In my case, that busyness involved four medical appointments the first four days at home, a 24-hour medical monitoring and a haircut. Then, of course, I had to get through four loads of laundry, get to the dry cleaners and forage some food for the house. We received a three day reprieve of digging in the dirt when the forecasted 6” of wet, heavy snow fell Tuesday through Wednesday. However, after my last appointment on Thursday, I headed right over to Costco and bought the first of our annuals before the Mother’s Day weekend buyers descend. A benefit of being retired!
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| Ten hot pink geraniums, plus four pounds of broccoli. This was just a “get started” Costco run! |
Today, at last, things started feeling more normal:
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| I finally made and ate breakfast; |
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| and peeled snd segmented my own orange (how do they do it so perfectly on a cruise ship?) |
The flowers still aren’t planted, but the snow has melted and that allowed me to do some preparatory garden bed clean up today, and after I prepared the post-cruise surveys and made a spreadsheet for tracking 12 months of booked cruise prices, AND uploaded that last day’s Patter (it’s there, go look!) which required G digging them out of his suitcase, I’m here, ready to share some thoughts about the Star Princess. Simply stated, we love nearly everything about it. Maybe we weren’t so crazy to book that cruise after all!
Surprisingly, I like the Star Princess despite the fact that it is so different from what I’m usually looking for in a ship. It’s big, really big, and there was no issue getting in my steps every day (in fact, I came home two pounds lighter despite lots of indulgences). It feels way more like a hotel than a ship, but still allows guests to feel a connection to the sea. Certainly all the windows and globe shaped Piazza help with that. And the outside Dining Promenade and its nearby soft seating do, too.
Most of my steps were spent walking forward to back on Decks 7-9, several times daily. I was only on Deck 6 a few times, first to explore, then to go to Guest Services, and I’m not a fan of that deck. The entire deck feels closed in and smells like heavy chemicals from the spa pool. In fact, I was surprised to see, when we looked at the ship from shore, that there are bulkhead balcony cabins (I think they’re called Cove Balconies) on Deck 6. I would have thought, from the smell, that there was no outside air at all to that deck. It reminded me of Deck 8 on other ships. I went to Deck 5 and Decks 10-16 only a handful of times, but did walk across Deck 17 much more frequently. All this to say that, though the ship is big, I tended to live on just a few decks.
We loved having a cabin on Deck 9. It seemed central to everything, which is why we booked it in the first place. I would not generally book as far forward as we did (9200 series) because of the Princess Arena noise, but, if it was the only cabin remaining on Deck 9, we’d bring our usual earplugs and stay there again. For future cruises, we booked more midship cabins, not too close to the forward elevators. Smoke from the casino on Deck 8 is pervasive in the forward stairwell a few decks above and below, but, in chatting with people who stayed in those midship Deck 9 cabins, it is not an issue in either the corridor or in their cabins.
And while I’m on that topic, I tried to avoid the smoking casino area entirely, but did walk through there a few times. I can’t imagine a single experience I am less suited for in life than to sit in a smoky casino playing obnoxiously loud and flashing machines and losing money. This was a Prestige casino cruise, and there were a lot of gamblers on board. I met one very nice couple who cruises nine months a year, all on casino rates across various cruise lines. On Princess, they generally book side by side minisuites with the Premier Package and said it costs them, after losses, at most $50K annually to do that. They are in the casino nearly every hour it is open. Good on them, but no thank you.
We loved the outdoor areas on the ship, but I’m not sure how we would enjoy this ship in cooler climates. Still, short 500 passengers in this cruise, we always found a place to sit, inside or outside. It felt much less crowded than the Emerald Princess did on our rough second Hawaii cruise in February. The Princess Arena is definitely undersized, but here’s the thing: we are picky about our seats in the Princess Theater and always get there at least 45 minutes early for the early shows. This was really no different, except that when we arrived 45 minutes early, our choice of seats was not unlimited. But I spent my waiting time writing blog posts, so, without that dedicated time, I’m not sure this blog would exist. The seating is much, much more comfortable than most Princess Theater seating, wide enough with plenty of leg room. And, like in the Princess Theater, there are favorite rows that go early where people can easily pass by to get to middle seats.
Ingress and egress in the Princess Arena is definitely limited. It’s a confined space, and that had my husband highly concerned, trying to figure out how they would get people out of there quickly in an emergency, especially given that it’s a muster station. I prefer to not worry about it (but you might).
We made a point of checking out The Eatery and the Americana Diner to size it up for future cruises. There are ample options, including even grab and go boxes with sandwiches, salads and desserts that could be very handy for in cabin dining if you don’t have a package with the free Ocean Now delivery. I thought it would be great if one of us got sick…but we never did. In fact, this was a very healthy ship. I heard two deep coughs during the entire cruise. One of them was right next to me in the Princess Arena, but it was again a case of having sat in my seat for over 30 minutes already and not wanting to give it up. I survived unscathed.
