maja651

Hi Michelle.

I'm so happy to hear you had an amazing vacation last week. We were in a family suite and felt spoiled by our butler and room steward...I can't even begin to imagine what you experienced. Maybe someday! :)

I'm glad you had a great time and were spoiled too! We saved up for this and searched for over a year for the exact cruise date, itinerary and price that worked for all of us. We booked about a year and a half before the cruise and got a great deal! You too can do this! :) We are not super wealthy by any means...just saved up for what we really wanted! Like I said, for us, this was a bucket list cruise. Unfortunately, now we are so spoiled, I am not sure how we will be able to cruise in a normal cabin ever again! :rolleyes:

Thank you again for this information. Your observations are very helpful. Our group consists of 2 couples (and me), so I have resigned myself to them having the front and back bedrooms. Does the middle one have any "redeeming features" (other than not being in the loud zone)?

The middle bedroom actually is the biggest actual bedroom. :). The bath is like a standard mini suite bath, but the bedroom is nice. It even has its own dining table in the bedroom. It also has the most comfy chair of all of the bedroom chairs. :) it is almost exactly like a penthouse suite on the Star, just with large windows instead of a balcony. I am sure you will enjoy it. :)

Thanks also for your "tips on tipping". Very helpful. There are 5 of us as well. From what I can tell, the 3 bedrooms were not "created equally". Any tips on how the 5 of you decided how to assign them? Just curious.

The 3 rooms are definitely not created equal. The front and back are basically the same (although we had the front room and wish we had the back, as I think it is nicer in hind sight). We chose to come up with one amount everyone paid, then add a "room surcharge" to each bedroom. We put the same surcharge on the 2 masters and a smaller one for the middle bedroom. We did it that way because we had 2 in one bedroom and 1 each in the other 2 bedrooms. One of our 5 actually booked an inside cabin on deck 11 just for sleeping, as he wanted his own bedroom. We were lucky Chris the concierge gave him all of the perks of the GV, including dining at Moderno for breakfast and lunch (he only ate there 2 times anyway, as most of our meals we ate in the villa).

However, the way I believe I would do it next time would be to split the total price by room. So, let's say the 2 masters pay 37% each and the middle room pays 26%. In my opinion, that is the fare way, as suites on ships are always charged as a double, not single.

Our inside person (my brother) also paid double on the concierge tip from what everyone else paid as he was able to get the suite perks. (Note, we did not expect this, but we were very happy Chris did give them to my brother. We would have booked a 4 bedroom suite if that was an option, but since it was not, we booked that extra inside for sleeping only. It worked out for us, but do not count on it.)

One more side note on the front master. When they have night parties at the pool, you can heard the music LOUD and CLEAR in both the living room area as well as the 1st master bedroom. You could not hear it in the middle bedroom or back bedroom. I mean LOUD. Too loud really, considering the music went past midnight on the white hot party. They need to either insulate the GV better or move the party to the Spinnaker lounge after 10 pm. I plan on writing a letter to NCL to suggest this. The people in the other GV also complained about how loud the music was, so it is clearly an issue.

Thanks for the info. Is Moderno similar to Cagney's? We thought the food was exceptional for breakfast and lunch. As to your tipping info, that is personal true, but your honesty about it is very refreshing. Glad you had a great cruise and we enjoyed your photos.:)

Yes, Moderno for lunch and breakfast is just like Cagneys. :)

Thank you for your feedback and pictures, it looks great! I am glad you had a great time. We want to decide by the end of November if we are going to do it. A few more questions, if you do not mind as I would love your feedback since you just experienced it.

 

In regards to tipping, did you tip all at the end or did you tip as the week went on?

 

What would you recommend be the budget I tip for each person? Just trying to get an idea so we can budget it.

 

Thanks so much for your information.

We tipped at the end. Tipping is really subjective...so many opinions on it. We chose to tip the room steward $70 extra per room, the butler $180 per person (5 people), and the concierge $600. I hope those are considered good tips. I am really not sure. We normally tip about $200 total to the butler (for suite with 2 people) and tip the concierge about $100 (we normally do not use that service very much but we did use it a lot more on this cruise).

I really hope by stating how much we tipped does not open up some kind of tipping debate by other people. :rolleyes:

We have booked a suite for the Hong Kong to Sydney cruise in 2017 but with all the mixed Star reviews, we need to get some positive feedback. It seems that people staying in suites were pleased with most of the service but not all of it. We sailed on the Gem in 2009 Western Med and had a wonderful time, great service, food, etc. Is this the same NCL we are wondering? Also, do you know if breakfast and lunch are still available in Cagney's? One of our favorite things about the last cruise. Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated!

The service we had was exceptional. Maybe because we were in the GV, not sure, but we did not encounter any bad service anywhere on the ship.

Lunch and breakfast us at Moderno now, but the same suite menu. You can also have it delivered to your room, and we did most days. :)

Thank you so much for posting these photos. The furnishings look so much better than other pictures I had seen before the upgrading. We are booked in 14500 the end of September, 2016. Were you in 14000 or 14500? Thanks again for your positive comments about the Garden Villa. It makes us even more enthusiastic about our cruise.

