BEWARE! NCL PRIMA SLIDES OBSTRUCTING BALCONY VIEWS INCLUDING HAVEN ROOMS!

[ziggyuk]

See this video at point 9:40 
The man from the Haven claims a lot of the rooms on 15th floor in the Haven suffer from overhead noise, he claims his was a problem 20 in 24 hours.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6CR2jyl_WE

 

[GeezerCouple]

9 minutes ago, cruiseny4life said:

 

What a wonderful find, thank you!!! I think I'd be ok with the slide. I'm not so sure I'd be alright looking over the pool/hot tub area. As I mentioned before, clothes, balconies, and I don't get along...but I think the balcony would be ok to tolerate with the slide. I'd definitely be that person knocking on the slide to give additional "thrills" to those going down. 

 

I agree with you that this needs to be done at the time of purchase. It's clear now! Take a look at the deck plan from NCL's website.

 

 

The key to the deck plan could be updated to show that the swooshie noodle symbol is a slide though. 

 

 

I appreciate you shouting me out for the slide video. It is super cool! Alas, I can't take credit. @BermudaBound2014 is the one that posted it. I just "quoted" them. 

 

Ooops... apologies BermudaBound2014!  Many thanks! (as always!)

 

Those were great videos.

They don't address the balcony/view problems, but they do give a terrific sense of those two slides.  I'm sure some (many!?) will enjoy them thoroughly.

It was also nice to see the "pouch" that the slider gets into for the blue ride.  I wasn't sure how a "dry slide" was actually going to work!

 

GC

[BermudaBound2014]

OMG... WHAT were they thinking??

 

[ChiefMateJRK]

4 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

OMG... WHAT were they thinking??

 

I don't believe that "thinking" was part of the process.

[ziggyuk]

For me it's a matter of perspective, those balconies the slides run through are huge, I would see the slide as a small inconvenience for such a huge space & would book it without a second thought. It clearly does not suit everyone and that is personal choice.

The only failing is NCL not informing people before booking, that is not acceptable.

[ALKID]

39 minutes ago, Karaboudjan said:

 

Vibrations on a cruise ship?  What were they thinking?!

 

Since you apparently know exactly what the experience will be like you have the perfect opportunity to complain now to someone who is not the onboard crew.

You apparently know it will not be an issue, so why didn’t you enlighten the OP?  so i wonder what all the complaining is about anyway, I didn’t start the thread.

[Karaboudjan]

19 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

OMG... WHAT were they thinking??

 

 

Not sure exactly what you are reacting to, but this might not actually be anyone's balcony.  The deck plans show this area in gray, and other sections in the colors of the rooms that have balconies in this general area.  This photo was taken in the the shipyard so maybe some workers just thought it would be a cool place to hang out on a break...  

 

So are you close to the slides?  Yes.  But is it literally running through your balcony?  Maybe not.

 

[cabincop]

29 minutes ago, ziggyuk said:

See this video at point 9:40 
The man from the Haven claims a lot of the rooms on 15th floor in the Haven suffer from overhead noise, he claims his was a problem 20 in 24 hours.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6CR2jyl_WE

 

I saw this early on & changed to deck 14. I hope there will be changes on Viva. 

[dandelpino]

1 hour ago, GeezerCouple said:

IF NCL would just make it VERY clear at the POINT OF PURCHASE, then I'd not be making my comments.

 

I fully agree. NCL needs to be honest because right now the website is misleading at best.

 

Here's the deck plan NCL shows at the point of purchase during the cabin selection stage of a mock booking. This is a 'Family Suite with Master':

 

Take a look at 12810. It sure seems to the casual observer like you have a pretty huge balcony, right? It is a family suite with master bedroom after all so a large balcony is not out of the ordinary for this cabin description.