The ship amenities themselves are largely wonderful. Certainly the elevators top the list. They almost totally eliminate the crowding that is commonplace on other ships. And when an elevator arrives and a door opens, people aren’t dashing into it, because there’s a good chance it’s not going where they want to go. It’s amazing how removing elevator tensions improves the cruise experience. Saying that, I largely used the stairs between Decks 7 and 9 all day long. My knees are definitely feeling it after three weeks. Definitely.
Public restrooms are large and uncrowded. I only encountered a couple of waits. The sink faucets, when they work, are amazing, especially the sinks that have individual hand dryers. They don’t always work, and that’s why there is often a separate soap dispenser sitting on the counter. I can see that being an issue years down the line. You’d think they would have tested them for durability.
Our cabin was pretty near perfect. I’m not a fan of closet doors, and missed the normal Princess layout, but we quickly adapted. The little bench was nothing more than a pillow and clothing collector, and a place under which shoes were stored. I loved the drawer space, there was plenty of storage, but the nightstands are narrow. This meant that the space between the beds when set up as twins is also narrow. We bonked heads a couple of times when we both went to stand up at the same time. Coming from a sideways cabins on both the Crown and Royal Class ships all winter, that was the biggest adjustment. But the cabin lighting was fantastic. For the first time, we had ample lighting in the cabin, and could even find the wayward pill or earring back that fell to the floor.
The bathroom is the best part of the cabin. I would cruise on this ship for that alone. The shower is the best I’ve ever encountered on a ship, lighting was perfect, storage was ample. We always received two bath towels, hand towels and wash cloths. Always. It was a wonder. There is separate shampoo and conditioner in the shower and it wasn’t awful. There are Drybar blow dryers in the desk drawer, too, and they are much kinder to hair than other models.
There are ample power ports of the USB-A and -C varieties all around the cabin. The mattresses and pillows were perfect. It made my cruise experience so enjoyable (and much less painful). Our cabin steward was the only weak link we encountered with any crew, and she wasn’t the worst we ever had. She just seemed a bit overwhelmed.
However, what I’d heard about the crew on the Star Princess - all overworked, unfriendly- just wasn’t the case. They were fantastic to us. We were spoiled, of course, with Sanctuary Dining, but every time we ate in The Eatery, every crew member was attentive and helpful. Drink offers, table clearing, the buffet line workers…it was all great.
Dr. James Engman was a phenomenal enrichment lecturer. His professorial style made me want to return to college again (but I’ve had enough, thankyouverymuch, not to mention that pesky studying part.) The entertainment for the most part was quite good (though not as good as on our Emerald Princess cruises this past winter), CD Dan Looney is a prize (but I don’t see him staying on ships too long), and the production shows were a big disappointment. In fact, probably the only disappointment of the cruise.
Captain Arma is a charmer (hey, that almost rhymes!) and his announcements made us feel like this was a really special cruise (it was!) and we were just the best group of passengers to ever sail on the Star Princess. That was maybe an exaggeration (just maybe), but it was a really nice group of people. This cruise felt friction-less. It was wonderful.
We liked it all so much that we booked six more cruises on the Star Princess (but it looks like we’ll be cancelling at least one of them…choices). I guess that kind of says it all.
As for what’s up next…cruising-wise, nothing until October. And we have to make a choice in the next month about whether we’ll be returning to the Star Princess then or going with our original plans. Those people who book with non-refundable deposits over a year in advance? Yeah, we ain’t them. We don’t usually know until final payment date which direction we’ll be heading.
In the meantime, we have a busy (and I mean busy) few months in store. A couple of trips in the next few weeks for conference and NCAA Regionals track championships (and then there’s still a chance of going to Nationals in June). I’m going to have to watch McGuy’s masters graduation via live stream next week (this body is tired, and I did make it to his undergraduate graduation last year). And, the big news I just got the day we were in LA, McGee’s event time at the NCAA Regionals in Arkansas was finally published and -wonder of wonders- he (and we) are (fingers crossed) going to be able to be there for the nighttime race and then catch a flight before 6am the next morning that will have us driving straight from the airport to the academy with just enough time for McGee to get into parade dress and march on the field for his graduation ceremony.
We really thought he was going to have to miss his own graduation to compete at Regionals. Though we had been at his sister’s academy graduation four years ago, I was kinda pretty crushed at the thought. We all were. I predict I’ll be teary from march on through McGuy’s wedding vows in mid-June. So much joy. It’s kind of…wonderful.
Life is so good. :-)
