Sailing12Away

The paperwork we had in our room indicated the process would be a full face to face inspection due to both the length of our trip, as well as some of the specific stops we made (most likely Columbia being the no no one they were concerned about). It's normally a fast process where your keycard is scanned to say you're off the ship and that's all. Canada we had to go to the MDR and show our passports, but that seemed fast to me. Customs wasn't really the issue on this trip, it was more the lack of buses to take folks where they paid to go once past customs.

It depends on what you use them for. If you pre-book all your reservations on your own, don't utilize any of the priority embarkations, disembarkations, or 'skip the line' features when returning to the ship at ports of call, don't use them to resolve any issues with your onboard account, or questions, or recommendations for things to see/do off ship, or anything related to excursions - then yes, you could either skip the tip to the concierge completely or just do $20-50 total for your trip. Folks get hung up on the titles I think. For the concierge - just think of them as guest services, shore excursions, and the theatre reservation box office all rolled into one. If you don't ever have a need to go to any of those desks during your trip, and you don't take advantage of the skip the line perks, then tip based on what you actually used them for. For the butler - again, 100% depends on what you ask of them. If you get several meals brought to your room to eat there during your trip - consider what each individual tip would have cost you for normal room service at a standard hotel. If your kids mention that they love rice krispies and they magically show up each morning for them to munch on without you even having to ask for them, to me that's a value add. If each day you get 2 pitchers of juice and snacks without having to muck through the buffet or stand in line at a bar for a quick bite or drink before your next meal, to me that's a value add. If everyone in the room enjoys the same things and they bring a single tray of sandwiches daily, vs everyone having different preferences or dietary restrictions - that's obviously 2 different levels of service. If all you need is a refilling bowl of M&Ms and nothing else, that's different from special requests or asking for things 'off menu' that are harder to obtain. The whole point is that the butler and concierge are NOT included in the daily service charge because each of us utilize those services differently, or not at all. So you tip based on your own personal use and experience.

Menu from the Joy as of 2 weeks ago when I got on board. Looks like I didn't snag a photo of the free bottle that was in the room. We always mix it with juice anyway so don't pay attention to what it is.

If you're sailing on the 9/7/23 sailing, we'll be with you. When you first get on board, in your room there will be a letter listing the hours of the Haven restaurant for each port day, and each sea day. It will be similar to this one that we had just 15 days ago when our trip started. When we get on board, we ask the butler for a copy of the Haven restaurant menus to be in our room. That way we can order from those menus without having to remember what they offer. If you put the breakfast card out the night before, just write in whatever you want - don't go by what is printed on the card, you can write in anything you want and order the Haven specials if you want them. As soon as the ship is cleared, you can disembark with the Haven concierge. At special ports of calls (tender stops) there will be a separate letter in your cabin the night before explaining the process, where to go, and what time to be there if you want to be one of the first off. With regards to snacks and drinks in the room - unless you're in an owner's suite, I wouldn't bother telling the shoreside folks what you want. The success rate is less than 50%. Better off to just have a short note drafted for your butler that you can give them the first day with your preferences listed out. I had asked ahead for a memory foam pillow - didn't get it until the 2nd night of the cruise. As for what types of food/drinks you can request - it's almost limitless. We just got off a 15 day trip and to be honest the snacks got quite repetitive because we had listed some specific things that we enjoyed. They started showing up every single day for the past 2 weeks. So as much as I enjoy a BLT with potato chips, I don't want it 15 days in a row....We've found you're better off saying general preferences: savory snacks over sweet snacks, salty/crunchy snacks over chewy/chocolately ones.... or whatever your enjoy. Each time we've sailed in the Haven we've had to fine tune/tweek our butler letter as there's always something lost in translation, but we're getting closer to that perfect experience. If you want examples of the excessive trays of food we had over these past 15 days, just ask or peek through the thread I started at the beginning of our trip on the Joy. Lots of photos in there.

Just got off the Joy today. Friends of ours had the unlimited internet package, we didn't. They were able to send us texts through FB Messenger app, which showed up on my phone even though I was in airplane mode with internet turned off. I would have to log in to reply to them, but at least I could see the messages free of charge and only log in and use my free minutes if the message warranted a response. We both had Android phones and FB messenger worked fine with the free internet for me. I was posting somewhat regularly during our trip here on CC and on FB, and used the last of my free 300 minutes on the last day of our cruise. Dipped into hubby's 300 free minutes that last day to check in for our flights home, but the free internet was plenty for us.

