Just off the Joy – 7/30 to 8/6 – All is well

[NewPennCruiser]

There have been a few great reviews and threads recently about the Joy and its Bermuda run, especially those from Dorhead1230 and T Byrd.  Thank you both for some great advice before we sailed!   In any case I thought I would also put a quick review out there that might help some folks who are similar to us. We have cruised a lot but NCL is usually not our first cruise line of choice.  We also prefer smaller ships and tend to cruise off season.  So why did we decide to cruise with a full mega ship with 4,000+ passengers in the middle of summer vacation season?  Call us adventuresome I suppose.  Plus things have just settled after a long period of elder care activity and I just needed to get away.

 

We last cruised in February of 2020 and it’s our first time back on NCL in 10 years.  And as I previously mentioned we have never been on a ship this large and usually don’t cruise in the middle of summer.  And if you look at my cruise history you’ll see I’ve cruised more with the Del Boca Vista crowd than with a ship full of kids.

 

Embarkation was a breeze.  We usually fly in 1 to 2 days before a cruise but chose to just fly in early morning on Sunday since it was a short direct flight in July.  What could go wrong?  Well there is always a chance that something could go wrong but everything was fine.  No smoke, no storms, flight was actually 20 minutes early.  We were using the NCL airport transfer so we got our luggage around 10:30, met the NCL rep and transferred to the pier by about Noon. We never feel like we need to be the first person on the ship and maybe missed the early crowd, but we were checked in and walked right on the ship in 20 minutes.  We immediately completed our emuster checkin, dropped our hand bags off at luggage hold in “Q” and wandered off to lunch.  We didn’t feel like dragging our bags around all afternoon so thanks to others for giving us a heads up that you could drop off luggage.  NCL really doesn’t advertise that.  At least we didn’t see anything.  We were having a relaxing lunch in Taste at 12:45.  Nice way to start a vacation.  After lunch we just relaxed in the OL with a few drinks and the “all rooms are ready” message finally came at about 3:45.  Some floors were ready before that..  

 

Food can be very subjective so I’ll just say we were very happy with everything.  We had FAS so dined in Q and Le Bistro as far as specialty restaurants and ate most of our other meals in Taste, Savor or Local.  We really loved all the options for breakfast and the fact that there are various complementary dining rooms available for dinner.  A lot of the time lunch for us was spent in the Observation Lounge when they put out snacks at 2:30.  We for the most part didn’t eat in the Garden Café and I had seen a lot of comments before our cruise about the operating hours.  Breakfast was available there until 10:30 every day and I had seen comments on the boards here previously that it was only open until 9:30.  Most complaints I heard from others walking around were about the buffet lunch hours.  People complained that it closed at 3:00 for lunch.  We typically had lunch in Taste or the OL so it didn’t affect us.  We did notice the OL would get really crowded after 3:00 with folks looking for food.  As far as complimentary dining vs specialty?  We enjoyed our dinners in Q and Le Bistro, Le Bistro probably our best meal of the week, but dining in Taste and Savoy were all very good and we didn’t feel like we were missing anything.  Yes they repeated some things on the menu, but we always found something that sounded interesting on any given day.  I do have a hard time figuring out what NCL should do with the American Diner.  We did eat breakfast there once, but they charge for lunch and not open for dinner?   It’s wasted space.  Offering breakfast was nice but they really should just turn this into a complimentary burger joint, the kids would love it.  Plus it is for the most part an outdoor dining venue and when we had breakfast there it was really hot and humid.  The food was ok, but we couldn’t wait to get out of there.  We had breakfast in Taste or Local all other mornings.   It was also nice that you could have a sit down breakfast on the morning of disembarkation.  Taste and Savoy were both open and it was a pleasant way to end the cruise.

