Sailing12Away

So slow to post photos on the ship wifi so I gave up last night. We made it to indulge around 8:30 and had no problem getting a table. Everything was amazing, our new favorite place.

He sends his regards, remembers your guys when I showed him the picture.

We're at the end of the hallway on 12. Closed out the Haven bar last night and will probably be there each night as well if you're a late owl.

We spoke to one of the staff who said they need to do maintenance on the whole system used by the private ones. He hinted they would all be down for about 5 weeks, so expect a letter soon.

Grabbed a quick few things from the buffet then went to indulge for the pineapple. I'm in heaven...

We have Rex too!

We're in an H4 room this trip. Going the weather stays warm and dry so we can use the enormous balcony with my family. Only complaint so far is there's too much closet space. Would rather they get rid of the second one in the hallway and make the living room bigger. They were able to give me a bottle of amaretto for the room even though it's not on the approved list. Stopped by cruise next desk to sign up for our wine tasting, behind the scenes tour, dinner with officers, etc. Guy at the desk was surprised that we're sapphire at our age, which I found amusing. Stopped quickly at indulge but they didn't open until 5:30. We definitely want to try everything there, saw a lot of our favorites so excited about that place. Also eyeing that old van winkle as a way to burn our OBC....

When we got to the port we made it through security and onto the ship in 5mins. Whisked straight up to the Haven area, with drink in hand in 2 mins. Chatted with the concierge about some things, still no resolution on the hot tub. Talked to our former butler from the Star who said all the private ones are down for maintenance for the next ~5 weeks. Yikes. Ship is gorgeous, room is big but slightly poorly designed with the closets.

Lot more photos of the gyser & waterfall on my real camera, these are all just from my phone. But the crater was really neat to see.

Golden circle tour, Gullfoss waterfall

Correction, the fermented shark was this tiny container with 6 small cubes of fish arse. Do not recommend at all. Especially do not recommend opening the container in your hotel room. *****.... The white stuff was just general fish jerky which he said was good, but avoid the fermented shark with a 10ft pole.

Yup, we're here in town too. See you on board!

Beer! Enjoying the night with the locals. Early morning pick up tomorrow at 9am for our golden circle tour.

So hubby is happy, he was able to try shark, puffin and whale. Have no idea in the photos below which is which, but he said they were all amazing and he happy to have crossed off his vacation wish list trying local food. Ice bar was neat, kids had a good time. About $90 for 4 drinks, small though so not many statues and such. But a fun experience for the kids to be able to say they were in an ice bar.

There's a food hall just down the street which has a variety of all sorts of food. Hubby wanted traditional Iceland food, so we placed a to go order for him from a local place while the rest of us ate there. Headed to the magic ice ice bar next.

Still no response yet from NCL on my counter offer. Was hoping to have this settled before getting on board tomorrow, but we shall see. Tour today was great, saw a few lighthouses, mud baths, geothermal pits, lakes, oceans, the infamous blue lagoon... For those interested in seeing it without the high price tag - it's free to walk around outside and to sit in the cafe with the views of the lagoon right out the window. Same tour guide is picking us up tomorrow at 9 for a modified golden circle tour and drop off at the port. Finally checked into the hotel and we're all crashing for a nap now before headed out to find food around 5ish when the restaurants open up. We booked Alda Hotel, Central location to the main streets in town. Rooms are nice and big, and it was one of the few hotels that could hold a family of 4 for my sister. Would have taken my niece in our room if we had to, but they had a large pull out sofa to fit them all.

Flight was ok, but they were stingy on the drinks. No snacks at all, not even pretzels unless you wanted to pay for it. Short 5 mins to get through customs. Found our guide quickly and had a nice tour of the southern peninsula. Stopped off now at the Blue lagoon for a snack and potty break, then headed to the hotel to nap next

From our front door to the gate of the plane in under 50mins. And that included a small snafu at check-in for Iceland air. They accidentally put both bags on one person and added a 3rd bag, so their system wanted us to pay for the extra bag. Took about 5 mins to resolve, then security was another 5-10 mins. TSA precheck FTW. Should be arriving by 9am local time. Entering vacation mode now that bags are off and we're playing the sit and wait game at the gate.

Thank you, wasn't aware. Since our flight isn't boarding until after 10pm we were going to eat dinner at home and bring some small stuff to snack on the plane anyway. For S&G I looked at the price for a 10 day spa pass. I think it was $350 + a mandatory 20% gratuity. Gratuity on what - allowing me to soak in a pool with you greeting me at the door? Thought about it, but we're not 'spa people' per se. Big difference between soaking in a private tub with just close friends/family than with random strangers. May consider just a single day pass for my sister and I if they'll let me buy both passes on my account. But the spa pass also doesn't help the kids traveling with us who are not old enough to go to the spa. So meh... No. Not sure why so many folks assume Haven includes so many extra things like the spa, top shelf liquor, etc. If you want to visit the spa, you need a separate spa pass. Rooms categorized as a "spa" room include access with the cost of the room. They're not free, you just prepay for your week long spa pass when you pay for your room essentially.

The first time we did it was on the Pearl. That was a charter cruise that was cancelled at the last minute, so NCL was trying to fill the ship. We put 4 people in there on a 5 day cruise for 8K total. We lived like kings and a queen. Second time was on the Star (no Haven at all, but they do have those 3BR villas). That was a last minute upgrade bid that got accepted the day we were flying to Barcelona. Couldn't find anyone to tag along as it was an international departure with practically no notice, so just the 2 of us in that big villa. Our final price on that was about $600/pp/day since there was only 2 of us. If we had more sharing with us, obviously it would have been an even better steal of a deal. Keep an eye on the Pearl specifically - it has a lot of charter trips, so odds of one opening up last minute are higher. And if you see it - book first and ask for permission later.

