Kortehgehn

27 minutes ago, Hmmcminn said:

Where do you see it on your account?  I got approved but I haven’t seen anything indicating that in my account.

When you log in to MyNCL, the Teacher Appreciation banner will appear under your username, right above your account number. You may have to log out and log back in for it to appear.

1 hour ago, weisla said:

Did your TA say whether they had to cancel and rebook a new reservation in order for the discount to apply?

So I was actually worried about loosing our stateroom with a cancel and re-book.  The difference was only about $150 per reservation so our TA said that because the amount was below a certain threshold, he could just call NCL to reprice instead.

On 5/9/2024 at 11:28 AM, Hmmcminn said:

Well, apparently NCL denied my PCC’s request to apply this discount to the 2 cruises I just booked last month.  

Our TA told us that they could apply the discount to two of our existing reservations, but I haven't received a confirmation with the updated pricing yet. The cruises were still before final payment though, so that may make a difference.

Also, has anyone who booked using this discount noticed the $50 onboard credit showing up in the vacation summary on NCL's website?

16 minutes ago, Shidah said:

They do have privacy type curtains.  You can make it as private or as open as you want.

I just saw a video of the new H2 yesterday and noticed those room-darkening curtains as well, so I stand corrected.  However, I'm still not sure how I would feel about having part of my stateroom overlooking the lounge like that.

We sailed out of NYC on 4/14, and there was definitely a separate security line for Haven guests to the left of the regular check-in line.

On 4/24/2024 at 6:03 PM, david_sobe said:

some bedroom windows look down into the Horizon lounge

Just an FYI, those new windows aren't from the bedroom; they look into the new dining room of the H2 DOS staterooms. I was a bit surprised that they didn't seem to have room-darkening type curtains that I could see, and as a result, there did not seem to be much privacy from those in the Horizon lounge.

52 minutes ago, jackieodonnell said:

There is plenty of parking at the pier but it is expensive. I am from New Jersey and I Lyft or Uber in because it costs less to get there and come back than to pay for parking for the week.

We sailed on the Joy the week of April 14th, and parking at the pier was full when we arrived just before 10:00.  Only vehicles with reservations were allowed up the ramp, so we had to use the alternate garage on 43rd Street.  We have cruised dozens of times out of NYC and never had issues parking at the pier, but staff told us that Pier 88 and 90 were scheduled for some construction starting last week, which was why they were temporarily limiting the number of available parking spaces.

21 hours ago, Russiamomm said:

Mr. X was the concierge.  (I don’t remember his real name,  he asked us to call him Mr. X 😃).

I actually had a vigorous debate with my wife about this.  All our letters list Efren Acesor as concierge.  We dealt with Mr. X almost exclusively, and he was awesome!  The impression I had, though, was that he was an assistant concierge.  I'm not sure that we ever met Efren unless he and Mr. X are one and the same.

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.

27 minutes ago, deckguy said:

Courts too will now recognize that a policy of reimbursement has been established and through the Reasonable Person Standard, others now have the reasonable expectation of financial payment.

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.

1 hour ago, TRLD said:

Ships measure capacity by 2 beds per cabin. 100% is when that number is reached. That is not the max capacity due to the number of 3/4 cabins. Max capacity may be 20% higher than normal capacity. Cruise lines holding companies ccl, rcl, nclh were reporting averaging about 109% capacity in 2019 prior to covid in their sec filings.

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.

38 minutes ago, dmwnc1959 said:

Not falling for the NCL corporate washing their hands of this. The appear to feel somewhat responsible by reimbursing the passengers of all their expenses of catching up to the ship.

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

1 hour ago, Panhandle Couple said:

Many countries in the middle east will not let you in with an Israeli stamp on your passport. Given world politics, that number is probably growing.  This may preclude any cruise line from originating or stopping in Israel for many years.

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.

3 minutes ago, IAcruising said:

I would have to guess that 10% of a Viva cruise to Israel isn't just a few pennies in the pocket

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.

45 minutes ago, Kortehgehn said:

I believe that Deck 11 is the largest, followed by Deck 9

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.

2 minutes ago, www3traveler said:

Is Captian Hakan Svedung still master of the Dawn?

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.

15 hours ago, IAcruising said:

I would be embarrassed sitting in a haven lounge with hoards of people walking by in a crowd looking in. 

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.

15 hours ago, IAcruising said:

that is even more disgusting. I'm so glad that I stick to ships where everybody is equal. 

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. 

23 minutes ago, omahabob said:

I print and laminate my own luggage tags based on the eDocs, and add whatever I want.

🤣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.

1 hour ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

I've gotten these, as you described, three or four times, several when I was booked in absolute lowest level of steerage (i.e. inside cabin😪).  Are you suggesting that I was a VIP and didn't even know it?  Yippee!

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.

3 hours ago, ltgilbert said:

Interesting, I never noticed that.   Are you sure there are cabins in that spot ?

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?

Interesting.  I know that in the past, NCL would sometimes send priority tags to VIPs staying outside of the Haven.  The tags still had the guests' names and room number preprinted.  I think they were basically identical to the Haven tags. Typically, a letter is sent with those tag sheets, but I'm unsure if that would provide any additional insights.

From observation, it would seem that priority disembarkation with the gold tags is far more common than receiving the preprinted priority embarkation tags, or maybe it just appears that way when searching for our luggage!  I assume that there is a much more significant expense involved in producing the embarking tags because of the preprinted information.

It does seem as though Vibe passes are no longer widely available for purchase on embarkation day for most cruises.  Although this may not be an official policy, on all of our recent cruises with NCL, Haven guests were able to obtain a few Vibe passes after speaking with the concierge, even though Vibe was sold out.  Of course, I don't know if these passes were actually "held back" or if additional passes could be made available in certain circumstances.  In my experience, this also applies to restaurant reservations, spa passes, and other comparable services.  Based on this, one might surmise that if someone had a well-placed contact among the ship's staff, they may be able to make it happen as well.