Norwegian Star Cruise Reviews - Reviews

We loved the service, the room, the structure in general. It's worth a lot. Everything was really well organized, the logistic was good, the music, food, activities, restaurants, staff really supportive.

Highly would recommend this cruise to all. Ports of call were excellent, staff and service were extremely accommodating. Cruise food and entertainment were average, specialty restaurant were very good.

We could not get change for our Euros anywhere aboard the ship.                           I was impressed with the Captain that showed authority at the right time and place .             

     Thank you CAPTAIN.

Food wasn't anything to write home about, but overall it was a good cruise. Fun parties when returning from port. Rooms were clean but a bit dusty and not as much attention to detail as others I have been on.

Sailing through the Bay of Kotor was spectacular. Really enjoyed the beauty of this bay. Enjoyed the ports of Dubrovnik, Athens, and Kotor. Was disappointed with the ports of Split and Katakolon (Olympia). Our initial itinerary included Santorini and Ravenna, Italy; however, NCL changed this approximately two months before sailing. We were not very happy about this change. Our balcony cabin and bathroom were small in comparison to others in other ships.  The ceiling paint in the balcony was peeling and paint chips were continuously on the furniture and floor. The specialty restaurants, Cagneys was good, but not impressive. The food at Moderno's Churrascaria was delicious. We did not enjoy the food at La Cuccina and the service was mediocre, sorry we selected this restaurant. Food in the regular restaurants was, for the most part, tasteless and service was slow.  We only saw 3 shows, one in particular, The Sea Sons, was very good. The show called Paradis was odd and I found this boring. Our cabin steward was wonderful, and most other service around the ship was good.

This was our second cruise on the Norwegian Star.  The crew was very professional and went out of their way to make our rooms clean and tidy, our meals tasty, especially in the Versailles Dining Room, and our tours enjoyable.  We loved visiting every site.  The only concern we had was visiting Santorini.  This was the reason we took this tour but there were way too many people visiting this tiny island.  There were four cruise ships and a ferry boat at one time.  We were able to visit the charming town of Oia but ran out of time seeing our other tour site due to crowded streets filled with buses from the ships.  I would recommend to NCL to try to visit any of the island ports with only one or two ships.  Overall though it was a very relaxing trip because of the staff of NCL.

The places we visited were very beautiful, but getting off the ship, and back to the ship was very difficult, and there was not enough time to enjoy any of the places.

Particularly the last stop at Dubrovnik that landed at 7am before any place was open.  It was a little like a wine tasting - only enough time for a taste, but not enough time to relax and sip a glass anywhere.

Since my regular life is so scheduled, I prefer to go on vacation to relax and not have any time constraints and schedule demands to meet.  This was my first cruise and I thought it was very stressful always having to be somewhere on time.  I would not be inclined to take another one.

Also, we booked a balcony room, mini-suite, that was supposed to accommodate 4 people, but it was very cramped, not enough space for the luggage, and the the 2nd bed was a pull out sofa that was very hard!

The entertainment far exceeded my expectations! There were some real class acts and top notch entertainment acts, knowledgeable lecturers, varied decent musicians, especially since ship is dated and could use some updating.  The majority of staff were phenomenal,  courteous, kind, happy, energetic, and always willing to go the extra mile.  Accommadations while sufficient, lacked luxury and refinement, overal decor felt very dated.--borderline tacky. The food was hit and miss.  Fortunately there were a variety of dining options; some inclusive of stay and others at a premium upcharge. 

Not a good cruise. The room Have extra bed took much of the small space. TV need repair 3 times, Towalet did not flush, Phone did not work ,Very noicey room. The food very Salty. The Excurion over price.

My favorite part was not having to cook or clean!  Love mostly all of the ports.

Entertainments, band, evening shows, dancers were all excellent.  Cruise Entertainer Director Richard was the best ever.  

It would be too easy to say it was the Taj Mahal.  The fact is that the overall experience was phenomenal.  The itinerary was what caught my attention and it did live up to expectations.  Every port had something to offer, from the culture to the food to the friendliness of the people.  The ship shows its age, but the crew more than made up for it.  The specialty restaurants were well worth the money with high quality food with terrific ambiance. The entertainment was varied and well presented and I couldn't finish this review without mentioning Richard the Cruise Director; he was wonderful!

