A Quick Look Around

The Star Legend at the Corfu dock

General

Our last several cruises have been on Seabourn and Oceania and, although the Star Legend might not be as physically “luxurious” as those ships, we were glad to be back on Windstar. The atmosphere and “feeling” on Windstar yachts seems to be more social and friendly. As a roughly 300 passenger yacht, the Star Legend is certainly not a large ship, but it has all the features and facilities that we needed while still having a very friendly environment.

Statistics

The Star Legend has a passenger capacity of 312 people, so it is a relatively small ship at 522 feet long, although we only had about 270 passengers for most of our cruise. The normal crew complement is 190 people so there is more than one crew member for every 1.64 passengers: a very nice ratio. The Star Legend actually has a bit of a connection to our previous cruise on Seabourn. The Start Legend and her two sister yachts, the Star Breeze and Star Pride, used to be Seabourn ships but were sold to Windstar when Seabourn started moving to larger ships. When the ships came over from Seabourn, they were 212 passenger ships but soon after coming to Windstar, they were chopped in half, a section with another 50 cabins added, then put back together. At the same time there was a general updating and renovation, including new, more efficient, engines, and a few new facilities added, like the new specialty restaurant, Cuadro 44.

Our cabin

Our cabin on the Star Legend

Our cabin was comfortable with good storage space. We did have a small balcony/veranda but it was very narrow, barely room enough to stand and certainly no room for chairs. We were in cabin 617 on deck 6 which was generally very convenient to most of the yacht activities and dining. We were on the same deck as the Compass Rose (primary evening entertainment spot), the Veranda restaurant (breakfast and lunch) was one deck up, and reception and the main lounge was one deck down. 617 was not far from the aft stairway and elevators and very close to the forward stairway to the Yacht Club lounge and Star Grill. The cabin was significantly larger and more comfortable than the cabin we had on the Oceania Sirena with a nice sized bathroom and shower and about the same size and layout as on the Seabourn ship.

Some key facilities relative to our cabin

I knew the cabin would be a little short on 110V outlets so I brought a couple of 220V converters but it did seem to have more USB outlets than the Star Pride had a couple of years ago.

Food/Dining

There are two primary restaurants, two specialty restaurants, a coffee shop and a “snack bar” on the Star Legend and her sister yachts.

Amphora is the main evening dining room and is only open for dinner and a few special functions, like wine tastings.

Amphora is ready for the dinner crowd.

This is the primary “fine dining” restaurant on the Star Legend and the atmosphere is certainly very nice, but not “stuffy”. There are some simple attire guidelines (no jeans, no flip-flops or sneakers, and no t-shirts) but there are no “formal” evenings and the term “casual elegance” seems appropriate. We were very impressed by the quality of the food, at least for our tastes. I thought the food to be a notch or two above what we had on the Seabourn Encore and Oceania Sirena, at least to our tastes.

The primary (only?) restaurant open for breakfast and lunch is the Veranda. On our other Windstar cruises, the Veranda has been a combination of interior seating and open air. While the exterior seating tables were always set and available, they were lightly used because of the rather cool weather and frequent breeze.

The Veranda restaurant at lunch: a few people were outside this day.

The Veranda was primarily buffet style, with multiple self-serve stations and many choices, and there were menus available from which you could order cooked-to-order table service items. The food on the buffets looks so good we seldom bothered to order from the menu.

The fresh fruit bar at the Veranda breakfast

And the cold cuts bar (the smoked salmon was very good).

In the evening, part of the Veranda converts to the “Candles” specialty evening restaurant. Again, on other Windstar cruises, Candles has primarily been an open-air “al fresco” experience but that was not usually possible on this cruise. While the service in Candles was a notch more attentive than in Amphora, I did not think the food significantly better. Not being able to have the al fresco experience drops the pleasure factor a little.

The “new” restaurant that was added in the renovation and enlargement process was “Cuadro 44”. This is a relatively small space that I believe shares the kitchen with Candles.

We attended a wine tasting in Cuadro 44 one day.

Cuadro 44 seems to have a somewhat Spanish focus, but on this cruise, it was a bit overly so, with some rather strange, perhaps extreme, Spanish influenced dishes. Despite the rather extreme leaning, there were no Spanish “standards” like paella, chicken and yellow rice, or garbanzo bean soup. As on our cruise on the Star Pride, I was disappointed in that there was only one Spanish wine, a decent Rioja, offered. The menu here did differ significantly from what was offered in Amphora but did not change during the cruise, and the service was excellent.

Lounges & Entertainment

Close to the bow of the yacht is a quiet area called the Yacht Club lounge with a “coffee shop” type of atmosphere, complete with a coffee bar and selection of small “finger foods”. This was a good place to sit and read and watch the world go by while at sea. Although usually somewhat cool, the observation deck outside the Yacht Club was a popular place to stand and observe the scenery, especially when entering harbors and areas such as the Venice Lagoon.

The Yacht Club and outside deck as we sailed into Venice.

The Star Bar and Star Grill were on the open deck behind the Yacht Club. This area was not as popular as it might be in warm weather, but we did eat lunch here a couple of times in warm weather. They did have good burgers and some other specials, like big beef ribs they labeled as “dinosaur bones”.

Part of the seating area of the Star Grill

The main lounge was a theater seating type facility with a stage that was designed for lectures, music, and presentations. The Destination Manager gave the port talks here, several local groups from the ports gave traditional music performances, and receptions and meetings were held here. It was pressed into service for a couple of functions that would normally be held on the open deck but could not because of the weather. It was less than ideal for this because there was limited standing room so it was difficult to “mix” in this space.

Cruise Director introducing the Captain and other officers

The Compass Rose was the primary entertainment facility where the four person band (Appaloosa) and a two person duo alternated in providing the entertainment. The Appaloosa group (from the Philippines) was the same band that was playing on the Star Pride in Iceland two years ago and we quickly recognized each other. Here is a composite video of Appaloosa to give you an idea of the types of music they played. (I did get a bit carried away the last segment.). We got to know them pretty well during the week and I took a lot of photos of both groups which I gave to them (along with some of my Flaming Gator Pepper Sauce) prior to leaving. I’ll play a short video of some dancing in the Compass Rose to give you an idea of the area and you might recognize one of the dancers.

Excursions

We had signed up for excursions, pretty well one every day of the cruise, prior to the start of the cruise. Of course, with the dropping of the Corinth Canal and Delphi, that day changes completely and there were several other weather related changes. I’ll describe some of the “challenges” and the changes we made as we go through the daily log.

Other

We checked out the exercise room and it looked reasonable for a ship of this size and we actually gave it a try one afternoon when things were quiet, but the machines did not work well for me and I could not work up the enthusiasm to give it another try. There was, of course, the usual boutique and store, but it cannot be open for business when the yacht is in port, so it was seldom open.

Unlike our last several (non-WindStar) cruises where we essentially never saw the captain or other senior officers, our captain and his officers were all over the yacht, constantly interacting with the passengers. None of the officers seemed to mind being pulled aside for a quick question or conversation. We would occasionally see some officers or crew off the whip while in port and they always had a friendly wave and smile for us.

End of Chapter 0: The Star Legend

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