Windstar Istanbul Cruise Reviews

Concerns about Turkey and Istanbul in particular before leaving the US. These concerns were quickly overcome by this 7-day cruise from Istanbul to Athens. Stayed at the Pera Palace for a couple of days prior to departure and toured the city. Istanbul is a great mix of history and modern, the hotel spectacular! Embarkation was a breeze and the ship was in great shape following its recent dry ...

We arrived early and enjoyed a very quiet Istanbul. People were friendly and we so enjoyed our second visit there. Embarkation was extremely smooth! They had plenty of employees to do each step of the embarkation process and there was no line when we arrived. This was our first cruise with them and will not be our last! Just loved it. All the cabins on the Wind Star are the same so decks ...

Thoroughly enjoyed the cruise. We boarded in Instabul and visited Romania, Bulgaria, and the Ukraine. A bit of the ship was outdated and needed some maintenance, but we thoroughly loved the size of our room and the crew itself. The meals were very good in the dining room and the dinner in Candles (everyone is entitled to 1 meal) was excellent. It was great not to be nickeled and dimed ...

My wife and I are ardent cruisers having sailed twenty plus times with the major providers. We have just returned from the 'Greek Islands & Turkish Delights' cruise. This was without doubt the finest cruise we have ever been on. I had read some of the reviews on this and other sites about the ships condition and decoration but have to say that most of the problems we observed were trivial and ...

My wife and I just returned from the Windstar "Gems of the Aegean" voyage on the Star Pride and had a really excellent time. We stayed in Cabin 118 that is a S1 class cabin on the 4th deck (one floor above the main dining room). We had read the reviews on this board and were concerned based on the mixed nature and a recent very negative review. I am happy to report the Star Pride looks great, ...

We are not big cruisers...we have been on Celebrity, Seabourn and Sea Dream Yacht Club. But we know we enjoy smaller cruise ships and chose the Star Pride for our dream cruise of the Eastern Mediterranean. It did not disappoint. We opted for a cabin with a French balcony. We knew this meant we couldn't sit in chairs outside, but we loved it anyway, as we could open up the doors and enjoy the ...

Our trip started with independent flights from JFk-Istanbul via Rome on Alitalia. Unfortunately, our flight from JFK was late and we were going to miss our connection. Alitalia placed us on a Turkish Air non-stop to Istanbul but it left 8 hours after our originally scheduled departure. The flight was pleasant enough in Business class. We spent one night at the Inter-Continental which was quite ...

What's Old is New and What's New is Old Windstar Cruise: Star Pride June 20-27, 2014 Istanbul to Istanbul After seven cruises on Windstar's Sailing Vessels, I was curious as to how the unique Windstar culture would be incorporated into the re-born Seaborne Pride. I am happy to say that everything we've liked about Windstar is alive and well on the Pride. That isn't to say there aren't a few ...

OK so we started out booking Crimea, Odessa, Romania & Bulgaria...Crimea got substituted with two ports in Turkey, for obvious reasons. Amasra was fine, but Samsun was a waste as it's just an industrial city/port. The weather wasn't great the whole week, but Windstar cant control that!. The really nice stop was Odessa. On the maiden voyage we read about joining the chef on his shopping trip in ...

We were on the Windstar week of June 7 to 14,2014 Istanbul to Athens. It’s a great itinerary, Istanbul, Kusadasi ( for Ephesus & surrounding area), Rhodes (Old City is terrific), Bodrum ( we toured Castle & went to Bitez beach via dolmus-bus), Santorini (Oia), Mykonos then finishing up in Athens. Every port stop was just wonderful. The ship experience is different (better) than large mainstream ...