 

Well... think again. Here's the deck plan on cruisedeckplans.com:

 

Notice how the balcony in 12810 is actually far smaller than the booking site's deck plan makes it seem. The booking site is definitely misleading. To me it's straight up dishonest. NCL needs to provide more accurate information at the point of purchase.

[ChiefMateJRK]

39 minutes ago, dandelpino said:

 

I fully agree. NCL needs to be honest because right now the website is misleading at best.

 

Here's the deck plan NCL shows at the point of purchase during the cabin selection stage of a mock booking. This is a 'Family Suite with Master':

 

Take a look at 12810. It sure seems to the casual observer like you have a pretty huge balcony, right? It is a family suite with master bedroom after all so a large balcony is not out of the ordinary for this cabin description.

 

Well... think again. Here's the deck plan on cruisedeckplans.com:

 

Notice how the balcony in 12810 is actually far smaller than the booking site's deck plan makes it seem. The booking site is definitely misleading. To me it's straight up dishonest. NCL needs to provide more accurate information at the point of purchase.

That's the same deck plan shown on NCL.com.  

[cruiseny4life]

13 minutes ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

That's the same deck plan shown on NCL.com.  

I thought so too! Then I did a mock booking. NCL has a different deck plan when doing a booking vs when just looking at Prima's deck plan on the ships page.

 

NCL Mock Booking Page:

 

 

NCL Explore Ship Site:

 

 

They probably just haven't updated on the booking pages and nothing nefarious, but it does give a false impression of what a customer would get.

[ChiefMateJRK]

31 minutes ago, cruiseny4life said:

I thought so too! Then I did a mock booking. NCL has a different deck plan when doing a booking vs when just looking at Prima's deck plan on the ships page.

 

NCL Mock Booking Page:

 

 

NCL Explore Ship Site:

 

 

They probably just haven't updated on the booking pages and nothing nefarious, but it does give a false impression of what a customer would get.

I wasn't referring to what you see on NCL.com when selecting a room as part of booking.  I was referring to what you see on NCL.com when you look at ship deck plans (which many/most of us do while booking).

[nferr]

13 hours ago, hallux said:

Again, none of the Haven balconies have the slide going THROUGH them.  Look at the deck plans I posted above - the cabins with the slides through the deck are 14190, 14790, 14192 and 14792 (and the ones in the same places on other decks, they're not numbered the same), none of those are Haven cabins.

 Who said they have to be Haven cabins? The complaints are the same for any balcony IMO.

[LGW59]

On 9/5/2022 at 4:38 PM, dhjson said:

Hi Fellow Cruisers,

 

I had an unfortunate experience speaking to NCL regarding an obstructed balcony view in our Haven 2 Bedroom Family Villa that we were never made aware of for an upcoming cruise on the Prima in November. When speaking to NCL, it appeared that I was the first person to come across this issue, so I thought it would be helpful and worthwhile to share the information with my fellow cruisers on this site. Just some background- my family and I are Platinum latitudes members and have sailed on NCL for decades now and had great experiences on prior sailings. This vacation is our first family vacation since before Covid, and 3 of 5 members of our family are front-line healthcare workers (RN, PA, and Physician); therefore, we decided to really splurge and treat ourselves, so we upgraded to the Haven on this brand new ship. We were so excited in anticipation of our vacation, so much so that we decided to take a look at the deck plans of the ship to explore what there is to do on this brand new ship. When looking at the deck plan for the 14th floor where our stateroom is located (the stateroom assigned to us by our personal cruise consultant when we booked), Stateroom 14900, we noticed that it looked like the two slides were coming directly in front of not only our balcony, but two balconies ahead of us. We found this to be odd because we had looked at earlier deck plans for the ship and did not see any indication that the slides would be obstructing the view of our balcony. I took it upon myself to do some further research and, thanks to this wonderful website, saw there was a similar topic already started regarding these slides potentially blocking some of the balconies on the ship. A picture was posted (I'll insert the picture down below) showing that the slide not only obstructs views of many of the balconies, but actually enters some of the balconies! We found our balcony on the photo and it appears the slide is so close we could actually reach out over our balcony and touch the slide. I would really love to know who in NCL thought this would be a great idea..but that's besides the point.

