mearsfansinboise

@kdmbluerzr Fellow Idahoan and on the same sailing with you! 😎

I LOVE deck 17 because you are in the Haven proper and feel very connected to it. On this next sailing we are on deck 18, which, yes, the restaurant is up there, but I have a feeling we'll miss the deck 17 vibe.

Check out this thread - she's got BTS pictures from last week and talks about the dinner with the officers (spoiler alert: it was not a great experience for her).

I also find that I get way more engaged and active here on the NCL boards the closer we get to a sailing.

I have no idea what you're talking about - lol

There is a holding area - just a big room where you sit in uncomfortable chairs. Pretty sure you can't connect to the ship's wifi (heck, you can hardly do this when on board most of the time!) and cannot make restaurant reservations. If you sleep later and arrive later, it may mean that you stand in line longer waiting to get into the building. I prefer earlier and sit than later and stand.

Wow .... 😶

No; they got them on their own on their own cards.

I am LOVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVING this thread. PEACHES!! 🤣🤣🤣

The kids' cards. We'll see what happens next week ....

So much this!! I'm not saying we're special people, or that we are any nicer than others, but I have found that when people ask about something here on the boards and I say we received it and 19 people blast me saying that's not in the policy and read this thread here or whatever, all I can say is that we got the canned sodas in our room - MANY OF THEM, no charge, last 2 sailings - our kids got any and all virgin drinks on the last 3+ sailings - MANY OF THEM, no charge, no issues. Could that change next time? Sure. Would we pitch a fit? Of course not. We'll smile, thank them for their consideration and move on and keep enjoying our sailing. I would agree though - we ask ... we smile ... we show respect. We have never been turned down on anything - and I don't think anything we asked for or received was super expensive or would get someone fired or anything like that.

I'll see if I can get my hands - or mouth - on it and report back!

My point remains the same --- we've gotten any and all virgin drinks for the kids with the soda package. Perhaps it's one of those you may have a different outcome thing, but we had no issues on our last 3 sailings with the kids.

Just saw this on another thread: You do what you have to in order to enhance your experience. ... and that's how I feel about the butler letter. Maybe what you "have to" or "feel you need to" or just plain "want to" to enhance your experience. Sounds like the butler letter is not everyone's cup of tea, but, it's worked for us thus far ...

Love this line!

🎉 7 days 🎉 But we start our trek down on Friday. So. Stinkin'. Excited!

There are some from last month on this thread -

I didn't want to get blasted for coming off as "hoity-toity" on another thread, but I saw that they have 😍 😍 Warm. Chocolate. Hazelnut. Soufflé. 😍 😍 on the menu in the MDRs. The ONLY thing that bugs me about the Haven is the menu that never changes .... especially the desserts. I don't like/want ANY of the desserts on the menu there - mayyyybe the cheesecake, but certainly not enough to have it more than once. So, we ask our butler to get us a copy of the MDR menu each day so that we could possibly have apps from there as a late night snack .... and desserts. 🤤

We sail next week and did notice the port day times were wayyyyy different than in the past. For example in Mazatlan we always do the same resort excursion through NCL and found it odd that it wasn't offered. Likely because the port times are like 7am-2pm ... by the time we get there .... and then they always do lunch ... it's just not worth it/not the same. I am annoyed/bummed about the port day times, but, we won't let it ruin our trip at all. As for getting a refund - probably not .... the vendor is still providing the experience (and the yummy food - twice!) so, I personally wouldn't ask ... and I think the effort would be fruitless. Sorry .... Thanks for posting all of this -- been loving your details and photos!

My husband books our excursions - (usually the sight-seeing type) - but this time he and my daughter are doing some whale-watching, and a dolphin encounter. But truly, my favorite thing is going to Walmart. Anytime we travel I love going to stores we don't have in our state, and going to Walmart in Mexico is so fun! - I stock up on all sorts of neat things .... last time I was able to get some Abuelita chocolate churro cereal, and some boxes of feminine products that had free Hello Kitty hats in them - I wanted the hats for some friends, and donated the surplus of feminine products. Love your report - thank you! - we board the Bliss a week from today!

They ARE included. We have experienced this with our kids. You can check out this thread where others agree:

We have the same issue. + I don't fly, so, unless we are sailing out of Seattle, Vancouver BC, or San Pedro, we ain't goin'. Someone here on the boards once told me that $500pp/pd is a good price for the Haven. So, I watch for that. And if I see it, and it leaves from one of our ports, and we can afford it at the time, and it's far enough out to get the time off work, we book it!

Ding-dong question - but what purpose does it serve to know the officers and crew? I can see knowing who the cruise director is .... and maybe the concierge, but I've never interacted with higher staff like that and even if I heard that the hotel manager is x and the chief engineer is y, I wouldn't know what to do with that information? Unless there's a captain who sunk a ship and I'd want to know that up front so that I pay attention at the muster drill this time around. 😆

$1 per drink either to the person who brings us the drink in any lounge, or to a bartender, but that's our standard.

The entire THEN piece is so Holland America 10 years ago; I was thinking it would still be the same. Like you said - not bad, just different.