. It was 7 days which was just the right amount of time to be on a ship and there was a new port planned every day. And most of the sailing was in the evening so most of the say was planned for the islands. Embarkation was pretty easy except for getting from our hotel to the port as it is not easy for people with mobility issues. Our first port of call was Kotor Montenegro which should have been fun except it turned out it was a "tendering" stop and the tenders take 30+ minutes to go from the ship to the port. And it was raining slightly and somewhat windy so would be a long journey to port. It turned out there were 4 tender ports and long lines to get the tender and ride to shore. You lose 3 hours going and coming back from ports. And without notice we didn't even stop in Mykonos. Didn't find out until I asked a guest service person what time we were getting into port and they said we weren't going to Mykonos. No reason. Just not stopping. Very poor communication. This was also true while waiting for tenders which took a long time. No updates. The cabins are nice and the staff overall was very nice and helpful. The buffet was ok but I wouldn't say great. It had a decent amount of variety but nothing stood out. The specialty restaurants were better but of course they should be. They cost more. The main dining rooms were good with a decent variety but I now think I prefer the set seating times versus "freestyle" dining. They make freestyle dining sound like a perk but I actually like having the same wait staff for all 7 days because they get to know you and what you like/don't like. The main dining rooms have ok wait staff but not exceptional. Also the cruise over charges for internet usage which in this age is mandatory every day. I just don't like getting nickel and dimed every day. Read Less

The best way to start a review is to ask, " would I do this trip again"? Answer is yes. We stayed 3 nights at the Hilton Stucky(prior to the cruise) and flew American Airlines Economy Plus- both I would do again also. We docked at 8 am and were in the airport by 9am-plenty of taxis to get to Marco Polo. We flew out at noon. Now some details on the cruise. We stayed in a suite and had priority status. Without the priority status, I don't thing we would have been as happy on the trip if we had to wait in the long lines to tender. 12030- no balcony, but lot's of room and good view. Restaurants-generally good or better with service somewhat slow at times Entertainment- pretty good except for the magician Room- clean, our steward was exceptional Beverage Package- I upgraded to the Premium Plus, not sure I would do again, as availability of the upgraded items were not always available at the bar we were at(Champagne and Woodford Bourbon) Ports- all were worth the trip, except Cofur. Agrostoli and Kotor were surprises. Any questions please reach out. Happy Sailings Read Less

I loved everything about the cruise and the ship. The food, accommodations were great. State rooms were a little small but we had a balcony. My disappointed with the cruise line, was there was no Greek food. I feel since it was a cruise thru Greece, they should have had a least one night with Greek food and deserts. I enjoyed myself and liked everything about the cruise. The service was great, the stewards, waiters and waitress, the bartenders . Was surprised that there were no more stores. Liked the sales for the bags and chains. I No enough chairs or lounges at the pool. People left towels and didn't sit there all day. Feel they shoukld take the towels away after 2 hours of a no show, COULD NEVER SIT AT THE POOL. That upset me. But all in all I loved Norwegian Cruise line and will definethly go with them again. Read Less

The cruise was very good and so is the food and service The only downfall is when you have to take a tender to go ashore You have to line up early in the morning to get a ticket and the line are very long. It would be better if tickets were available at the end of the day after supper When you have more time.tickets were available from 7 am to 8 am but the line up was very long at 6 am.Makes no sense Cabins were very roomy and well appointed . The crew make sure that you have everything you need. If you take a speciality meal program make sure to book very early Because larger group of people traveling will make it harder to get what you want. We try for the steak house restaurant but because they had 2 group of 25 and 60 People we could not get a reservation until 9.30 pm Read Less

The people working on the ship are amazing! They made our trip extraordinary and special. I find that the services provides from embarkation are way above our expectations. I like that all the staff were smiling and greeted us all the time. The food was delicious and we had so many choices. We are able to customise our dining experience by having the main course at one place and dessert at another. Thanks to Debbie and all the food staff for all your hardwork. I can only imagine how hard it is to feed an entire ship. The shore excursions are great and we find best value for money. Thanks to Gemma for helping us out which ones to go to. The public areas of the ships are clean and that is where we stayed most of the time. Our cabin was spotless all the time! Thanks to Marck for cleaning our cabin all the time. We had a lovely time and we are looking forward to cruise with Norwegian Cruise Line again! Read Less

