Sammae

Thank you! Yes, there was a pocket door between the 2 rooms. Very handy!

Hi Lisa! To be honest, we learned very little about what we could or could not have our Butler do, and from what you read on these boards, some will grab your Starbucks, some won't, etc. I know in the Haven you can have a specialty meal delivered to your room, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case in a suite as well. The one thing to keep in mind would be that there is no proper dining setup in these rooms. Sorry I can't be of more help!

Alright, I'm here to write a short review of our non-Haven suite experience on NCL Viva in February. We often cruise with friends, but this time it was just Steve (39) and I (38). This was my 10th NCL cruise. We sailed from San Juan for the first time, and this itinerary had a port every day. Embarkation We arrived at the port around 10:40am, although our time slot on our cruise docs was for 1pm. No one checks this at the pier. The only complaint I have about the setup at the pier is that there is signage for the Haven, but they don't include the non-Haven suites on the signs. The only reason I knew to follow the Haven signs was from my sleuthing these boards. When we arrived at the pier, we could see a small seating area past security - with maybe 100 seats if that - that was full. We had to wait in line at security for about 15 minutes, and then they allowed the seating area to progress to check-in and opened the security line to start moving more people through. We walked from security, through the terminal building and right up to the Haven check-in desk where we were next in line. Once we had our cards, we were shown to a small seating area set-up with coffee, juice and pastries, where we were asked to wait for our escort on board. There was a family of 4 there waiting as well, and we sat for maybe 2 minutes before a Butler came to walk us to the ship. Our quick walk from terminal to ship took approximately a minute, and then we were brought to the bank of Haven elevators and taken up to deck 6 and on to Cagney's. What a DIFFERENT boarding experience this was compared to Miami, Port Canaveral or New York! So quick, easy and efficient!! Concierge At Cagney's, we sat to wait to speak with Mary, our concierge, who was finishing up with another family. What a lovely woman! We have never stayed in a category higher than a mini-suite before and I was skeptical that having a concierge would make much difference. Let me say, as the administrator of our 2-person household, having the ability to skip lines and speak to a single person about any issue or request made our vacation SO smooth. I loved it. I had already booked dining times and entertainment, but I asked Mary to change our reservation times, since we were limited in what was available online. She also changed a shore excursion for us and all I had to do was return the old tickets to her at breakfast the next day. Throughout the week, Mary came by to see us at breakfast in the morning and we ran into her around the ship at various times where she always recognized us and asked if there was anything she could do to help. We met her in front of the theatre for shows (which ended up just being show-singular. One of the main cast members of Beetlejuice injured themselves at rehearsal the day we were supposed to see it and it was canceled the rest of the week) where she escorted us into the theatre early to have our pick of seats. We did not make use of the service to get escorted off the ship at port, as we had no early excursions and did not have to contend with the hoards, but I could see that being an extremely useful service. After speaking with Mary, we wandered over to the deck 6 atrium to grab our first cruise drink, and meandered around the ship until Cagney's opened for lunch at 12pm. The lunch menu was the same shortened menu that ColdCruise posted in their review. While we were there, Mary came over and told us our stateroom was ready (they hadn't started announcing room readiness to gen pop yet), so we headed up that way when we were finished. Family Suite with Master (SJ) 11812 This room was fantastic! It was definitely one of the larger balconies in the category. We had 2 loungers, and a table with 2 chairs. I'm including photos of all the literature that was provided on the table when we got in, as well. Cagney's Breakfast Since this was an itinerary with no sea days, we had the shortened breakfast menu each day (the bottom corner of the menu says "port days" in small print). Steve is an eggs benny fan. When he asked if they could swing that for him the first day, he got a regretful "no." We did attempt to go to Hudson's for breakfast the next day so he could order it and the line was INSANE. We told our sad story in Cagney's and he was presented with eggs Benedict. So this seemed to be a YMMV situation. Butler So, having a butler was something we thought we would really enjoy. Contrary to our pre-cruise impressions on having a concierge, we were able to think of LOTS of things that a butler could do to add just that bit more to our vacation. And contrary to our post-cruise impressions, we found the services offered by our butler, Neil, to be less helpful than those of our concierge. Now, a lot of that is on us. We're very middle-class, with very lower-to-middle class upbringings. We're not used to asking people to do things for us that we could just do ourselves, and sometimes getting over feeling silly or guilty about asking is more work than just DOING the thing ourselves. Neil left us little hors d'oeuvres every afternoon, but we were never offered the other little snacks like M&Ms or anything. But we also didn't ask. There's really only so much you can eat in a day. The one, best, most useful thing we were able to use Neil's help for though was bringing our deserts back from specialty dining. THAT was amazing. Nothing like winding down at the end of the night with the last night cap we brought up and some cake on the balcony. Concluding Remarks Upgrading our vacation to a suite was the stupidest financial decision we've ever made, because now we're spoiled. This upgrade happened because we couldn't get Vibe for this cruise, and the difference was not much more going to a suite. We really just wanted more quiet space to hit up when needed. Having the separate bedroom was fantastic, because Steve likes to watch TV at the end of the day and I very much DO NOT like having that noise when I'm reading before bed or trying to sleep. I also get up earlier, and to be able to putter around and make a coffee and such without disturbing Steve was wonderful. Surprisingly, we did not end up ordering room service at all. I think this was partly that there was already coffee in the room (and much better coffee than room service would bring) and we had the PP beverage package, so if we were getting outside coffee we wanted it to be Starbucks. I guess the way we vacation has changed as we've gotten older. Where we used to be happy to laze around in the morning, now we want to get out and explore and sit at the restaurant and have a hot breakfast. Now, if we had a kid with us - room service would be a game changer. If we ever do have a child to travel with, this category of staterooms could remove a lot of the frustrations of cruising with a little one. Would we book this room again for the extra $$? Heck yes. The little perks took some of the stress off. Like when I was reviewing our final bill at the last possible moment and noticed a $140-ish charge from Le Bistro (turns out they charged for a bottle of champers instead of just the glass I ordered that was included in our package), Mary took care of it with a series of phone calls and provided confirmation of the charge reversal before we left the ship. Holy Hannah, was that ever nice. I guarantee we would have just rolled our eyes and absorbed the charge instead of waiting in line at Guest Services on Disembarkation day. Those little things add up and create the value in this category of staterooms. If anyone has any specific questions that I did not touch on, please let me know. I wrote a lot of words here and don't want to keep anymore of your time. Happy Sailing!

