mommakess

How deep would you say the Haven pool was?

I believe it was posted as 3' 11". I felt comfortable allowing my 7 year old to play in it while I was in a lounger. I could still sit up to see her swimming, but since she could touch and is a fairly strong swimmer I didn't feel like I needed to be right there with her. There was one family who allowed their younger kids to swim in it alone the first day, but one of their kids couldn't touch and took in a lot of water. I noticed that both of those kids wore life jackets after that first day.

Few more things.

I had read many reviews that spoke very highly of Adrian the concierge in the Haven. While he seemed nice during the initial introduction, I was surprised that I never really saw him at the concierge desk throughout the week. He was only there a few times so my only interaction with him was a brief smile and a hello as I passed through to the pool. As a result we ended up giving our tip to one of the assistants who had helped us a few times. She was always at the desk and eager to help.

Excursions

We visited ABI Beach in St. Thomas. It was the full day excursion and included lunch. The beach was a little rough. Leaves covering the sand and the shore was really rocky. It hurt to enter/exit the water, and the water itself was cloudy. I ordered two drinks at the bar and it cost $21.25...I was floored by the steep price. Needless to say, those were the only two drinks we had on the excursion. The burgers, however, were very tasty.

In Tortola we went on the 7am beach excursion to Jost Van Dyke. It was picture perfect! We set up in front of the Soggy Dollar Bar and enjoyed the crystal clear water, fine sand and perfect landscape. The only problem...while there, it's kind of mandatory to try to Painkiller drink. But with our tab open, it was too easy to sit back and let the drinks flow. We were both kind of drunk before noon. I've never drank so much in the morning hours (in fact, not sure I've ever drank in the morning hours) and spent the rest of the day nursing a hangover. My husband had more to drink than I did. Let's just say we didn't see him much that day - he decided to stay in the room for most of the day after our return. We did try a bit of snorkeling here, but there wasn't much to see. We took quite a swim and saw some coral, but mostly big rocks and a few fish and a stingray. Still, it was beautiful.

After those two beach excursions we were too sunburned to enjoy another beach day, which is what we had planned for Nassau. We canceled the excursion and stayed on the ship. We took advantage of the shorter lines for the waterslides and lounged by the Haven pool. It was a great day, but my husband wished we had at least walked into Nassau for a few hours. We've been there before so I didn't feel like it was a big loss.

I had Richard as our butler the week before you. He was great.

 

I think that he mentions that he's the only one working that area during the day "just in case" the other 13 H6 staterooms call minutes before you call. It's unlikely but possible.

 

We didn't have a long wait in the Haven restaurant for any meal. La Cucina had the longest (unacceptable) wait during the cruise. Getting any item from any restaurant wasn't a problem. Even a few "made up" items could be had for my daughter in the Haven restaurant.

 

Sorry about the cleaning spray at night. We were on 12 and wouldn't have known if you hadn't mentioned it. Deck 9 is the only aft balcony larger than 12 so the information is good to know. We also like to spend evenings on the balcony with the lights on.

I received the post-cruise survey today so I am going to mention the spray. I'm sure they're just unaware of the issue. Maybe they can come up with a different cleaning schedule or something - but I hope that doesn't mean those poor guys are up at 3 am cleaning the decks. The thought of disrupting their already hectic work schedules kept me from saying anything while we were onboard.

That's nuts about the intoxicated teens! My 13 year old lived in Entourage last week (he was always there!) and thankfully he is too naive to have noticed anyone who appeared to be intoxicated. He thought I was nuts when I just asked him about it. haha! Sorry your daughter didn't like it.

 

I always enjoy getting others' perspectives on my same sailings.

When my daughter told me kids were talking about it, I have to admit I didn't pay much attention. I kind of assumed it was more talk than action. But when I saw it with my own eyes, that was something else. I actually walked past them at first, but then thinking of my own daughter decided to go back to see if I could take one girl to her parents - she was sitting on the floor propped up against the wall. She was gone by the time I got back though. I hope nothing bad happened to her. :( I couldn't believe the counselors at the club hadn't done anything about it.

As it turned out, my 7 year old preferred to swim in the Haven pool instead of the kid's pool and water park. This was just fine by me. It was easy to keep an eye on her while I lounged nearby.

