Star Princess Dining, Decoded

Star Princess carries two complimentary main dining rooms — Aurora, which runs traditional dining with a fixed table and time each night, and Celestial, which runs anytime dining with no fixed reservation — both open to every guest and both scoring as ordinary Included — Full Service venues. They occupy the lower two levels of a three-level dining complex; the top level is the Sanctuary Restaurant, a genuine suite-exclusive restaurant scored on its own under Suite & Restricted Dining, not folded into the included tier.

Beyond that, Star's included roster runs The Eatery (buffet), International Café, 24-hour Room Service, app-based OceanNow ordering, and an included diner-style venue branded Americana Diner. Casual and quick dining adds a Lido-deck quick-service zone (Greens, Grill, Slice, Tacos, and Coffee & Cones) and a Promenade-deck zone (Grill, Slice, and Ice Cream), plus two venues that aren't actually included: Alfredo's Pizzeria and O'Malley's Irish Pub, each $14.99 per adult plus a service charge, waived only if you're on Princess Plus or Princess Premier. Star's specialty lineup runs eight distinct restaurants — Crown Grill, Sabatini's, Makoto Ocean, Umai Teppanyaki, Umai Hot Pot, The Catch by Rudi, The Butcher's Block by Dario, and Love by Britto — all at a $60-per-adult cover plus a 20% service charge. Chef's Table is Star's one scored Special Experience, hosted in Star's main dining complex (Princess's own page specifies the Main Dining Room without naming which of the two) at $149 per guest.

All of that lands Star at 8.1 (weighted 8.065), effectively tied with sister ship Sun Princess, also 8.1 (weighted 8.055). The 0.010-point gap traces entirely to one venue — more seats at O'Malley's Irish Pub. Star also gave two specialty restaurants dedicated rooms instead of the tighter, buffet-adjacent space TravelMarketReport described on Sun, but Specialty Dining reads an identical 8.8 on both ships, so that upgrade doesn't move a score. That's a few smart physical improvements to a shared dining formula, not a stronger overall program: seven of the eight scored categories are identical on both ships.

Specialty Dining is Star's strongest category at 8.8, reflecting a genuinely deep eight-restaurant bench: Crown Grill and Sabatini's bring Princess's longstanding signature brands, Umai Teppanyaki and Umai Hot Pot add real tableside and shared-cooking format, and Makoto Ocean's April 2026 Best Restaurant win at the Seatrade F&B@Sea Awards is a genuine, officially sourced quality signal — one that applies equally to sister ship Sun Princess, since it's the identical restaurant concept on both ships. Quality Ceiling follows at 8.3, judged on that same specialty roster's own merits rather than boosted by the size of the included tier, and it too is identical on both ships.

Variety reads 8.0, a category judgment on the true range of formats aboard: two parallel complimentary dining rooms, a buffet, a 24-hour café, an included diner, app-based ordering, a genuine casual-and-quick tier spanning two deck zones, and eight distinct specialty cuisines. Special Experiences reads 8.5 on the strength of Chef's Table's hosted, multi-course format; Suite & Restricted Dining reads a strong 8.2, reflecting a genuine full suite restaurant rather than a thin perk — see the dedicated sections below for both.

Included Dining reads 7.6, anchored by Aurora and Celestial both scoring as solid, ordinary Included — Full Service venues — the included ecosystem stands on its own here, never lifted by the strength of the specialty roster, and this category is identical on Star and Sun. Value reads 7.0, the class's lowest category: a real $5-per-day, per-package premium over Princess's fleetwide Plus and Premier rates, and a 20% dining service charge that only softens if you prepay a package, keep this category honest rather than generous.

Casual & Quick Dining is the one category with any daylight between the sisters: 8.4 on Star against 8.3 on Sun. That's not a roster difference — Star and Sun carry the identical casual venues — it's a layout one, covered in full in the Casual & Quick Dining section below.

The Eatery (7.8) is Star's buffet, running breakfast, lunch, and dinner with the range you'd expect from a Princess buffet at this scale. Americana Diner (7.9) is an included diner-style venue — a genuine sit-down format distinct from the buffet, serving classic American diner fare at no extra charge. International Café (7.8) is Star's 24-hour coffee-and-light-bites counter, included in the fare rather than run as a paid specialty kiosk the way some lines structure their coffee bars.

OceanNow (7.6) is Princess's app-based ordering system, letting guests order food and drinks to any spot on the ship — pool deck, cabin, public room — through the Princess app, a genuine convenience layer on top of the physical venues. Room Service (7.3) rounds out the included tier: complimentary in-cabin dining is part of the fare, though it's tagged Mixed here because certain delivery contexts carry their own small charges depending on package and order type — verify current terms in the Princess app before ordering.

