This is a description of our Cruise, April 26 thru May 2 on the Star Princess.

Itinerary and Overview
  • Sat - Depart San Pedro, CA
  • Sun - At Sea
  • Mon - At Sea
  • Tue - Puerto Vallarta
  • Wed - Mazatlan
  • Thu - Cabo San Lucas
  • Fri - At Sea
  • Sat - Return to San Pedro
We went on this cruise for a couple of reasons. First to try big ship cruising. This ship is 109,000 tons and carries 2600 passengers. Second we have always preferred the assigned dining and we were going to try Princess' personal choice dining.

Big Ship Cruising was great! The ride of a big ship is phenomenal. You can hardly believe you are at sea. Secondly there are so many things to see and do you cannot believe it. There is a wider option of dining (always important to cruisers). The lines, when there are any, were small and moved quickly. The ship is simply staffed and built to handle this kind of passenger load. The only drawback we found was there were delays getting on and off the ship in port if you wanted to go at the busy times. After the initial rush the problem goes away.

Personal Choice Dining. This surprised us at how much we enjoyed it, especially on the large ship with the alternate dining choices. The first night in the personal choice dining room we looked and found the number of a table that we liked, right size, right location. After that we would make a reservation for that table when we knew we were going to eat there. That way we got a good table and we could go back to the same waiter.

As usual there are always good and not so good things about every cruise. So here are our impressions of this cruise.

Cons
  • Exiting or boarding the ship at peak times was a long process.
  • The design of the Horizon Court, the buffet, was cramped. A lot of times we wanted to just see the buffet to decide where to eat lunch. The layout made this difficult and you made it difficult for people trying to maneuver around with their plates.
  • At Tequilas, the steakhouse, we got a waiter who seemed very new. Even though he worked hard the service was not up to the standards of the rest of the ship.
  • The popular shows would run out of seating room and people would have to stand around the walls.
Pros
  • The dining options were almost overwhelming. Two personal choice dining rooms, two specialty restaurants, pizza bar from 11am - 6pm, hamburger bar from 11am to 6pm, seemed like the buffet was always open. Breakfast 6:30am to 11am, lunch 11am to 3:30pm, dinner 5pm to 10pm, bistro dining from 11pm to 4AM, ice cream bar and then there was room service. There was no way to go hungry on this ship.
  • The is really a beautiful ship with hundreds of balcony cabins. This would be an excellent choice for Akaska.
  • Sabbatini's Restaurant - What a meal, the antipastas just kept coming. 17 courses!
  • A larger choice of things to see and do.

We would also like to offer a special thanks to Bob and Mimi from Tucson for helping to make this cruise very special. And all our best wishes to Alan and Molly who are going home to Seattle to become foster parents.