 

We decided to give NCL a call just to verify that what we were looking at was in fact correct since on some ships they make the customer aware when booking if the balcony view is obstructed. Not only that, we now have two conflicting deck plans where one plan has the slide in view and another does not (I will also post the photos of the deck plans down below). When we got on the phone with a customer service representative, we got many conflicting answers from this one representative including "the deck plan I'm looking at does not show the slide," "Oh yes I see the deck plan you're looking at but the slide is below you," and finally "It does seem that the slide is obstructing your view, let me transfer you." After being placed on hold and transferred many times, we finally were connected to a supervisor, Theresa. When we told her about our issue, how much money we had spent on this vacation, and how we really enjoy using our balcony and think it is wrong that customers were never informed of these plastic monstrosities obstructing their views, she basically said to us "Sorry, there's nothing we can do" and actually had the audacity to hang up on us. Never have I experienced this customer service from NCL before; I was truly appalled and find this whole situation totally unacceptable. What makes the whole thing even worse is that NCL seems to show no remorse and takes no responsibility for this oversight. It seems like they are trying to hide these obstructed views from us; but I'm certain we will not be the last complaining customer in regards to this.  I hope you find this helpful because I don't want anyone to be blindsided about these obstructed views like we were! Also- any tips for helping us resolve this situation would be extremely helpful!!

 

The picture you share not withstanding, the actual NCL deck plans seem to do a good job of showing what it should, the location of the cabin.  

[Sailing12Away]

13 hours ago, nferr said:

 Who said they have to be Haven cabins? The complaints are the same for any balcony IMO.

Because some folks on here like to cry & moan about the cost of Haven and how they should never be inconvenienced with having to mingle with steerage folks, let alone have to look upon an unsightly tube on the periphery of their balcony. Plus I believe the OP (who has since disappeared, so they probably were able to move like we all suggested) booked a 2br Haven room. They were the one complaining about the sides which started this whole debacle over nothing since it's all speculation still.

[dandelpino]

12 minutes ago, Sailing12Away said:

Because some folks on here like to cry & moan about the cost of Haven and how they should never be inconvenienced with having to mingle with steerage folks, let alone have to look upon an unsightly tube on the periphery of their balcony.

That's an unfair assessment. Cruise lines generally call out any and all obstructions no matter the size or shape of the obstruction. They also generally price the "obstructed view" cabins lower than an identical cabin without the obstruction. This is an industry best practice and holds true from oceanview cabins all the way up to the suites across most cruise lines. It's not about inconveniencing Haven pax or having to look at a tube, it's about NCL providing complete and accurate information. 

[Karaboudjan]

46 minutes ago, dandelpino said:

That's an unfair assessment. Cruise lines generally call out any and all obstructions no matter the size or shape of the obstruction. They also generally price the "obstructed view" cabins lower than an identical cabin without the obstruction. This is an industry best practice and holds true from oceanview cabins all the way up to the suites across most cruise lines. It's not about inconveniencing Haven pax or having to look at a tube, it's about NCL providing complete and accurate information. 

I'm not sure I agree with you.  I just did a mock booking for Royal suite 12102 on Celebrity Edge.  This cabin is adjacent to the Iconic suite which has a large extension in the shape of the bridge wing.  I'm sure that many people would consider that an 'obstruction' (and IMO worse than a slide) but I did not see any mention of that in the booking process.  

 

I would think that there are cabins on most ships that have the bridge wing obstructing part of their view, but I have never seen that called out as an obstruction or offered at a lower price.

 

So is the slide a bigger obstruction?  Maybe, although I'm not sure about that.  But is everyone calling out any and all obstructions?  I don't think so.
 