There were about 8 other kids her age (7-10) there. Maybe about 12 kids total who frequented the pool area. While they played and enjoyed themselves, I wouldn't say any of them misbehaved. I always tried to remind my daughter not to splash when there were adults in the pool with them. There were a few boys who played more rough/loud, but they were polite and didn't run around or anything. Their play did make it difficult for adults to relax in the pool at the same time.

I did see several adults peek in on the pool area a few times and then opt out because of the number of kids. As a result, I'd say the families had sort of taken over the pool area on our cruise. I felt a little bad - but at the same time, all I could do was ensure that my kids were well behaved and polite. I'm confident their presence didn't keep anyone away from relaxing by the pool.

At one point we noticed a group of pre-teens come into the pool area. They attacked the gummy bears first and had to be "taught" to use the spoon rather than their hands. No one in the pool area complained about them, but I could tell no one recognized these kids. The crew members quickly approached them and asked them their cabin numbers. As it turned out, one boy from the Haven had invited his friends to join him at the Haven pool...he hadn't realized it wasn't allowed. They were asked to leave. They were only there 5-10 minutes. I had read reviews that some people try to "sneak" into the Haven. This was just interesting to watch how quickly the crew noticed and asked them to leave.

The room was beautiful - but the balcony stole the show. That thing was HUGE! I had called pre-concierge and requested a second lounger - and I was quite happy that it was there. The balcony held a table with four chairs, two loungers, two chairs and plenty of walking space. We ended up spending a lot of time out there. We loved playing board games out there - but next time we'll opt out of games with cards. While it wasn't necessarily windy, there was enough of a breeze to pick the cards up and send them flying. We never lost any, but it made some games pretty frustrating.

Forgot to mention one little complaint about the balcony. I enjoyed reading at night out on the balcony while my daughter was sleeping inside the suite. But around midnight each night I would get sprayed with dirty water, as they were cleaning the decks below. The water/cleaning solution would spray off of decks 7 and 8 and the mist would fly up and hit me on deck 9. This wasn't a huge problem, of course, so I simply just went inside. But I didn't like being forced off of my balcony each night because of it.

Kid Club/Teen Club

My 7 year old hated the Splash Academy. She didn't like it on the Jade in March, but I was hoping she'd give it another shot on the Escape. She agreed to go...but still didn't care for it. We talked her into going (and sometimes forced her to go) maybe 4 times for a short amount of time each visit. Overall, she said she thought the counselors were kind of mean. This was the same complaint she had on the Jade as well. This was a shame, because that meant my husband and I were limited on the shows we could see. Oh well - that's life with kids!

As for Entourage, the teen club... my 16 year old didn't care for this either. She thought the organized activities were rather boring, but I think the biggest problem was the fact that there simply weren't a whole lot of other teens her age. She had mentioned a couple of times that some of the teens were bragging about getting ahold of alcohol. She tried to stay away from these kids. But I walked past Entourage one night and saw several teenagers entering/exiting the club who were clearly intoxicated. My husband pointed out that he was doing the same at their age...but as a mother I didn't want my daughter anywhere near that. I will say - I'm glad we have rules in place for her. She's not allowed to go into other staterooms or even stateroom hallways. My daughter spent several days talking to an 18-year-old. When he realized she wouldn't accompany him to his room, he said he was just using her and didn't talk to her anymore. After that we made a new rule - no spending time alone with boys. Just too dangerous with many of them drunk and their rooms just steps away.

I was surprised by how we filled our time on this cruise. Normally I would highlight the Freestyle Daily and run my family from one activity to the next. We like to be on the go.

But this time around, we didn't do much of anything - and we never felt as if we were missing out on anything. We credit this to our lazy afternoons at the Haven Pool and the time spent relaxing in our room and playing games on the balcony.

As a family we attended the Cat's Pajamas performance and found it quite entertaining. They were really talented young men! We also saw the comedy juggler (I can't remember his name, although I'm pretty sure we've seen him perform before).

