Wahoowa9904

If you value your sanity and have to book on a spring break cruise, the Haven is well worth paying double IMHO. On a different week? Probably not double.

We're sailing out of Miami - they reposition to NYC afterwards. If we weren't in the Haven, it might have been a long week! But the Haven staff has been great as always.

Have seen a lot of this on the Joy this week from a physical altercation on the forward stairs the first night to constant sniping over deck chairs and then today two women yelling at each other about how miserable their families are. I have a feeling this is partially a comment on society at large but also an effect of Norwegian stretching the bounds of ship capacity.

Edit: It had mostly emptied out by 1pm.

Joy Haven sundeck is completely full on the sea day today, just FYI. Still a million times better than the Easter week chaos on the main pool deck.

Previous week they diverted to Amber Cove due to high winds (gusting to over 30 knots) at Puerto Plata. Makes sense that they tread cautiously there.

Following this thread as we sailed last week on the Encore. Couple of things I would say is that: 1) They were very aggressive in making sure the muster procedures were followed for the 4/2/23 departure. We were asked 10 times before we did it and at least 10 times after by various orange-jacketed crew. They wouldn't allow passengers to access public areas of the ship if they didn't say they had completed the process. I'm wondering if the overcapacity status of the arriving and departing cruises didn't stretch the staff thin on 4/9/23. 2) Experiences on max-capacity cruises on this ship vary vastly for Haven guests and everyone else. I would recommend purchasing Priority Access to avoid the many complaints about tenders and disembarkation that happened on our cruise. The tendering process was awful for anyone not in the Haven or with Priority Access. We were whisked down a crew elevator past a line of hundreds of people onto the second tender to GSC after having waited for all of 5 seconds (people had been in line for an hour otherwise at that point). 3) Premium Plus is a must for more serious wine drinkers but not worth it for those who want an occasional glass at dinner. Not to say all of the premium plus wines were great or anything you wouldn't find on any supermarket's shelf, but I found several of the wines included in the regular package to be borderline undrinkable. Out of the ~$550 premium we paid, we used the package for about 15 fresh squeezed juices ($45), dozens of water cartons/bottles (say $180 ballpark), four bottles at dinner (say $350 ballpark), probably 10 Veuve Cliquot+Chambords ($490 at list prices - gulp), and got to try various bourbons and single-malt scotches. 4) Cruise communication was poor - except when the cruise director was urging people to leave the public areas during the tendering and disembarkation processes. The PA system is inaudible in many locations on the ship, including in staterooms. Critical messages about schedule changes were only spread by word of mouth and the next day's newsletter. It seems bizarre that they can't or don't use the NCL app's functionality to send texts or alerts. There was no apparent effort by the cruise director to communicate these changes to people on the pool deck. Even though the band stops playing for announcements, none of them could be made out even when standing under the PA speakers.