psac

Maybe it was the same guy and once he was outed as the fake @Sthrngary, he then changed himself to the fake @graphicguy!!! 😁😁

The biggest differences are the Encore/Joy//Bliss have the indoor observation deck (both the public one and the Haven Horizon lounge), which the Escape does not have, and the outdoor Haven sundeck wraps around both sides, with two hot tubs outside, while the Escape only has one side and one hot tub. It was before Covid, so I’m sure they had a complete turnover many many times since, but we had the best Haven restaurant staff on the Escape. The assistant Matre D who ran the restaurant was amazing, if she ended up back there, you would be very happy. I would have no issues sailing the Escape again!

As someone who hasn’t been on the Prima, I feel like I’m an expert on the ship. 😜😁. We love the indoor sundeck areas on the Breakaway/Escape/Encore/Bliss/Joy ships. It’s a great option in poor weather. The Horizon Lounge is a nice addition for the ships which have that. More indoor space. The outdoor sundeck has plenty of shade as well. The Prima, in comparison, is perfect for sun lovers and warm itineraries (and as mentioned, it started with cold weather itineraries, bad choice.). It doesn’t have those spaces I mentioned, and the outdoor sundeck has next to zero shade. That makes it a terrible ship for us, and when we saw the reviews, we switched our booking to the Joy, and it was great we did, both our original Prima week and our Joy week had terrible weather for parts of the trip, and we were able to enjoy the bad parts of our Joy week indoors. The same design flows through the whole ship, it’s really made for outdoors If we didn’t see the reviews, and were unprepared (like the majority of passengers), we wouldn’t have enjoyed the ship. Hence the bad reviews. For warm weather and the right audience, it probably is a great ship. Just not for us, and that’s okay!

the answer to that is the Concierge. The concierge is responsible for the entire Haven (maybe except for the Haven Restaurant?), and the boss of the butlers. I think the Concierge reports directly to the Hotel Director. The Haven Restaurant Matre D might report to the Food and Beverage Director instead of the Concierge, but they should work closely together.

I think that would’ve been the quickest way to ensure a zero tip from us.

(Duplicate sorry)

It’s not the font size, it’s the script. It makes it nearly impossible to read. And even more-so if you have bad eyesight, which I do! Regular font with size 18 (like in your reply here) would be a lot better!

Agree with the others, this font is illegible! 😟

Yeah as I read it, it only affects the spa portion of the room category. Otherwise now it’s just a regular Haven room, you still get all the normal Haven amenities! Also, I think you’re spot on about brining hard copies of the letter and your original booking as a spa category before the date of the change!

Now I get your math. We usually tip the butler $150 (standard) to $200 (if they’re really good) for just the two of us for a 7 day sailing. And I consider us pretty low maintenance — we never do meals in the room, and usually our only request is a pitcher of ice water to keep filled, and cookies every afternoon, and sometimes they still mess that up. 🤷‍♂️ but overall we’ve been mostly happy with our butlers thankfully!

Just agreeing with the others — not another dollar to that butler, and spread the wealth elsewhere. What you gave already is way too much for the service it sounds like you’re receiving. Personally your experience is another reason why I (very respectfully) disagree with Gary on the idea of tipping up front. Tipping up front in no way guarantees good service. Personally I prefer waiting until the end of the trip to decide how much to tip. Similarly, for the butler to keep track of your letter for two weeks might make their job harder as opposed to just communicating day by day what you need from them. But of course many people have had great results from the letter and upfront tip! Enjoy the rest of your trip!

I’m totally with you. We like shade. We like indoor area Haven options if the weather is bad. Last year we had booked the Prima for May 2023 before it started to sail. Once the sailings and reviews started coming, we cancelled and moved to the Joy (which we had already been on once before) two or three weeks later than our original cruise. We couldn’t have been happier. The Joy Haven is amazing and we have it booked again for spring next year! Speaking of the Joy, I work in Manhattan and caught it leaving the city today from our work coffee room window. A perfect dreary rainy day for the indoor sun deck on the Haven that we love!

In addition to the others already mentioned, we have also tipped the Haven restaurant hostess in the past on most trips. Usually they know our names after a few days and/or just greeting us with a friendly smile makes our mornings start off right!

I can’t directly answer any of your questions, but I’ll give some general experience. We were on the Anthem of the Seas from NJ to the Caribbean after they got Starlink, and the service was really spotty, except super early morning when not a lot of people were using it. As the afternoon hit, it was unusable. In the Joy Haven NY to Bermuda it was better, but still noticeable differences between times when not a lot of people would be surfing vs prime times. In both cases, I don’t think the Starlink had anything to do with it or not, I still think the internal traffic is the what overloads the system. Maybe the newer Prima may have better routers/more hotspots, etc,, but I would still question how good the service would be!