 

As far as the ship goes, we loved it and maybe surprised ourselves.  We really thought it was designed well so that you can go off into different areas and separate yourself from the masses if you want to.  We’re not pool deck people and just ventured out there once to see the wall to wall loungers on a sunny day and we quickly retreated to the Waterfront area, H2O or various bars or the Observation Lounge.   The ship is beautiful and I can only imagine its sister ships are just as nice or nicer.   We have cruised Princess more than any other line and are not fans of their new ship builds.  They are still smaller than the Joy but they are more inward designed ships vs outward like the Joy (ie: Waterfront) and they just feel crowded.  Other than embarkation day we did not feel crowded all week.

 

We enjoy musical acts more than big production shows and really liked that there were various venues featuring live music throughout the week.  Everyone was very good and we especially enjoyed the Beatles shows.  Thanks to previous advice we watched all the Cavern Club shows from the Waterfront bar with the TV monitor above the bar.  A relaxing way to enjoy good music without being cramped inside.

 

The only annoyance we had was with the forward bank of elevators.  They were usually in a state of chaos and despite the fact that we had a forward balcony on deck 12, we found ourselves walking to the aft elevators when we needed to go somewhere.  They were always less crowded.  With the OL, Haven, buffet, theater, etc all forward, the forward elevators are just naturally the most used.  And don’t get me started on elevator etiquette.  Wow, I thought maybe the groups of kids would be the most annoying, playing around on the elevators but we didn’t see that.  It was the adults.  And this was certainly not everyone but there was a fair share of people who would get on the elevators and not move back.  So when the door opened they would just scowl at you and not move even though there was room behind them.  We laughed when we got on an elevator with a group of 12-13 year olds toward the end of the cruise and they were even complaining about that.  I really felt sorry for folks who had walkers and scooters.  We often held elevators for those folks so they could get places and then we would wait for the next one.  That said there were a lot of funny moments with people who seemed to like the challenge to see how many people could actually get on the elevator and then we’d all laugh about it after the door closed.  The elevators are actually quite large and even though some folks have elevator phobias or maybe even are claustrophobic, it would be nice if folks would just relax, get a grip and be kind about it. 

 

And finally I have to shout out to the crew.  It was probably the most engaging and friendly crew we have ever had the pleasure of sailing with.  They were all amazing and so many of them really seemed like they were having fun despite the hard work and long days.  I came away remembering more names than I ever have, Joanna, Maribel, Santan, Nelda, Oliver, James, Chris, Mervin, Eddie, to just name a few.   Note to T Byrd if you read this, Joanna was promoted to bartender and starts working in the Atrium Bar this week.

 

Anyway I guess that’s about it.  Disembarkation was easy and trouble free.  I wish other ports were this easy!   If you read this all the way through I hope I helped in some way.  Despite some reservations and wondering if we really should have booked this cruise, we loved it and booked a future cruise on the same ship.  If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I’ll try to answer them.

 

Happy Sailing everyone.    Dave

[goldmom]

Thank you for your review.  We'll be on the Joy in a few weeks, so really appreciate all info.

Glad you had a good cruise!

[Mira28]

Great review! Thanks. I’m looking forward to the Joy next year. The Bliss is also beautiful if you get a chance to sail on her.

[DCGuy64]

GREAT review! I really enjoyed reading it, and I have to say, you're an excellent writer. Thank you for a most informative and enjoyable review. 😀

[Sand and Seas]

Thanks for your review @NewPennCruiser!  We will be back on the joy in a couple of months. 

 

We love having a late & lite lunch at the Observation Lounge too😎

[bkrickles1]

Terrific review!

Another positive one for Joy!!

We got off when you got on and I have to agree that the crew was outstanding.

 

[barb in ga]

Thanks for such a positive review!  So often posters feel the need to critique everything in a negative way, overlooking the positive aspects of the cruise. This our first time on NCL; we chose Joy for the itinerary and for the age and condition of the ship. We most frequently cruise Royal on the Oasis class ships. We're fans of the opportunities for a variety of food and entertainment venues.

