The NCL Haven Luxury VIP Experience "Secrets" REVISED for 2022

[maren91]

7 hours ago, Sthrngary said:

You have just peeked my interest.  Please explain what a Single Supplement Waiver and any strategy you might have to get one?  I would appreciate it.

 

Cruise well.

I've been stalking cruises all year and the single supplement seems to appear about 30 days prior to the cruise though I see some happen earlier. You can actually do a filter for it when searching for cruises. The word on the street is that they don't do a waived single supplement for Haven but I've seen it for several ships this month with a Haven single going for 3K-3600K (price on NCL site).

 

[Tralfie]

Gary: 

I read your original post (and the gazillion comments which followed it), and I devoured this one as well. I've cruised NCL many times, but will be doing the haven for the first time (on the Getaway) in two weeks. Words can't begin to express how many of the questions that were bubbling in my head were answered by your post. Having never really done a trip as expensive as this one, I booked it with quite a bit of trepedation and really wanted to make sure I was getting the most out of the experience. Now, thanks to you, I feel that I am better prepared than I have been for a trip in a very long time. 

Thanks for that. 

Richard

[caneable]

Great job Gary. Very informative and quite impressive that, having presented the original version, you went back and edited it for the benefit of us all. Thank you very much.

[rxlowry]

20 hours ago, vacation44 said:

On the Joy now and Elements require a reservation.  Only two shows which are both tonight.

We didn’t have one but they did scan cards for the show.  We walked in about five minutes before and lots of seats were available 

[Sthrngary]

14 hours ago, maren91 said:

I've been stalking cruises all year and the single supplement seems to appear about 30 days prior to the cruise though I see some happen earlier. You can actually do a filter for it when searching for cruises. The word on the street is that they don't do a waived single supplement for Haven but I've seen it for several ships this month with a Haven single going for 3K-3600K (price on NCL site).

 

I just booked a Club Balcony Suite, on the Joy March 19, 2022 for a single for $1,200.00 total.  This is funny because I have a club balcony suite on the Breakaway in December with each guest is $1,200.00.  Now as soon as it is confirmed online, I will look for the Upgrade Bid opportunity.  When that happens, I know from the wise folks on this stream, I will have to pay for two upgrades even though I will be a single. 

 

Thanks again to everyone for your assistance and advice.

 

Cruise well.

 

Thanks to all, I will update my results as they come in.

[aubreyc1988]

1 minute ago, Sthrngary said:

I just booked a Club Balcony Suite, on the Joy March 19, 2022 for a single for $1,200.00 total.  This is funny because I have a club balcony suite on the Breakaway in December with each guest is $1,200.00.  Now as soon as it is confirmed online, I will look for the Upgrade Bid opportunity.  When that happens, I know from the wise folks on this stream, I will have to pay for two upgrades even though I will be a single. 

 

Thanks again to everyone for your assistance and advice.

 

Cruise well.

 

Thanks to all, I will update my results as they come in.

Should have booked on March 5th! 😉

 

I just paid 279.00 total for two people to upgrade from a HJ to the Courtyard with regular balcony, wanted to be in the courtyard baad and didn't think that price was too bad. 

 

Crossing my fingers for you!

[Sthrngary]

5 minutes ago, aubreyc1988 said:

Should have booked on March 5th! 😉

 

I just paid 279.00 total for two people to upgrade from a HJ to the Courtyard with regular balcony, wanted to be in the courtyard baad and didn't think that price was too bad. 

 

Crossing my fingers for you!

I have a wedding on that day.  Also, I am using Airline Points for the fair so I had to coordinate.  Thank you for sharing what you paid for your upgrade.  

 

Cruise well.

[Sthrngary]

1 hour ago, aubreyc1988 said:

Should have booked on March 5th! 😉

 

A question for you. How soon did the Bid up offer get sent to you.  45 days before, 30 days before?  Just planning my strategy.  Thanks.

 

Cruise well.

[momofjohnjr]

On 2/17/2022 at 3:10 AM, Kirk2121 said:

Hi Gary, 

 

Thanks so much for the guide! 

 

I read most of your past guide before we bid. 

 

Gf n i just got upgraded to haven for February 25th 2022 Joy!!! YES! Never been in Haven. 

 

We're about EIGHT (8) days out. 

 

Anything we should do differently being this close to sailing? 

