Kortehgehn

In my experience, NCL will mail out the Haven welcome letter and tags at the 30-day mark. Although, we just cruised last week on the Joy and received our tags in the mail on March 9th, so that implies they are sending them earlier than 30 days out. We have had times in the past when we did not receive tags initially and had to call the pre-concierge to have them resent to us. It's also accurate, as mentioned above, that the tags are sometimes sent to your TA directly.

Full disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer. However, I think the issue for courts regarding any such future claims is not necessarily so clear. Also, I doubt that a Reasonable Person Standard could successfully be applied as suggested in that situation.

That's an excellent point. Many people are confused, perhaps understandably, about standard operating capacity compared to actual maximum passenger capacity. If I'm not mistaken, the Dawn's actual maximum passenger capacity is 3,000 passengers, even though the number referenced most commonly based on double occupancy is 2,340. So, about 128% of the published capacity when sailing with maximum occupancy.

I must have missed this... I wasn't aware that NCL was reimbursing any of the passengers costs in this situation.

Israel won't typically stamp passports for this reason, and there are only nine or so countries that will routinely deny entry if there is evidence of travel to Israel. If you have planned travel to these destinations, you can get a second US passport for situations like this. I would say that it doesn't really affect cruise lines stopping from or departing from Israel as long as enough customers are willing to book the itinerary.

FWIW, that's not how those credits work; they're 10% off a future booking, not 10% of what was paid for the original cruise. Additionally, if you don't use them within the specified timeframe, you lose them altogether. I have never found those 10% credits to be as good as they sound; we had two from canceled sailings during COVID and never used them before they expired.

It looks like I was mistaken about the sizes, and Deck 9 is the largest, followed by Deck 12. I just found the thread on the Encore aft balconies here:

Yes, the depth of the balcony definitely differs by deck. I believe that Deck 11 is the largest, followed by Deck 9. It's a breakaway-plus class ship, so it should be the same as Bliss or Escape. I believe there is a thread on CC about the balcony sizes on one of those ships, but I was unable to find it with a brief search. We always stay on deck 14, which is one of the smallest, and the balcony is still deep enough for a long lounger to fit lengthwise.

I'm sorry. That was a mental typographical error. We sailed with him many years ago on the Gem, but last I knew, he was on the Dawn. He had been on the Joy previously.

Is Captian Hakan Svedung still master of the Dawn? If so, I would say there's definitely more to the story than is being reported; those types of decisions aren't arbitrary. Either way, it's certainly not the cruise line's fault. It's pretty clear when the departure times are; if they are "veteran cruisers," they should know that. I think that there is obviously more to this story.

On point with the original topic, I have never experienced overcrowding on the Haven sundeck, but I am interested to see how it will be when we sail on the Joy in a few weeks. I can believe this might be more of an issue because of the additional cabins that were recently added to the Haven on the Joy. On many airlines, you must walk through first class to get to seats in the rest of the plane. I doubt anyone in first class is embarrassed when other passengers are walking by them. To each their own with regard to the Haven, and I agree with many of the other posters' points here. I would just add that it's fine if you don't like the concept of the Haven area on NCL, but reading some of these posts feels like you're attacking the guests who book these experiences as well. I would say that the customers who choose to stay in the Haven or other similar areas are typically regular, average, everyday people like everyone else on the ship; it's not an elitist club or anything like that, just a different tiered level of service. At the end of the day, there's a reason that NCL can charge the prices it does for the Haven and then sell it out on the majority of sailings. I don't believe that the type of equality you're suggesting really exists anywhere. This is a bit of a tangent, but many years ago, on a trip to WDW, we happened to be in the park during the same week as Princess Diana and her kids. It was not uncommon for parts of the park to be completely closed off from regular guests for part of the day, and I remember two times when we were exiting a ride and were stopped to wait for the entourage to pass by. While it certainly made the week more unpredictable, but we were never upset by this, and it certainly did not affect the enjoyment of our vacation in any way.

🤣Well, to each their own... I once saw a family arriving at the port with the gold priority disembarkation tags on their luggage, and the porter was having quite a time removing them to put his tags on. I'm not entirely sure what the story was in that situation, but I have seen the gold luggage tags for sale on eBay.

At least according to NCL, yes, I would say that is the case. If you get preprinted tags that say "priority" on them, someone somewhere has to mark your reservation down as a VIP. It can be based on a lot more than just being in the Haven or a suite.

Well, I thought I was sure that there were, but the more I look at the exterior photos of the ship, the more I'm uncertain about many things. I wonder, are there balconies and windows on the side of the ship for aesthetic purposes only? I think the rooms in question should be located inside the red rectangle in the photo. However, it looks to me like there may be no dividers between them at all.

Strange question, does anyone know why cabins 15740, 15742, and 15746 are not shown on the deck plans of the Norwegian Joy? Is it possible that they are used as crew or officers' quarters?