Star Princess Review

We just returned on the Star Princess on Sunday & wanted to share a few a
brief comments about the ship & ports. Our last recent Princess cruise was
on the Sun Princess last Oct & noticed a few changes since 1998. Don't
interpret these comments to be only complaints, but some of the few
differences we have recently experienced.


1. Dining- We selected the pc seating this cruise and it worked well for us
since we always dine early at 5:30 & after 2 meals we reserved the same
table for the rest of the cruise. There was never a time when I saw long
wait to get seated (we were by the door) & by the time we left the dining
room at 6:30 or 6:45 there was only at short line of 10 couples or so. We
would rate the food in the dining room at good except for the beef, which
has taken a turn for the worst since our cruise back in 1998. Don't expect
to order a steak or prime beef & expect to get a tender piece. The quality
of meat has slipped in the last few years & unless you opt for one of the
extra charge restaurants I would avoid the beef dishes & select something
else. I also heard the same comments from other pax. We had the same
experience on the Sun Princess last Oct & thought it was only that
particular shipment of meat but it seems to be a cut back across all the
ships. We didn't eat at any of the specialty restaurants but I would think
the extra cost might get better quality meats. If this happened to us at a
local restaurant I doubt if people would return again. All other meals in
the dining room were good to excellent. The dining room service has remained
very good. They were shifting waiters & assistant waiters around during the
meal to account for heavy demand in other sections of the dining room.

We found rate the food in the Horizon court was as ok to good. Their were
numerous selections every morning but although they offered omelets to
order, but the fried eggs were prepared in advance & left to sit under a
heat lamp/hot tray & hardly even warn but the time I ate them.



2. Entertainment- It varied from fair to very good. I suppose the comedian's
& cruise director's jokes might be funny for first time cruisers but for
those people who cruise often they are the same old tired jokes. On the
positive side, Princess has updated their production shows on this ship &
they were impressive. The duo "Livewire" was excellent. The hypnotist was
also very entertaining.



3. Pools- The ship is on the large side & although we had a full crown
aboard everyone spread out enough in the swimming pools so it didn't seem
overly crowded in any one area. We used the forward located "current pool"
which was heated to 85 degrees & not overly crowded with kids. The kids
seemed to concentrate on using the main pool- "Neptune's reef". We also
found that we had selected Presidents week for out cruise & there were a
load of kids aboard which didn't present a problem since princess keep them
occupied most of the time with their own programs. Most of the children were
well behaved & except for a few instances weren't noticeable. The usual
problems of getting a lounge chair in the middle of the day didn't arise as
they enforce the removal of items left to long on the chairs.



4. Ports- Princess Cays, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Cozumel.



Princess Cays- They expanded the place from a few years ago & now has plenty
of shaded areas & lounge chairs for everyone. The lunch menu varied form
ribs, chicken, salads, sausage, etc & was sufficient for beach meal.



Jamaica- We took a tour to Dunn's River Falls & enjoyed the trip. We weren't
bothered by many the vendors as I had read in past reviews but it could have
been that we were transported to the falls by a catamaran & didn't exit back
to the transport buses at the top of the falls. Even the vendors we did run
across weren't that pushy. A simple & stern no seemed to fend them off to
another customer. I would still take precautions & stick with a group rather
then just walk with my wife. They seem to target in on single couples, which
make easier prey. Take caution with the rum punch they serve on these boats
as they use 151 rum & make the drinks with at least half rum.



Grand Cayman- We took the snorkel tour to stingray city & also enjoyed the
trip. On our past trips to stingray city we were at the area where you could
walk on the sand bar but this trip you had to snorkel in about 50 feet of
water. It allowed you to view fish as well.



Cozumel- The ship drifted during the day after unloading the pax onto
Cozumels large tenders. The tender loading process took about 30-40 minutes
since the tender was bobbing around & they load one person at a time.
Princess can't utilize their own tenders yet since the remaining sections on
the dock are much to high to tie up to. There were about 7 ships in Cozumel
that day & the tenders were spread thin with only one tender allotted to our
ship. (we were at the Puerta Maya dock) The pier, which was washed away
during last year's hurricane, is still in a pile of rubble & they haven't
even begun to haul away the damaged concrete pieces. The shops in that area
are in full operation & have been mostly fully repaired. Again we took a
tour to Playa Mia for the day since I had read that the beach was among one
of the better-restored areas. We found the place to be relaxing & although
it got crowded in the afternoon it still had plenty of room. Our tour ticket
entitled us to the buffet meal & open bar for the day. I would go back again
but not do it on a tour. If you do it on your own the entrance price would
have been $6 per person, lunch $12. The total time spent tendering & getting
to the beach was 2 hours going & 2 hours getting back to the ship. I
consider 4 hours of travel time in one day a little excessive just to go to
a beach. It's a good thing that the sun wasn't to hot that day since there's
little shade to hide under at the remaining portion of the dock. No matter
what you do in Cozumel be prepared to spend extra time just for tendering.