I assume this is the Miami terminal you’re speaking of? The New York terminal has a Haven waiting area in the back of the terminal, and then they automatically bring everyone to the front gangway to bring everyone directly to the Haven area, before anyone else is onboard to have the chance to intervene with the Haven crowd. It’s a lot of walking back and forth, but it keeps all the Haven folks together.

We’re not Spa people, but the Breakaway (and I assume some of the other ships?) has at least one small spa treatment room right in the Haven area, like forward of the Haven pool. I know the Joy doesn’t have that, but I don’t know which ships in between do or don’t have that. But I think if I wanted a treatment, I would want the full spa area experience and not do it in the little Haven spa room…..?

We liked the Haven lunch and dinners a lot on the Joy, but agree that the breakfasts are even more special! We had Marivic (sp?) also as the hostess, and she was awesome. We made sure to give her a tip and to fill out a vacation hero card for her. Regarding the concierge, unless he got a promotion (which is possible, or could have been a temporary thing), Mr X is an assistant concierge. Patrick was our concierge in June, but he could have been off for the week or something. But we also have had varying amount of usefulness from the Haven concierges in general, but even when we don’t use them, we still give some tip, in that as I understand it, the concierge is the “boss of the Haven,” so if everything runs well, they are doing their job. And their escorts off the ship (especially debarkation) is definitely appreciated. But we definitely give a MUCH lower amount than the butler’s tip for instance. Glad you enjoyed!

Adding to what @knscruiser322 said above, after security you basically walk 3/4 of the terminal to get to the Haven room, and then for our boarding, we had to basically walk the whole length of the terminal again outside back to the front of the ship to board. So yes, definitely get a wheelchair. Enjoy!

We like their cookies, so we asked the butler to bring cookies every day. (They’re just cookies, nothing special, but they do their job well! 😁j He did, except for one day he brought brownies, which were also really good. The chocolate covered strawberries were really good as well. Obviously we’re sweets people! So what you like might be completely different!

Regarding the Spa posts from the prior page, we’re not spa people, but the last two times when we boarded the Joy, and they brought us up to the Haven, they were doing restaurant reservations, they had a paper form to fill out for show reservations, and they had a spa representative there for spa reservations. I don’t know if you have any better or worse chance at reservations that way vs going directly to the spa. But it might save the extra trip. I don’t know if that is standard practice, though!

Not Gary, but the butlers seem to be assigned by geography. We just got off the Joy, and the starboard-side 18th floor block of cabins in the Haven all had the same butler and room steward. (Which is probably way too many cabins for just one and one, but that’s a separate issue. We never had any problems with service, just they seemed way overworked.). Anyway, back to the point, if you request a butler, and that puts them off their normal block of rooms, it might make it difficult for both you and them for them to go back and forth. Of course, if you’re a good tipper, they may not care. 😁

Two days ago on the Joy (second sea day going to Bermuda), the weather was PERFECT, and we had ours, but all of the loungers and seats up in the sun deck were completely taken by the early afternoon (but not 7am either!). Did see people do the walkthrough and not find seats. BUT, they had the roof open, so people were lying in the sun by the indoor pool as well. The Joy does have double the Haven cabins of the other ships (except for the Prima), so that could be why they were all taken. And the whole upstairs indoor sundeck was empty, so that was an option as well. Overall fantastic cruise so far!

Important question — any thoughts on the New York Strip Steak that replaced the Delmonico steak? 😁. The Delmonico was my favorite meal, but wondering if the NY Strip is close? Specifically will be on the Joy, but assume it’s similar for all of the ships.

We’ve done a bunch of cruises out of NY. We’ve actually found the debarkation to usually be much worse than the embarkation. 😁 it gets really backed up. Even more annoying after doing a few sailings out of Bayonne and they handle it better with even bigger ships. But anyway, our last two sailings out of NY we were delayed coming back, both times not NCL’s fault. So we started debarking 1-2 hours late each time. Of course that would wreck the embarkation for the boarding after ours.

I actually thought the color indicates a section of the ship, so they know where to route the bags. I do remember the gold Haven tags, but maybe with more Haven cabins outside the Haven proper than just the aft and forward, adopting more color coding makes sense. But it could be for the ship itself as you said, especially for the ports with multiple ships leaving at once!