Thread: NCL Star - Alaska 09/08/07 review part 2

Food
FYI 2 for 1 special every night from 9:00 – 10:00. You could reserve anytime during the day for the following night.
This is the 1st time were not happy with the specialty restaurants at any time. The food was good but the service was beyond better in the main dinning room. There were 8 of us at Le Bistro so our waiter was busting his tail but no one would help him out. His assistant was new and she did a good job with the drinks but he wasn’t letting her do much else, the head waiter in there was wandering around, she wasn’t any help nor did she seem to notice the issue the larger tables seemed to be having. This was lobster night, on previous cruises we were able to get lobster free in Bistro. We were told before we went that it has changed and you can only get it in the main dining room for free. This was no big deal for us. The fondue is not on the menu, we had heard you can still order it so 3 of us did. They did tell us it would take a few minutes as it is prepared somewhere else and not in the Bistro kitchen. It took almost 10 minutes to be served the fondue. It came with a platter of fruit, mostly pineapple, strawberries, honeydew and cantaloupe. Service was slow, long waits between courses and hardly an apologetic comment from any of the staff.
We ate at Cagney’s the next night. The food again was good but the server was extremely rude. We had reservations at 9:00 so we are not sure if she was having a hard night or just tired. When we asked for fondue for desert she just took the order and left. When she returned with something else we asked why we were not served the fondue. She said fondue is not available and "this is the only chocolate on the menu". We mentioned we had it at Bistro when it was not on the menu, and were under the impression we could order it here as we had on previous cruises. She replied in a rather uppity tone, "this is Cagney’s, not Le Bistro", and walked away.
We did eat at Ginza one night and La Trattoria and had better service than the previous nights at the specialties. We ate in the main dining room the other nights. We tried to get into Endless Summer on our Prince Rupert day around 7:00, we walked by and noticed there were only 4 or 5 couples in there so we thought we could get in. We were told with no reservations we couldn’t eat. So we went down to Ginza with no reservations and got right in. After we ate there we went back through and noticed Endless Summer was still mostly empty. Perhaps there was a communication problem.
They had 4 or 5 selections each night as the main course, chicken, fish, meat, lamb…the chilled soups and salads (soups were very good). Nothing fancy about the food as usually in the dining room but the service was the best ever. We meet Dhuri the senior waiter on the first night and he would always check on us there and at the Café for breakfast where he worked for breakfast and lunch. Dhuri, by far, was the best and most attentive of any member of wait staff we have had on any cruise, including NCL. He was entertaining, constantly checking on us even if we just happen to be in the area. He is a good example of why people follow a specific crew member from ship to ship.

The general service in the main dining room has improved dramatically, with all forms of etiquette followed closely (crumb scrapers being used, correct ordering and serving etiquette, ladies first, etc.) We did not see this same attention to service detail in any of the other specialty restaurants.
All menus had been changed in every restaurant. The only area which seemed to have improved were the main dining rooms, all other areas have slipped in service quite dramatically.
Midnight (11:00pm – 12:00 midnight) Chocolate buffet Several ice sculptures, cakes, chocolate dipped fruits, brownies, cookies, ice cream. We went to watch one couple that was with us, it was their 1st cruise. Lots of sweets and all very well presented.

Dress Code
Hot topic always and every night of the cruise; there signs out front of
each: No shorts or beachwear after 5:00 pm…that’s it. We saw blue jeans, sweat pants and 2 couples in jogging suits at Cagney’s. We asked about it in Cagney’s and were told by the seating hostess that you can wear whatever you like except shorts. We took pictures of the signs in front of each dining venue. The freestyle called Cagney’s and Bistro "designated areas" and said no jeans, shorts or beachwear but no one seemed to mind or care what was worn.

Ports
Ketchikan - We took the kayaking tour to Eagle Island, the eagles were out to lunch while we were there.

Juneau – Did the floatplane trip to Taku lodge for the salmon bake. Must do trip!

Sawyer Glacier – Captain Lars heard from the Pearl Captain that Sawyer was too foggy so we went out to Endicott Arm. We saw seals, bears, more seals and glaciers. Captain Lars said this was the best weather he had seen in a while, we had a perfect view of the glacier.

Skagway – Did the White Pass/Yukon Railway tour. Another must do.

Prince Rupert – We did not have any plans here, we walked around downtown and Cow Bay for a while then went back to the ship.

Disembarkation
NCL had colored tags allowing you to pick what time you wanted to get off the ship. We picked the 0900 time slot (0940 was the last one to be called).
The mass exit was pretty smooth to be around 2200 people that were upset their vacation was over. We found our bags in the warehouse, handed the customs form to a lady as we walked out the door. Easiest ever (don’t you wish Miami was like this). We went out to find a taxi and the limo guys come at you. We found one for $40 to our hotel in Renton (near the airport). The four of us that were traveling together with 7 suitcases and 4 carry-ons all fit with no problem.
The weather was great the whole trip and overall we all had a great time. We even took advantage of the specials they pushed all week; $250 deposit on your next cruise to be booked within 12 months and travel within 30 months.
We received $100 credit on our current shipboard account for this future cruise and no other deposit will be due when we book the next one.


All in all, this was not the best NCL we ever had, but thanks to 5 specific crew members, our trip was better than it would have been. Thanks to Dhuri, Captain Lars, Tony Lockett and our wonderful stewards.

And this is the rest of the story! Thanks I've never sailed NCL, so this gives me something to compare my other cruises with.

There was a limit and I was 400 over so I tried to break it up in the middle somewhere.

Thank you very much for your review. We have also never traveled on NCL, mostly due to information on food, so we were especially interested in your food information and also in the service. We will probably eventually try NCL at least once.