 

We are looking forward to this cruise; only 4 weeks from today we sail from New York to Quebec City, long a location on our bucket list. When we debark QC after an overnight on the ship, we are going to spend another day and night before taking the train to Montreal, where we'll stay 3 nights, then fly home to Atlanta. I booked our airfare and hotels last week, just need to reserve train tickets and make a list of highlights for the cruise ports and Quebec stays. All ideas welcome. I'm looking today at ship tours as well, but we frequently prefer to make our way around on our own.

 

If you have a schedule that shows the main entertainments, I would love for you to post it.

Thanks,

Barb in GA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

t

Edited August 7, 2023 by barb in ga
missing word

[NewPennCruiser]

17 hours ago, barb in ga said:

Thanks for such a positive review!  So often posters feel the need to critique everything in a negative way, overlooking the positive aspects of the cruise. This our first time on NCL; we chose Joy for the itinerary and for the age and condition of the ship. We most frequently cruise Royal on the Oasis class ships. We're fans of the opportunities for a variety of food and entertainment venues.

 

We are looking forward to this cruise; only 4 weeks from today we sail from New York to Quebec City, long a location on our bucket list. When we debark QC after an overnight on the ship, we are going to spend another day and night before taking the train to Montreal, where we'll stay 3 nights, then fly home to Atlanta. I booked our airfare and hotels last week, just need to reserve train tickets and make a list of highlights for the cruise ports and Quebec stays. All ideas welcome. I'm looking today at ship tours as well, but we frequently prefer to make our way around on our own.

 

If you have a schedule that shows the main entertainments, I would love for you to post it.

Thanks,

Barb in GA

 

We are looking at possibly doing the same itinerary as you next year but starting in QC and ending in NY.  Your plans sound nice, especially the train going onto Montreal.  I didn't keep any paper or schedules from the trip but if you look back for Dorhead1230's live thread a few weeks ago she posted the daily's and they were pretty much the same as when we just cruised.   Your itinerary is different so the schedules might not be the same but I can tell you there was at least 1 thing going on in the theater each night.  Footloose played the theater on Days 2 and 3.  Then an aerial act played the theater on Day 4, BeatlesStory Tribute Day 5 and then the big production show Elements on Days 6 and 7.  If you're interested in Footloose and Elements it is best to reserve those online before your cruise.  Generally I think you can do that 21 days out.  On those same nights there is usually comedy in Social and singers performing all over the ship in Q, the Atrium, Observation Lounge, Sugarcane, Mixx, etc.

 

17 hours ago, barb in ga said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

t

 

[uneamie]

Thank you so much for taking the time to review with such detail. We will be on the Joy for the first time in June to Bermuda. I am not a big fan of the BIG ships with more than 3K people so I've been leery about our cruise on Joy with 4k people....wondering if we will feel the crowd in every corner. But your review eased my mind on that. Your review was so refreshing....thanks again! 

Edited August 10, 2023 by uneamie

[Ozzieru1e]

Thank you for your detailed information.  I made reservations for the Joy Haven Courtyard Suite 17116.  I found videos of 17118 & 17102… was wondering if 17116 design is the same as 17118 & 17102.   I’m hoping the balcony is as large as the aforementioned suites.  If anyone have any info on 17116 I would appreciate it.   Thanks. 

[onebzyldy]

On 8/7/2023 at 11:24 AM, NewPennCruiser said:

 

There have been a few great reviews and threads recently about the Joy and its Bermuda run, especially those from Dorhead1230 and T Byrd.  Thank you both for some great advice before we sailed!   In any case I thought I would also put a quick review out there that might help some folks who are similar to us. We have cruised a lot but NCL is usually not our first cruise line of choice.  We also prefer smaller ships and tend to cruise off season.  So why did we decide to cruise with a full mega ship with 4,000+ passengers in the middle of summer vacation season?  Call us adventuresome I suppose.  Plus things have just settled after a long period of elder care activity and I just needed to get away.

