ad – This content was created on a press trip (similar to those travel agents and journalists take). All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Normally, when cruise lines advertise their cruises, they show you the best cabins on the newest and most exciting ships.
I’ve stayed in all kinds of rooms, from inside cabins without any windows to suites with lounges, but almost always on the newer ships.
On this cruise, I have been sailing on a ship designed in the late 1990s and built in 2000
I’ve actually had two cabins during this cruise because I was moved mid-way through. It’s been an interesting experience, with positives and negatives I couldn’t have ever predicted.
I picked this cruise almost entirely for the destinations because it’s visiting Svalbard and Iceland, two places I’ve never been before.
I hoped that picking a cruise for the destinations instead of the ship wouldn’t be a mistake and that my cabin would at least be a comfortable base.
I wasn’t expecting a lot from a cruise ship that is pretty old by cruise ship standards, but it did surprise me in lots of ways.
I also had a couple of friends who were considering this ship for their first cruise as a family of five, so I wanted to find out not just if the cabin would be good enough for me, but also if it would be good enough for me to recommend to friends for their first cruise.
A lot rides on a first cruise, but I knew that a lot of money had been spent updating the ship, so I was hopeful.
Norwegian Star has 14 decks, which is fairly small by modern standards. That said though, I could have been assigned a cabin all the way from deck 9 to deck 14. I could have been right at the front or right at the back.
Given that our ship was sailing into the Arctic Circle, I knew that we had the possibility for bad weather, so I was hoping for a cabin in the middle.
I checked Norwegian’s website a couple of weeks before the cruise and saw that we’d been assigned cabin 9182. This was my original cabin, and I spent the first 4 days in here before moving.
I found our cabin towards the back of deck 9. It wasn’t right at the back, and I was happy about that. Given that we would be having lots of days at sea and cruising in the polar regions, I was hopeful that this location would feel less movement.
The position of your cabin on a ship can make a lot of difference to how much movement you feel. Find out more here:
What is The Best Cabin Location on a Cruise For Avoiding Seasickness? (I’ve Tried Them All!)
I wasn’t so lucky with the location of the cabin I was moved to, but at this point, I had no idea that I’d have two cabins on one cruise..
I looked at the key on the deck plan and saw that our cabin could sleep three. I also noticed that we didn’t have an adjoining door, which is marked by a symbol.
Adjoining doors are basically doors on the side wall of the cabin. They’re great if you’re travelling with someone next door. I had one like this on my first cruise with Norwegian when I was 11, and it made it so easy to go back and forth.
For my friends cruising as a family of 5, they’d need a cabin for 3 and one for 2, so having an adjoining door would be good.
Normally though this door will be locked on both sides if you’re not cruising together, you don’t have to worry about somebody coming into your cabin like a monster in “Monsters Inc.”
On Norwegian Star, the central decks where most things are are 6 and 7, with the buffet up on 12, so we were nicely in the middle. A 3-deck walk to the buffet sounded great, as I’ve been on cruises before where I’ve been 10 or more decks from the buffet.
Cruise ships do have lots of lifts of course.
According to the deck plans, we had cabins above and below us, which was good. You can always get noisy neighbours anywhere, but I was happy to not be near any music venues and away from areas like stairways.
Norwegian Star launched in 2001 and the 2000s marked a big change in cabin design. Around half of the cabins onboard this ship have balconies compared to the older ships like the Norwegian Wind launched in the early 90s which had around 15% balcony cabins.
If you rewind a few more decades, ships often didn’t have any at all. To find out more about the changing designs of cruise ships, read this article next:
Why Cruise Ships Have More Balconies Than Ever Before
Before I even reached my cabin, I found something that I loved. The carpets in the corridors have fish on them, and they always swim forward, apart from a couple of cheeky little red fish that swim backwards.
Norwegian have a newer version of this on their new ships with triangles facing forward but the fish are something special.
Going against the fish towards the back of the ship I found my cabin. My first impressions of the room were very good.
It definitely isn’t the biggest balcony cabin that I’ve had but it felt modern and bright. A few areas gave away the ship’s age, like the orange wood wardrobes, but overall, it didn’t feel dated at all.