[dandelpino]

7 minutes ago, Karaboudjan said:

I'm not sure I agree with you.  I just did a mock booking for Royal suite 12102 on Celebrity Edge.  This cabin is adjacent to the Iconic suite which has a large extension in the shape of the bridge wing.  I'm sure that many people would consider that an 'obstruction' (and IMO worse than a slide) but I did not see any mention of that in the booking process.  

 

I would think that there are cabins on most ships that have the bridge wing obstructing part of their view, but I have never seen that called out as an obstruction or offered at a lower price.

 

So is the slide a bigger obstruction?  Maybe, although I'm not sure about that.  But is everyone calling out any and all obstructions?  I don't think so.
 

 

I've never been on those suites so I couldn't tell you if the bridge obstructs the view. The I will say RCCL has charts of obstructed cabins (link to chart here) where they call out anything they consider a 5% obstruction or higher. I can't find a video of 12102 on youtube and it isn't listed so I would assume it's less than a 5% obstruction. 

 

One cabin I was able to find a video of is 10160 (youtube video) which is called out as a 20% obstruction. If you watch the video you'll see the obstruction is off the right and really not in the way much at all. I have to imagine if the view out of 12102 had the bridge in it at all then it would be called out on the chart.

[Sailing12Away]

1 hour ago, dandelpino said:

That's an unfair assessment. Cruise lines generally call out any and all obstructions no matter the size or shape of the obstruction. They also generally price the "obstructed view" cabins lower than an identical cabin without the obstruction. This is an industry best practice and holds true from oceanview cabins all the way up to the suites across most cruise lines. It's not about inconveniencing Haven pax or having to look at a tube, it's about NCL providing complete and accurate information. 

My point is that we have not seen a single photo or video from the Haven room in question yet. So the amount of obstruction that people are crying over and claiming needs to be disclosed is yet to be determined. 

 

What exactly is it that you want NCL to disclose? That there's a slide nearby that may or may not block your view?

[Karaboudjan]

1 hour ago, dandelpino said:

 

I've never been on those suites so I couldn't tell you if the bridge obstructs the view. The I will say RCCL has charts of obstructed cabins (link to chart here) where they call out anything they consider a 5% obstruction or higher. I can't find a video of 12102 on youtube and it isn't listed so I would assume it's less than a 5% obstruction. 

 

One cabin I was able to find a video of is 10160 (youtube video) which is called out as a 20% obstruction. If you watch the video you'll see the obstruction is off the right and really not in the way much at all. I have to imagine if the view out of 12102 had the bridge in it at all then it would be called out on the chart.

 

Interesting.  I wonder how they calculate the percentage?  Are they looking for anything within a 180 degree view side to side and up and down?  

 

 

 

[BermudaBound2014]

1 hour ago, dandelpino said:

 

I've never been on those suites so I couldn't tell you if the bridge obstructs the view. The I will say RCCL has charts of obstructed cabins (link to chart here) where they call out anything they consider a 5% obstruction or higher. I can't find a video of 12102 on youtube and it isn't listed so I would assume it's less than a 5% obstruction. 

 

One cabin I was able to find a video of is 10160 (youtube video) which is called out as a 20% obstruction. If you watch the video you'll see the obstruction is off the right and really not in the way much at all. I have to imagine if the view out of 12102 had the bridge in it at all then it would be called out on the chart.

 

I appreciate the transparency shown by RCL. The fact that nCL is not being forthright with the obstructions the slide obviously creates makes NCL look incompetent at best.

[GeezerCouple]

5 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

 

I appreciate the transparency shown by RCL. The fact that nCL is not being forthright with the obstructions the slide obviously creates makes NCL look incompetent at best.

 

 

I'd LIKE to be able to think that this is somehow "COVID-related"... something like shortage of cruiseline office staff, or supply chain problems in procuring keyboards, or *something* with a reasonable explanation...