We were in 14500. It was such a fabulous cruise! You will LOVE the GV!

Chris was our concierge and Mark Santos was our butler. They were both fantastic!

We just returned from our amazing cruise! I will post a review later but for now, here are some pictures!

https://nclstargardenvillanovember2015.shutterfly.com/pictures/8

Welcome back from your cruise, glad you had a great time. We are thinking about booking the Garden Villa on the Star but were getting nervous based on the recent bad reviews.

 

How was the room? I have heard people say it needs to be updated, what is your opinion?

 

How was the concierge? I have never heard of Christopher.

 

Is it truly spectacular service like they say? We always stay in suites but have never done the Garden Villa. Thinking about trying it as I have heard the service is spectacular, but am doubting that from the recent ship reviews.

The room was absolutely fabulous! There is new furniture in the living area and bedrooms. They have also put in new carpet. The service was absolutely over the top! Honestly, we wanted for nothing. Chris and Mark treated us like royalty. For example, for the suites party, Mark escorted us to it from our room. Whenever we left the ship, Mark escorted us to Chris to get to the front of the line, even in front of the suites. They treat the GV peeps like the number one VIPs. It is absolutely worth every penny. Remember, as I am sure you know, you need to tip very well in the GV. :)

Christopher is now the concierge. We just got off the ship today. We had an absolutely amazing time! Mark Santos was our butler and he too was superb. We spent most of the time in the Garden Villa and why not? That room has everything you could possibly need! I will post a review later this week with pictures and details.

Not "scared" anymore?;)

Nope! We don't have the UBP so getting drinks will be a non issue. We plan to eat most meals in the villa, so long lines should not be an issue. We expect the butler to be amazing and I'm sure he will be. If not, we will chat with him about our needs and get it fixed. If that doesn't work we will talk with the cocierege. In other words, we will be the squeaky wheel. We are not super demanding but we will definitely speak up if we need to.

I'm sorry the guests of last week's sailings had to deal with such poor service! Their complaints are valid and I'd be upset too.

OP thanks for posting the good too along with all of the details. That helps a lot!

Yes, I saw your signature indicating you are booked in the Garden Villa. Enjoy !

Thanks! I know we will enjoy no matter what! Plus, I would think of all rooms on board, they will take care of the Garden Villa! :)

Little late to cancel if they don't get it together by then ?

Did I say I was going to cancel??????? We will be on the cruise, trust me. We have the Garden Villa booked and we are going to enjoy!!!!!!:D

This is scaring me. We will be on the Star in 2 weeks. They better get it together!

Thank you!!!!!! :). Looking forward to seeing the rest!

Ok, sitting here trying not to stress about this. We are only 3 weeks out from our bucket list Garden Villa cruise! I sure hope this is fixed ASAP!

We will be in the GV in the star 4 weeks from today! :) I will post picture when I get back. I believe Carrie, (cml4958), who was just on the a Star in the GV will be posting soon.

From what I can tell, from a strictly GV point of view, the Dawn and the Star are the best ships. That's why we selected our upcoming cruise, based on the GV and the probable nice sunny weather to enjoy that outdoor space! :)

So I've got all the pictures either uploaded to photobucket, facebook, or google drive but don't know how to post them. Help would be appreciated!

 

Carrie

Humm, I'm not sure. :(. I know shutterfly has a way to share albums, but not sure of the other sites. I will send you a pm with my name for Facebook if you want to friend me :)

Carrie! I'm still waiting or those pics! :).

For us we like a particular champagne. It is only $14 a bottle at Costco. $20-$23 a bottle at the grocery store. It's not even available on the ships. But, what they do have would cost us about $50 a bottle plus the 18% gratuity. Much much cheaper to bring on board. Plus, we drink what we like and it's in the room with us for anytime! :)

We brought a whole case of wine on the Epic. We paid the corkage and saved a lot of money versus buying on board!

Michelle,

 

I would suggest getting to the pier early. We were the first group to check in under priorty boarding and Roel was there waiting for us basically. At that point, he asked us if we had any requests. We got him to make a dinner reservation for Cagney's for that evening.

 

I don't think Roel or NCL is going to have a problem with getting a key card for your brother. It would probably just give access to the elevator but might also open the main cabin door. Roel's goal is make sure you have an enjoyable time on your cruise. And since you're in the Garden Villa, he'll make sure you are happy. He definitely doens't want you going to the hotel director just to get key card access. If the key card helps with that goal, score for everyone. Good luck!

 

Carrie

Thanks Carrie! :). Two more questions. Was the other GV booked on your cruise? Does the GV still give one free Cagneys dinner? Just curious.

We always were allowed to board the ship as a family on previous cruises, even though our kids were not in our suite. That was mainly due to the fact that their cabins were under my credit card and some of my kids were still young. I'm not sure if we will be able to board together in January since my youngest is now in college but I will try. As for the perks, I wouldn't expect them to get to eat lunch in Cagney's every day, that's for sure.

Thanks for your feedback. We are not expecting Cagneys perks for my brother either. The reality is we probably won't be eating there anyway as we will be eating either on the villa veranda or in the villa dining area. :). We just hope that he can board and Debark with us and give his key access to our GV area. Not too much to ask, right? :)