Absolutely horrible

Item: Norwegian Star
Rating: 2.6
Author: myklscholl

Norwegian Star Cruise Review to Other (Asia/Africa/Middle East)

myklscholl

Contributor Level: Purser

Cruises: 2-3 cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 14

Overall rating:

2.6 out of 5

Verified Review

14 Night Antarctica & South America (Buenos Aires Roundtrip)

Sail date: February 04, 2024

Ship: Norwegian Star

Cabin number: GTY

Traveled as: Singles/Friends

Reviewed: 3 months ago

Review summary

Bruh, don’t ever take this cruises they changed the name of the cruise from “Antarctica” to “South America” one day into the cruise because they cancelled the Antarctica days. Google “ncl Antarctica” and you’ll know what I’m talking about. Complete bait and switch, we should file a class action against Ncl for this

Embarkation

1 out of 5

Bad

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

5 out of 5

Onboard Activities

1 out of 5

Entertainment

1 out of 5

Children's Programs

1 out of 5

Service and Staff

1 out of 5

Ship Quality

1 out of 5

Cabin / Stateroom

5 out of 5

Ship tip

Don’t sail with them

Thumbs up

Ports of call

Buenos Aires, Argentina

5 out of 5

Montevideo, Uruguay

5 out of 5

Puerto Madryn, Argentina

1 out of 5

Punta Arenas, Chile

1 out of 5

Ushuaia, Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina

1 out of 5

Cruise Paradise Harbor, Antarctica Did not visit port

They cancelled this port

Thumbs Up 0

Elephant Island, South Shetland Islands

3 out of 5

Port Stanley, Falkland Islands

1 out of 5

Disembarkation

1 out of 5

9 Comments

drboiler 3 months ago

Wow Whizzard thats interesting information you provided. I want to share an interesting bit related to saving fuel. If a cruise has 7 ports of call and they eliminate 1 than they can cruise at a slower pace, so if saving fuel is the reason than why create these cruises that require them to sail at higher speeds. Anyhow do not know if any of that is related to why. I personally was on the Jan 7 sailing of the Star to Antartica...it was interesting but in Buenos Aires they took all our passports from us...thats a first...it was said that Uruguay inspected them...I did get a stamp in my passport to prove it...got our passports back after we were in Faulkland Islands. Interesting note we missed Punta Arenas Chile due to high winds and tender port (safety) and we tendered in Faulkland Islands...we were almost 2 hrs late leaving due to the long line of people getting back on the ship. On another note related to saving fuel...crossing the Drake Passage and heading towards Antartica is a huge expense of Fuel with the extreme currents, waves and winds...so I believe there was another reason why they did not navigate the Paradise Bay Channel which is narrow with Antartic Pennisula on oneside and an island chain on the other. If the ship had any mechanical issue I would not take a ship into that type of situation. My question is did they make it there the next voyage?

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Whizzard 3 months ago

The itinerary change was an administrative decision made before the NCL Star set sail. They decided to not inform passengers until AFTER the NCL Star set sail. There was never an official explanation. There are some rumors and some ideas as to why. One idea is as a money saving effort. By cutting down on the distance covered they could travel at slower speeds. The ship never exceeded 20.8 knots. Slower speeds yield fuel savings and I understand fuel is 25% of the cruise’s operating costs. The scuttlebut is the idea that a large contingent of Argentine nationals were deprived of visiting the Faulkland Islands the cruise prior and became belligerent to the point where the captain and crew felt threatened. It’s important to understand that Argentinians have no way to visit the “Malvinas” as they like to call the Faulklands, except on a cruise ship where the ship collect all the passports and passengers get off at Stanley under the authority of the cruise line with a ship card for ID. The rumor is about 150 of them refused to leave the ship and were allowed to remain onboard for OUR cruise. This would explain the extension of our Stanley port of call to almost 13 hours. As a bonus, NCL operated the ship much slower than if we had pursued the original itinerary and got to save fuel.

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