Norwegian Star Reviews

Cabin was very small, smaller than any other cruise we've been on. The complimentary buffet and restaurant food was diabolical. I tried to have a beef Cury once and couldn't even cut the meat with my knife, let alone eat it, there was no seasoning at all, everything was cold, Luke warm if you were lucky. They wouldn't cook a fried egg at breakfast in the buffet station. they'd cook broken eggs for omelettes but wouldn't cook a whole egg. They gave my husband a can of beer but wouldn't give a can of lemonade, they said they had to poor it into a cup !!!!!!! Entertainment was very hit and miss. There was literally nothing put in place for Christmas and New Year. They had a party on the deck for New Year, nothing in the restaurants, nothing anywhere, very, very poor. The only thing that saved this cruise were the crew were brilliant and we met some great cruisers, all saying the same about the food. You had to use the specialty restaurants to get a decent meal and that meant spending more money, what a surprise !!!. We have always rated NCL but if the had been our first experience of them we would not be cruising with them again, In fact, we still may choose not to cruise with them again because of this poor experience.

Good points - spacious shower cubicle (despite poor lighting), excellent bar service. Awfully designed toilet cubicle with absurd and pointless sliding door which scraped us every time we passed through it. It appears to be retro-fit for no good reason. Cubicle would have been tiny before (think airline toilets) then they added door and frame which reduced dimensions by c. 3" on doorway width and c. 4" on cubicle width. Nobody would want to be in there brushing their teeth while somebody was doing their business behind a flimsy transparent door. Lighting insufficient in bathroom. Cabin is too snug for us. Food onboard was inconsistant although restaurants look good. I love soups but wasn't impressed with theirs. Indian food was good. Entertainment was not as good as other ships we've been on, although there are many talented performers.

Restaurant food excellent, buffer mediocre. All staff superb apart from two men on the customer service desk who didn’t want to be there. Organisation poor eg tenders (appalling), no ship wide announcements (nothing in breakfast). Cruise Director didn’t engage with guests. No ‘lectures’ or even info about next port of call. Theatre entertainment mediocre. No ‘index’ of films on stateroom tv and those shown were on repeat and limited. Stateroom & balcony small, cabin shower-room cramped due to poor layout.

The itinerary for this cruise was good. Unfortunately due to the weather it was unable to dock in the first 2 ports so more time was spent onboard. There seemed to be no contingency plans for activities for this extra time onboard. The buffet food was below expectations based on other Norwegian cruises we have experienced. However the food in the complimentary dining rooms was fine. Our cabin was clean and as expected with a visit everyday from our cabin attendant. On the whole the staff worked very hard.

Overall a disappointing cruise - the worst we’ve taken although we had a good time in spite of NCL. We have always told friends and family you won’t eat as well as you do on a good cruise ship. Not this time sadly. Main dining food was often tepid and very repetitive of an okay standard. Not what we’ve been used to on other cruise lines. The theatre shows with a couple of exceptions were generally average with little effort - one night they stuck on an old Indian Jones movie instead of bothering with any show at all. Service throughout the ship was very mixed. Some great staff who wanted to engage but many more who were disinterested. The cruise director was overbearing and annoying. She said several times that she was the youngest cruise director ever and called passengers who were leaving after a show had finished rather than listen to her spouting on disrespectful for leaving. However every time she walked past us having a drink in a bar and would ask how we were or were we enjoying the cruise etc, never ever stopped to listen to an actual response - disrespectful I say back at you. If you have a gluten allergy or intolerance watch out as you are a second class citizen with this cruise line and are nowhere near catered for despite what they think. On initial embarkation we were all told they would not be giving the daily piece of paper you tend to get detailing the days activities, shop, restaurant times, shows on, general weather and sea conditions etc etc. This was to save paper so very environmental. However we probably averaged about three sheets of paper a day being bombarded with all the upsell so no concerns over the environment there. I could go on but to end with the completely disorganised shambles that often happened when leaving the ship for a day out. The queues weren’t managed and it often became a free for all. One shuttle they actually put on in port again had the most massive queue and none seemed to know what was going on. I’ve never experienced such badly organised pier arrangements and staff were nowhere to be seen when they were needed. I said I wouldn’t go on but need to say when asking the excursions team on ship what our options to get into Amsterdam were as we were not in the port we expected they were very unhelpful- offered no advice but did try to sell us there $119 per person coach in to Amsterdam for about the two hours we would actually get there. Many of the piers the ship stopped at were not where expected and necessitated considerable expense and effort to actually get to the city we were meant to be visiting. NCL never again!

NCL everything is an extra anything on the ship even basics like water has to be paid for and then USA taxes applied despite buying the goods tax paid in Europe

Ship docked miles away from cities, Stockholm 38 miles, Amsterdam 28 miles, no free shuttle buses provided. Time ashore was limited, Amsterdam sailed at 1. 45pm. Theatre was cramped. Meals in dining room got monotonous with very little change of menu. Prices for wine/beer were expensive as were the shore excursions.

Chose this cruise due to the excellent itinerary of 6 port days and 4 sea days to several Baltic countries but was dis appointed by only a half day stay in Holland which was cur even shorter due to traffic accidents on the roads near the cruise port which resulted in an hour less in the destinations. The ship visited Gothenburg, Stockholm, Tallin, Helsinki,Copenhagen and Amsterdam leaving from Southampton.

Food very bland not very hot Drinks too expensive Lack of port information on board and too far from cities visted Activities very poor No itinerary delivered to room Cases out of room 8pm night before disembarking Having to wait 2 hours in a queue for shuttle bus into town you have paid twenty dollars for

The ship was lovely, staff and food were all great. The thing that really let it down for me was the organisation; particularly in relation to getting people on/off the ship. The excursions we booked through NCL didn't go well either - We nearly missed the ship once, and we paid hundreds just to get 2 hours in Amsterdam. There was always an excuse but it just happened too often and there should have been contingency plans in place (e. g. a computer glitch meant we had to queue and wait for 90 minutes to get back onboard). Every time something went wrong, staff just panicked and we didn't get any consistent message. Despite buying the drinks package we also got incorrectly charged for drinks on the last night and had to follow it up twice to make secure the charges got corrected. We also got tired of the seemingly constant 'upsell' (e. g. we got several calls to the room and had acquired a pile of marketing leaflets that had been put on our door). The daily newsletter always got published late (e. g. often after 9/10am . . . often after I wanted to check breakfast times, etc. or other details before I got off in port). It just needed to be better organised - Even little things like making the movie times available would have been fab (they showed great films but with no clue as to what was showing and when in our room we couldn't plan for it and never got to see a film start to finish).