Sailing12Away

Rather than cancel the 2 from the Haven room to rebook in a separate balcony.... call NCL back and ask to just switch the names on the cabins. Move the 2 Haven folks to the balcony room, and the 2 names on the balcony room into that Haven room. They may be willing to do that since you still have a month to go for a lot less $$ than 6K. It's just swapping names on cabin rooms. As for the price difference that's for the 4 of them to work out as the Haven room should in theory cost more than their original balcony room. Just hurry up and call them before you get to the 21 day check-in marker.

Had a friend who was traveling solo with us on our last trip. They originally were in a balcony with upgrade bids to move into Haven. As we got closer to sailing the prices dropped and he just outright upgraded into a Haven room on his own. If you're truly traveling as a group and money isn't an option, then why would they NOT upgrade if rooms are available? My folks were on that trip with us as well, they were in a mini suite (club balcony). Haven was too expensive for them to upgrade (would have doubled their price from what they paid), so we saw them for dinner most nights and that was about it. That was perfectly fine for me, but my mom would have preferred more time with us.

I've heard rumors on FB that the thermal spa jets were finally installed/fixed. So bubbles should be there in the spa now.

If you're booking online, just uncheck the boxes you don't want. If you're booking through a TA or on the phone with NCL, just ask them to remove what you don't want. You can't uncheck the shore excursions or wifi as there is no cost to you for those, so it's silly to decline them if you're not doing a sailaway rate. For example, the screenshot below is for a 15 day Panama Canal cruise. Drink package is still costing a total of $654 for 2 people despite being "free", but that's still a lot cheaper than what I paid sailing on RCC so I'll take it. The dining is less than $50 for 6 meals, and each meal is easily a value of $100 each. So you pay $50 but get a $300+ value. Definitely worth it to have some options at that price, but that's just me.

Different strokes for different folks. We were at the A list bar while waiting for our group before dinner and it was our least favorite. They made you stick to the drink choices on the menu only, didn't have some of the ingredients to make 1/3 of those drinks, took about 10-15 mins to prepare a single drink, and barely said hi or acknowledged you at all. Guess we just hit them on a bad night. It was early, 6pm so can't say it was overly crowded yet.

You can absolutely get a virgin cocktail with the normal free at sea drink package.

We saw our butler daily, and had no less of a level of service than when we've stayed within the courtyard area. Bar, lounge, restaurant.... no issues at all by being a little further away. With all the excessive drinking we do on our trips we have never once had a problem getting back to our room 2 decks down after closing the bar out every single night. The only thing which I'll give you is the pool I suppose, but for me I always wear a coverup anyway so walking back through the halls to my room is no big deal after a swim.

I was in an HH Family Haven Villa in September. The room was fantastic, and I upgraded my next trip in February to be in a similar category room again. The HH, HI, and HJ category rooms are a great value. The room sizes and balcony tends to be much larger than the courtyard rooms, and they're a lot cheaper too (at least 2-4K on my sailings). They're located on decks 14 & 15, but near the elevator that will take you right up to the Haven access areas (the courtyard pool, observation lounge, bar, restaurant). So for us, it was a piece of cake to grab the elevator up 2 flights, and then walk (stumble) down the stairs at the end of the night when the bar closed down to get back to our room. We loved the location and it was a great experience, so when we sail on the Joy again we will always look to book those rooms first. Aft rooms for us are too far away from the rest of the Haven amenities. But those midship rooms on the Joy are perfect and a great bargain.

Was on the Joy in September, returning again in February. Haven was lovely.

At the end of our trip we would prefer a shorter flight home to get back to our doggy. So for us, we're sailing LA - MIA for a shorter flight home to NY.

Granted, our POA trip was a pre-Covid, but I assure you.... at no point in our trip were we ever denied alcohol. Maui has an overnight stop too, so I reeaaaallllly doubt that while docked for 2 days there is no alcohol allowed.

The Star doesn't have a Haven. So if you're in a suite, you'll have the butler and concierge, but no separate pool, dining room, or bar for you. It's just a big fancy room.

If you ask your butler nicely they are sometimes willing and able to get you things that are not on the list. We were in a GV in May and asked for Baileys and said we were willing to take only 4 bottles instead of 6 if they could make it happen. Gave them a backup list in case it couldn't be done, and we still were given 6 full bottles, one of them being the Baileys. Donated the leftover bottles to the butler and concierge on disembarkation as we didn't care to take them all home with us. But for only 2 people we certainly made quite a dent in them at least.

