NCL JOY??

[karinad]

We're looking at a cruise on The Joy, a ship I never noticed before. What's the story on it? Is it a new ship?

[tallnthensome]

It came out just before the Bliss and was made for the Asian market. What appeals to us here in the states apparently doesn't carry over to Asia and it was considered more or less a flop over there. It was removed from that market, given a small makeover, and brought back here. It's only a few years old. Basically it's been hidden away for most of its short life. 

Edited July 29, 2019 by tallnthensome

[2+2]

We are sailing on the Joy this winter. The Joy is a sister ship of the Bliss. We really enjoyed the Bliss last year. Like stated before, they tried to makeover  the ship to be as close as possible the the Bliss. They installed all new carpet, and new lightning in some areas on a ship that is only two years old.  Both ships have a great observation decks that makes it perfect for Alaska and Pamama canal trips. The success of the Bliss, and  demand for more west coast cruises helped with the decision . 

 

 

[aero777]

Here’s a thread from this March started by FreestyleNovice detailing the progress of the extensive $50 million refurbishment of the Joy. We sailed the Joy in May and liked it so much we booked two more cruises on her this year. If you can live without a thermal suite in the spa it’s a fantastic ship with some great pricing.

[tomk3212]

We're looking forward to its arrival in NYC in 2020!!

[karinad]

Thanks for the info on the Joy! It just seemed to appear on my radar when the cruise I'm watching came up.

 

For some reason, I wasn't receiving notifications on this! Sorry that I didn't thank the posters before this!

[Birdie And Sue]

On 7/29/2019 at 1:09 PM, aero777 said:

Here’s a thread from this March started by FreestyleNovice detailing the progress of the extensive $50 million refurbishment of the Joy. We sailed the Joy in May and liked it so much we booked two more cruises on her this year. If you can live without a thermal suite in the spa it’s a fantastic ship with some great pricing.

 

 

What parts of the spa are consider to be the 'thermal suite' and thus missing from the Joy?

[david_sobe]

4 hours ago, Birdie And Sue said:

 

 

What parts of the spa are consider to be the 'thermal suite' and thus missing from the Joy?

I believe what they are trying to say is that there is no thermal spa.  It was removed during the renovation.  There are spa treatment rooms for services but no sauna, thermal pools, etc.

[Birdie And Sue]

15 hours ago, david_sobe said:

I believe what they are trying to say is that there is no thermal spa.  It was removed during the renovation.  There are spa treatment rooms for services but no sauna, thermal pools, etc.

 

Would that etc that is missing include the following?

Hot tub
Heated stone recliners
Non-heater reeclieners
Therapy pool

 

[Sauer-kraut]

11 minutes ago, Birdie And Sue said:

 

Would that etc that is missing include the following?

Hot tub
Heated stone recliners
Non-heater reeclieners
Therapy pool

 

 

Yes, they don't exist on the JOY

[BirdTravels]

On 7/29/2019 at 1:54 AM, karinad said:

We're looking at a cruise on The Joy, a ship I never noticed before. What's the story on it? Is it a new ship?

The ship was christened in June 2017 and spent a year and a half in the China market doing 4 and 5 night cruises from China to Japan. 

 

In March of this year, NCL re-positioned the ship from China to the US. In the process, they did a major $50M make over gutting much of the public space and modifying the ship for the US market. This included removing dozens of rooms to make large public lounge space. 

 

The Joy now is a close sister to the Bliss, designed for the Alaskan cruise market 

 

Here's a link to a live post from the Joy a couple of weeks ago. 

 

[Barcode78]

On 7/29/2019 at 3:35 AM, tallnthensome said:

It came out just before the Bliss and was made for the Asian market. What appeals to us here in the states apparently doesn't carry over to Asia and it was considered more or less a flop over there. It was removed from that market, given a small makeover, and brought back here. It's only a few years old. Basically it's been hidden away for most of its short life. 

I don't buy that the Asian market was unsuitable for the Joy.  There are two other little know Breakaway Class ships that do cruises over in that region of the world that seem to be doing fine.  Dream Cruises has some kind of stake in NCL's parent company NCLHC More likely it was a matter of Alaska just being more profitable in general rather then Asia strictly being unprofitable.  In fact the World Dream entered service shortly before the decision was made to move the Joy back to the US. 

 

Bottom line money was the motive but there is more to the Joy than what they are telling us.

[Barcode78]

Correction to the post above.  Genting Group owns Star Cruises which currently holds a 28% stake in NCL.  Genting also owns Dream Cruises which operates the Genting Dream and the World Dream which are Breakaway Class ships.  Genting also owns a large share in Lloyd Werft which has been NCL's shipbuilder for most of the fleet except for the epic.

[deliver42]

Don't forget, they also spent $50,000,000.00 to de Asia the ship, which is a hefty bill for a pretty new ship.

[BirdTravels]

A chunk of the expense was to cut out and remove the Forward cabins and Put in the Observation Lounge that takes up 1/3 of Deck 15. Remove two casinos (one became The Social). Turn tea rooms into bars (cuz Americans drink too much). They took out the seafood buffet (which they could have kept). Remove the high end retail and replaced with $10 t-short and watch shops. 

[OceanBlueWaters]

2 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

A chunk of the expense was to cut out and remove the Forward cabins and Put in the Observation Lounge that takes up 1/3 of Deck 15. Remove two casinos (one became The Social). Turn tea rooms into bars (cuz Americans drink too much). They took out the seafood buffet (which they could have kept). Remove the high end retail and replaced with $10 t-short and watch shops. 

Bird:  Do you get compensation from NCL to travel and evaluate their ships (and other Cruise Lines for that matter)?  Forgive me if this question was asked before, but lots of YouTuber's get compensated, so just wondering if this is in same realm. 

Do you get compensated/receive any benefits from NCL on your reviews/posts?  Just wondering 🙂

Thanks! 

[saj5771]

Can’t figure out why Oceanblue has such a problem with Bird. The posts on multiple threads are a bit aggressive and often not even relevant to the topic at hand. If you don’t like Bird’s posts, then just ignore them. No need to be so mean. 

[BirdTravels]

5 minutes ago, saj5771 said:

Can’t figure out why Oceanblue has such a problem with Bird. The posts on multiple threads are a bit aggressive and often not even relevant to the topic at hand. If you don’t like Bird’s posts, then just ignore them. No need to be so mean. 

Bird hater

 

The Bird is not compensated or recognized in any manner. Just an avid  cruiser sailing on NCL and RCCL multiple times a year. 

Edited September 1, 2019 by BirdTravels