jleslie48

27 minutes ago, Two Wheels Only said:

 

Do you feel the same about the Spa (new) and VIBE (expanded)? People who pay extra get uncrowded space.

 

 

While sitting in the Haven lounge, you can only be seen by Haven guests.

1) no on the spa for two reasons: A) its pretty small,

B)the spa is a public space that is available to all.

2) The "seeing part" I was only on the breakaway once, I don't remember, but I remember constantly running into doors that needed a swipe to enter.  I found it very distasteful.  On the prima, it is right in your face.   Either way, having two classes on the same ship I find uncomfortable. 

31 minutes ago, Two Wheels Only said:

 

Even on Cunard, some staterooms are larger than others. People who pay more get more. The Haven might be a bit more blatant but "everybody is equal" doesn't really exist on any line.

Of course, that is your personal space.  Everything I complained about was about public space.  Please review.

I would be embarrassed sitting in a haven lounge with hoards of people walking by in a crowd looking in.    

20 minutes ago, Sthrngary said:

@jleslie48   It is 200, not 400 Haven Guests. 

 

 

that is even more disgusting. I'm so glad that I stick to ships where everybody is equal.   

1 hour ago, erisajd said:

What is your problem with the Haven?  You're not in it?  I mean, did you fly coach to the port and then complain about the people sitting in first class?  You pay the money you get the service - its like that in every category of life.  

 

The rest of your complaint I 100% agree with - going everywhere with 4000 of your closest friends - which is EXACTLY why we paid for the Haven this cruise . . . . 

complaint about the haven?  the ship is too crowded to begin and the haven blocks of 20-30% of the public space for 400 passengers while 3600 are in a cattle car.  so as a haven guest you have now stay in 20-30% of a ship.  For that price I'll take the Cunard and have a whole ship of luxury instead of a fishbowl to vacation in.

Just now, jleslie48 said:

I cruise consultant recommended the joy to me for a cruise, I searched the internet with the question "how crowded is the Norwegian Joy"  and it took me here.   That simple.   

The haven is a very easy decision for me.   I only have so many $$$ for cruising.  I'd rather take an obstructed view cabin 3x a year than 1x a year in a haven cabin.   

13 minutes ago, Russiamomm said:

I do have to ask why we’re resurrecting a thread that has been dead for two years.

 

But, regardless, personally I love the Joy Haven.  Been in it twice and will be again in just over three weeks.  I’ve also been in the Haven on the Breakaway and the Epic.  The Joy is by far my favorite.  In my two previous trios on her, I never had an issue finding an empty cabana, much less a lounger.  And the ship was full on both sailings.  I love the fact that there are two hot tubs on the sun deck.  They don’t exist  on the BA or the Epic.  Also like the interior elevator that brings you to the sun deck.  That doesn’t exist on the BA.  And love the Horizon Lounge on the Joy.

 

To each their own, but I love the Joy and its sun deck.  I plan to spend lots of time up there in two and a half weeks.😃

I cruise consultant recommended the joy to me for a cruise, I searched the internet with the question "how crowded is the Norwegian Joy"  and it took me here.   That simple.   

13 minutes ago, cruiseny4life said:

And you also have to eat in specialty restaurants or the main dining room or the buffet every evening on Jewel class ships. No, thank you! I'll take my Breakaway/Breakaway Plus/Pr1ma class ships over those small abominations any day (being a bit dramatic to...well prove a point which I assume @jleslie48 is doing too). 

I've never eaten at the buffet. 12 times on the Jewel class ships, the specialty restaurants, the main dining room and O'sheehan's bar.  The Main Dining room is spectacular. Both of them.  I've never eaten at complimentary Asian Restaurant either. 

The entire breakaway class is an abomination.   The interior areas block off views of the ocean, the open air areas are entirely too small for the number of passengers, and quite frankly the Haven is an insult to anyone not in it and leaves me with a bad vibe all around. Never again. 