Our flights came from NCL as part of the B1G1 free promotion. $800 for both of us to go from JFK to Reykjavik, then coming home they're flying us from Gatwick back to JFK. My sister's family is coming from O'Hare, so they got 4 flights for the price of 3, same $800/pp charge for the 3 paid flights. Better than we were able to find on our own so we kept the NCL flights before final payment. In hindsight now that the kids are getting older (will be 13 in December), for the next family trip I need to remember to price out the difference between 4 in a shared family room vs 2 separate cabins. Had we booked them in 2 cabins it would have been B1G1 free for both kids on the flights, but you have the extra expense of a 2nd room - but you also now have 2 bathrooms for 4 people instead of just 1. Pros/cons to each, but I honestly didn't even think of it until it was too late to try and change things around. I'm used to just thinking/planning for hubby & I on our own. We're all checked in on Iceland Air for the flight there, was able to pay $90/pp extra for comfort plus and to move up to row 6. I'm short so the extra leg room isn't a big deal for me, but I'm wide so that extra inch for my butt does help even if it's just in my head that it's bigger. Priority boarding is always nice, I like to put my camera bag up in the overhead so I just have my backpack with me at my feet, so claiming that coveted space first is always nice. My sister & her family are leaving later this evening around 8pm, they're direct on Iceland Air also and getting in around 6:30am tomorrow. Our flight is much later (we're boarding at 10:30pm tonight) so we're not schedule to arrive until nearly 9am. There was an earlier flight for us and we were tempted to call Iceland Air to see if we could be moved onto that one instead so my sister isn't sitting and waiting for us for so long, but since they were booked through NCL it gets awkward and messy trying to do any changes so we didn't bother trying. When we land, we've got a private transfer scheduled to pick the 6 of us and do a short ~3hr tour of the southern peninsula area. It takes care of getting us all from the airport ultimately to the hotel, and squeezes in some sight seeing while we wait for the rooms to be ready anyway. Since it's a private tour for just us, if anyone is exhausted and needs a nap, they can sleep in the van while the rest of us go look at lava tubes, waterfalls, and geothermal spots. NCL was charging us $300 for transfers, and $600 for transfers for my sister. The company we went with for the Reykjavik tour is also picking us up the next day from the hotel for a second private tour. Day 1 will be a short ~3hrs around the South, and day 2 will be a modified Golden Circle tour for ~6hrs, with pickup from the hotel and drop off at the cruise port around 2pm. For those 2 private tours for 6 of us, it was ~$330/pp. Transfers from the airport to the hotel alone from what I was finding was roughly $100 for a taxi each way, so I'm fine with the cost knowing we've got a private tour in the mix as well. Coming home, again we booked a private transfer from Southampton to our London hotel for ~$450 total for the 6 of us. So again, NCL charging us $900 for "transfers" only vs what I found on my own - yeah, we're done with the NCL transfers. Our last trip to Panama was a bit of a disaster with the transfers, so that alone was the nail in the transfer coffin, and the prices they're charging on this trip secured the deal again. Still a fan of the B1G1 free flights when the price is right and flights are short (we'll discuss our flights home later in this journey.... not looking forward to those), but a friendly reminder for those of you new to the process - tell NCL to drop the transfers and just do it on your own. Time to put in a little work so I'm not wasting a PTO day today before our flights, then off to the airport for the adventure to begin!

Thanks for confirming the public hot tubs are working at least for now. We'll see how things go, I'm not going to let a hot tub ruin my vacation. Last weather check showed Iceland should be in the 50s with lots of rain, Norway a little warmer, and Bruges looking to be in the high 70s low 80s.... so my suitcase is busting with clothes for every possible situation. These oddball temperature different trips make it hard for me to use my smaller suitcase, so out comes Big Bertha just so I'm not trying to squish my rain coat into that last 3" of space in my normal medium sized check-in bag.

Ha! We already got the revised itinerary with Isafjordur removed a few weeks back. I'm fine with that change, we now get an overnight in Akureyi. So most folks on our roll call scrambled to book a last minute Northern Lights hunt that first night (us included). Fingers crossed for clear skies and twirly green things in view. @CptBoatface - I know, it's stinky. Hopefully we'll have a few warm days/nights though so we can all hang around and enjoy the views still. Not sure what time you guys were planning on getting onboard, but maybe we should plan for a mini sail away from our room? I think we requested bottles of Jack, Amaretto, & vodka for the room and there should be a bottle of semi-decent bubbly.

Keep your eyes out for a lowball price on those 3br garden villas. They're the only thing which makes the Haven on those ship worth the price tag. We would always consider those ships, but my price point for what I'm willing to pay for them is much lower than on the "full" Haven ships. Usually the price for a non-Haven suite is about half what they're charging for Haven, and that is more than enough for us. But those garden villas.... I've been spoiled. Was hoping the refurb on Joy was going to have something similar, but it looks like the 3BR they're putting in on there won't have anywhere close to the total sqft that the Jewel class 3BR have.

Here's some of the cheapest Haven rooms for 2024 & 2025, sorted by price/day. Again, lots of deals to be found, especially for those of you who like transatlantic trips. Too many sea days for my liking, but I am eyeing that New Orleans one on Breakaway. Never been on that ship yet, and we've been toying with a trip there for some good gumbo. Nicely priced Prima trip too for anyone that wanted to try her out.