This was the Alaskan cruise we had been talking about taking for some time. First a 7 day cruise tour and then the cruise. Land tour was great except for too many long bus rides. Every day or every other day we were getting up very early to put the luggage out and get on the bus. The scenery was great. Got to the ship only to be told that we couldn't fly home from Vancouver because we had passport cards and not our actual passports. Everything including air was booked through Princess. Nobody ever told us to bring passports and when booking, they asked for our passport card number. Took four days for them to finally change our departing flight to Seattle. We were told that a refund would be coming but haven't seen it yet.

Star is the same ship we were on in the Mediterranean 10 years ago. Looks about the same to us. The employees were great. The food had its ups and downs. My wife believes it's due to the limited ports available for re-stocking. The shorts ribs could not be cut, most of the food was very under-seasoned, the beef wellington was pretty good, and the crab legs were good. The shrimp cocktails were similar to the smallest and cheapest shrimp you could buy in a grocery store. Desserts were all very good. Bring your own bottled water as they want $2.50 for a 16 oz bottle of water. The magician was good as was the variety dance show. The casino is tight. We didn't see hardly anyone winning. We chose anytime dinning which worked out well. After the first night with an efficient but unsociable waiter we switched dining rooms and ended up with Nicholas, who was fantastic. If you did not set up excursions with the ship you could buy them on land. Some had flexibility in their pricing. Most of the towns were tourist traps. We did not buy a meal package on the land tour and quickly discovered that almost all of the meals ended up being $30+ for two people. We ended up with a wildlife tour in Ketchikan that was not worth $65. Never tried the hamburgers but heard they were pretty good. The pizza was pretty good.