We also took our youngest daughter to the 7:00 comedy show. She was bored most of the time so we decided to go back without her for the 11:00 18+ show. We were really disappointed that it was exactly the same material with a few curse words added in. I guess we're used to Second City on other NCL ships, where you can attend every show and get something different each time. This was disappointing. We left the show early.

My husband and I went to Wine Lovers: the Musical. While the show itself was a little cheesy, I did learn a little about wine and was surprised that I enjoyed all of the wines they served.

We also caught a couple of the game shows in the Atrium. They were pretty much the same routine as on other NCL ships. My husband and I rolled our eyes a few times at the lines we've heard over and over again - but we still attend because the contestants make the game shows funny.

I will note that on our March cruise we spent about $1200 onboard between drinks, Bingo, excursions and the like. This cruise we spend about half that amount. Like I said before - we didn't feel like we missed out on anything. That's the magic of the Haven, I guess!

Because of my daughter's dairy allergy, I decided to eat primarily in the Haven restaurant. The only exceptions to this were when we ordered room service, ate poolside in the Haven and attended a dinner show. Still - with the dinner show - I called Lili the Haven's Assistant Maître D to let her know we'd be dining there. She made sure our daughter had a dairy-free meal to enjoy during the show!

More about Lili - she truly went out of her way to make sure my daughter had plenty of dairy free options. To simplify things, I told her during our first lunch in the Haven which entrees my daughter really enjoyed. Lili noted these items and surprised my daughter each night with a different dairy-free meal. We didn't often stay for dessert, but Lili did bring special dairy-free desserts to our table on several occasions too! This was totally unexpected and a true delight! We had sailed on the Jade a couple of months ago and the only diary-free dessert options were fruit or lemon sorbet. So we were so happy to see our daughter enjoy cake, puddings and other treats throughout the cruise. Lili accepted every challenge and talked to the chef to make sure our requests could be made. On two mornings my daughter enjoyed dairy-free waffles! While Lili was the person talking to us and assuring us these things could be done...I also know there were a lot of people working behind the scenes making sure these things happened. I'm so grateful to all of them!!

The Haven Restaurant, as reported on many threads, has rather slow service. We're more of an eat-and-run kind of family, so I have to say it was a little frustrating at times. My teenager said she felt "trapped" in there at dinnertime. I have to agree. The slower service has a lot to do with why we didn't stay for desserts. After 1.5 to 2 hours we just couldn't sit still any longer. Once or twice I asked for dessert to be sent to our room. This seemed to work out pretty well, but I didn't want to be a hassle by doing it often.

But of course the food was fantastic. We ate breakfast there every morning but one (when we requested room service) and lunch in there once. We ate dinner in the restaurant most nights, with the exception of room service or shows.

The Haven poolside menu was quite brief and simple, but that was what my family liked so we ate most of our lunches there. On the last day of the cruise I really wanted to have the Haven Restaurant's salmon with lobster sauce...but my family wanted to eat poolside. Just ask and you shall receive! I ordered my salmon from the restaurant and burgers and such for the rest of my family from the poolside menu. All the food was delivered to us at the pool.

In general, we're simple eaters and my family became a little bored with the Haven's "fancy" food. Rather - the rest of my family did. I loved the Haven food which is why they stuck in there with me. I kept telling my husband he could order a hamburger or pizza at the Haven, but he said he thought he'd feel out of place ordering that kind of food there when the menu was full of nicer foods.

But the poolside menu did turn out to be a blessing. They were able to accommodate my daughter's diary allergy by serving her burgers on French loaves and without cheese. Plus we could all just relax or swim while we waited for our food...no "trapped" feelings at all.

That's all I'll say about food. It was great, servers were great, Lili was great...but I just wish it was a little faster.

Hi all! My family just returned home from May 21 sailing on the Escape. Thought I'd share my thoughts on the trip. We are a family of four: 34, 33, nearly 17 year old daughter and 7 year old daughter. This was our first time in the Haven, as we took the upsell offer about one month before the sailing.

I did plenty of research on what we should expect from the Haven experience. I'll be honest...after my research I was a little nervous we'd just thrown money away. I anticipated that my youngest would want to spend most of her time at the kid pool and water park in the main part of the Escape. And I figured our teenager would be off with friends most of the time. I had also read not to expect much from the Butlers - especially since our suite was aft (9318) and many folks had commented that these butlers were simply overworked and didn't have much time for much anything. But I'm happy to report I worried for no reason!!