One of the first things I wanted to take a look at was the curtains, which might sound odd, but on our cruise in the Arctic Circle in summer, the sun wouldn’t set at all.
We were visiting a place where the sun doesn’t set for 5 months. I hoped that this wouldn’t affect my sleeping pattern, but the curtains looked good. I liked how they were set back into the doorway, so they didn’t get in the way.
By the curtains, there was a sofa which was a sofa bed, opposite this was the TV, which was fairly small, but I don’t come on a cruise to watch TV.
If I do watch TV, I tend to do it on my iPad anyway, and given that the walls are magnetic and I have a magnetic case, I’ll just stick my iPad to the wall wherever I want it.
The cabin is around 15 square meters, which is slightly bigger than the inside cabins, which come in at 13 square meters.
On newer cruise ships like Norwegian Aqua, balcony cabins come in at closer to 20 meters squared, but I didn’t feel as though this smaller size would be a problem.
Some more floor space might have been nice, but I wasn’t prepared for just how much floor space my second cabin would have.
The bed took up most of the space, and I’m glad it did. This is one of the best cruise ship beds I’ve ever stayed in; it was so comfortable.
The artwork across from the bed was interesting, I’m not sure what it is, but it looks fairly modern. These cabins used to have bright green bedding, bright blue floors and a yellow sofa. They’ve certainly toned it down.
I headed out onto the balcony to have a look around. The balcony itself was a good size and much bigger than a few others I’ve been on recently.
We had plenty of space to move around, and I liked the sliding door instead of the type that swings out. We had a good view in all directions, and nothing blocked the view at all.
Our luggage arrived not long after we did; we’d last seen it in the terminal, and it was one of the easiest embarkations ever.
I printed my luggage tags at home, so I just had to drop the bags off before going into the terminal. In total, embarkation took 15 minutes.
As far as storage goes, we had a bedside table, three drawers and then more drawers inside the wardrobe. For the two of us the storage was perfectly fine for 12 days, it would have been good to have had a few more drawers on the side perhaps, or a little “bits and bobs” drawer, but we were able to find a space for all of our things.
I put my suitcase under the bed and filled it up with my dirty clothes as the cruise went on. Only 4 days’ worth of clothes, as it turns out.
Plug sockets are often a common complaint on cruise ships of this age, but I’m happy to say that there were USBs in the lamps by the bed, just one on each, but it was enough to charge my phone.
There were also two plug sockets by the mirror, including one UK socket, which did surprise me. It’s very rare to find UK sockets in American cruise ship cabins, but I appreciate it.
After unpacking, I checked out the bathroom. This was where a massive hit of nostalgia got me.
I cruised a couple of times as a child and a teenager, and this style of bathroom is something that I remember a lot. It’s very uncommon to see bathrooms with a separate toilet and shower like this anymore, but it’s something I’ve always been used to.
The bathroom overall was a good size, and although the toilet part was quite tight, I think the big shower made up for it. If you were plus size, this would be more of a struggle, or if you had long legs, you’d just have to keep the sliding door open and sit at a weird angle.
We had plenty of space under the sink to store our stuff, and I love the tap so much. That might sound like an odd thing to notice, but I was so happy when I saw it.
Often on cruise ships, the tap only goes about 10% of the way into the sink, and theres no way to properly rinse the whole thing. On here, though, no such problem. I loved it.
There was a safe on this side and a new hairdryer. There was a little seat too and a bin. Over towards the balcony doors was a phone, and there was another plug socket here too. This whole corner section is new and it was great to have a place to store our paperwork.
Looking at this part, I don’t think you’d know about the ship’s age. I was more than happy at this point to recommend this ship to my friends, but then everything changed for me.
I was very happy in our cabin when on day 4 my phone rang. A lovely lady on the other end said something that I’m sure all cruisers dream about:
“Hey Emma, we have a suite available if you’d like to move?
You might think that it was an instant yes but I did have to think for a moment, I knew that the suites were often right at the front or the back so I wondered I if might regret the decision when it came to the extra movement.
I do get seasick sometimes in rough seas, and we were heading insanely far north. We were going to a place so far north that there are more polar bears than people.
