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

Staff throughout our cruise was impeccable! Loved cabin with a private balcony! We overpacked but still had plenty of room for everything. We were Premier and had no issues with food/drinks. They had great food options and amenities. ❤️ OMalley's for their live music by Kelly, bartenders & their Raspberry-ing drinks! Cruise had lots of entertainment throughout the day. We loved comedian Kevin Jordan; who took us back to our childhoods! The app was great for dining reservations, ships daily events, ordering room service, booking shore excursions and to help find my shipmate. We loved the Klondike Summit and White Pass Summit Rail & Bus Excursions. Also, the Medallions made it easy to access our rooms, drinks, and now a momento! Chilled at the Lido deck for great whale watching, food, drinks and entertainment. Staff was very attentive. We were pampered! Amazing pools & hot tubs. Our steward Neil was amazing and kept our cabin spotless. Definitely recommend the Alaska Cruise on Star Princess.

I have done a lot of cruises over the years and many were with the Princess line. I have been very satisfied until now. I wanted to treat my son, daughter-in-law and cousin to an Alaskan cruise. My husband and I had already done one, but I looked forward to seeing Alaska again. What a disappointment this cruise on the Star was. There was no regular theater to have shows presented. There was an arena with a stage that could hardly hold 5 entertainers. There was no entertainment on a regular basis that other cruises I have been on was presented. The fine dining left a lot to be desired. There were a lot of problems with my billing and I always had to go to the customer service to have them corrected. I had to ask for towels daily because they were not replaced after being used. I am sorry to say that this will probably be the last cruise I take with Princess. They really dropped the ball on this one.

Star princess was excellent nearly top to bottom. The ship, the cabin, the dining, the entertainment, and the service staff throughout were all everything we hoped for. I would have written a glowing review if not for one experience.

The lotus spa is the exception, and it was serious enough that it has ended our relationship with princess.

The spa's acupuncture practitioner offered me a complimentary consult to the service- which means he would have me fill out paperwork to sign up for the service. when i asked the price for continuing, he said $199, but that he would do a package deal for my husband and i at $160. I understood that to mean $160 for the package. My husband was present for this conversation. At no point was i shown or offered a written price list.

At the end of our first paid sessions, i asked for a receipt. He flat out declined the request, saying he wouldn't be able to bill it properly if he gave me a receipt. That should have been my warning. The next day, after our next session, i asked the price again and he again said $160. I asked for a receipt a second time, and again he again declined.

Only when he began scheduling further sessions did the actual pricing appear. He booked seven additional sessions for each of us. Initially, all of the paperwork was signed in a dimly lit "relaxation" room, where reading what was in front of me was not realistically possible. He then handed me a receipt for nearly $3,000, followed by two more receipts — one billing $199 per session times four, plus a mandatory 18–20% gratuity, plus two sessions of red light therapy we never asked for and never agreed to. The immediate charges came to close to $1,000, against a price i had been quoted twice as $160.

When i asked him to cancel the $3000 sessions, he would not do it on my word. He told me to go and ask my husband whether we should proceed first. I told him no and to cancel, and he then did after i began shaking my head and raising my concern.

To be clear about the sequence: no written price list was ever provided, a price was stated verbally, receipts were requested twice and withheld both times, paperwork was signed in a room too dim to read it in, the real cost surfaced only once a multi-thousand-dollar booking was underway, and my own instruction to cancel was not honored until i had been sent to consult my husband. That is not a pricing misunderstanding. That is a sales process built so the customer cannot see the price until they are already committed- plainly worded: a scam.

Everything else about this ship deserves high marks. But the spa operates on its own terms, and a passenger has no realistic way to verify a price when no price list is offered and receipts are withheld on request. Ask for the printed price list before anything begins, sign nothing you cannot read, and refuse to continue if a receipt is declined. Guest services cannot help you as the spa and guest services are 2 different companies on 1 ship.