Panama Canal Cruise
Norwegian Star Cruise Review to Panama Canal, Central America
Contributor Level:
Cruise Director
Cruises: 7+ cruises
Reviews: 12
Helpful Votes: 420
14 Night Panama Canal Eastbound (Los Angeles To Miami)
Sail date: February 02, 2018
Ship: Norwegian Star
Cabin type: Balcony
Cabin number: 9100
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 6 years ago
Review summary
The ship overall was nicer than I anticipated. Since it was built in 2001. Even though it was refurbished in 2015, I thought it might be showing significant signs of age but it did not. The entertainment and the entertainment staff were great. Food was good (we certainly did not go hungry) and the Panama Canal transit was the pinnacle of the cruise. None of the ports were especially outstanding. Excursions in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica were all over an hour's drive away which really detracts from the tour. If the excursion is only 5 hours long, you spend at least half of it travelling. After a while, all of the country sides start looking the same.Embarkation
Embarkation was fairly quick. There were lines but the moved quickly. The one negative was that we had to sign up for a specific time to process our embarkation papers but they did not adhere to these times. I have been on other cruise lines that did use these times and it made the lines shorter.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
We ate in both of the two main dining rooms on the ship: The Aqua and The Versailles. Both of the restaurants share the same menu. The Versailles is a little more formal that the Aqua. We did not try any of the specialty restaurants (I'm boycotting them due to the fact that I feel that the food should be all inclusive - like it used to be and I refuse to pay extra for "better food". I think this is a travesty on the cruise lines' part). O'Sheahan's good and we ate there on numerous occasions. After a while the limited menu took its toll but it was consistently good. The buffet was good for breakfast, so-so for lunch and not good at all for dinner. At dinner they only opened one half of the buffet lines and their selection of food was minimal. Desserts at night were pathetic - small selection and dried out (as were the pizzas on the buffet). One negative about the breakfast and lunch buffets is that they don't serve exactly the same thing on both sides. So in order to get some food items you had to walk up and down both sides and fight crowds most of the time and that got old in a hurry.
Onboard Activities
We enjoyed the multiple trivias they had each day as well as the line dancing classes. The entertainment staff was personable (with the exception of one person) and they were engaging as well. They made any activity we participated in fun. Bingo is pricey but we played in nonetheless.
Entertainment
The stage shows by the ship's dancers were very good. Costuming was dazzling and the dancers were very high energy. They had a nice variety of other entertainment which we enjoyed as well. They had one solo singer which was our least favorite. We were a little disappointed in the music at the dance parties at night. The bands seemed to play everything at the same tempo and it was always faster than how the original artists sang them. It made dancing a lot less fun. We would have enjoyed the DJ music being at 10:30 rather than 11:30.
Spinnaker Lounge
I was really disappointed in the Spinnaker Lounge because they don't offer frozen drinks. This is the second largest venue (besides the Star Dust Theater) on the ship and a lot of activities were held there. Even though the bar is in the lounge itself, they had side rooms, where they could make the drinks if noise was the factor in deciding not to serve them. The seating is also not the best and the chairs are very heavy and hard to move, so when you added people to your group, it was very cumbersome.
Service and Staff
Waiters in the buffet area were normally quick to remove dirty plates and clean tables so that other people could use them. We had one exceptional waitress in the Versailles which set the bar so high no other server came close. Our room steward was personable and efficient. We had two lights go out during our cruise and she quickly called Maintenance to get them fixed. The rest of the staff smiled or nodded when they saw you in passing. The biggest negative with this ship was the technology! If I could rate it on a scale of 1 to 10 I would give it a zero. The televisions are not interactive (come on NCL, get in the 21st century - you've got it on other ships) so you have to go to Guest Services to get a copy of your on board account. Television channels were pathetic. No major networks, 4 news channels (we did enjoy having FOX), two movie channels and one channel that streamed TV shows. There was no directory of when and what movies would be on, but Guest Services was able to provide us with a copy of them. Several in our group had issues with pre-ordering water and not having it when they got to their cabin. Guest Services could not find their order and had to wait for Miami to help them out when they opened three days later. Really?? The casino had a Super Bowl pick a grid party. They used a dry erase board. No one knew their numbers, no one saw the numbers drawn and then they forgot to put the numbers on the board until after the Super Bowl started. Talk about some upset passengers. The casino also did not have a way to post the winners of the two week long slot tournament. The last technological issue we had was in ordering our excursion tickets. We had to do this by phone prior to the cruise and on one excursion, they had only seven slots left and we needed eight. At their recommendation, we took the seven and called back daily to see if there had been any cancellations. We did this to no avail and they finally told us to see the Shore Excursion Desk as soon as we got on board and get on a waiting list. We went to Shore Excursions first thing and within 30 seconds had all eight of us on the excursion - they just changed our start time. Really!?!
Ship Quality
This ship was very easy to navigate. Common areas were clean and we continually saw people working on keeping them that way. We had a cabin on the ninth deck mid-ship and it was very centrally located for everything.