 

Also:

couple things:

1.  We don't drink alcohol.  Jan 2nd this year on Encore One mdr waitress seemed mad at us when she got us two nights in a row thinking maybe she was hurting for money & we didn't tip extra.  Not her but We did later when we found a waiter we really liked (not wanting to go down tipping rabbit hole) 

2.  Gf loves Coca-Cola.  Is this complimentary or still have to pay? Not big deal but... 

3.  We like to walk from cruise ports to go snorkeling.  We won't be doing excursions instead spending our time in haven area.  Maybe walk to some snorkeling if we can find it. 

4.  Gf turns 50 in a few days.  Celebrating her 50th.  Beef stroganoff & creme Brule some of her favorites. 

5.  We have two specialty meals.  We'll maybe eat twice each day to fit our specialty meals in 🙂 .  We don't have reservations 

 

I've never met a butler before & I'm actually quite interested in what/how they do things.  Tempted to have them unpack my stuff.

 

Any advice appreciated. 

You might not be allowed to walk. Jamaica was super strict. You couldn't go anywhere unless you had paid for an excursion. 

[Tralfie]

I could swear that at some point, I saw a spreadsheet of various requests that people had made (afternoon snacks, etc). I can't remember if it was buried within the pages of comments responding to Gary's original post, or if it was in one of the Facebook groups I'm in for the Haven. Anybody recall? Much appreciated!

Richard

[Sthrngary]

Just now, Tralfie said:

I could swear that at some point, I saw a spreadsheet of various requests that people had made (afternoon snacks, etc). I can't remember if it was buried within the pages of comments responding to Gary's original post, or if it was in one of the Facebook groups I'm in for the Haven. Anybody recall? Much appreciated!

Richard

You are correct. I remember it also.  It was not me but it was very helpful.  It was on my original posting.  

 

Cruise well.

[momofjohnjr]

13 minutes ago, Tralfie said:

I could swear that at some point, I saw a spreadsheet of various requests that people had made (afternoon snacks, etc). I can't remember if it was buried within the pages of comments responding to Gary's original post, or if it was in one of the Facebook groups I'm in for the Haven. Anybody recall? Much appreciated!

Richard

I'll add my letter with requests at some point. We had a lot since there were 6 of us! Lol!

[momofjohnjr]

This was copied over from the other thread, I'm not editing it because I have a migraine atm but I do want to add that they never opened the roof. I asked midway and they told me it depends on the weather but we barely had a breeze all 7 days so I have no clue why it remained closed.

 

Copied/pasted: I have a lot of pages to catch up on! My battery is low so this is just a mini post. I wish I had paid attention that you could connect to cruisecritic with no charge when onboard. Lol. My son bought wifi but only him. 

When we were in the lounge pre-board at first I thought we were ok and then the lady starts the questions and tells me they should all be no. I saw covid in 14 days and thought omGod what and hit no. 😳 she tells me she has to doubke check the kids vaccine cards and I thought that's it. [Because Hannah's positive also came from CVS]. Then she said Only 11 or under. So we did get to go but that was all nerve-wracking. Had I known that I would have felt obligated to stay home.

It's true. Once haven u never want yo go back. I'm definitely not looking "as" forward to our RC cruise next month. Lol. 

[Oh...we were on Escape February 5-12. ]

There were somethings we weren't super fond of and other things we loved like getting to go in the garbage and food elevators! Wish we had a pic of the garbage sign. 

4 kids on Haven 22 down to 5.. not as fun as I had hoped because 2 teens and young adult. Sophie our 5 y.o. got a bit bored but just because her fear held her back. She was happy most of the time. Teens complained quite a bit, 22 yo son complained a bit too. These generations. Ugh. But he liked it. Teens not so much. Hubby fell in love with the coffee maker and today his arrived from Kohl's. Lol. Nespresso Pixie by Delonghi with Milk Frother..that frother is for me. Fiod in Haven much better. Kids and I went to Savor one night and it was pretty awful. We did have some big misses in Haven though. Kept getting served pork even when we reminded them and the first night we got raw risotto. Not undercooked but raw. Seriously very raw. So when the waitress said I'm sorry it wasn't to your liking I kindly pointed out that it wasn't the taste that it was crunchy and uncooked and that would be a problem for everyone not just me. Maybe she didn't believe me but we had 3 bowls of raw risotto. 🤔 barely cooked on the outside I'm really not sure how that happened. 

I didn't try the pool til the last day and it was lovely and not too cold though I had Sophie with me and saw her lips turning purple so I sent her to the hot tub to warm up. Ship was I believe around 40% capacity. 