They offer a different drink package for POA trips. It was called the "Hawaii Beverage Package" when we sailed a few years back. Same rules as the regular NCL one as far as I could tell. When in port there were taxes on drinks (just like any other NCL ship at a port that charges them). Alcohol up to $15 limit paying the difference beyond that. We could get 2 drinks at a time, no one ever cut us off with how many per day. If you have that Hawaii package you won't notice a difference between that and the normal NCL free at sea drink package. I'm hesitant to say they're not different because some Karen will run and link to the the different packages highlighting how they're minutely different and divert the conversation.

We've been in the courtyard on the Epic, Jade and Pearl. Then outside of the Haven on the Joy and Encore. No difference in terms of the treatment we received from the butler. But our own personal preference is to not be too far from that courtyard area for non-butler related reasons. Aft rooms have a lovely view, but for us it's just too far of a walk to get to the proper Haven area so we find ourselves not using those amenities as much as we normally would if we were in a closer room. The Joy seems to be one of our new favorite Haven ships as it has rooms outside of the courtyard area, but they're still mid-ship as opposed to all the way aft. So for us it was a quick elevator ride up and 2 flights of stairs back down, and the room was bigger and cheaper than in the courtyard proper.

What does she enjoy doing? Is she interested in spa treatments - get a spa pass. Is she a foodie - get extra specialty restaurant credits for her to try everything. Does she like cocktails - ask the Haven bartenders to go wild and make her fancy beverages or frozen dessert drinks. Does she like the typical cruise activities (bingo, game shows, Q&A with staff...) - review the dailies with her each morning and highlight the stuff she wants to attend, and make sure she knows how to get to everything she wants. Is she interested in exploring the cities you're stopping in - look into the U-tours that tend to be pricier, but are smaller guests so a more intimate experience. Is she interested in lounging by the pool and relaxing with a good book - stock up her kindle with fun reads or schlep a book or two in your luggage for her (there will be more in the Haven library too, but limited choices). It all depends on what will make her happy and is enjoyable to her.

Yes, they have a spa on board. https://www.ncl.com/cruise-ship/joy/whats-on-board/spa?cid=PS_DIG_NA_NA_GOO_NA_NA_NA_NA_NA_NA&gclid=Cj0KCQiAm5ycBhCXARIsAPldzoVUQDclZSCB36j5X3h07PQA32QJ8-i52x8K-LKE96WBaoDLtEg7ausaAqxBEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Best bet is to reconsider your hotel choice in Vegas and find one that includes a coffee pot. I'm surprised that you managed to find a hotel which doesn't as I thought 99% of them did.

This was on the Joy in September, separate bottles for all 3.

Depends on my mood and the audience around me. In all seriousness though, a virgin pina colada is not really missing much by not having the rum flavor. The rest of it is there to provide the essence of what the drink should taste like. All depends on the specific cocktail I suppose and the predominance flavor.

You can still take the free at sea package and remove the drink portion. Meaning you still get the specialty dining, port excursion credits, etc. The bigger issue I see them all having is booking excursions. If one H/W pair wants to do an excursion different from the other, good luck booking those 4 separate tickets. Sorting out the final bill will be tricky as well since if one of the wives go shopping it gets charged to their 'wife' room. And if a gent buys a fancy watch, it gets billed to his 'gents' room. Seems like a lot of sorting through a fine tooth comb to reconcile things at the end.

I'm a simple gal, so the onboard products are perfectly fine for me. I don't think I've packed shampoo/conditioner/shower gel for a cruise ever and I've been just fine. Haven also gives you a shower poof which I always forget, although that takes up zero weight in my bag unlike the other stuff.

We did the POA trip a few years back. It's a great way to see a bunch of different islands in Hawaii and experience a taste of it all. With the 2 overnight stops you can really get a lot in. When we were booking we looked into doing a regular land trip with a visit to only 2 islands vs doing the cruise. Got lucky that the furlough my sister had timed up perfect with the cruise, and despite POA being pricier than other trips it was still cheaper than a land trip (when you account for food & alcohol being free on POA). Plus this covered more islands and we went to sleep and woke up in a new place. Rather than wasting half our days traveling around.

Our last trip in September we brought on 4 bottles of wine including a magnum of champagne. No fee was charged as we had the free at sea drink package.

Stop making assumptions. I did look at it. I don't need a tour of the ship itself, I'm concerned about the interior of the staterooms which he didn't cover in that video (full disclosure, didn't watch the whole thing, kept skipping ahead to see where he was headed next and never saw rooms). And again, for the particular sailing that I was interested in booking - based on sail date, length of cruise, embarkation, etc, that was my option (Liberty or Conquest would fit the bill, but they're nearly identical from what I can see in room photos). Why on earth would I waste my time looking into booking the latest and greatest ship when the reason I was looking in the first place was for a particular sail date and length of cruise - which that ship didn't offer? Some people like to lease a car because they need the latest and greatest, some of us find more value in owning.