First - boarding. I was a little taken aback when were stepped into the Haven check-in area. We arrived around 11:30. The few tables in the small room were covered with dirty dishes. So much so that I had trouble finding a place to fill out our health forms. And bring your own pen - they don't have enough to go around! Given this was my first Haven impression, I was more than a little worried. After we received our keycards we sat for about 10 more minutes before being escorted to the next waiting area. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the Haven guests were being boarded - so our escort simply stopped the line and let us in so we could head to the Haven with the rest of the group.

After a brief introduction to the Haven from Adrian, the concierge, we were invited to go check out our rooms and drop off any bags we were still carrying. We headed to the aft and found our room easily.

Junnel our AMAZING room steward was inside cleaning. He was very friendly and seemed to always be around. Seriously...I don't think he ever stopped working. I had read one review before the trip that said they usually try to offer a "day off" to their room steward on at least one day in port so the stewards can get off the ship a little earlier. I liked this idea and told Junnel he didn't need to clean our room that day. He was clearly confused and told us he was still going to clean it. So I changed my wording and told him I did not want it to be cleaned that day...that we would be in port all day anyway and wouldn't even be around to enjoy it. After that he agreed. I was so glad he did - he was able to step off the ship just long enough to take care of some necessary business. I will definitely keep this in mind for future cruises.

The room was beautiful - but the balcony stole the show. That thing was HUGE! I had called pre-concierge and requested a second lounger - and I was quite happy that it was there. The balcony held a table with four chairs, two loungers, two chairs and plenty of walking space. We ended up spending a lot of time out there. We loved playing board games out there - but next time we'll opt out of games with cards. While it wasn't necessarily windy, there was enough of a breeze to pick the cards up and send them flying. We never lost any, but it made some games pretty frustrating.

Before we left the room, our butler Richard stopped in to say hello. I wasn't surprised when he told us we may not see him very often, as he was the butler for ALL of the aft suites. But he asked if we needed anything and we listed a few things he may want to know - mainly that our youngest has a dairy allergy. He was very friendly and all smiles - he had already given us more attention than I had anticipated based on reviews I had read, so I had no complaints.

As the week went on, I had to question the validity of the reviews I had read. Richard was awesome! I think he sold himself short upon our first meeting - or maybe we just happened to spend a lot of time in our suite. We saw him probably every day, at least once. He never failed to bring us afternoon snacks. He kept my daughter's bowl of gummy bears and dairy-free cookies full every day and my teenager was just happy to have several plates of chocolate covered strawberries throughout the week and a filled ice bucket at all times. She did call Richard once to ask for ice - after that it was always full. We called Richard several times for lunch and dinner, and once for breakfast on a day we had an early morning excursion. He came early as requested and set the table with a white tablecloth (even though I told him he really didn't need to go to that extreme. He simply said, "This is what we do!"). So I don't know if we lucked out with a VERY good butler...or if all of the butlers were that good...but I truly was tickled pink by the service we received from him during our stay.

More to come...

I'm seriously thinking about eating ONLY at the Haven Restaurant. We don't typically pay to eat at the "charge" restaurants on the ships, and my daughter has a dairy allergy...so I'm thinking if we stick to the Haven it'll make things easier overall. I just hope we don't get bored with it. The menu looks awesome to me, but the rest of my family isn't very adventurous when it comes to food.

Let your butler know your likes and dislikes. He will bring you snacks every day

 

On St Thomas and Tortola mornings, order room service. White table cloth breakfasts. Order anything you want (don't be limited to the breakfast cards). Steak and eggs.

 

Concierge will get you into the main shows. Sit in the haven seating or any seats you want

 

Use your Havens key card to get into any comedy show (don't bother with the standby line).

 

Enjoy! We'll be in the Havens with you.

I'm not on THIS cruise - we sail next week in the Haven. But can you really use your Haven keycard to get into the comedy shows? My husband and I LOVE going to the comedy shows, but I was worried about not being able to find a seat. How does this work without making everyone in line mad?? :)