Try a jewel class cruise with Norwegian you'll notice the difference immedately: You never have to get a reservation for anything. Walk into the theater 2 minutes before the show, you'll get a good seat.  Have dinner in any restaurant no wait.  I was just on the Gem in 2024 and it was at ful capacity.  Never an issue getting a lounge chair.   

edit: I forgot to mention the atrocity that is the elevator situation on the breakaway class.  I've seen subway stations less crowded than the wait (up to 4 groups,) ahead of you to take an elevator.   How in god's name did they make these ships with 20 decks and only 2 banks of elevators.  

among other reasons, I won't go on the breakaway class ships and the first thing I was annoyed with the one and only time I was on one was the lack of the spinnaker lounge

I haven't made myself clear.  I have no issue with the suites, butler, and those amenities nor do I have any problem with the guests. I get you want/get a better room.   My issue is with the amount of public space given to YC on MSC.  The YC pool restaurant and buffet take up 30% of the public areas for 10% of the guests.  I wouldn't even mind this if the remaining 70% of the public areas were not overflowing with people.  Put simply: the ship is too crowded for the amount of square footage attributed to the number of guests.  When I am wall-to-wall with people on a sun bathing deck and I can see an empty sun bathing deck and I'm not allowed to use it, that is just adding insult to injury.  

My favorite ship is the Norwegian Gem, a jewel class.  It does have a "haven" which is identical to the YC.  I couldn't care less about it because: 1) its not in my face, and most importantly: 2) the rest of the ship easily accommodates us other passengers.   I've never had to wait for dinner, wait for lounge chair, been shut out of a show, couldn't get a drink, ... on the NG.  On the bigger ships that is not true. 

The worst was the Norwegian breakaway.  I measured the actual square footage of the public area.  The ship has 40% more public area than the Norwegian Gem, but 70% more people.  That's already too crowded.  What made it unacceptable was that 20% of that public area was for 1st class and I was denied access.   Basically I was on the same ship at the Gem but with twice the number of people. You had to literally wait for groups ahead of you for elevators.   It felt like a subway.   MSC was the same thing: 33% of the elevators are for 10% of the passengers, while the other 66% is stuck waiting on elevators while 1/3 of the elevators are sitting idle.  

If I want a luxury cruise I would pay for one.  If I'm on a more tight budget, being on a ship that has a "first class" section and puts me in a lower class is insulting and I won't go... at least a second time.   This idea is a lose lose scenario.  It only appeals to people who want to show off and put other folks down.  

The problem is the 1972 regular cabins, not the Haven.

 

We only sail either Haven on the megas or on DCL in a regular (family) balcony. The big DCL ships (Fantasy and Dream) are literally almost the same exact size as the NCL megas, but only have 1250 cabins. They both have a maximum passenger qty of around 4000. The big difference is the smaller jam packed cabins filled with all those adults on NCL. On DCL, the actual sailing number of passengers rarely gets close to the full 4000 because they don’t usually hit the average 3.2 number of passengers required per cabin. (Yes, lots of families for Disney, but we travel as just two adults for example). Because of this, (and because the kids always pack into the kids clubs), the public areas of DCL always feel less crowded. So we don’t do Conceirge in DCL.

 

 

On NCL, we loved the aft penthouses on the Jewel class. No Haven access, just the bigger room and the perks, and that was perfect. On our one trip on the Breakaway, we only liked it because of the escape of the Haven. WAAAAY too many people and way too overcrowded in the public areas. The extra 750 NCL cabins over DCL leads to ~1500 more adults, and that just packs EVERYTHING. If you want to also factor in the lost room from the Haven areas, you can. But I think the extra people are the bigger difference.

 

Of course DCL charges close to Haven prices at times, but that’s a separate issue...

