CRUISE VIGNETTES 47, Star Princess

ON THE STAR PRINCESS
On May 23, 1990 we sailed on the Star Princess, a Princess Cruise ship, from Los Angeles to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This was what is called a “re-positioning” cruise. In the wintertime, this ship sails from Los Angeles, down the Mexican coast. In the summer this ship sails to Alaska from Vancouver, British Columbia. A “re-positioning” trip is just a short cruise to get the ship from the winter “home” port to the summer “home” port.

June 2 was our 39th Anniversary, but since there was no ship, sailing from Los Angeles, that would be sailing on that day, we considered this our celebration of that anniversary.

VANCOUVER
We were on the ship for two nights, spent a half day in Vancouver, and one night in a beautiful hotel there, then flew home, all included in the package price. We had visited Vancouver a couple of times, and on a business trip one time, bad weather in Seattle caused my plane to land in Vancouver. It’s a beautiful city, and we enjoyed our few hours here, at the end of this short cruise.

The view seen while sailing into the port of Vancouver was extremely scenic, and of the ports we have visited on a cruise ship, Vancouver ranks second behind Istanbul, Turkey. We have visited 124 ports on ferry boats and cruise ships, and while Istanbul and Vancouver are the winners in the cruise ship category, the scenery we saw from the ferry boat in the Geiranger Fjord, on our way to the town of the same name in Norway, would be hard to beat.

STAR PRINCESS
The “Star Princess” was one of the newer ships of the Princess Lines, but the food and service were not the greatest. The ambiance of the outdoor buffet, was “early High School,” and the buffet food came in only one flavor. In addition, the food and service in the main dining room was not up to the standards we have experienced on other ships. But we did enjoy sailing those couple thousand miles, during those couple of days.

THE HEAD WAITER
The dining room crew were mainly from Italy, as was the Captain, who was from La Spezia, just south of the Cinque Terra, the five little coastal towns that we visited in 1988 and 1995. In one of these towns, Monterosso al Mare, there is a statue of a giant, carved in a cliff above the beach. We asked the head waiter [who lived just a couple of miles from there], about that statue, and all he said was, “It’s a statue of a giant!”

The head waiter then asked us about the hotels and restaurants we had patronized in the Monterosso area. When he found we had been there in an RV, and had not patronized any restaurant or hotel, he actually stuck his nose in the air, turned on his heel, and left us standing in the middle of the room! By using the RV and not staying in those hotels and eating in those restaurants, we didn’t have to put up with head waiters like him, either!

As we have said, over and over, in Europe a clerk in a bakery or a grocery store is thrilled to meet an American, a waiter or bell-hop is thrilled to get a tip.