8-Day Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico Cruise aboard the STAR PRINCESS

Cruise ship experience for adults was mid most activities rely on drinking and gamboling. Not family friendly my teenagers were complaining that there was NOTHING I mean nothing to do for them, even the kids were saying the same thing. The only activity they had was the teenage club where there was nothing but video games left and right. Additionally they have a SPA my teenage daughter has arthritis she wanted to go to the spa to help her inflammation but it was 18+. If there is an age restriction they should add a time slot when it’s all ages! Very disappointing experience no entertainment which left my kids sad and left out. All negatives aside it was clean and the staff were friendly and nice. Few other concerns was the food, it felt like there was no seasoning at all and the food was bland just take a look at their cheese and onion soup it looked like resident evil food. If you want to go to a cruise ship where the sole purpose is to get drunk and gamble away your life savings, princess got you covered!

I thought the Star was a beautiful ship and offered good food with very good service. Cruised from Vancouver down to Los Angeles after the Alaska season. Good shows; always something to do somewhere on the ship. If you are going to main theater, get there AT LEAST 30 mins early...PACKED VERY QUICKLY!! The only two caveats are: 1. There are odd starts/stops on the decks, requiring you to go up or down, rather than through; and 2. the ship holds a bit less than 4500, yet only has EIGHT loungers in its Thermal Spa. I do NOT recommend a week-long Thermal Pass. Half the time you will get sent away by the spa because the Thermal area is overly full, and the other half of the time you will be waiting for a lounger, space in the jacuzzi, or a place to sit in the saunas (VERY limited space!).

My wife and I sailed to Alaska on the Star Princess in early September. We have been frequent cruisers to Alaska – this was our 11th visit to the 49th state on 11 different ships. We have been on several Princess cruises before and wanted to try their biggest and newest ship. We booked a S2 Sanctuary Suite and enjoyed our latest voyage.

The highlight of the sailing was the amazing musicians featured on board. The headline singer Kimberly Davis, formerly of the group Chic, put on two spectacular shows backed by the ship’s orchestra. The Jiva Duo featuring singer Sarah and guitar player Jimmy also put on some great concert performances which were filled with audience requests. The ship’s party band, Asian Soul, also featured a terrific lead singer who could belt out some of the most challenging vocals. These three lead singers handled Whitney Houston and Adele songs with ease and performed in different venues including the theater, main atrium and the “dome.” Candlelight concerts in the dome were a special treat and guests were treated with a substitute dome concert by the talented Kelly McDowell who performed solo guitar and vocals. Production shows were entertaining – although our sailing was sold out, there was never a packed theater. The dome shows could get crowded but generally seats were available especially when the loungers were flattened forming benches holding several people. It was quite challenging to get seating for the Seahawks Patriots Thursday Night Football game that started the NFL season. The gym and running track were well designed and equipped. While September in Alaska isn’t exactly pool season, I appreciated the fact that the main pool, the adult pool, and the Sanctuary pools were available to lap swim early mornings at 7 AM – I swam alone during my workouts.

We ate 3 dinners at the Prime Steakhouse, The Catch by Rudi, and Love by Britto. The service was quite good and the food was fine. I was quite disappointed that even with the “Premier Package” – complementary? to Sanctuary Suite guests, more like you aren’t given the choice to not buy it, we were unable to make reservations to restaurants once onboard the ship. We booked the 3 specialty restaurants when reservations opened and thought the concierge would be able to get us additional reservations when we boarded. The answer is no, “Too bad you didn’t book in advance.” I would have been more angry except I ended up liking the food at the Sanctuary restaurant better – the Steak, Lobster and Baked Alaska on Friday was my very favorite meal and the last dinner of Prime Rib was excellent. While I think it is ridiculous all the reservations were taken in advance (certainly not that way in the NCL Haven or Celebrity Retreat), I was quite happy with the Sanctuary Restaurant food. I would also add each morning random openings in the restaurants showed up even in the very full restaurants like Umai Teppanyaki so openings can be secured last minute. For lunches, the buffet was fine although crowded (like every other cruise ship I have been on). Lido restaurants like Lido Greens were my favorite (I love custom Caesar salads for lunch), and you didn’t see a line at that eatery. Lido Slice also had good pizza (New York Style). The Sanctuary had a great seafood lunch buffet on our Glacier visit day with assorted sushi.

The negatives of the cruise started with inability to book specialty restaurants and worsened with missing a glacier visit. In the past, Alaska cruise ships would either visit Glacier National Park or they would visit Tracy Arm / Endicott Arm Fjords in Tongass National Forests. Due to land slides in 2025, ships don’t visit Tracy Arm with the Sawyer Glacier. So the Star Princess sailed down Endicott Arm to visit one glacier, the Dawes Glacier. With only one glacier and many ships, there is a very short window each ship is assigned to visit. You could tell the Star Princess had to navigate a lot of ice flowing down Endicott Arm, and ended up not being able to visit the Dawes Glacier. Whether it was because of safety concerns due to lots of ice late in the season or simply because it ran out of allotted time due to the slow speeds dictated by the ice flows, our ship did not get to make a glacier visit. Being our 11th Alaska cruise we didn’t not mind it but I’m sure many people were disappointed.

The ship architecture is a bit strange because you sometimes have to navigate halls of cabins in order to reach public areas like restaurants. It is also important to know how big the ship is – it requires a lot of walking to get to different venues. I didn’t mind it, but I prefer big ships with lots of different attractions.

Overall, I enjoyed the Star Princess sailing although mention the challenges of glacier visits late in the season on such a large ship.