All in all we really liked the ship & didn't have enough time to even
utilize all the areas. We would definitely cruise on the Star again in the
future.

"RichC" :


Jamaica- We took a tour to Dunn's River Falls & enjoyed the trip. We
weren't
bothered by many the vendors as I had read in past reviews but it could
have
been that we were transported to the falls by a catamaran & didn't exit
back
to the transport buses at the top of the falls. Even the vendors we did run

across weren't that pushy. A simple & stern no seemed to fend them off to
another customer. I would still take precautions & stick with a group
rather
then just walk with my wife. They seem to target in on single couples,
which
make easier prey. Take caution with the rum punch they serve on these boats

as they use 151 rum & make the drinks with at least half rum.

Damn, I always wondered where that catamaran came from. Could you tell me
where it picked you up from?

Earl Colby Pottinger

--
Cruising, building a Catamaran, Rebuilding Cabin, New Peroxide Still Design,
Writting SF, Programming FOSS - What happened to the time?

"Earl Colby Pottinger" wrote in message
.. .

Damn, I always wondered where that catamaran came from. Could you tell me
where it picked you up from?

Earl Colby Pottinger

--
Cruising, building a Catamaran, Rebuilding Cabin, New Peroxide Still
Design,
Writting SF, Programming FOSS - What happened to the time?

We booked the tour on the ship & were bussed to the catamaran a short
distance from the cruise pier. (actually within sight of the cruise ships)

Hi, Rich, welcome back, glad to hear you had such a nice trip. Thanks for
sharing your review. It is good to hear an update about a ship we sailed a
few years back. You and I have been doing the same ones lately...we were on
the Sun recently, as well. I remember your review of that one. We didn't
have the same demographics (Christmas cruise), so our experience was
slightly different.

I particularly appreciate your detailed explanation of the tender process at
Coz. I had not realized there was an issue dock height that impacted use
of cruise line tenders--may have slept through someone else's version or
yours was more understandable, whatever, thanks for spelling it out.

Are you sticking with Princess for the next one or venturing into another
line?

Diana Ball
near Houston, TX

"D Ball" wrote in message
...
Hi, Rich, welcome back, glad to hear you had such a nice trip. Thanks for
sharing your review. It is good to hear an update about a ship we sailed a
few years back. You and I have been doing the same ones lately...we were
on the Sun recently, as well. I remember your review of that one. We
didn't have the same demographics (Christmas cruise), so our experience
was slightly different.

I particularly appreciate your detailed explanation of the tender process
at Coz. I had not realized there was an issue dock height that
impacted use of cruise line tenders--may have slept through someone else's
version or yours was more understandable, whatever, thanks for spelling it
out.

Are you sticking with Princess for the next one or venturing into another
line?

Diana Ball
near Houston, TX

More thoughts....
I also heard that Cozumel was considering adding a temporary lower section
to the remaining piers so the ships tenders could tie up till they
reconstruct the new docks. Knowing how slow thing progress in Mexico, it
might be a while.
The Captain told us that they can't drop anchor at Cozumel because the water
is to deep & consequently they have to constantly reposition the ship all
day long to stay in position. I'm sure they must be getting tired of that
routine.
The remaining sections of piers do have some shaded areas but not nearly
enough for the whole line of people. They also only have benches for some of
the elderly to sit & wait, but again only a handful. You would think by now
that Cozumel would have at least had the foresight to provide additional
seating. How much could 20 or 30 benches cost? Another possibility would be
to erect a large tent in the square with seats & let the ships hand out
tender tickets for boarding. It would also give the people more time to shop
instead of waiting on line for an hour.
Although we like Princess (16 cruises) we decided to go back & try NCL
another time on the NCL Sun in another 3 weeks. (also stopping in Cozumel)
:-(
Our last cruise on NCL was in 98 (Seaward) & they didn't have
the freestyle cruising at that time. At least I don't have to pack a suit !
There are
so many choices these days & we finally have the time to cruise as often as
we want.
I see a lot of good deals leaving from Texas these days so I'm trying to
talk my wife
into touring Texas & also doing a cruise from Houston.
Note- My cousin who returned from her fire cruise on Celebrity last week
said the
food was fine & had no complaints about tough beef.
Rich in Cape Coral, Fl.

"Reef Fish" wrote in message
ups.com...



I don't think so. I think it is ROUTINE for the cruiseships to hold
in position on several of the Caribbean ports rather than anchoring.
With GPS and the ship's auto-pilot, only the older ships may have
trouble holding in position -- that's my guess.


