We just love Princess Cruises for so many reasons. Our “kids”, now in their 40’s, pretty much grew up on Princess cruise ships so we have history to consider. The current “Premiere” package is exactly what we always wanted on big ship sailings: the included elements most often reserved for smaller, more luxurious cruise lines. We did not need to sail new Sphere class ship Star Princess to enjoy that sort of cruise though.

We found favorite ship Caribbean Princess sailing from our homeport of Port Canaveral also provided that experience. So did a recent sailing of Enchanted Princess from Port Everglades, painlessly accessed via always-on-time, never-cancelled Brightline rail service from Orlando. This story, then, is not a review of Star Princess as numerous areas that demand improvement. It would not be fair to rate any element of a new ship that has the potential to be amazing. Star Princess is not there yet though.

First, let’s get the fun part out of the way first, the good stuff.

• Embarkation was a smooth process with no issues. We arrived at Port Everglades right at 11AM, walked right on the ship no problem, thanks to our Princess Medallion (like Disney Magic Bands but quirky) that was shipped directly to us, about a week before sailing.
• The Princess App is helpful with pre-cruise planning, learning where things are on the ship and making reservations for dining, spa treatments and shore excursions. Once we board and are connected to super fast Medallion Net internet, it sprang to life with the very most current information about the ship and our voyage.
• Embarkation Lunch could be enjoyed at a number of venues around the ship. Since we had the Premiere package, all were included. Dinner venues took reservations while casual eateries were first-come, first-served.
• Embarkation Offers– Walking aboard Star Princess, we were not immediately hounded by someone selling a drink package, although it was indeed possible to add either a Plus or Premiere package on embarkation day. It was also nice to be able to say “We’re on the Premiere plan” which pretty much shut that annoying discussion down.
• Happy Crew- We often find that the bigger the ship, the harder it is to find great crew eager to help. We found our people rather quickly on this ship and settled in to enjoy their excellent service and learn more about them.
• Our Stateroom was strategically selected for location close to some friends we were traveling with. Oceanview stateroom 5427 was just one deck up from the gangway for easy on and off the ship. Actually, we never got off the ship at any of the ports which is our standard practice: we are there for the ship and the crew. This location did indeed prove favorable to getting off the ship though and we walked off a 7:00, as hoped.
• Entertainment Venues alone are worth sailing Star Princess. Instead of one main showroom, Star Princess has three fully-rigged, lit and tricked out show spaces, all unique and all worth the time of even the most anti-entertainment traveler. No really, I know people who never go to shows who would love the array of entertainment here.

Now the areas needing improvement, some of which will come with time as the crew settles in. Other areas will require modification or re-launching when Princess figures out what to do with them. I believe they will, given time and a boatload of traveler patience.

• Guest Services- Cruise ships “talk” to cruise line main offices all the time for a variety of reasons. One of those is if there is an issue with a credit card that will make closing out an individual passenger account at the end of the voyage difficult. On our particular sailing, while they had no problem with my card, there was some issue at Princess main office that required some passengers to resubmit the card they had given the cruise line pre-cruise via the Princess app. This took them calling me to come to Guest Services six times, basically to run the card again to test their system. The interesting part of all this was that we travel as Premiere level package guests which includes everything we would be doing. In addition, we are Elite status past guests so not exactly new kids on the block. In addition we walked on board with a bunch of onboard credit, some from being Carnival Corporation shareholders, some we bought ourselves and some we “won” in a Princess contest months ago.
• Shipwide Clear Direction In All Areas-New Shipitis is less noticeable than other new ships we have been on but there nonetheless.
• Complicated Ship- After a week, we just began to learn our way around Star Princess. That bothered me. So we booked it again in March. This time, going old school, we are trying it without any packages. At least that’s the plan. There will be ample opportunities to add Plus or Premiere between now and sailing. I’ll probably cave on this topic. We have sailed with Princess on Medallion-class ships several times now. Premiere is really easy to love.

I’ll stop right there for now and double back with a more complete review in three months. Before I go, a quick look at out Oceanview stateroom on Star Princess which we just loved.