sandtrace1

Thanks for your response. I'm so sorry your butler had such a poor attitude! Just curious, which Haven suite were you in? (Or which floor?)

We were in cabin 17009.

I've heard on the Epic you get a portable phone or something that you can carry around the ship to contact your butler. Is that true?

Amy, There was a portable phone in our room, however, no one ever told us what it was for. It was bigger than a cell phone, so I really would not have wanted to carry it around the ship. There was also a larger phone unit in the room that had direct lines to the butler, room service, concierge, etc... We tried to contact our butler a couple of times on this phone, but never got an answer.

The few times we interacted with our butler, he seemed to be in a big hurry. I am not sure how many rooms they are assigned to, but he always seemed to be on the run. He did meet with us very briefly (less than 5 minutes) on embarkation day. When I asked what services he provided he said, " only food and beverage". He handed us a room service menu and told us we could order anything on it. He also said he would restock our mini bar and coffee. The room service menu was VERY limited and contained mostly breakfast and lunch items and a few desserts. We would have loved to have had dinner in our room a couple of days after long excursions, but there really wasn't anything on the room service menu that looked appealing.

We did order breakfast from the butler the first two days as we had early morning excursions. He told us he couldn't guarantee that he could get our breakfast too us by 6:30. However, both days breakfast arrived promptly at the requested time, unfortunately the order wasn't quite right either day.

At the end of the day, we just didn't get a great vibe from the guy. The few simple requests that we made were met with hesitation, followed by saying, he would try but couldn't guarantee anything. As I mentioned in an earlier thread, after day 2 we just completely wrote off the service and never tried to contact him again. After reading threads on Cruise Critic, I think we probably should have utilized him more, but it just felt awkward. We had a great trip in spite of not knowing what to do with the butler. LOL

so basically some good and some disappointing but overall good ?

 

It is such a shame about your butlers disinterest and it does sound like the butler can make or break the experience

 

I was planning on asking for very little but the little we do ask for I wasn't planning on expecting to hear things like "order from room service" when you specifically cannot order that item from room service or to feel that they couldn't be bothered with you as a guest, that is not really acceptable at all :(

 

I am so glad to hear that the haven bar was open til 10 pm :)

I would say the Epic was excellent overall. The cruise is very port intensive, so a disinterested butler really can't ruin a trip. I am sure that if we had called him about replacing the glassware/cups or asked for better snacks in the room, it would have been done. Just didn't want to spend our time trying to track down the butler.

The exceptional service we received elsewhere totally made up for it. Your concierge will be your best friend as he can make miracles happen!

I think you will be fine. We had an amazing time and would definitely book the Haven again. As I said, we didn't care for the general attitude of the butler, so we stopped asking. When we discovered that he wouldn't deliver dinner from the restaurants, there was really no need for his services. We were having a great time and really didn't feel the need to report it to a supervisor.

I do think it is the butler's responsibility to restock the fridge and glassware. While our supply of glassware/coffee cups was never completely empty, it just seemed odd that things were never fully restocked. EXAMPLES: we drank two small wines from the mini bar early in the trip, the wine in the bar was never restocked and we were only given one wine glass for the remainder of the trip. We preferred to use the large coffee mugs in the room. They were restocked daily until the fourth day, after that we just had to use the smaller mugs. There are supposed to be 8 bar glasses on the shelf in the room (2 of four different types) and we never had all 8 after the first day. Again, none of these things made for a bad trip, just found it to be bit odd.

Absolutely no complaints with the room steward. He was such a sweet person and our room was always immaculate. Not to mention the wonderful towel art he left every evening!

Enjoy your trip!

:)

We cruised on the Epic from 7/15-7/22 boarding in Civitavecchia and stayed in a Haven Suite. We loved the amenities that were included. Our room steward (Ricardo) was absolutely wonderful and the concierge service went out of their way to accommodate excursions, dining and show reservations.

Butler service for us was very hit or miss. He seemed to be put off when we requested a service (i.e. pillow menu or breakfast delivery). After day two, we didn't ask him to do anything and we didn't see him again until it was time to check out. We had the ultimate dining package, but were not able to order dinner from the restaurants and have it delivered by the butler. Not sure if this is something new, or if our butler just didn't want to be bothered with it. He told us we could order from the room service menu, however the selection was very limited. Glassware and coffee cups were not restocked (even though someone took away the dirty ones daily). The mini bar was never restocked the entire week, so once we consumed something, it was not replaced. He delivered advertised "gourmet" treat 6 out of the 7 days, not sure why he skipped a day. Mostly it was a bowl of fruit (banana, apple, pear, orange), which was disappointing. However, one day we did get some chocolates, and another day canapés.

As mentioned on numerous threads, the haven pool is full of kids most days and you will need to get there early if you want a good seat. We did find that the pool emptied out around 4:00. We spent most of our time on the Posh deck as it was never crowded. The bartenders up there are wonderful! They even passed out fruit skewers and ice water throughout the day.

We loved the Haven restaurant and ate breakfast and lunch there when we were on the ship. We also had dinner there on 2 nights and found the food and service to be very good.

The Haven bar was open until 10:00 every night the week that we cruised.

Even though we were underwhelmed by the butler service, we loved everything else about the Haven and thoroughly enjoyed the perks that went with it. We would definitely recommend booking it.

I had to call NCL directly to book "Burn the Floor". They seemed surprised that it wasn't available online. You may want to call ahead if you don't want to stand in line when you board the ship.

My cruise leaves in 88 days. I went on the NCL website yesterday and am unable to book a lot of things. I called the help line and they said that is because they are already fully booked (eg Cagneys, Burn the Floor Show). Anyone else having this problem? I also keep getting booted off of NCL's site. The NCL rep said this is normal?!?! I am already frustrated and haven't even gotten on the ship yet! Will things open up or should I just give up?

Burn the Floor will be replacing The Blue Men Group. Here is the link http://www.ncl.com/nclweb/pressroom/pressRelease.html?storyCode=PR_111714