Great Entertainment is the Best Feature

Star Princess Cruise Review to South America

Cruises: 7+ cruises
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 40

Overall rating:

3.4 out of 5
Verified Review
Star Princess

30 Night Andes & Cape Horn Grand Adventure (Los Angeles To Buenos Aires)

Sail date: December 04, 2018

Ship: Star Princess

Cabin type: Balcony

Cabin number: B606

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 5 years ago

Review summary

Very impressed by the high quality entertainer and show quality. Relatively poor food. But we can eat at great restaurants on land, so not a problem. Very comfortable bed, but poor AC ruined many nights for us.

Embarkation

1 out of 5
Chaotic. Hours standing in line with elderly family members who while not "disabled" were very uncomfortable. Worst of any cruise line I have sailed with so far.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

3 out of 5
Food is average or poor (compared to Celebrity, HA, Norwegian etc). But, that is ok since it discouraged overeating. :) As we cruise regularly we prefer the speed of the buffet over the full-service onboard restaurants. Buffet tended to be aimed at Chinese guests (lots of pork, rare to see chicken or turkey). Service on the ship was very good.

Onboard Activities

4 out of 5
We used the gym almost every day. It is well-equipped. However, this cruise seemed to have a lot of fit people and it was crowded every sea day. The ship needs more than one rowing machine as this device was very popular and one often had to wait in line - and people use it for around 30 minutes. Was irritated that the "art classes"- eg SeaCrafts had a ridiculously inadequate amount of (inexpensive) supplies - could only host 24 people when many more wanted to color or draw pictures in coloring books that one can buy for a couple of dollars. How many millions of dollars does each cruise profit the company and management can't buy more coloring pages and colored pens & pencils?? Does it eat into the execs bonuses or something?

Entertainment

5 out of 5
Excellent regular dancing, singing and musician talent. The best we've seen on any ship. We see shows in Las Vegas, London, NY and LA and the onboard Princess entertainers were as good as any. Often better than the special guest entertainers.

Children's Programs

Threw the kids overboard.

Service and Staff

5 out of 5
All excellent.

Ship Quality

3 out of 5
Everything seemed clean and well-maintained. But the layout was confusing compared to other ships. Got lost a few times trying to get to the rear of the ship where one cannot go all the way on one deck (have to go up a level and then down again). Maybe need more signs showing which is fore or aft and port and starboard?

Cabin / Stateroom

4 out of 5
Size was fine. The layout was good as it seemed larger than the same size cabin on other ships. Appreciated all the storage and "walk-in closet"area outside the bathroom. Good design and use of space overall. More comfortable bed than average. Was upset that the AC couldn't get down to a comfortable temp for sleeping (65-67 degrees). Many nights were sweaty and uncomfortable until the exterior temp dropped.

Ship tip

Arrive very early to get good seats at the shows. We had to get to the tera

Ports of call

San Pedro (Los Angeles), California

3 out of 5
Regular port. LIved in LA for many years so no excursion.

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

2 out of 5
Waste of time getting off the ship. Went on excursion to see "Hotel California" and cultural items. Actually spent most of the time being shown around very expensive jewelry stores.

Puntarenas, Costa Rica

4 out of 5
Liked the Sloth Sanctuary excursion. Not sure why the tour operator wanted people to sign a legal liability waiver when we were already on the bus. We refused to sign and so did a few others.

Callao (Lima), Peru

2 out of 5
Spent most of the excursion stuck in traffic. Walked around one square that was nice for a few minutes. Then off to the "Indian Market" which is nothing more than a tourist trap selling mass-produced rubbish. Miraflores looked nice as we drove through and would have liked to have spent more time there. But, as mentioned, traffic was terrible and we were an hour late getting back to the ship.

General San Martin (Pisco), Peru

2 out of 5
As the earlier excursions were poor we cancelled the remaining ones.

Coquimbo (La Serena), Chile

1 out of 5
Horrible "port". Others reported to us not much to see on excursions.

San Antonio, Chile

2 out of 5
Regular port.

Disembarkation

5 out of 5
Efficient and better than embarkation.
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1 Comment

cruisellama    5 years ago

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