No doubt about it. its all about the number of people. I only mention the haven as an issue because sectioning off 1/3 of the ship for some 200 passengers only makes the situation for the other 4000 people that much worse, but you are correct, even with the additional 30% of space that the haven uses, you still would be well beyond the point of comfort in the Breakaway.

So the Haven takes up 30% of the space, but all 4000 passengers are outside of it???

 

 

They don't make their money on the 'steerage' (as you called them) passengers. Maybe they recoup costs, but it's the $10,000 / week rooms where the profit lies.

 

 

There's a NEED for a 2-class ship, as evidenced by the Haven sailing full most of the time. If they didn't have the Haven, I'd be looking for a different line. (Not including my test of MSC later this year - I'm just curious about it).

 

 

 

Stephen

 

.

the profit comes from the casino/gambling, and the folks that pay for their drinks.

"On Norwegian Breakaway, there are 2,014 cabins in 11 main categories, including 42 cabins in The Haven," Those 80 something passenger in the haven are not making them big bucks (run the numbers, 42*10000=0.4 Million, 2014*3000=6.0 Million,) but yes, 4000 people people are in 2/3rds of the ship and the the 42 cabins for the haven guests get the whole ship including the 30% extra. That is exactly why I won't go on a 4000+ ship again. Even in the Haven, you are trapped on an overcrowded ship (but at least you can hide in haven only areas.)

Sorry, If I had 10k for a weeks vacation, I'd be on the Queen Mary or a super luxury ship, with my tuxedo.

With the brochure rate for the Haven right now we are out but if they decide to stop the bidding system they have now we are hopefully back and book their Haven again. We will then cruise on one of their newer ships with a big Haven.

My last cruise was porthole obstructed view, including alcohol, specialty restaurants, taxes, mandara spa (for 1) all gratuities (alcohol, restaurants and room) for two: 10 days- $2750. I'll take that 3-5x a year over 1x a year for the haven in a cold second.

Suite people have a Concierge to help with booking tables and a reserved area in the theatre.

 

My conclusion is that some people are just not megaship people - I am one of them.

 

I much prefer the Jewel class to the Breakaway class.

 

To me, the Haven is not the problem with wasted space - it’s the rock wall and the water slides and the go kart tracks and all the fun stuff the kids want. I’m not a kid anymore. I’m not going to use any of that stuff, but if you left it out and put in another bar, I might spend some time there.

 

My wife loves the Epic (she’s in the minority, I think.) I enjoy the Epic because I know where everything is - we’ve done four Transatlantics on her.

 

We’ve sailed the Breakaway (Haven) and the Getaway (twice) and I’m always left just a bit underwhelmed. I can’t explain why, it’s just what happens. I prefer the openness of 6-7-8 Ocean Place to the sealed environment of the Epic, but they’re not ships, they’re floating resorts. I prefer ships.

 

If I could only sail one Norwegian ship, I would choose the Jade. I love the layout. Ironically, we had a Haven suite on the Jade at Christmas, and never went to the actual Haven. We had the Owners Suite, which has a forward balcony, so we spent most of our spare time there.

 

 

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Thanks for the great analysis. Everyone tells me the Jade is identical to the Gem. I do agree with you with the kid-themed amusement park rides. I'd much prefer more sunning areas to these one-and-done thrill rides as an adult. Even the minature golf is one and done. I can do that at home anytime I want.

I agree with you that it was bad that they removed the Spinnaker lounge from the forward part of the Dawn, we really loved that on our Dawncruise, but I can't see what that has to do with the Haven on the never ships.

I was comparing the Gem with a spinnaker to the Breakaway: a never ship as you call it. I sorely missed the spinnaker that was on the Gem and not on the Breakaway, more to the point, I missed not having a view forward in the Breakaway. For that matter, I distinctly remember being very aware that on the Breakaway there was very little window space to view the ocean at all in the common areas below deck.

Your concierge can work wonders for you. Getting into a restaurant or show is much easier when in a suite.