 

We last cruised in February of 2020 and it’s our first time back on NCL in 10 years.  And as I previously mentioned we have never been on a ship this large and usually don’t cruise in the middle of summer.  And if you look at my cruise history you’ll see I’ve cruised more with the Del Boca Vista crowd than with a ship full of kids.

 

Embarkation was a breeze.  We usually fly in 1 to 2 days before a cruise but chose to just fly in early morning on Sunday since it was a short direct flight in July.  What could go wrong?  Well there is always a chance that something could go wrong but everything was fine.  No smoke, no storms, flight was actually 20 minutes early.  We were using the NCL airport transfer so we got our luggage around 10:30, met the NCL rep and transferred to the pier by about Noon. We never feel like we need to be the first person on the ship and maybe missed the early crowd, but we were checked in and walked right on the ship in 20 minutes.  We immediately completed our emuster checkin, dropped our hand bags off at luggage hold in “Q” and wandered off to lunch.  We didn’t feel like dragging our bags around all afternoon so thanks to others for giving us a heads up that you could drop off luggage.  NCL really doesn’t advertise that.  At least we didn’t see anything.  We were having a relaxing lunch in Taste at 12:45.  Nice way to start a vacation.  After lunch we just relaxed in the OL with a few drinks and the “all rooms are ready” message finally came at about 3:45.  Some floors were ready before that..  

 

Food can be very subjective so I’ll just say we were very happy with everything.  We had FAS so dined in Q and Le Bistro as far as specialty restaurants and ate most of our other meals in Taste, Savor or Local.  We really loved all the options for breakfast and the fact that there are various complementary dining rooms available for dinner.  A lot of the time lunch for us was spent in the Observation Lounge when they put out snacks at 2:30.  We for the most part didn’t eat in the Garden Café and I had seen a lot of comments before our cruise about the operating hours.  Breakfast was available there until 10:30 every day and I had seen comments on the boards here previously that it was only open until 9:30.  Most complaints I heard from others walking around were about the buffet lunch hours.  People complained that it closed at 3:00 for lunch.  We typically had lunch in Taste or the OL so it didn’t affect us.  We did notice the OL would get really crowded after 3:00 with folks looking for food.  As far as complimentary dining vs specialty?  We enjoyed our dinners in Q and Le Bistro, Le Bistro probably our best meal of the week, but dining in Taste and Savoy were all very good and we didn’t feel like we were missing anything.  Yes they repeated some things on the menu, but we always found something that sounded interesting on any given day.  I do have a hard time figuring out what NCL should do with the American Diner.  We did eat breakfast there once, but they charge for lunch and not open for dinner?   It’s wasted space.  Offering breakfast was nice but they really should just turn this into a complimentary burger joint, the kids would love it.  Plus it is for the most part an outdoor dining venue and when we had breakfast there it was really hot and humid.  The food was ok, but we couldn’t wait to get out of there.  We had breakfast in Taste or Local all other mornings.   It was also nice that you could have a sit down breakfast on the morning of disembarkation.  Taste and Savoy were both open and it was a pleasant way to end the cruise.

 

As far as the ship goes, we loved it and maybe surprised ourselves.  We really thought it was designed well so that you can go off into different areas and separate yourself from the masses if you want to.  We’re not pool deck people and just ventured out there once to see the wall to wall loungers on a sunny day and we quickly retreated to the Waterfront area, H2O or various bars or the Observation Lounge.   The ship is beautiful and I can only imagine its sister ships are just as nice or nicer.   We have cruised Princess more than any other line and are not fans of their new ship builds.  They are still smaller than the Joy but they are more inward designed ships vs outward like the Joy (ie: Waterfront) and they just feel crowded.  Other than embarkation day we did not feel crowded all week.

 

We enjoy musical acts more than big production shows and really liked that there were various venues featuring live music throughout the week.  Everyone was very good and we especially enjoyed the Beatles shows.  Thanks to previous advice we watched all the Cavern Club shows from the Waterfront bar with the TV monitor above the bar.  A relaxing way to enjoy good music without being cramped inside.