I also knew that the suite didn’t have a balcony at all, and up until this point on the cruise, I’d really enjoyed mine.
That said, though, the new cabin had a bath which I love, and I thought having two cabins would be great for a YouTube video.
In those few seconds it took me to answer, I thought about all these things and you! I did say yes, of course.
Just to be very clear here, this is not a normal cruise ship thing to happen, at all. I was on a press trip with Norwegian, which is why you’ll see ‘ad’ on every single piece of content I created onboard, as well as the paid promotion button on the YouTube video.
Norwegian hired me to make some content for their own YouTube channel, so I figured I might as well try as many new things as possible. It’s not often that I do press trips like this, so I thought I’d make the most out of it.
It certainly wasn’t all smooth sailing from this point though, and honestly I think it’s about a 50/50 split on who would prefer my new room or the original.
On paper, my original cabin was 18 square metres, a balcony cabin with a standard bathroom and balcony.
My new cabin was called a family suite, measuring 37 square metres, so over twice as big, with a large bathroom but no balcony. My original cabin was in the middle of deck 9, and this one was right at the front of deck 12.
When I first walked into the suite, I was amazed by the size, it was absolutely huge.
There was so much floor space that I just lay down and made carpet angels. It was so exciting. So much room for activities.
We met our butler, room steward and concierge, and I started to wonder what they would do for us. I have had a butler on a cruise before, but I really struggled to think of things that I wanted. I normally keep myself to myself when I cruise and do anything I can do myself, myself.
I knew that they could bring cookies, though, and for research, I needed to test everything.
In one corner, by the floor-to-ceiling windows, was the lounge area, on the other side was the dining room area and in the third corner was the big bed.
It didn’t take me very long to notice the tracks on the floor where the divider wall went. I thought instantly back to my friends who were hoping to bring their kids onboard, and I thought that this would be great for them.
Often families find it hard sharing a cabin because everybody has to have the same bedtime, but here, though, you could close off one corner like a little bedroom and carry on with your evening.
Looking at this cabin, there is no way to know that this cabin was from 2001. It felt as new as a brand new cruise ship cabin, and most things in here are. I don’t think that this cabin has been here since the start.
Our old cabin did have a few little signs of its age, but this suite didn’t at all.
I liked how the walls weren’t always up, but that we could separate the different ‘rooms’ if we wanted to. It would have been a waste to have the room always set up with the wall there, as we were only two people sharing the cabin. We just made the most of the space.
When somebody knocked on the door and I was in bed or on the sofa, I’d literally run to the other side of the room to answer it.
As we were cruising to a place with 24/7 sunlight, this wall came in handy for us too.
The curtains worked well, but still having an extra layer between us and the midnight sun was appreciated. I basically reacted my familiar inside cabin, but inside a giant cabin.
On the wall was a coffee machine and a big TV. There were a couple of mirrors and loads of storage space. Far more than we could have ever needed or used for the cruise. We definitely used less than half of the drawers, and there were so many shelves.
That said, though, this room does hold six as the cupboard in the corner is actually a bed that comes down from the wall. Most cruise ship cabins just hold 3 or 4 so 6 is really something special, and the storage reflects that.
We had bedside tables on each side, and interestingly, there are no USBs here, even though there were in my original balcony cabin. The bedside storage was really nice though.
I was a bit nervous about the weather and the movement, given that the waves at this point were only 0.6 metres, and we could already feel a little bit of movement.
Fresh air is also great if you feel seasick, but we didn’t have the balcony space, so I kept my fingers crossed. That said, though we were on deck 12, which is the same deck as the main pool deck and the buffet, we weren’t ever far from fresh air.
Heading into the bathroom, I was reminded about my favourite part of the cabin. The bath!
Having a bath on a cruise ship is such a rare treat and it makes me feel like I’m living the life of a queen. There was a stand alone shower too and two sinks. The toiletries are really nice here too and definitely a step up from the regular cabins.
This bathroom was well used during this cruise because I certainly got dirtier than I normally would on a cruise. I went down a coal mine and crawled around in the coal dust, that stuff took days to clean off completely.