Ahh that does make sense. However by the time I'm comfortable enough to pay for a suite, I'm not gonna be on a ship where it is necessary to have wonders worked. its gonna be SOP.

So, are you saying that the Encore at 4,200 and coming out in 2019 will be the last of their mega ships?

 

NCL doesn't have anything that I can find planned for 2020, but the other major lines do and out of 8 ships planned, five are between 4,100 to 5,200 passengers.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2017/02/16/norwegian-cruise-line-ship-order/97985188/

Encore was also scaled back to 4000 from 4200 by freeing up deck 15 as I showed in the before and after pics.

From personal experience, I would never cruise a NCL Mega ship without being in the Haven!

 

 

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I would probably agree with that. However once I get to the price level of the Haven, there is no way I'd be on ship that is modeled after a shopping mall. At that price, I'm on the Queen Mary, barefoot cruise, or some luxury line, not NCL/RCCL/... other mass produced cruise lines. At that price I doubt I'd be even on a 2000 passenger ship.

I agree with some of the things you wrote but this is incorrect. There are no Haven suites on the Dawn because the Dawn has no Haven!

 

The Haven is defenitely not a fiasco. Maybe the areas outside the Haven are too small on some ships but thay doesn't mean the the Haven is a fiasco. The Haven is great, especially on the biggest ships.

A financial fiaso as in the steerage passengers (aka non-haven) with experience won't go back on the ship. I can sail on the Breakaway from NY, or for that matter any of the mega-ships for 30% less than I can the Gem but I won't, and judging by the last minute deals, the Gem is always sold out while the Breakaway has empty rooms.

You are correct the dawn doesn't have a haven but the did remove its spinnaker lounge to make way for ultra-suites. This was the pre-cursor to the Haven concept: Making a 2-class ship.

The first deck 15 picture is Escape, not Encore/Bliss.

 

Since BA Plus 2, 3, and 4 are different from 1 (Escape) and all 4 are different from BA/GA, it is difficult to directly compare/contrast.

 

 

 

 

Simple solution.....book a suite.

well I got that deck 15 picture from a website for the encore, could be wrong, but it really makes no difference, the point still stands they are removing rooms and adding another huge public area.

Booking a suite does nothing for making the common areas less crowded, or keep me from being shut out of restaurants and shows.

@BNBR: I had a similar discussion about WDW about this. They were complaining about the crowds and the price (which of course makes no sense you can't lower the price AND make it less crowded, but anyways,) The conversation went on about how you could use FASTPASS to avoid the lines, and my argument was It's not so much the lines that I find so disapointing, its just the size of the crowd makes it bad. Forget discount days, I'd prefer double price days with no absolutely no perks. I simply want the park to be less crowded.

In the case of the Haven, It doesn't really thrill me that my (1/3rd) section of the ship is not crowded, I still want to play on the whole ship, and having it a mass of people is problematic. If I was going to pay those prices, I'd go on the Queen Mary or the real luxury ships where the entire ship is luxury.

@dexdd: the 1/3 figure is the topside area, its based on the footprint of the topdeck, vs the footprint of the "haven only" area. the 1/3 on the inside areas of the main entrance, and shops, for the internal areas, it does look like they doubled the "common area" but that was done mostly by tripling the size of the casino. Not anything I consider useful, but as you say, they didn't short change anyone with that. Except of course, all the venues on decks 6,7,8 were always packed and many of them you were turned away as a result of the crowds. For some reason, on the Gem, You never got turned away from any venue. there is always a seat available.

This is of course an editorial/ opinion, but I'm looking for a discussion on the matter. I've only sailed NCL, and at that only 2 ships, the Gem, a 2000 passenger ship, and the Breakaway, a 4000 passenger ship. My first cruise was on the Gem and we loved it. We followed it up with a cruise on the Breakaway, and were very disappointed. Our question to ourselves was: was the Gem really superior, or was it just that it was our first cruise and the novelty of it was all that it was to make us think the Gem was superior? So we went back on the Gem, and as it would be, have been on it 6 times since. The Gem is/was everything we were enamored with the first time. We are quite sure of it.