 

The only annoyance we had was with the forward bank of elevators.  They were usually in a state of chaos and despite the fact that we had a forward balcony on deck 12, we found ourselves walking to the aft elevators when we needed to go somewhere.  They were always less crowded.  With the OL, Haven, buffet, theater, etc all forward, the forward elevators are just naturally the most used.  And don’t get me started on elevator etiquette.  Wow, I thought maybe the groups of kids would be the most annoying, playing around on the elevators but we didn’t see that.  It was the adults.  And this was certainly not everyone but there was a fair share of people who would get on the elevators and not move back.  So when the door opened they would just scowl at you and not move even though there was room behind them.  We laughed when we got on an elevator with a group of 12-13 year olds toward the end of the cruise and they were even complaining about that.  I really felt sorry for folks who had walkers and scooters.  We often held elevators for those folks so they could get places and then we would wait for the next one.  That said there were a lot of funny moments with people who seemed to like the challenge to see how many people could actually get on the elevator and then we’d all laugh about it after the door closed.  The elevators are actually quite large and even though some folks have elevator phobias or maybe even are claustrophobic, it would be nice if folks would just relax, get a grip and be kind about it. 

 

And finally I have to shout out to the crew.  It was probably the most engaging and friendly crew we have ever had the pleasure of sailing with.  They were all amazing and so many of them really seemed like they were having fun despite the hard work and long days.  I came away remembering more names than I ever have, Joanna, Maribel, Santan, Nelda, Oliver, James, Chris, Mervin, Eddie, to just name a few.   Note to T Byrd if you read this, Joanna was promoted to bartender and starts working in the Atrium Bar this week.

 

Anyway I guess that’s about it.  Disembarkation was easy and trouble free.  I wish other ports were this easy!   If you read this all the way through I hope I helped in some way.  Despite some reservations and wondering if we really should have booked this cruise, we loved it and booked a future cruise on the same ship.  If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I’ll try to answer them.

 

Happy Sailing everyone.    Dave

Thank you for a great review. Cruising on JOY in September, Canada/New England out of Quebec City. Just a quick question. What is the “Q” and what does FAS stand for?

 

[NewPennCruiser]

2 hours ago, onebzyldy said:

Thank you for a great review. Cruising on JOY in September, Canada/New England out of Quebec City. Just a quick question. What is the “Q” and what does FAS stand for?

 

FAS is short for the Free At Sea program they are promoting and Q is the Texas Smokehouse specialty dining room on the ship.  They serve various options of BBQ meats, etc. and have live music.  The food was ok but the desserts were killer.  If I went back I would probably go to just order dessert and listen to some music.

[Always Cruising]

Loved the music in the Q!  Just returned from Aug 6 Joy cruise, and wish I were still on the ship.  Did you have the couple from New Zealand and Australia doing American country at Q?  I thought they were great, and spoke with them a few times - very personable.  They got the  southern accent of the songs perfectly!

 

[NewPennCruiser]

6 hours ago, Always Cruising said:

Loved the music in the Q!  Just returned from Aug 6 Joy cruise, and wish I were still on the ship.  Did you have the couple from New Zealand and Australia doing American country at Q?  I thought they were great, and spoke with them a few times - very personable.  They got the  southern accent of the songs perfectly!

 

Yes, they were really good.  The night we had dinner in Q we listened to Julia Hatfield.  She was good too and often performed in the Observation Lounge.

[onebzyldy]

Question about room service. Is it available 24/7 and is there any fees? Cruising on JOY next month. 

[DCGuy64]

Just now, onebzyldy said:

Question about room service. Is it available 24/7 and is there any fees? Cruising on JOY next month. 

What type of cabin? I think NCL just changed it so that room service is $9.95 per order, 24/7 delivery and no limit to the amount of items in one order. I believe only Haven guests receive complimentary room service, everyone else must pay.

[onebzyldy]

Thank you! We’re in a balcony on deck 10. Category BB.