My Wind Surf experience began in
Springfield, N.J., two days before I sailed north from Barbados on
the 16-ton "motor-sailer," as the captain later called it.
I had heard that
the ship had been refurbished, so I thought it was only appropriate
that my hair should get a little fix-up job, too. As I was sitting
in the barber's chair at a local shop, dropping names like St.
Bart's and Nevis and talking up my looming Wind Surf sailing, in
sauntered the owner of Cruise Vacations and Tours, located next
door.
The agency owner
told me that everything laudatory I previously heard about Windstar
Cruises was true, that the service was impeccable and that it would
be virtually impossible for me to be disappointed.
I had minor
kvetches here and there, but in general, the agent was right on
target.
Onboard the ship
a couple of days later, I found that the passenger-crew ratio was
1.6 to 1: There were 312 passengers, 196 crew members and ample
pampering.
The Wind Surf,
built in 1987, completed a multimillion-dollar refurbishment a few
months ago. All staterooms were renovated, and two luxury suites
were added. The Yacht Club, one of the restaurants and other public
areas were also refurbished.
The redesigned
cabins were replete with flat-screen TVs, docking stations for
ship-supplied iPods and wireless Web access.
New glass shelves
in the bathroom were smartly installed into his-and-her's cabinets
so that she is not tripping over his aftershave and he is not
smearing toothpaste all over her mascara.
The cabins'
closets, with ample storage for T-shirts purchased in St. Kitts and
colorful skirts picked up on Iles des Saintes, employed a similar
his-and-her's strategy.
Each closet had
two doors so the duo sharing the room could separate their jeans
and dressier garb. On the Wind Surf, of course, no sports jackets
or regal dresses are required for dinner, and there were scant
sightings of suits or gowns.
A full-length
mirror on the closet door is a new touch, enabling passengers to
dabble with a fashion ensemble that doesn't work or an errant
button before heading off to the Veranda for lunch or the
Restaurant or Degrees for dinner.
On the culinary
front, 
there was both great and subpar
news to report on my sailing.
The Restaurant,
the larger of the two dinner venues onboard, truly was "180 degrees
from ordinary," which is the Windstar slogan.
Every choice
there, from the grilled Atlantic salmon with leek fondue to the
chilled potato and leek soup to the Moroccan roasted pepper and
tomato salad, made me linger a little longer in the
Restaurant.
It was like the
aftertaste from a great cognac, something that you want to savor at
your leisure.
One evening at
the Restaurant, which required no reservations, my island-hopping
partner and I decided we'd pass on the evening's seafood choice,
tuna, but we couldn't settle on an alternate.
So we asked our
waiter what else he had to offer. The waiter consulted with the
kitchen staff and brought us a tilapia entree that wasn't on the
menu but was exquisite.
The other dinner
venue, Degrees, known as the Bistro before the ship's
refurbishment, requires reservations but was
disappointing.
On the two nights
we dined at Degrees, I felt as if it was an unintended punishment,
despite the graciousness of our host, because we were being
shepherded away from the Restaurant.
The dinners at
Degrees, which features a steakhouse menu four nights a week and
northern Italian, Indonesian and French on the others, were fairly
bland. For example, I love risotto but only nibbled at Degrees'
version.
I talked with
other passengers who had similar opinions about Degrees. Still,
Degrees was packed every night. Perhaps one passenger's tuna is
another's tilapia.
The service was
much better than the food at Degrees. When there was no vegetarian
soup on the menu one evening, our waiter descended two decks to the
Restaurant to get a tomato soup for my traveling
companion.
The redesign of
the Yacht Club, inspired by the Exploration Cafes on parent Holland
America Line's ships, was cool.
It was cooler,
too: The air conditioning throughout the ship was tweaked, making
the public areas 20% cooler, according to Tim Roberts, the ship's
captain.
The Yacht Club,
the centerpiece of the ship's social scene, has computers with
Internet access, an espresso bar, racks full of DVDs to take back
your stateroom and a dance floor where passengers and crew
occasionally strutted their stuff.
The entire
refurbishment was a hit for passenger Tamar Shulem, a veteran
cruiser from Channel Islands, Calif.
Shulem, a travel
and office consultant at Strictly Vacations in Santa Barbara, has
taken so many Mediterranean trips on the Wind Surf that she needs
no introduction to some of the crew.
"The addition of
the Yacht Club espresso bar, a large-screen TV and the leather
seats for public viewing are added features that go far beyond any
small ship I have been on," Shulem said.
"The Wind Surf
has been my favorite ship since it was bought from Club Med," she
added. "The upgrades and the refinished woods have given this ship
a very luxurious look."
To contact reporter Dennis Schaal, send e-mail to [email protected].
Get More!
For more details on this
article, see "Tour choices abound, but a lot can be said for winging
it."