So that brought me to trying to figure out why, what should of been basically the same experience, was so drastically different. Why was the Breakaway such a disappointment? In a nutshell, the ship is nowhere big enough to accommodate 4000 guests in terms of common space and secondly, with almost 1/3 of the common space shut off from non-haven passengers or used up by a larger casino, The Breakaway's usable space was actually smaller than the Gem

Where the Breakaway absolutely needed to be bigger but was actually smaller:

1) sunning areas: while the deck area is 30% bigger on the Breakaway, with DOUBLE the number of people you can't get away with 30% increase. In actuality, the haven had private sun decks taking up almost 30% of the sunning area so in fact, the Breakaway basically does nothing other than double the number of people trying to share an already crowded area. Now we are not casino people, and quite frankly with the smoking allowed in the casino, we actively avoid it. On the Gem, not an issue the casino was on a lower deck out of the way. The Breakaway puts the Casino in the middle of everything, very difficult to circumnavigate, and worst of all, the smoke permeates a good deal of the common areas outside of the casino. Us like others, where now crammed in areas to avoid the cigarette smoke, the grand 3 story staircase? didn't want to go near it for all the cigarette smoke.

2) elevators: with double the number of people, you would need double the number of elevators right? actually you need even more than that. The Gem has 3 less floors of stairs to walk to get from the top to the bottom. on floor 8 where we stay, its 1 floor down to the main entertainment deck/dining, or 4 up to the sunning areas. We never took an elevator down from our room we just walked. this was not the case in the Breakaway where it was 4 up and 4 down, so we increased the demand of elevator use. Now you have double the number of people, and increased their dependency on elevators, how do you reduce the number of elevator banks from 3 to 2??? You do it by making people queue at the elevators.

3) the main theater for shows: Gem, theater has 1000 seats for 2000 passengers. Breakaway: theater has 800 seats for 4000 passengers. This one is the most obvious.

What really spurred on this post/rant is I saw today the announcement for the newest and last of the NCL's 4000 passenger ships, the Encore and noticed something very interesting. It was very telling, Remember my big complaint about common space not being enough on the 4000 passenger ship? Well I couldn't help notice that the plans for Encore have changed: Here is the original plan for the 15th floor of the Encore:

and the new one just released by NCL:

They clearly recognized the problem with the shortage of common space on the mega-ships. This also fits into my other big complaint about the Breakaway as there was no Spinnaker lounge on the ship. This change is in the 15th floor reverses that problem as well adding a 180 degree view forward lounge, my favorite on the Gem, missing on the Breakaway, and in further irony, was the removed from the Dawn to put in haven suites on the Dawn back when NCL came up with this ship within a ship fiasco.

I've also talked with the planners of NCL. After this mega-ship, the new ones are being scaled back to 3000 passenger ships if you look at what the 2020 and on ships that are being planned are.

A follow up on this question. I see that my cruise on the GEM in March 2018 is now scheduled to leave around 6:00pm and not the usual 4:00pm. Does anybody know if we can still check in at 11:30am? More to the point, are they still serving lunch if you get there at noon?

DSC: Daily Service Charges

 

 

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Ah yes. thank you . the DSC is absolutely the best deal of bunch for starters, the question is the drink package vs the meal. I would definitely pay for the soft drink package, and that would work out to $180, the Unlimited beverage would be $284, so $104 in drinks is probably break even. The dining is worth $160 so the question is will I go over the $160 in liquor drinks. its about break even for me. The problem with figuring it out is what would I actually drink if cost was not an issue and only my enjoyment. Am I drinking because I paid for it and in my mind I "have to get my money's worth" or is it something I'm glad to have access to and not have to worry. Not an easy question to answer.