  We took two cruises in a row, for 37 days in succession on the Norwegian Star cruise ship, from Auckland to Dubai. Daily life aboard was enjoyable. We felt free to be as busy or as lazy as we pleased. The variety of dining options suited us, as some days we wanted to be served in the fine big dining rooms, some meals we just wanted to hang out by the pool, and we knew that the market buffet offered great choices all the time, breakfast, lunch and supper. Only once did we take the big splurge at an extra-cost specialty restaurant on board, because the free options were so good. Celebrating my birthday was a treat, because the wait staff in the big restaurant gathered to sing to me.

  The crew members were generally friendly and competent. NCL should offer courses in English pronunciation to their employees who deal directly with passengers. Misunderstandings occur when service staff are not articulate.

  The handling of shore excursions needs improvement. The young lady who offered commentary on each port was difficult to understand and she didn't have first-hand knowledge of some of the destinations. She was sloppy about mis-pronouncing and mis-spelling names of port cities. Even the printed material posted about Khasab, Oman, for example, said "Kashab" erroneously.

 Handling passports appeared to be slipshod, with no assurance that strict security measures were being employed.

  The itinerary was attractive, providing varied experiences for seasoned travelers. We especially appreciated the arrangements NCL made to provide group visas for shore excursions in India, a country with notoriously bureaucratic practices.

  Tendering was a pain in the neck. We were unaware in advance that so few of the ports in this part of the world would accommodate docking for such a big ship. We suspect that NCL takes the cheaper option and uses industrial ports to avoid port charges. There's no substitute for tying up to a dock with a nice passenger terminal to welcome us. We'll be more wary next time about anchoring offshore. On the earlier cruise, we even had to tender into one of the greatest, best-developed harbors in the world, Sydney! And we missed Brisbane altogether!

It would be too easy to say it was the Taj Mahal.  The fact is that the overall experience was phenomenal.  The itinerary was what caught my attention and it did live up to expectations.  Every port had something to offer, from the culture to the food to the friendliness of the people.  The ship shows its age, but the crew more than made up for it.  The specialty restaurants were well worth the money with high quality food with terrific ambiance. The entertainment was varied and well presented and I couldn't finish this review without mentioning Richard the Cruise Director; he was wonderful!

It would be too easy to say it was the Taj Mahal.  The fact is that the overall experience was phenomenal.  The itinerary was what caught my attention and it did live up to expectations.  Every port had something to offer, from the culture to the food to the friendliness of the people.  The ship shows its age, but the crew more than made up for it.  The specialty restaurants were well worth the money with high quality food with terrific ambiance. The entertainment was varied and well presented and I couldn't finish this review without mentioning Richard the Cruise Director; he was wonderful!

Despite a few problems, we enjoyed the cruise very much. NCL has excellent entertainment in most nights; their band, dancers and singers are fantastic. The workers are some of the most friendly people - they cannot trained them so well, so those workers must enjoy their jobs. The food was quite good in this cruise and the different ethnic celebrations in the buffet each night was smart and delicious. Moderno is a fantastic paid option for variation as dinner choice. We were very lucky with the weather. In our stops, don't know why we have to be so far away from all the interesting places and most of the time be tendered to nearest far away harbor. That's upsetting and time consuming. The visas with Australia were not handled well. We suggest NCL requires some sort of visa proof way before one checks in. And when mistakes are made with visas, they shouldn't send ultimate letters to the stateroom. That ruins anyone's vacation. The cruise consultants in this trip were not friendly so no cruise reward buying for us. Finally, NCL has gone paranoiac with bringing water, juices or liquor into the ship. They should cool down and follow their motto: freestyle cruises. Overall, though, we were very satisfied and will cruise NCL again. Always giving them a chance to improve.

The itinerary for this cruise was amazing. We really enjoyed all of the ports as well as the sea days. One of my favorite things about this cruise was the captain who gave us daily reports of the waterways, the ports, the weather and some of the history of the area we were in. 

The downside to this cruise was that there were several changes in the itinerary and NCL was not good about keeping us informed of the changes. Despite this we would definately do this cruise again. It was well worth the money.

service was always excellent

shows also very good

 this tip the ship lost power. we gut stuck in the open sea,had to get towed back to Melbourne for repair, lost to much time to complete the cruise as originally was planed. 

