Thread: NCL Star - Alaska 09/08/07 review part 1

Sept 8th NCL Star to Alaska
Seattle – Arrived 2 days early, stayed at the Inn at the Market right next to the Pike Place Market. The hotel has a town car that will pick you up from the airport and allow you to use it during your stay. The Inn’s location allows you to walk all around Pike Place Market, shops, restaurants, liquor store and the Seattle Aquarium. There is a roof top garden where you can sit and watch the sunset or the ships come into port.
The Space Needle is a 10 minute walk, we had dinner here the 1st night in Seattle. It was a very good dinner and had great views of the city. The dinning area rotates continuously, about once every 30 minutes so everyone can get a view of Mount Rainier (54 miles SE of Seattle) and the sunset over the port.

Embarkation
Easiest ever, we arrived at the ship around 12:00 and walked right up to the agent to get our cards made then thru security. I was hand carrying a 1.5 liter bottle of wine, paid the $15 corkage fee and walked onto the ship (We told the gentleman collecting the fee we had more in our checked bags, he just waved his hand and said have a good cruise). The rooms were not ready and had all the hallway doors closed with someone guarding them all, asking you to go to the Market Café for lunch. Around 1:00 an announcement was made that the cabins were ready.

Cabins
There were 8 of us in 4 balconies, all on deck 10, 1 near the rear and 2 next door to each other but not connecting mid-ship, and ours was the 1st cabin forward right behind the Van Gogh suite (connecting room with the suite) with good view of the bridge.
Our bags arrived about an hour after we made it to the room. We had the cheese platter given to us as a gift and we wanted our wine that we packed in the bag. I figured I would have to go collect the one bag but no one said anything.
Right after we pulled out of port (right on time) we noticed a very loud whistle coming from the connecting door. Our suite neighbors had their forward balcony door open and it was making an awful squealing sound. Found our cabin stewards and told them the problem and asked for some tape to tape the connecting door seams.
They made a call to maintenance and when we got back from dinner we noticed it was still whistling. We walked out onto the balcony and noticed that someone had put masking tape on the balcony divider. We just pulled it off and brought it in. Problem solved. No real problems with our room except for the AC. It worked but thought we had a ghost in the room. The AC has up and down buttons that has 4 red lights on top and 4 blue lights on bottom rather than actual degree ranges. You adjust with the arrows for either heat of cooling. Our buttons were worn out and with airflow from the balcony or hall door, or even by closing the bathroom door they would move on their own. The first night we had it on full cooling only to wake up hot, it had changed from 4 bars blue to 2 red. We lowered it back down and opened the balcony door and went back to sleep (the AC or heat would still work with the balcony door open. Who knew).
Our room stewards were great; we had towel animals 5 nights. The 2 couples that had rooms next to each other never saw their room stewards and on the 3rd night they still didn’t have any towel animals (1st cruise for 1 couple and 1st NCL cruise for the other). They ended up getting just one animal each. We asked our stewards and they said they were required to only do 3 animals a cruise, our stewards like doing them every night. The other couple further aft never saw their stewards either and they got 3 animals. The stewards for the cabins in mid-ship were not the friendliest of people, they had to be asked several times for the smallest things (replacement towels,
etc.) and didn't seem to clean the bathrooms very often, with drips of soap never having been wiped from the sink. (They waited to see how long it would sit there; a request had to be made for the bathroom to be cleaned properly)
(Someone was wondering if you can still smoke in the cabins, yes you can)

Package
We purchased the romance package. Sparkling Wine and chocolate covered strawberries were brought in around 3:00 on Sat. Cake and Champagne party was Sunday night at 6:00, we forgot. Wednesday night would be the hors d’oeuvres (we noticed it did not say canapés). We called and asked for the cheese tray instead (no one answered so we left a message), Wednesday we had more cheese! The package came with the picture from the cake and champagne party or you got $8.95 off an 8X10 (Which were $25 each). We had our dinner and wine in the Bistro on Sunday night (optional formal and lobster night).
We exchanged our sparkling wine and the wine in the Bistro for different wines. They gave us a $22 credit on the wine that came with the package.

Latitudes Party
The party was Sunday, a few hours after our meet and greet. The drinks were flowing; they were almost throwing them at you. You never had to wait long before someone would come over and hand you something or take your order.
Prizes were given out; Captain Lars made a speech and cut up with the staff. He would be a great CD if he didn’t already have a job. Some had asked about the latitude pins, they were in the room waiting for us when we got in on Saturday, look like all the others except it had Star on it. The best Latitudes party we have attended.

Thanks for your report!

Thanks for Part 1...