All five of these are fully included in Star's fare, with no reservation gate beyond ordinary Princess app booking. Star's specialty roster plays no role in this category's score — Variety is judged on the genuine range of formats aboard, and it reads identically on Sun Princess.

O'Malley's Irish Pub (8.1) is Star's pub-style casual venue, and it's the clearest example of the class's second-ship refinements: per Cruise Critic and TravelMarketReport, Star's O'Malley's reportedly carries roughly 32 additional seats over Sun's version of the same pub — a real capacity improvement at a venue that tends to fill up during evening entertainment hours. Like Alfredo's, it isn't actually included: it's $14.99 per adult plus a service charge, waived only on Princess Plus or Princess Premier. Alfredo's Pizzeria (8.2) is Star's Neapolitan-style pizza counter — a la carte at $14.99 per adult plus a service charge, not actually included, though the charge is waived on Princess Plus and Princess Premier.

The Lido Zone (8.1) bundles five included quick-service counters on the pool deck — Greens (salads), Grill (burgers and grilled fare), Slice (pizza by the slice), Tacos, and Coffee & Cones (coffee and soft-serve) — scored here as one venue since they share a footprint and a role. The Promenade Zone (7.9) is a second, smaller quick-service cluster — Grill, Slice, and Ice Cream — on a different deck, giving guests a second casual option away from the pool crowd.

The layout story doesn't stop at O'Malley's. Cruise Critic's reporting on Sun Princess described The Butcher's Block by Dario and The Catch by Rudi as tucked into fairly tight, buffet-adjacent space on that ship; on Star, both specialty restaurants reportedly got their own dedicated rooms instead. Those two venues are scored under Specialty Dining, not here, but the placement improvement is a real, documented physical refinement that's part of the same second-ship-advantage story as O'Malley's larger seating count — and it's the reason this category, alone among the scorecard's eight, reads a few tenths higher on Star than on Sun.

Star's specialty ecosystem scores 8.8. Makoto Ocean (9.2) is the standout: it won Best Restaurant at the Seatrade F&B@Sea Awards in April 2026, a real, officially sourced quality signal that applies equally to sister ship Sun Princess, since it's the same restaurant concept on both hulls — not a Star-specific edge. Crown Grill (8.8) is Princess's longstanding fleetwide steakhouse brand. Umai Teppanyaki (8.8) and The Catch by Rudi (8.6) follow closely — Umai Teppanyaki for its tableside hibachi-style chef preparation, and The Catch by Rudi for its seafood-forward menu, now served in its own dedicated room on Star rather than the tighter buffet-adjacent space reported on Sun.

Sabatini's (8.8), Umai Hot Pot (8.6), and The Butcher's Block by Dario (8.5) round out the upper tier — Sabatini's as Princess's longstanding Italian signature, Umai Hot Pot for its shared, interactive hot-pot format, and The Butcher's Block by Dario also benefiting from a dedicated room on Star. Love by Britto (8.6) closes the roster, the specialty lineup's most experiential concept.

Four of these — Crown Grill, Sabatini's, Makoto Ocean, and The Catch by Rudi — also sail fleetwide on other Princess ships, and Sphere-class ships run roughly a $5 premium on their $60 cover versus the $55 fleetwide standard. The other four — The Butcher's Block by Dario, Love by Britto, Umai Teppanyaki, and Umai Hot Pot — are Sphere-class-exclusive concepts, so the $60 cover there is simply their normal price, not a premium over anything. Princess Premier includes unlimited specialty dining across all eight; Princess Plus does not include any of them. Covers run through Princess's current dining page and are confirmed current as of this guide's August 2026 pricing check — verify before booking, since cover pricing changes without much notice.

Princess Plus runs $70 per person per day if bought pre-cruise, or $75 per day if bought onboard, against a $65/$70 fleetwide standard — a consistent $5-a-day Sphere-class premium. Plus includes four casual meals per voyage but no specialty dining at all, so it suits guests planning to lean on Aurora, Celestial, and the casual tier rather than work through the eight specialty restaurants.

Princess Premier runs $105 per day pre-cruise or $110 per day onboard, against a $100/$105 fleetwide standard — the same $5-a-day premium pattern. Premier includes unlimited casual dining and unlimited specialty dining, which is genuinely persuasive on a ship carrying eight specialty restaurants: work through the roster without adding per-visit covers.

A 20% service charge, raised from 18% effective March 7, 2026, applies to specialty and casual dining cover charges — but it's waived when prepaid as part of either package, which is a real, current consideration worth factoring into whether Plus or Premier pencils out for your sailing length and party size. None of this is unique to Star: the same $5-a-day premium and the same service-charge terms apply identically to sister ship Sun Princess.