Sammae

Just now, Sand and Seas said:

@Sammae,  Thank you for posting!  Love the video.   We would especially love that balcony with the two loungers that are not in full sunlight.

 

Was there some type of pocket door between the front room and the bedroom?

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

Just now, Lisacfletcher2009 said:

Thanks Sammae.

you have helped me so much.

I’m glad you had such a lovely time.

one thought - apart from the cabin itself, what perks did you enjoy most about staying in a suite? Is it possible to have speciality meals served in your room or is it just the desert?

 

many thanks once again,

Lisa 

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!

2 hours ago, Lisacfletcher2009 said:

Hi Sammae,

 

I hope you had a great sailing. Did you have any luck photographing 11812? We are in that cabin in June and are excited to see the exact balcony.

 

Any other pics/tips from your trip would be greatly appreciated.

Lisa

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!

7 minutes ago, Pitzel said:

Yes, I believe so — our butler expressly told us to ignore the items on the breakfast hang tag (the standard room service menu) and to write whatever we wanted from the suites breakfast menu on the back of the tag. 

5 minutes ago, BirdTravels said:

As a suites guest, you can order items off the suites breakfast and lunch menu for in-room dining. On a small ship, Haven and Suites eat in the same dining room and have the same menu. On the Joy, suites have no benefits. On the Prima and Viva, suites guests eat in Cagney's and have a suites menu. 

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

On 6/22/2023 at 12:33 PM, Pitzel said:

We had a non-Haven suite on the Prima in April. We had a butler and enjoyed complimentary room service, including the Haven breakfast menu.

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.).

1 hour ago, Pitzel said:

There was a whole discussion about this a couple of months ago:
 

 

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. 

1 hour ago, ColdCruise said:

@Sammae

sure, glad to answer, I intend to finalize my trip report to fill in the holes, which would answer at least 2 of your questions 😉

 

#1 there were 2 breakfast and 2 lunch menus inn Cagney’s:

    🥐   A shorter breakfast menu on the 1st & last breakfasts that had fewer main dishes, leaving out the eggs Benedict and a couple other items. Eggs Benny were available all the other days and someone obviously “in the know” was eating them as I passed her table on my way out from our first brekky there. This was of particular interest because… well … eggs benedict!

  🥐    A shorter lunch menu was provided for embarkation day and I think one other day.
   🥐  I’ll post the screenshots of the long and short form menus in this thread later (photos not at hand)

 

#2 I think we ordered from the regular room service menu - main options were 3-4 types of omelets and a bento box.

 🥐.  the 1st time we ordered too much food, I felt guilty. After that we just did a glorified continental breakfast - bento box, juice, coffee, fruit plate …more than enough for 2.   Normally (ie when in “steerage” as others refer to it, we breakfast in MDR or O’Sheehans/Local. When I’m on vacation I like to be served breakfast… small luxury to normal work weeks 😁

 

#4 Yes we used the butler & concierge a few times.
🤝 The concierge was very effective getting the noise from our bedroom slider fixed. The butler had someone look at it but it wasn’t fixed. The concierge asked us about it at breakfast or lunch the next day. She got it FIXED. (I think the details are bottom page 1 of Almost Live report.)

🤝 She (Lani) also secured all our entertainment reservations (Beetlejuice, Press your Luck, Icons) as well as escorted us to those events and off the ship at our 3 ports as well as disembarking.
🤝 Lani also registered us for the Latitudes events ( behind the scenes tour and wines around the world) so we didn’t have to wait in line at the CruiseNext desk on embarking.
🤝 Most helpful in the escorting biz - she whisked us through the kitchen to near the front of the immigration line in St Thomas.

🤝 there were a few minor things either the butler or concierge helped us with, a billing question on our 1ship’s excursion and some latitudes snafu. (actually Lani was the assistant concierge, the main concierge was dedicated to Haven, we never saw him)

 

#3. Lots of good beers. I’m not a fan of the bud/miller/coors water, so …. Guinness was available most bars canned & I think draft a couple places. However the bar in the Indulge has a really good assortment of “world beers” on draft. The bar is one name on the inside Indulge and a different name on the outside deck, back to back. Names are something like moon/sun or Luna/Soleil. I had a couple good Belgium beers on board, my husband likes Guinness….

