The Norwegian Star

The Star at anchor in Juneau

Built in 2001, the Norwegian Star is one of the oldest ships in the Norwegian Cruise Lines fleet, but still beautiful. At 91,740 tonnes and 965 feet long, she is also one of the smallest but still carries up to 2300+ passengers with a crew of 1065 - to see more, click on http://www2.ncl.com/ship/star/overview

We woke from our Seattle hotel bed on the morning of our cruise with excitement and a little nervousness. Rochelle doesn’t like too much rocking on boats/ships and is prone to sea-sickness.

Most of our cruise should be quite sheltered because the ship cruises through the Inside Passage travelling between the mainland and the eastern side of Vancouver Island, we hoped for a calm journey. Our only concern was on the return where we were to travel on the western side of Vancouver Island, at the whim of the Gulf of Alaska and Pacific Ocean.

When we arrived by taxi to Pier 66 we saw lots of people scurrying about with bags, trolleys, groups of people and almost immediately as the taxi stopped to let us out, a man was there with a trolley to help us. We loaded everything on and walked together to a lady who was processing loads of paperwork. She asked this guy to take care of us and it became quite evident he wasn’t with the cruise line.

Being quite cynical, I thought we may well be saying goodbye to our suitcases as he encouraged us to leave him to join the passenger queue whilst he put on the cabin tags. What made it worse was the lady who was clearly part of the cruise line (her ID badge) told this guy she had to go somewhere and “left him to it”. Oh dear….. he assured us the cases would be taken to our room, so we left with our money, computers, passports and cameras and hoped for the best!

As we were queuing to board, we were advised of a problem with the gang-plank (not under the ship’s control) and we could expect a delay of 45 minutes or so, however the time passed quickly and the banter between all those lined up added to the fun.

Once formalities had been completed, we were taken onboard and led to our room – and WHAT a cabin!!! I think Grace took about 25 photos before we had explored our rooms. The girls had a room which adjoined ours and had a double bed on the bottom and a single bunk at 90 degrees on the top. They had their own shower, toilet and hand basin but no view of the outside world.

NO suitcases yet!

Our room had a small bar area with our own automatic coffee brewer, dining table, lounge and sliding doors to the balcony and a separate room for the queen size bed, shower beside the outside with a full length window to see the sea while showering, toilet with a semi glass door to look through the shower to the sea, Jacuzzi beside another window and twin basins.

STILL NO suitcases!

We learnt we had a Butler…of course, and why not…and we would be introduced sometime soon. After being onboard about nearly an hour, we still hadn’t met our butler and I thought we should get aquainted pretty soon so he could find our MISSING suitcases.

I walked to the passageway in search of him and LO….3 of our 4 suitcases were being delivered. They had no idea where the other was! That eventually turned up about an hour after we sailed, some four hours after we bade them farewell on the Pier.

We did meet our butler, but not until the second day onboard and, despite my initial cynicism and misgivings, he was very good, polite and helpful - as was our Filipino man who cleaned our room, twice a day. Not that we were very untidy….oh alright, we were but he was tasked to look after 16 rooms, twice a day.

We spent the next few hours exploring and to say we were excited is a huge understatement! Heaps of restaurants, a few free (included in the ticket price) such as The Marketplace which was a buffet style restaurant open about 16 hours, The Blue Lagoon which pretty much overlapped the hours for The Marketplace and many specialty restaurants such as Italian, Sushi with a separate Tepanyaki room to the side, Mexican, Spanish etc, all with a cover charge.

Best of all according to the girls, there was a FREE ice cream parlour, open who knows how many hours!!!

There was a library, much to Meryla’s delight (sorry Lisa) and a huge theatre with a terrific stage for live shows which we watched, only two shows sadly. Far too many things to keep you occupied. The girls even had their own clubs to join, 6~9 year olds, 10~12 and a teenagers club. Unfortunately as all USA students had returned to school the week we left, not many children were there.

We boarded on Sept 4th and our cruise was to have us at sea for Sunday, Ketchikan on Monday, Juneau - Tuesday, Skagway – Wednesday, Prince Rupert – Thursday, at sea on Friday and docked again early on Saturday morning. I am going to write about each port on a separate blog.

However the trip wasn’t without incident. After leaving Ketchikan, the ship’s starboard propeller developed quite a severe vibration as if it had struck something. We were told about it by Captain Lars late on Monday evening and he said we would have to slow the ship’s speed down as they were concerned that our normal speed to achieve our itinerary would need to be around 20 knots.

Therefore, our planned stop in Juneau early the following morning was postponed to later in the afternoon and we would have to miss Prince Rupert altogether as we needed the extra time to return to Seattle by Sat morning.

Changing the schedule, he said, wasn’t all bad news. We now had time to cruise slowly up Endicott Passage on Tuesday morning to see whether or not we could get to the end and look at Dawes Glacier. We weren’t going to disembark, just look, and WHAT a sight – separate blog again.

The following morning (Wednesday) we were advised by Captain Lars that after sending divers down to look at the propeller in Juneau, they found nothing other than a few scratches that appeared quite new. He said, after leaving Juneau throughout the night they trialed the propellor at various speeds and the vibration had gone.

They thought that whatever had caused the imbalance may have been dislodged during maneuvering to/from the Juneau wharf. Good news, all on track again and the cruise, although slightly modified was on track again.

Apparently about 60/70% of the crew are Filipino so Grace felt very happy talking to most in Tagalog (their national language) and to some in her own dialect. Most of the waiters, waitresses and bar staff were very friendly and a delight.

We did, however, learn after the first few times about their desire to invite us to “special” events and meals at different restaurants had as much to do with friendliness as it did with gaining more revenue for the cruise line. Each of their invites were to specialty restaurants, and although the meals and events were fabulous, they quickly increased your bill.

No-one uses money onboard, once you are onboard, everyone is issued with plastic ID passes, similar to a credit card in size. Even the children had their own cards and they were swiped each time you departed the ship and came back onboard.

They also served as authority to charge to your room/cabin account. For example, on the first day we purchased an “all the soft drink you like” pass that enabled the girls to show their card at any restaurant or outlet that certainly saved us money during the cruise (thanks Kristy).

We were so lucky with the weather and seas for the entire trip. At worst, on the return leg from Prince Rupert to Seattle, the seas reached a mere 1.5’~4’ swell and at the strongest, we had strong winds. The winter clothing that took up so much of our suitcase space was only used once during our visit to Davidson Glacier.

All in all, a fantastic and memorable trip. Grace and I had a couple of very, very enjoyable late nights listening to Stan Sykes playing the piano and singing tunes from the fifties, sixties and seventies. If you are tempted, keep plenty of money aside for all the extras they tempt you with, and then there’s the onboard shops…..