We are Platinum Latitudes - so we get some really nice perks -and we appreciate the extras that keep us coming back to NCL. Having been on just about every class ship we were excited to hear that the Star had been overhauled last year -and while it was nice, there were a few things I found strange. They enclosed the back end from the Garden Cafe - now H2O. It got a bit stuffy even when sailing but at least it was a quiet spot. The change in the Atrium to include Starbucks seems strange for a place that you go to listen to music before dinner (and other times) - now that it is a Starbucks -if you want a drink while listening to the music you either had to get your own from another bar or wait a while for the "barista" to go bring you one. That being said, I loved the ports, we spent 2 days in Venice before the cruise, and went off ship every port. Did 3 ship excursions and explored on our own for the others. Santorini was crowded as we were told to expect, but lovely just the same. Great views and some wonderful food. Speaking of food (and drink) The restaurant servers & bar people work very hard and we had no complaints about that. Food was good, good selection in all venues. The shows were OK - to be honest we have seen Band on the Run on 2 other ships - so didn't go to that. But there is enough other entertainment around the ship in the bars for fun. So- all in all - a good week - I always say , if you can't have a good time on a cruise -there is something wrong with you. Read Less

We are Platinum members on NCL and have cruised on many of their ships. The Star is by far the worst ship I have ever been on. We normally sail in the Haven but this ship does not have a Haven so we booked an Owners Suite. First off the room was freezing cold the entire time and we were told we could not turn off the air just turn it up. We had it turned up to the hottest it would go and it still blew freezing cold air. The room was clean but weird layout and no balcony! No balcony for an owners suite seems odd to me. The room has floor to ceiling windows on the front of the ship but a big pole and partial wall block what would be a nice view. The service is spotty at best. Our room steward and Butler were good and did their best but restaurant and other staff such as bartenders were terrible. We had booked reservations for the specialty restaurants but when we showed up we were told we would have to wait. Both times we waited close to an hour past our reservation time! Why make a reservation? The only food for dinner we had that was good was in the Teppanyaki Restaurant. All other "Specialty" restaurants are terrible. Food and service. I took a look at the Buffet but would not touch anything there. Entertainment is awful as well. Very bad wedding singers at best. No movies on the TV just a loop of the same six shows played over and over. Very short stops at the ports and cruisers from at least 2 or 3 other ships at the same time making it very hard to enjoy the small towns. The worst thing was when my husband and I went to the spa for massages. My husband has Vitiligo which is a harmless autoimmune disease that affects the pigment in your skin. The massage therapist came in to the treatment room where my husband was laying waiting for his massage and told him she wouldn't massage him because of his skin!! You would think a massage therapist on a ship of thousands of people would be better trained. So insulting and rude to my husband. My advice is skip this ship if you are planning on visiting the Greek Islands. Read Less

Awful experience! I had my body covered in bedbug bites two days after getting on the boat! It ruined my holidays! They downgraded us to a different room which by the way they said it had also been cleaned off bedbugs! They washed my clothes and ruined quite a few of them! They said they had to spray our shoes and sent them all back in our suitcases all together in a ball without any care! I couldn’t sleep for 3 nights as my body was extremely itchy. I couldn’t take any photos as my body was covered in bites. I had to keep wearing the same clothes as I couldn’t wear clothes that showed my shoulders because of all the bites. It was an absolute disaster! I reported it to NCL and have heard nothing back yet. I would not recommend this ship to anyone unless I was shown a bedbug free certification from Pest Control. Read Less

We have always talked about going on a cruise. My wife had been on quite a number of cruises and she was excited about going on a Mediterain cruise for the first time. Bookings of flights was not correct until brought to the attention of NCL. At one time our travel agent was told that NCL is a Cruise company and not n airline, which I told my agent that they should not offer air travel with the cruise then. The sailing time was changed and not communicated to anyone of our travel party although other members did get an email or this change. A destination was removed because of the delayed departure which was also not communicated to our group until we boarded although it was known three days in advance. The food seemed to be discounted in flavor and in texture. There are certain things I have seen working in food service before that some restaurants do to cut food costs, and it appeared to me that NCL practiced all of them (Watered down juices and beverages, Kraft singles? Really, Bland flavor). It was like food on a retirement home cruise. One Word NCL: SALT. Ok, two words: SALT and SALT. The staff, the crew, every person on the cruis was friedly and helpful, but that did not make up for the poor quality of logistics and food. What a shame, because everyone I know that has been on a cruise talks about the food more than anything and this was a complete disappointment. Entertainment was ok but not fantastic. The actors and singers worked hard just the shows were not the qualty I expected either. Read Less