 

we saw the concierge every day, usually every breakfast and lunch at Cagney’s. She even asked us about the unsatisfactory steak at Cagney’s at dinner

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!

11 hours ago, ColdCruise said:

 Sorry, @sbobsbob & @Sammae

We arrived back home last week, kind of crazy.

However I have quite a few photos of the SJ on deck 15 - 15196 in my trip report.

 

I kind of want to keep it a secret as there was so much complaining about Pt1ma’s cabins by the slides … but the room was great and the slide no problem at all. I’d definitely book it again. There were a couple issues with the room, but the butler, steward and concierge quickly addressed them.

Almost Live …. Sailing Aboard the NCL Viva on Her Maiden Trans-Atlantic

[BTW, not my photo … someone unfortunately posted their photo in my thread instead of the Roll Call. I’d planned to post my first sighting of the V!va as the first photo so it’d be the headliner photo. Irksome that I couldn’t delete it or insert the V!va earlier in the thread. Most of the other photos are mine, so please disregard any quality issues like upside down rooms or floating people…]

I’m making an index for the trip report, but here are parts that may be of interest on this thread:

 posts 35-37 for suite 15196 photos and comments 

 post 23 for photos of a temporary inside We used one night 

 posts 45, 147 for the lunch & breakfast menus at Cagney’s

 posts 88, 134, 170 for the food from those menus

 

i am still planning to update more info on that thread, but ask any questions … just make sure you tag me so I get a notice.

 

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

On 11/30/2023 at 5:19 AM, cruiserzockel said:

We were in a front facing SL suite on Viva 6 - 16 Nov. Happy to answer any questions about the suite and suite amenities.

Breakfast and lunch were in Cagney's. The menus were the same everyday. 

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?

On 11/30/2023 at 1:22 AM, sbobsbob said:

Sammae

have you received any info on 11812. We are also booked in that suite in April. Would like to see pictures of balcony, and how the slides cause any obstruction.

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.)

4 minutes ago, ColdCruise said:

Great thread idea @Sammae, I thought about this but didn’t follow through. Thanks!

 

We’re in an SJ on the Viva TA this month, we kinda selected the room in consultation with our usually very thorough PCC, looking at deck plans, reading reviews from similar rooms on Prima … and a big amount of WAG.

 

I plan on doing another “Almost Live” trip report and will try to drop a few photos in this thread to show the degree on impingement or obstruction. 
 

love the amenities listing you started, nothing to add to that yet …..

Thank you! Hoping we can gather some information that is helpful to you before you cruise. We would be very grateful for any information you can provide afterwards, as well. 
 

This seems to be a cabin category that has not been very popular in the last 15 or so years, and there have been many changes to the amenities offered by NCL in that time. I’m a big planner and I want to take full advantage of the upgraded amenities in my suite,  but that’s tricky to plan with so little information available! 
 

Happy to be engaging others in the sam

boat! (Ha…)

I just contacted the pre-cruise concierge for the first time. I asked if they have a copy of the suite dining menus in Cagney's on Viva, and if they could modify my specialty dining reservations (since I was unable to book the times I wanted online.)

They say my dining request has been sent directly to the ship and it will be confirmed with the onboard concierge. As to the menus, they said that there would be more information about dining in my stateroom. It was a pretty generic reply. 

I received the reply within 6 hours, which was pretty great! I'm reading through the Haven thread right now, and if I find any non-Haven information, I'll add it here. 

10 minutes ago, Pitzel said:

We were in an SL suite (Family Suite with Large Balcony) on the Prima this past April. The room itself is essentially the same as the Club Balcony suites next to it, but came with more perks.

The bottle of sparkling wine was WAY better than what used to be given out for Latitudes members. They no longer give out that stuff because so few people actually enjoyed it!

The VIP cocktail party was in the Observation Lounge, though it was attended by the Captain and most of the senior crew members. We never got to even see the Haven, unfortunately 😞

Thank you! This is great info to have!

1 minute ago, RosieRoo said:

We are booked in an SJ in May. I could find little to no information on which were the most or least obstructed by the slides. It would be great to hear from people who have actually sailed in them. 

Just this morning, I pulled the trigger on upgrading to an SJ for our February cruise. We are booked in 11812. I will update with as much information as I can when we get back!