I don't think that's correct. I believe that a ship has to have what's
called "Dynamic Stabilization" in order to stay exactly in position. GPS
and autopilot isn't enough, based on what Captain Ioannis on Constellation
told us. And it's only several of the latest generation ships (like
Celebrity Millennium class) that have dynamic stabilization.... which, by
the way, according to him, uses a TON of fuel, because the ship is
constantly correcting. The tide moves the ship 6 inches... so the ship
powers it's way back 6 inches. That happens every few seconds all day. So
it's under power all day, yet going nowhere. Captain Ioannis said he never
uses it because of the large amount of fuel that it requires.

--Tom

Actually, my understanding is that Dynamic Positioning doesn't use that
much fuel. In fact, it's quite efficient. The ship's generators need
to remain on to power the ship anyway, and the thrusters/pods only run
for very short increments of time in order to maintain position.
Navigator of the Seas, for example, uses it constantly at Grand Cayman
and went for over a year without having to use her anchor. In fact,
when she did, it was in Labadee, when her mooring ropes broke and the
anchor, hurriedly, was dropped to prevent her drifting where she
didn't belong. The biggest problem with it is, most captains have
never taken the time to understand how, properly to use it. Your
Captain on Constellation sounds like a prime example.

"PARNAMI" wrote in message
oups.com...
Actually, my understanding is that Dynamic Positioning doesn't use that
much fuel. In fact, it's quite efficient. The ship's generators need
to remain on to power the ship anyway, and the thrusters/pods only run
for very short increments of time in order to maintain position.
Navigator of the Seas, for example, uses it constantly at Grand Cayman
and went for over a year without having to use her anchor. In fact,
when she did, it was in Labadee, when her mooring ropes broke and the
anchor, hurriedly, was dropped to prevent her drifting where she
didn't belong. The biggest problem with it is, most captains have
never taken the time to understand how, properly to use it. Your
Captain on Constellation sounds like a prime example.

It looked to me, from the water turbulence, as though the side thrusters
were running constantly. It has got to be an expensive proposition opposed
to dropping anchor.

Tom K wrote:
"Reef Fish" wrote in message
ups.com...



I don't think so. I think it is ROUTINE for the cruiseships to hold
in position on several of the Caribbean ports rather than anchoring.
With GPS and the ship's auto-pilot, only the older ships may have
trouble holding in position -- that's my guess.


I don't think that's correct. I believe that a ship has to have what's
called "Dynamic Stabilization" in order to stay exactly in position. GPS
and autopilot isn't enough, based on what Captain Ioannis on Constellation
told us.

Perhaps what I called GPS/auto-pilot is what you call Dynamic
Stabilization -- but it's all the same if the ship is capable of doing
that manoeuver.

I got it from the Captain of the Princess holding position on Nov 14
2005
outside of the Puerta Maya in Cozumel. I knew it was too far for
the ship to have dropped anchor even though that was the TERM
that was used in the ship patter. So, when I was having the
Friday luncheon at the Captain's Table, I made it a point to ask.
He said the ship was holding position where the depth was 200
meters, far too deep to drop anchor, and that the manoeuver
is quite COMMON. So, that's where I got it from the horse's
mouth.

-- Bob.


And it's only several of the latest generation ships (like
Celebrity Millennium class) that have dynamic stabilization.... which, by
the way, according to him, uses a TON of fuel, because the ship is
constantly correcting. The tide moves the ship 6 inches... so the ship
powers it's way back 6 inches. That happens every few seconds all day. So
it's under power all day, yet going nowhere. Captain Ioannis said he never
uses it because of the large amount of fuel that it requires.

--Tom

"PARNAMI" :

Actually, my understanding is that Dynamic Positioning doesn't use that
much fuel. In fact, it's quite efficient. The ship's generators need
to remain on to power the ship anyway, and the thrusters/pods only run
for very short increments of time in order to maintain position.
Navigator of the Seas, for example, uses it constantly at Grand Cayman
and went for over a year without having to use her anchor. In fact,
when she did, it was in Labadee, when her mooring ropes broke and the
anchor, hurriedly, was dropped to prevent her drifting where she
didn't belong. The biggest problem with it is, most captains have
never taken the time to understand how, properly to use it. Your
Captain on Constellation sounds like a prime example.

It would depend on which port you are in and/or what time.

A port that is open to the sea (not enclosed right around with a channel for
entering and leaving) could have a current running thru it will use lots of
fuel.

A port that has a lot of flow from the tides would be fine for a shorter stop
(4-8 hours) if a ship arrived and stayed only for low or high tide there
would be little need to run the engines. But if the ship stayed longer
(12-16 hours) and arrived at the wrong time would fighting four(4) tidal
flows in the same port.

Earl Colby Pottinger


--
Cruising, building a Catamaran, Rebuilding Cabin, New Peroxide Still Design,
Writting SF, Programming FOSS - What happened to the time?