Good morning! I'm so delayed in writing my post about our Suite experience. I don't have time right now to go into all the detail, but I promise to circle back around one evening this week (or if I decide to procrastinate on my thesis writing... which seems likely to happen). I will say that 11812 was perfect. We had a huge balcony -not much space taken up by slides. In addition to the 2 chairs and table, we had 2 loungers by the bedroom balcony door. It's going to be hard to go back to a balcony room after this experience. I promise more detail, pics and video are coming!! Stay tuned!

Ahhh ok. So the suites menu. I think this thread is developing some confusion between "Haven" and "non-Haven" amenities.

Can you clarify that you had the HAVEN breakfast menu? Other reports have said that it is just whatever is available for uncharge on the room service breakfast menu, except that it is free (omelettes, etc.).

yes! Thanks for linking to this! I’m onboard Viva Feb 18-25 in a family suite with master bedroom, and I’m going to update the above thread with as thorough a review as possible so we have a good compendium of non-haven suite experience for the board.

THIS IS AMAZING! Thank you so much! I really appreciate this information. I'm really looking forward to having the concierge to handle our bookings so we can just relax when we embark. I love that she detoured you through the kitchen on disembarkation. What a queen. I have a feeling we'll spend some time at Luna/Soleil. We had vibe on our last cruise, but this one coming up is so port intensive, we opted for the extra room amenities of the suite instead. I'll miss having the Vibe bar at our disposal.

@ColdCruise Just finished reading through your trip report. Thank you for that! I have a few questions, if you have time: 1) I checked post 147, but it just had pics of breakfast food, no menu. Mostly wondering if there's an option for Eggs Benedict? 2) When you ordered room service, was it from the regular room service menu, or is there an upgraded menu for the suites? 3) This is a question I could ask anyone who's been on the Viva, but I have you now. Is there anywhere to get a good beer? We've cruised ships with the District Brewhouse too often now and I'm a little sad about the lack of craft beer availability. 4) Did you use the concierge for anything during the trip? Thank you so much for all the insight!

Thank you so much! I look forward to reading your review!!

Thank you so much for posting the menus! I was definitely hoping that the offerings would be different from the MDRs for breakfast and lunch - sort of like a Haven-lite offering. Were the room service offerings the same as the standard room service menu, if you remember? Did you use the butler and concierge services much?

I haven't found anything specific to that room yet. I will definitely take pictures in February though and post here!

Excellent review! Thank you so much for taking the time to do this! It's making me want to book another Mediterranean cruise... (it's been 12 years since our last!)

Thank you everyone who contributed here! I'm trying to compile a list of amenities and experiences that applies to non-Haven suites, and I found it helpful to go through the 135(!) pages here to see what might apply over on the non-Haven side. If anyone has any non-Haven experience they'd like to share, let me know, or go drop it in the non-Haven thread, please!

I'm happy to have the option to purchase stronger coffee than what is offered in the dining room. It's not just Starbucks "hype". I drank it before it was branded Starbucks on the ships, too. I drink my coffee black, and I like a darker roast. I find the dining room/buffet/room service coffee to taste very watery. Part of the draw of upgrading to P+ is that we get our specialty coffees included, which is what we did every morning on our Bliss cruise last winter. I have yet to drink a cup of drip coffee in a diner or cruise ship in Canada or the US that doesn't taste like my Nana made it (my mom used to race to the coffee maker when we visited so she could double the grinds before brewing.)