In the meantime, I'm still thinking there's a need to make a list of most-to-least obstructed SJ balconies, if we can get experience from people. I remember when the Epic came out, someone on this board put together an extremely comprehensive post of the different stateroom layouts and balcony sizes. It was so helpful for booking!

10 hours ago, Pitzel said:

- These suites have access to a complimentary expanded room service menu. Not sure if it is identical to the Haven menus or not, but you can certainly order things over and above what is offered on the standard room service menu.

- Daily snacks/treats brought by the butler

- A bottle of champagne/sparkling wine in the suite upon arrival
- Bottle of water upon arrival, IIRC

- Fruit basket provided upon arrival. Can be replenished upon request
- Butler service is identical (or nearly identical) to what one would experience in the Haven
- Breakfast and lunch in Cagney's
- Access to the Assistant Concierge, who sets up a desk in Cagney's during breakfast and lunch times, as well as access to the Concierge by phone.
- Invitation to suites/VIP cocktail party
- Larger fabric laundry bags. You still have to pay for laundry (unless you are Platinum or above), but you can get a lot more in the bag!
- Nespresso machine and coffee/tea replenished daily or upon request
- Upgraded toiletries (including a bath pouf)
- Upgraded bedding
- Priority disembarkation
 

Thank you for this awesome list! Can I ask what suite category/ship you have your experience on?

Is the bottle of sparkling wine better than the one you get for Latitudes? Because that is... undrinkable. On our last cruise we kept meaning to bring OJ back to the room to make mimosas of it, but didn't ever remember. 

Is the VIP cocktail party in the Haven? I read mention of it in a review. Have you been?

Thanks for all the info for the thread!

11 hours ago, Treacher1 said:

We have a non Haven suite on Prima in December.  We had a concierge number to call and made our dinner reservations ahead - was nice perk.  We were told butler service same as Haven - just no access to Haven area.  We are in a forward facing suite on Prima - on other ships this WAS a Haven - but on Prima not the case.  

If you think of it/feel like it, can you snap picks of the Cagney's menus if we don't have them posted here by then? And the room service menu?

How was your experience with the pre-cruise concierge? I've read good and bad about it. 

Enjoy your cruise!

The deck plans are available on cruisedeckplans:

https://www.cruisedeckplans.com/ships/Norwegian-Aqua

New staterooms are listed, as well!

Here's what I've gleaned from other threads so far: 

• Concierge is available at a desk in Cagney's during Breakfast and Lunch hours and can assist with restaurant and show bookings.
• Butler service is (similar? identical?) to that available in the Haven - unsure exactly what amenities they can provide.
• Nespresso is available in the room and is replenished daily. Can request milk/cream from the butler.

As people provide information, I will edit the main post to compile everything together.

There's very little information in this forum about non-Haven suites on Prima and Viva. I'm talking about S-category cabins, not M-category. Most of the threads I've found contain mostly a back-and-forth argument about whether non-Haven suites exist. So let's start a compilation of actual information and experiences in these non-Haven suites so that people like me (and you!) have a resource when we're deciding what cabin to book. 

Here's a list of information I'm unable to find, or that is inconclusive from the back-and forth in other threads:

- Cagney's breakfast and lunch menus

- Whether S-category suite guests check-in and board with haven guests

- A compilation of SJ-category room obstructions (this can be estimated from deck plans, but real balcony photos/videos would be helpful)

- A list of amenities found in the stateroom on embarkation

- A list of daily amenities (there's mention of snacks or something?)

- Whether the butler and concierge service experiences are similar enough to Haven butler and concierge that we can just use those threads for info on what can/cannot be requested

Anything else! Share your experiences! How did staying in an S-level suite change your cruise experience for you? 

On 3/19/2023 at 6:49 PM, ah5050 said:

Has anyone had success upgrading to premium plus onboard versus ahead of time? I have heard mixed things on if you can or not. We have a lot of obc and if I can wait till on the ship I rather use it there. 

Yes. We did this a month ago on the Bliss. There was a table set up in Teppanyaki on embarkation day, which is where you would go to make in-person dining reservations. We paid for the upgrade there and then were sent to Guest Services to have our cards reprinted with the new package on them. Easy peasy.