I have no problem with the Captain or the crew of the ship. We had very nice accommodations, great service, entertainment and excellent food. The problem lies with who made the decision to keep sailing with a ship that had half of its propulsion system working. We were notified a day before we flew to Sydney that the ship would only be traveling at half speed and would be late arriving at Melbourne with an overnight, no stop in Tasmania (big disappointment). We made it to Melbourne as promised. Then things went south, broke down at sea some 12-15 hours after leaving Melbourne, waited for a tow back to Melbourne (24+ hours). We only visited two ports out of seven and one we visited twice (Melbourne). After the propulsion system was fixed they made a 'b line' to Auckland, NZ the final stop. NCL said we will be fully refunded for the cruise which I haven't received an email stating so? Also offered 50% of what was paid for this cruise to apply on our next cruise. All of this is nice, but a lot of other expenses went into this trip of a lifetime, airfare, hotels and restaurants, not to mention shuttle service and taxi's. I have no proof but I think this was a corporate decision made by NCL to keep this ship sailing and the ships crew was caught in the middle of this poor decision. We were fortunate we weren't further out to sea when the ship broke down. The two star rating has no reflection of the Captain or crew, only of corporate.

The staff were great and the food was fine.  But this cruise was a trouble one.  The Norwegian Star had mechical problem with one of its propellor in Singapore in December and they informed passengers for this cruise before the sailing of January 16 from Hong Kong that they had to cancel two ports of calls, Ho Chi Ming City and Bangkok.  It was a disappointment to me but as they informed us before the sailing and offered $200 pp on board credit as compensation, I went on with the cruise.  After we visited Bali, the captain announced that the next port of call for Komodo Island had to be cancelled to make up time as there was now. Unrelated issue with the propellor and it was not operatable.  Then we received notice the next day that two more ports were cancelled, Brisbane and Airlie Beach in Australia. NCL upped the compensation to $500 pp obc and 50% cruise credit on amount we paid for this cruise but has to be used within a year.  This created huge protests among passengers as many see the NCL was not being transparent with the mechanical problems associated with the ship and the compensation was not enough to cover the loss of 5 ports of call out of ten.  Eventually, after meetings and negotiation, NCL agreed to change the credit to 100% of the payment paid to thus cruise and there is a 5 year time frame to use the credits.  Some passengers were still not happy as many think they may not be able to cruise again due to age and health issues.  A refund of the cruise fare would make more sense to many.

with the cancelled ports, we had a lot of sea days which were not planned for initially and we arrived Sydney on time on Feb 6. But I had unsettled feeling that this ship is mechanical unsound and should not continue to sail.  NCL is taking a chance to continue to operate it for the rest of its iteninary.

Post Cruise note:  Two of my friends, with many other passengers stayed on the ship to sail to New Zealand.  My wife just received text messages from my friends that the Norwegian Star engine failed and the ship is inoperatable 70 miles at sea from Melbourne.  The ship has to be towed back to Melbourne which may take 20 plus hours.  NCL now have to offer all kind of refunds and compensatiion to passengers that now are put into Avery bad situation out at sea.  The saga of is ship continues to unfold

The on-board experience was pretty good.  Cabin stewards, dining staff and shore excursion staff were helpful, friendly and efficient.  The problems all came from mechanical breakdowns and NCL's mismanagement of the situation.  Five of the original ten ports were cancelled, and two more were rescheduled to later days, making shore excursion availability uncertain (and often unavailable for advance purchase).  NCL staff in Miami were generally unhelpful.  The first two compensation offers were insultingly small, and they only got better when passengers started behaving badly.  Bottom line: a pleasant experience once aboard, but we never would have bought it if we had known the real itinerary.

This was an excellent cruise. Captain and crew treated guests outstanding. Some guests became an angry mob demanding full money back. NCL gave $1000 account credit, 100% of cruise cost less port charges and taxes towards another cruise in the next 5 years.  I thought that was fair. We traveled on this cruise at 50% off last year's cruise price due to problems on POA SF to Hawaii last spring. Will have to spend more air fare to get to another cruise if we book in future so no one comes out 100% no out of pocket expenses for further cruise.