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Norwegian Cruise Line

MS Norwegian Star

Your Rating:
Reviewed by: David Schumer
# previous cruises: 4
Date of Trip: June 8, 2003
Itinerary: Hawaii

Overall we were disappointed with the cruise. The food was so-so as was the food service and the ship having engine problems and missing one of the ports of call was a negative. If we had our druthers and had it to do over we would have gone on Celebrity which is a much better line.

The ship is beautiful and the public areas were very adequate. The theater and the main dining room were beautifully done, too bad the entertainment and the food service were just so-so.

Overall the food was a disappointment in the main dining room, except for breakfast which was quite good. The lunch and dinner buffets were poorly done and after a couple try's we avoided them. The BBQ on deck wasn't bad nor was the hot dogs, sausages and hamburgers. WE ate at two of the specialty restaurants (Endless Summer and the Ginza) and they turned out to be the best meals we had on the ship. The service was inconsistent in the main dinning room --sometimes very good and other times very slow. I would rather have the same wait staff for the entire cruise as I believe there is more incentive for them to give good service. The service on other parts of the ship was excellent--bar, deck, etc. But I would not use this cruise ship again because of the quality of the food was not what we had experienced previously on Celebrity.

The cabin was excellent except the beds were somewhat sunken in and very soft--oh my back! We had a cabin with a balcony on Deck 11 Forward. This is the first time we had a balcony and now we will never go back to an inside or cabin with just a window. The cabin service was also excellent and the rooms were made up very quickly. The bathroom was quite adequate and was fine for my wife and I. However, we are not big people. I would rate the cabin five stars.

We attended all of the shows and they were nothing special.

This was a seven day cruise out of Honolulu which is supposed to go to the Big Island, Fanning Island, Kuwai and Maui. The Big Island was beautiful but we were only there for five hours so we spent that time visiting with friends who live in Hilo. The next day and a half was spent cruising to Fanning Island (Gibert Islands). There we boarded tenders and spent about four hours. In our opinion it was not worth that long trip. On the way back from Fanning Island the ship developed engine problems and we had to take an extra day at sea and miss going to Kuwai. This was a bummer for us since we planned on doing the chopper ride there which was to be the highlight of the cruise. To compensate for the inconvenience the cruise line gave us a $100 per person credit towards anything we purchased on the ship. They also cruised by the volcano on the Big Island. However, since we had no binoculars it was a non-event for us. We did take one side trip to Haleakala National Park via bus. This was a half day trip and proved to be very nice.

It was a mixed crowd on the ship with lots of people celebrating birthdays, anniversaries or on their honeymoon. All the people we ran into were friendly and having a good time. Although there were children aboard they were not wild.