Our Butler was Jenzer. He was amazing 👏 😍 and steward was Radwell and he was also amazing 👏 ❤️.  We did a 50/50 tip with Jenzer as I just feel weird doing 100% upfront. Radwell got money somedays and a big tip at the end but not as big as Jenzer since he is part of the tipping pool. Concierge was great but we didn't tip. Maybe we should have at least done a little but I don't know. I wish we had gotten to know Jenzer better but he seemed more rushed. Radwell told us about his 6 year old son back home also starting to learn to read and things like Sophie. The room was perfect.  I had worried it would be too small but it was just fine. Sooooo much storage.  We were able to keep everything pretty tidy. 

Pre-concierge had the note about us also celebrating our Anniversary (since it was a few days b4 the cruise) and left us a card to give the waitress. We did on the last night and they sang a song and gave us a yummy cake. That song lasted way too long. Lol!  Sooo much more to say but most of the Haven stuff is covered. We really are going to try to do the smaller suite next time. We would rather do less cruises Haven then more cruises not. 🛳 They completely suceeded in hooking us. I don't think we will do it for the ships without all the perks though because I feel it's worth all of them but not some of them. 

I'm going to try to catch up some more b4 my phone decides it's had enough. I hope to post some pics and stuff later if there aren't objections. 

Feel free to ask anything and absolutely do NOT miss After Midnight. No matter what. Even one of my kids was hoping to see it twice! (My 14 y.o. daughter)

Btw- The cute teas are awful. Hahaha. 

Edited 11 hours ago by momofjohnjr

[JustSomeLady]

Hi Gary, I wanted to say thank you for putting everything together and to let you know how much it helped me get ready for our upcoming cruise in March.

 

I spoke to a very helpful land concierge yesterday. We now have robes for everyone, pillow requests in, snack requests in, the mini-fridge emptied and replaced with unsweetened iced tea and almond milk for my daughter, special treats she suggested for the kids, an unexpected cake that she said she would put in the suite for my 30th wedding anniversary (LSS, I made a joke about 30 years together in a completely different context when she was telling me about her daughter’s recent nuptials and all about her upcoming vacations), she offered the mattress pad for the kids, fixed an error in one of our middle names in the booking, made notes about our preferred shows and on board activity requests so the on-board concierge would know what we are interested in right away, confirmed all dinner reservations, gave me pointers on cruising during COVID, and much more. The level of service in just that call was exactly how you said it would be. Thanks!

[Sthrngary]

2 minutes ago, JustSomeLady said:

Hi Gary, I wanted to say thank you for putting everything together and to let you know how much it helped me get ready for our upcoming cruise in March.

 

I spoke to a very helpful land concierge yesterday. We now have robes for everyone, pillow requests in, snack requests in, the mini-fridge emptied and replaced with unsweetened iced tea and almond milk for my daughter, special treats she suggested for the kids, an unexpected cake that she said she would put in the suite for my 30th wedding anniversary (LSS, I made a joke about 30 years together in a completely different context when she was telling me about her daughter’s recent nuptials and all about her upcoming vacations), she offered the mattress pad for the kids, fixed an error in one of our middle names in the booking, made notes about our preferred shows and on board activity requests so the on-board concierge would know what we are interested in right away, confirmed all dinner reservations, gave me pointers on cruising during COVID, and much more. The level of service in just that call was exactly how you said it would be. Thanks!

Was it Maria.  She was so very nice to me.  Just know, even with all the work we do, sometimes there are issues.  When the happen, don't get upset, just tell the Haven Concierge in the Haven Lounge.  In my case, I had upgraded my wife and my drink package to the "Premium Plus".  My two adult children had the normal drink package, the "Premium".  When we got onboard, they had no package on their reservations.  I got upset for a second, then chilled out.  The Concierge fixed it.  For those that are now going to ask me how I got the Premium Plus Package for two of four in the room, it was by using FCC and having my travel agent call NCL.   I am glad my advice helped you. 

 

Cruise well.

[aubreyc1988]

37 minutes ago, Sthrngary said:

A question for you. How soon did the Bid up offer get sent to you.  45 days before, 30 days before?  Just planning my strategy.  Thanks.

 

Cruise well.

I booked 2 weeks ago so it was already there when I booked. 3 days ago I got an email saying discounted bidding on the 2 bedroom villas, 300.00 pp. I have since had my TA upgrade me to the Courtyard Penthouse Reg. Balcony, whenever I get my invoice from NCL, I'll let you know if that 300.00pp discounted bid went down at all since I upped my category. 

