Norwegian Star: The Cruise that Tested Our Patienc

Our second cruise ever was supposed to be simple.

Board a ship in Portugal. Cross the Atlantic. Escape winter in Ohio. Begin our first snowbird season in the Caribbean. Instead, Norwegian Star became a floating lesson in patience.

The ship itself wasn’t bad. In many ways, she was charming. At more than twenty years old, Star had the personality of an aging aunt who still looked good for her age but occasionally forgot where she left her glasses.

The trouble wasn’t the ship. The trouble was figuring out how anything worked. The first clue came from the daily announcements. Every cruise line seems to have its own style. Some provide weather updates, destination information, arrival procedures, and useful reminders. Norwegian Star preferred a different approach.

“Hey Hey Har, Norwegian Star!”

If you wanted to know today’s temperature, tomorrow’s arrival time, or even what time zone you were currently in, good luck. The announcements were largely advertisements disguised as information. This became a recurring theme throughout the voyage.

One morning we discovered that getting ashore required a tender ticket. This information had apparently been announced over the public address system while we were in our cabin. Unfortunately, we couldn’t hear the announcements in our room and the television channel that was supposed to broadcast them wasn’t working either.

So began another scavenger hunt:
Deck 12 for beach towels.
Deck 7 for tender information.
Back upstairs because the towel process had changed.
Back downstairs because nobody seemed quite sure where the tickets were being distributed.

By this point we had started hearing frustrated variations of the same question from fellow passengers: “Is someone actually managing this?”

I half expected a secret password or ceremonial handshake would be required before we were finally allowed off the ship.

The daily schedule created another mystery. Norwegian wanted guests to either visit information screens scattered around the ship or use the mobile app. The app did contain a PDF version of the daily schedule, but there was one problem. You couldn’t add your events to a calendar.

Normally this wouldn’t be a major issue and i’d just add it myself to my personal calandar. On a transatlantic crossing, however, the ship’s time changed repeatedly as we crossed time zones. Appointments entered into my phone quickly became meaningless. My morning routine eventually included manually updating my phone’s clock before checking what day and time it actually was.

Medical requests proved equally adventurous. Before sailing, I had submitted paperwork requesting distilled water and a diabetic sharps container. Norwegian approved the request. They emailed confirmation. They even left a note in our cabin acknowledging the request.The actual supplies, however, were nowhere to be found. Guest Services informed us that nothing was available onboard. Repeatedly.
After three days of asking, our room steward somehow located both items and quietly placed them in our cabin.

To this day, I have no idea where they had been hiding. The water package followed a similar journey. We prepaid for bottled water before boarding.

Day one: no water.
Day two: no water.
Guest Services suggested Room Service.
Room Service suggested someone else.
Someone else suggested Starbucks.
Nobody knew anything.

The water finally arrived on day six. By then I felt emotionally invested in the delivery.

Our suite was comfortable enough, though it came with surprises of its own.

The bathroom featured a full bathtub, which felt luxurious by cruise standards. The decor, however, looked like it had been preserved from the 1990s. Blue tile, yellow-orange walls, occasional rust stains, and drains that periodically emitted mysterious odors.

At one point the toilet stopped flushing entirely. Several hours later it began working again without explanation. We chose not to ask questions.

The suite perks were equally unpredictable. Norwegian advertises robes and slippers for suite guests. Ours had neither. We eventually learned the previous guests had apparently taken them home as souvenirs. We discovered this on day twelve.

The bed was another adventure. Two twin mattresses pushed together created a sleeping surface firm enough to qualify as structural support. As a side sleeper, I woke up each morning feeling as though I had spent the night on a countertop. I requested a mattress topper. None available. Extra blankets for padding? Also unavailable. I eventually resorted to building my own cushioning system from spare linens hidden beneath the sofa + my unused clothing.

The ship’s entertainment provided some unexpected laughs. The theater shows ranged from forgettable to mediocre, but the atrium musicians were excellent. Trivia games, arts and crafts sessions, dance classes, and origami workshops helped pass the many sea days.

After a while, though, I developed a theory about our fellow passengers. Based on the lecture schedule, Norwegian Star appeared to cater almost exclusively to murder enthusiasts.

Topics included blood spatter analysis, forensic science, death investigations, insects that help solve crimes, and real-life wrongful convictions.

At some point I became convinced that half the ship consisted of retired detectives while the other half consisted of people they were investigating.

Food was perfectly acceptable but limited. Breakfast meant the buffet or main dining room. Lunch and dinner rotated between the buffet, the pub, and a poolside grill where burgers competed with flies for attention. Five additional restaurants carried specialty dining charges. The Brazilian steakhouse failed to impress us, though the coffee shop became a regular stop.

Despite all the frustrations, Norwegian Star wasn’t a terrible ship. She carried us safely across an ocean. She introduced us to transatlantic cruising.

She delivered beautiful sea days, long walks on wide outdoor promenades, and more hot tubs than any reasonable person could ever need.

Most importantly, she taught us one of the first lessons of cruise travel: Sometimes the best stories come from the trips that don’t go smoothly.

By the time we reached the Caribbean, we were already better travelers than when we boarded.

We just didn’t realize it yet.Read more