Cabin / Stateroom
The location of this cabin was excellent. We felt minimal movement on the rough sea days and we were three floors below the buffet, one floor above O'Sheahan's, and two floors above the main dining rooms and the main theater and Spinnaker lounge. The cabin itself was a little disappointing as it was a little smaller than we've had in the past. The shelf storage for clothing is inside the closet and you have to get down on your hands and knees to stock them and push your hung clothes out of the way to access them. Very poor design. The bathroom storage was also less than what we've had in the past so we had to get creative. The toilet is in it's own separate room - which was nice and the shower is probably the largest we've ever had (don't get too excited - it wasn't that big - it's all relative)
Ports of call
San Pedro (Los Angeles), California
We flew into LA the day before the cruise and once we got to San Pedro, walked around the waterfront and ate at a lovely café there. It was a nice way to decompress prior to the cruise.
Thumbs Up
5
We did the Outback Camel Ride at this port and it was great! The flora/fauna walk was a little disappointing but the camels more than made up for it. It was an absolutely gorgeous day and to think you were in Mexico, on the beach, and riding on a camel was just so much fun. I would definitely do it again. By the time we got back to the ship, it was time for the Super Bowl, so we did not do any touring of the port area.
We took a tour of the city with the Cliff Divers being the first stop. We had a higher observation point and could not walk all of the steps to the bottom. I was disappointed in that as I felt the vantage point from the bottom would have been a little more breathtaking. It's still amazing either way. After that we went to the Flamingo Hotel and walked around seeing where the stars of days gone by used to vacation. That was also a little disappointing as it is a very old hotel and I thought it would have been opulent since the stars vacationed there. Driving throughout the city was an eye opener as It was dirty and trashy with a lot of armed policemen and military. There was supposedly an unexpected amount of traffic due to protesters so getting around was difficult. Two stops for souvenir shopping and a view of the bay and then it was back to the ship.
We did not do an excursion at this port. We walked around the vendors at the port and then got back on the ship. Vendors were friendly and would wheel and deal on pricing. Once you went to one or two vendors, it was pretty much the same throughout the rest of them. It was a nice day on the ship as a lot of people got off and so it was a lot less crowded.
We did not get to go to San Juan Del Sur due to high winds. We docked in Corinto instead. We had a major excursion planned for San Juan but didn't get to do it due to the change in ports. Instead we went to the bubbling mud pots and historic Leon. The drive to the mud pots was about an hour and 15 minutes. They are literally out in the middle of no where. You were able to get VERY close to the mud pots and you could feel the extreme heat through the soles of your shoes. It was very dry and dusty there and small children continually wanted to walk with you, hold your hand, etc. in exchange for money. Then it was a 30 minute drive to Leon which was a nice town, but not worth the drive to see it. We did visit the Basilica there and got to go on its roof for a nice view of the city. Lots of vendors on the square which was the drop off point and they would follow you trying to get you to buy their wares.
We booked the Aerial Tram and Rainforest adventure. Another hour plus drive to the destination. We saw more wildlife on the drive to the destination than we did at the Rainforest. The Tram description is misleading to me as it mentions going along the tree tops. This was more or less a ski lift that went up the side of a mountain and then right back down. It ran vertically rather than horizontally. The Rainforest is a "dry" rainforest ( ?!?) receiving only one meter of rain a year. Zip lining is also done there so between the zips and the trams no wildlife in it's right mind is going to come near there. (To be fair we did see an iguana when we pulled up to park). They have snakes in cages as you walk along a trail and then a butterfly house. None of it impressed me as being unique. We did shop the vendors along the port once we got back to the ship. They were all about the same - always ready to strike a deal. I was totally shocked to see how brown the beach was and how dirty (muddy) the water looked. There were quite a few folks swimming but saw some children who looked like they had been playing in a mud puddle rather than the ocean.
This is when a balcony cabin is worth the extra money. The transit through the canal is an all day event and it was HOT. it was so nice to sit on our balcony and watch as we moved through the locks and lakes. We did go to the front of the ship to watch one of the locks open and to the back of the ship to watch one close. We also went to the port side to see the newest lock and watch as a freighter moved through it. Even though we sat in our balcony a lot, I had over 13,000 steps on my Fitbit that day!
We took a tour of Cartagena which included stopping at the fort (we did not go in - it was just for a photo op). We were inundated with vendors. We then took a walking tour of the town walking down several beautiful streets while admiring the architecture. It was very similar to the French Quarters in New Orleans with the addition of vendors continually following you trying to get you to buy something. We went to their Torture Museum which was a waste of time. There were too many people in there and too much to read. We went to the cathedral in the town which was pretty but then sat outside so you could "shop" for 15 minutes. After that we went so see some local dancers. It was VERY loud and we sat through 3 dances. The dancers were pre-teen and teenage children and for their age did an adequate job. Of course when we exited, we walked by the stage where a basket was in plain view for a donation. From there we went to a historical museum which was also not very interesting. All of the signage was in Spanish so looking at the exhibits was futile.
We did not do an excursion in Miami, but our trip from the port to Ft. Lauderdale covered some pretty areas of Miami.
Disembarkation
Disembarkation ran over 30 minutes behind schedule. Once our color tag was called, we went down and got our luggage. There were so many people in line to go through customs. NCL did not have enough staff to ensure lines were properly made. There were people breaking in line (because they didn't know where the lines were) and some creating their own line as they didn't know where the lines were. We saw several tempers flare as a result. It was a shame the cruise had to end on that sour note.