Last week in St. Maarten, Windstar Cruises introduced the revitalized the Star Breeze, which was updated and "stretched" as part of the line's $250 million Star Plus Initiative. The ship had a new mid-section section added, gained 50 more suites (for a total of 156 suites) and will begin sailing once again (after a brief lull for crew vaccinations) from St. Maarten on July 10.
Editor's Note: Be sure to check out our slide show above for 40-plus photos of the 12,995-gross-ton Star Breeze, which has a fresh new look.
While the 312-passenger ship has "expanded" in size, as the photo above shows, the vessel is still a relatively small ship when compared with much larger oceangoing tonnage—such as the Royal Caribbean ship docked alongside at St. Maarten's pier last week.
Fresh Look and Feel
The ship has a fresh, new look with soft muted colors, new interior decor and all new bedding for all guest suites and crew quarters, too. Let's just say the results of the revitalization are "easy on the eyes."
Yes, guests who've sailed on the ship before will find some familiar areas—like the atrium's distinctive spiral staircase or the look of Amphora, the main dining room. But much is new, too. For example, some new suites have a "flipped" lay-out with the bed closer to the small walk-out balcony (that too is new, but it's just that—walk out, not sit down as space is at a premium).
Tip: See our story from last week for much more detail about what's new in suites, the spa, dining, pool area and other spaces.
Savory Specialty Dining
In addition to Amphora (dinner only) and the Verandah (breakfast and lunch), Star Breeze now has three more savory specialty venues that Travel Agent sampled. Most notable is the new Cuadro 44, which means "Frame 44" in Spanish. As cruise ships are "built" in frames (zones) in the shipyard; maritime buffs will enjoy knowing that this eatery's locale was Frame 44 in the construction process. More important, though, is that this new 36-seat restaurant was developed by Windstar in partnership with Anthony Sasso, a James Beard-recognized chef and veteran of the Michelin-starred, New York City restaurant, Casa Mono. The intimate Cuadro 44 has a modern look and offers inventive Spanish cuisine.
Cuadro 44 by Anthony Sasso is a tasty specialty restaurant serving inventive Spanish cuisine. // Photo by Windstar Cruises
Travel Agent dined here twice and would recommend it. Hint? Try the octopus appetizer but most everything on the menu proved tasty to our group.
Reservations are required, but Cuadro 44 is complimentary for all guests.
Also new is Candles, a new specialty outside (under cover) dining venue behind Verandah. It's only open for dinner, and is complimentary to guests—with two exceptions. Those would be humongous steaks: A 40-oz bone-in ribeye tomahawk steak and a 30-oz bone-in porterhouse steak. Nice touches are that the wait staff display a box with steak knives for guest use and on the table are three different sea salts for flavoring the food.
We'd recommend seafood-lovers order the Moroccan glazed shrimp with brown onion fried rice or the double barreled seafood spear.
Another new eatery is Star Grill by Stephen Raichlin, located in an open-air, covered section of the upper deck. It's adjacent to Star Bar. This small eatery has its own galley with a grill, smoker, rotisserie and more.
Raichlin is a grill master who's authored many cookbooks and has his own PBS show. One night we enjoyed a tasty, melt-in-your-mouth brisket.
Guests saunter up to Star Grill's buffet-like area, but the crew handle putting food on the guest's plate based on their desired choices. Guests will find a range of fresh fruits, myriad salads, tasty sides, marinated meats, spit-fired chickens, pastrami, yummy hamburgers and much more.
During our cruise, the room service menu for breakfast was essentially one thing: A plate of pastries, muffins and croissants, plus juices and hot drinks, but the line told Travel Agent that it's working on an enhanced breakfast menu for room service.
Entertainment Tidbits
Travel Agent loved the top-deck "fun" that Star Breeze fielded. Guests had a ball dancing (led by crew members and officers, including the hotel director) to music of a "live" band singing "YMCA," "Footloose" and other popular songs of the past decades. Other top deck programming, including the Sailaway, was also quite good.
Entertainment in the theater was a bit hit or miss, though. We absolutely loved the vocal talents of Kat, an extremely talented crew member who could easily vie for the top prize on "The Voice." That said, some of the shows were a bit dated in approach. So, we were happy to hear onboard the Windstar is definitely updating the theater's entertainment offerings.
Stellar Crew Performance
It's a fact that most cruise lines have crew members who provide very good service. That said, Star Breeze's crew received an A+, delivering friendly, personalized service that was "a cut above."
Crew members called guests by name almost instantly after embarkation was over, they knew what drink guests liked in the lounge and knew how they liked their suite serviced. More than that, service was highly anticipatory—with crew members figuring out what the guest needed and being proactive in that regard.
Trade Talk
Travel Agent spoke onboard with Steve Simao, vice president of sales, Windstar Cruises, and asked him how advisors can see and experience the newly revitalized Star-Plus class ships?
While the line needed to cancel a cruise this week and another July 3 as the ship was heading for San Juan so the crew could be vaccinated, there are opportunities later this month when cruises resume from St. Maarten. "We are hosting agents onboard through the July 31 sailing," said Simao, noting that one sales team representative will be aboard those cruises that begin July 10.
In addition, "we've also got fam rates on the ship through 2021 at this point," he added. Advisors should contact their sales representative for assistance.
While the line lost some members of the sales team during the pandemic, right now, Windstar has one sales manager covering Canada as well as U.S. East Coast and U.S. West Coast sales managers.
Simao also says Windstar has just hired two new people to join the sales team—promoting them internally from the reservations team. "They're called business development representatives and their main focus is really going to be helping the home-based travel advisor," Simao emphasizes.
For more information, visit www.windstarcruises.com.
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