[JustSomeLady]

3 minutes ago, Sthrngary said:

Was it Maria.  She was so very nice to me.  Just know, even with all the work we do, sometimes there are issues.  When the happen, don't get upset, just tell the Haven Concierge in the Haven Lounge.  In my case, I had upgraded my wife and my drink package to the "Premium Plus".  My two adult children had the normal drink package, the "Premium".  When we got onboard, they had no package on their reservations.  I got upset for a second, then chilled out.  The Concierge fixed it.  For those that are now going to ask me how I got the Premium Plus Package for two of four in the room, it was by using FCC and having my travel agent call NCL.   I am glad my advice helped you. 

 

Cruise well.

Yes! Maria. She’s an absolute gem. 

[Tralfie]

Just now, JustSomeLady said:

Yes! Maria. She’s an absolute gem. 

 I'm curious... did you call the "land concierge?" I hadn't thought to do that... I don't have many requests, but there's one thing in particular I'm having a bit of a pre-cruise issue with. Perhaps I should try this route... 

[JustSomeLady]

2 minutes ago, Tralfie said:

 I'm curious... did you call the "land concierge?" I hadn't thought to do that... I don't have many requests, but there's one thing in particular I'm having a bit of a pre-cruise issue with. Perhaps I should try this route... 

Yes. They are closed on the weekend, but the land concierge is very helpful. 

[pjwtrouble]

We are in the Epic leaving a week from tomorrow. I looked on Thursday and the price for the Haven and the price had really dropped.  Check out the pricing as you get closer as it was less money for us to upgrade to the 2 bedroom suite then we had on our bids. We Cancelled all our bids and upgraded. When we called our NCL rep he seemed surprised by the price and that the cheapest room was a 2 bedroom. What does 2 people need with 2 bedrooms you may ask ???  I was told store our luggage in it. Ha. 
 

Is there anything different with the Haven on the Epic?  Just started researching the Haven and I am not seeing a lot on the Epic.  
 

If anyone has a list of snacks we can get in our room it would be very appreciated. 
 

Happy sailing.  

[luckyinpa]

on bliss was this menu in 2019. if anyone has an updated one it would make a good post

[luckyinpa]

4 hours ago, aubreyc1988 said:

Should have booked on March 5th! 😉

 

I just paid 279.00 total for two people to upgrade from a HJ to the Courtyard with regular balcony, wanted to be in the courtyard baad and didn't think that price was too bad. 

 

Crossing my fingers for you!

 

i miss this if you posted elsewhere. .congrats!  haven for my booking is down to 1821. someone's gonna get a deal. 

[UDChE89]

1 hour ago, pjwtrouble said:

We are in the Epic leaving a week from tomorrow. I looked on Thursday and the price for the Haven and the price had really dropped.  Check out the pricing as you get closer as it was less money for us to upgrade to the 2 bedroom suite then we had on our bids. We Cancelled all our bids and upgraded. When we called our NCL rep he seemed surprised by the price and that the cheapest room was a 2 bedroom. What does 2 people need with 2 bedrooms you may ask ???  I was told store our luggage in it. Ha. 
 

Is there anything different with the Haven on the Epic?  Just started researching the Haven and I am not seeing a lot on the Epic.  
 

If anyone has a list of snacks we can get in our room it would be very appreciated. 
 

Happy sailing.  

I’ve got a bid on a 2 BR as a single.   Wonder what the response would be for me.  What cabin did you upgrade from?

[luckyinpa]

1 hour ago, pjwtrouble said:

We are in the Epic leaving a week from tomorrow. I looked on Thursday and the price for the Haven and the price had really dropped.  Check out the pricing as you get closer as it was less money for us to upgrade to the 2 bedroom suite then we had on our bids. We Cancelled all our bids and upgraded. When we called our NCL rep he seemed surprised by the price and that the cheapest room was a 2 bedroom. What does 2 people need with 2 bedrooms you may ask ???  I was told store our luggage in it. Ha. 
 

Is there anything different with the Haven on the Epic?  Just started researching the Haven and I am not seeing a lot on the Epic.  
 

If anyone has a list of snacks we can get in our room it would be very appreciated. 
 

Happy sailing.  

 

good idea about the luggage. ill use it. i booked 2BR because it was so cheap plus gotta have the ocean shower. i never have been on epic but watched many vids. haven just has been renovated and theres the private posh area where you are entitled to go. almost looked like the biggest haven ive seen. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnWL47HCB24

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arm3mAh8dGo

 

[momofjohnjr]

18 minutes ago, luckyinpa said:

on bliss was this menu in 2019. if anyone has an updated one it would make a good post

No snack menu that we saw. Interesting!