One day I had a shower and a bath and then still was finding the coal dust around. Both the shower and the bath were great. If I could have this bathroom in my house, I would be over the moon. That’s the dream.
Find out how I ended up covered in coal dust here!:
In the dressing storage area outside the bathroom were these robes, and they were so comfy. Soft but also warm.
Our cabin was cleaned once a day by our cabin steward, and he’d do things like make the bed, take away any cups we had and change the towels.
If you have a really good cabin steward, you’ll barely even know that they were there, but they’ll be quietly making a big difference. I stayed on a floating hospital ship in Sierra Leone recently and on there you have to clean you own cabin. It quickly made me realise that cabins do get a lot dirtier than I realised!
Before that, I’d assumed that I didn’t make things dirty much, turns out I do, they are just doing such a great job with the daily clean that I didn’t notice.
This cabin also came with some extra suite perks which we enjoyed. Room service in this room is totally free, theres a butler and a concierge who are there to help with things like booking excursions.
We had priority disembarkation in ports too which was great. When I was in the first room we had to meet for our excursions in the theatre, with this new magical room we met in Gatsby’s and were escorted off to a shorter queue.
When we came back from our days exploring, we would find new snacks in the room. Sometimes it would be cheese, sometimes cookies, sometimes chocolates.
You can request specific things too, but I liked to just see what would arrive. I’m always happy to try anything once, even peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
I did my one try of those onboard Norwegian Spirit so didn’t feel the need to do it again, I don’t like it at all.
We also had a fridge and we had lots and lots of bottles of water. I usually don’t care where my water comes from on a cruise, I can’t tell the difference between the free buffet water and bottled water but because I had bought a water package on this cruise it was really a nice treat.
I definitely drank more water than I would have normally, I actually did put squash in it for flavour but still. I was well hydrated.
We visited some of the most incredible places on this cruise and had long sail-ins and sail-outs. In my original cabin, I loved sitting out on the balcony to watch these, and I was worried that I’d miss them being here. The windows are incredible and floor-to-ceiling, but they don’t open at all.
Having done a little bit of digging, I think my cabin might be one of those that used to be part of the Observation Lounge. It was converted to cabins in 2012. That would explain these full-length windows.
In some ways, I did miss the balcony, but it also wasn’t balcony weather for most of our cruise. Having these windows was amazing, and we saw some great sights from here.
It felt as though, because the windows were right on the edge of the ship, we were really close to whatever was going on outside, we had an amazing view from the bed, too, well, from anywhere in the cabin.
It wasn’t quite the bath view that I had onboard Norwegian Spirit, but still, I was always so happy to have a bath here.
We definitely did feel extra movement in this cabin as we went further north. It was noticeably more here than when we just walked to the middle of the ship or went down a couple of decks.
We were lucky with the seas on our cruise but I do think it’s worth mentioning. I’ve always found it odd that the suites are located right at the ends where the most movement is.
The majority of people don’t get seasick though, and even for people like me who get travel sick, it’s a tiny tiny minority of cruises where I get seasick.
My ideal cabin would be a mix of this cabin and the original one. If I could have bought the space and bathroom from this room, stuck it to the balcony cabin from my original room and had it in the original location, that would have been perfect.
Have a closer look at it here:
Unfortunately that doesn’t exist, but I did enjoy my time in both rooms a lot.
If I had to pick, for me I think my regular cabin suited me better, I liked having the balcony and the location was really great. For many people though, like my friends, I would definitely suggest this second cabin.
The extra space and perks like the butler service are something that they’d really be able to make the most out of. Given that they’d need two regular cabins anyway, the prices are pretty similar.
I didn’t have any issues at all caused by the ships age and I think overall they’ve done a great job of modernising her. It’s hard for you to judge without seeing a truly new cabin, though, so have a look at my cabin on the newest Norwegian ship, Norwegian Aqua:
Before You Go
Have a look at the hospital ship I stayed on in Africa where I had to clean my own cabin here:
I Spent 6 Days on The Worlds Largest Hospital Ship
Have a look at my suite on Norwegian Spirit, where I had a bath with a view here:
I Stayed in The BIGGEST Cabin on a Cruise Ship
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