 

But alas, this is now reminding me of when NCL did some major changes on the Pride of America.  The communication then was abysmal.  For one thing, they showed that the DOS was going to be a 2-bedroom suite instead of the existing very large 1-bedroom suite.  People made reservations accordingly.  Ooops... that floor plan actually never changed!

 

They put a bunch of suites (some apparently really nice, as it turned out) on a new area on a top deck.  But they didn't describe them correctly, or the "views".  Wait!  Are some of those balconies overlooking the pool, with seating right nearby??  NOT views of the lovely islands or the SEA water?  Uh, yup, that's what it turned out to be for a few unfortunate and very surprised passengers, but the disclosure...??  Uh... not at all forthcoming.

 

As I (and others) pointed out, NCL *had* to know what the floor plans would be well in advance, due to need to arrange supplies and workers for the new construction, right??

But passengers were already sailing and sending photos before NCL made any changes to the website to indicate the actual floor plans.  They "could have/should have" had the new plans ready to load when they started taking reservations for those specific suites, but they just didn't.  And they didn't load them right away even when they were completed and actually being used.

 

That's just a blatant disregard for their customers, full stop.

 

We had an amazing time on our first cruise with NCL (not my first cruise, just the first with NCL), when we brought kids and a grand with us.  DH and I had a DOS, and invited the others to spend lots of time with us (no Haven on that ship).  Everyone was thrilled and DH and I barely got off the ship and booked another NCL cruise, this time in a Haven 2BR.  DH joked that the little bedroom was his "office at sea". 😄

 

And then... the shine started to tarnish, including the serious misinformation (including direct email from NCL execs)...

 

We'll still sail NCL if that is the *only* way to get certain accommodations for the full family, or if there's no other way to get a particular itinerary.  But not otherwise, despite our loving the space and extra bathroom, etc., of those 2-BR suites.

 

Some problems can't be anticipated or can't be fixed; others can.

These ongoing issues are unforced errors on NCL's part.  There's no way around that realization.  It's real shame. 😠

 

GC

[PATRLR]

22 hours ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

OMG... WHAT were they thinking??

They were thinking about the design and building of a slide and absolutely not thinking about anything else.

 

[PATRLR]

8 minutes ago, GeezerCouple said:

That's just a blatant disregard for their customers, full stop.

Not the first, I am sure it won't be the last.  I do believe this is a systemic problem at NCL - customers do NOT come first as they typically do with business known for the best customer experiences.

[cruiseny4life]

39 minutes ago, GeezerCouple said:

And then... the shine started to tarnish, including the serious misinformation (including direct email from NCL execs)...

I learned this while on my first NCL cruise in April. We still purchased the Cruise Next certificates. We just got off our second cruise Monday. The cruise was wonderful, the crew was outstanding, and I felt a little bit like I was "home." 

 

Yet, and I've made more than a few posts, about how NCL doesn't give a flying duck about their customers. So long as people continue to book, they'll continue to do anything in their power to rake in as much money as possible. Unfortunately, I still feel that the vacation itself is worth the hassle. Someday, maybe when I retire (I'll never afford that), I'll write frankie boy's successor a nice hand-written letter about how I feel...then again, reading other forums (rarely responding) I see most cruise lines are the same way. 

 

I'd love to go on Uncruise, Star Clippers, or another wicked small line where the customer service might be better. One, I don't think the husband would approve of not cruising NCL, and second, it seems you have to make friends with others onboard. When on vacation, I prefer to be introverted. The husband, well he wants to talk to anyone.

 

So....the bottom line, obfuscating information, being misleading, and just outright lying to customers seems to be NCL's game. NCL just needs to change one deck plan with an updated one, and this slide business would be all done. Wonder when they'll do it?

 

Until everyone stops cruising, they'll keep it up....did I mention we have a NCL Escape cruise booked in April? We might cancel it, for another NCL cruise. At least I know what to expect, which is more than many unwitting customers can say.