Star Princess megaship

Having cruised on the Star Princess twice, for a month each time, I found the review of the ship in Philip Wagenaar’s August ’04 “Discerning Traveler” column a bit too glowing and one-sided. Our first journey was on her inaugural voyage in 2002 from Singapore to Los Angeles, and our second cruise was in March ’04 from Bangkok to Venice. I also have logged dozens of cruises with various other cruise lines. I offer the following observations.

Yes, Princess is a good cruise line. Yes, the Star Princess is huge, carrying 2,600 passengers and 1,100 crew. Yes, there is a good medical facility on board, one which we had occasion to use both times we cruised on this ship.

Yes, the Vista Lounge and the Princess Amphitheater have excellent acoustics. However, in the Vista Lounge the sight lines are awful for watching a stage show or movie. In fact, the spotlight apparatus hangs down in front of the movie screen creating a black silhouette at the top of the picture that is quite distracting.

The ship is well designed to handle that many on board, but in a thorough review one should also consider the drawbacks of a ship of this size:

• No, you can’t always walk into a dining room at a whim and be seated as Dr. Wagenaar stated. Many times we had to wait in line or go to an alternate dining room, especially when everyone had just returned from a long tour in port or a gala on board had just ended.

• No, it is not always the case that they can easily and swiftly ferry that many passengers to shore by tender as he stated. On Wagenaar’s cruise, they must have been anchored very close to shore. On our stop in Vietnam, because of the deep draft of the ship, we were anchored so far out in the South China Sea that each tender ride took 45 minutes to get to the port of Vun Tau. After arriving on shore, it was a 3-hour charter bus ride to get to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).

When we finally arrived, having spent half a day to get there, we saw cruise ships docked right near the city center. Due to their smaller size, they were able to cruise up the Saigon River to port.

After only four hours in the city it was time for the same long bus and tender ride for the return trip, and the tender ride took even longer due to darkness, wind and rough seas. Plus there were nearly 1,000 passengers in line waiting for the next tender.

• Another drawback of a ship of this size is that it simply overwhelms small venues. A case in point was Karnak, Egypt, when 50 buses from the ship disgorged nearly 2,000 people for a one-hour tour of this compact collection of Egyptian monuments and temples. Most of my snapshots were taken over the heads of others, and time to quietly reflect on what we were seeing was not possible. The same was true in Petra, Jordan, where our guide told us that it was the most visitors they’d had in one day all year.

Some of this is true of any of the huge ships being built today, but it needs to be addressed in a review of an experience on the Star Princess. I would hesitate taking another cruise on any megaship, as it is not the type of experience I look for in a cruise, since the ports in the itinerary are what drive my choice of cruises.

LOIS HALUNEN
Livermore, CA