It 100% depends on where you are leaving from. When we left from Seattle, we were not permitted to enter the terminal until our listed check-in time. We literally sat there on a park bench watching the security guard and our watch until 15 mins of our listed time. This most recent trip out of LA was a disaster and there was no checking of times, but no prioritization for Haven at all until you got into the terminal (after folks had already been waiting outside in the rain over an hour - no skipping the line until you made it inside). Check-in time is different from boarding time. Check-in is what you pick at 21 days pre-cruise, and the time they expect you to arrive at the terminal. Boarding time is when you physically get onto the ship. If you are Haven, you board the ship whenever you want after you get through check-in once the ship is cleared. But just because you're Haven doesn't mean you can show up and check-in whenever you want. You can't get onto the ship until all the previous passengers have gotten off and the ship is 'cleared'. Once cleared the Haven guests get priority and go onto the ship first. But even if you're not in that first group, as soon as you get past check-in, if the ship is cleared you can enter it at any time you are ready with an escort from the concierge. As far as showing up earlier than your listed check-in time - it's a personal pet peeve of mine when folks do that. Simply based on the fact that if there are 500 slots for the 9am time, and they get 2,000 people showing up at 9am - it creates the fiasco that I just went through in LA where there was way too many people and not enough space to hold them all. When folks with a 12 noon check-in show up at 10am, it messes everyone else up if the workflow gets behind. I get the selfishness of why people do it, but having just experienced a 5 hr long embarkation process because of people showing up whenever they wanted - yeah.... those are the first people I'm tossing overboard if I get the chance.

The benefit of the NCL transfers is pure convenience. There will be agents clearly identified at baggage claim with a clipboard and expecting you. Easy to find, and they'll help you. But... you will have to wait, and wait, and wait. For folks that don't have the street savvy to do it on their own, or just want the convenience, it's 'worth it'. But more times than not we've had to wait over an hour to leave the airport as we had to wait for other flights to arrive and join us. We just got off the Joy today and had airport transfers to Miami. We were in line for over an hour and finally walked off and got our own Lyft to the airport. If we continued to wait for the NCL bus we would have missed our flights. So now I have to fight with NCL to get a refund on our transfers and Lyft cost. If you're just going to a hotel or have no rush to catch a flight - they're ok. But going forward I will never use their transfers again.

I just got off the Joy today after 15 days through the Panama Canal. If you haven't already peeked at it, there's an entire trip report thread on that trip with a bunch of photos. I can assure you, the bar is open plenty late as we closed it down I think 14/15 nights. It 'officially' closes at 11pm, but so long as you're not being loud and rowdy you can get 2 drinks each at last call and still get water/soda after that and sit and chat with fellow guests. We ended up with a group of ~6 of us that would stay there and chat until nearly 1am each night. It's easier than you would think to do 😉 Lots of new friends to be made that way... Friend of mine was just in this room on our 15 day Panama Canal trip. He had 2 loungers out there on the balcony. Having sailed in the HH cabin twice in the past 6 months, I would stick with the HH depending on how many people you have in your cabin. The only benefit the 2br provides is a second bathroom, and steps from the Haven areas. When on vacation, we're lazy, and the flights of stairs/elevator ride up to that Haven area was no struggle at all. Our room was much bigger than the courtyard rooms, and we saved at least 2-4K (depending on who you talked to) which covered our excursion costs and other incidentals. Those HH, HI, HJ rooms on the Joy are the best ones they have IMO.

For folks in Haven you get a bigger reusable nylon bag. It always came back in <24 hrs, we did it twice on this recent 15 day Panama Canal journey. Even if you're doing the $29 special - you need to itemize the stuff you put in there. Just write "lattitudes rewards" on the paper slip and they'll either discount the bag or you get it for free based on your status level.

Ok, so NCL really sh:t the bed this trip for embarkation/debarkation. Not going to relive the fiasco of embarkation in LA, but what the hell happened today in Miami? We had NCL booked flights with NCL transfers. Our flight was scheduled to leave Miami at 11:34, so earlier than I was expecting but figured it should be ok as the airport isn't far away and we had TSA pre check. Well.... A few nights before disembarking we were given orange bag tags since we had an airport transfer. Paperwork said our group would disembark approximately at 9am. Despite the early lifeboat drills and starboard side of the ship being off limits to folks as they did other safety drills, groups seemed to be getting called fairly quickly. So our orange group was called around 8:30. We headed up to the Haven lounge to get them to at least jump us to the front of the line, and we were brought to the part where "gen pop" was waiting to get off. Maybe about a dozen people in front of us, and we all stood there for easily 15-20 mins. There was a backup at immigration/customs, so they stopped everyone from getting off right when we got there. Finally got off the ship and to the luggage area around 9am, so I wasn't worried as we were still on schedule for our short trip to the airport and our 11am flight. Going through the customs area took about 30-40 mins, with hoards of people cutting the line by either using the porters to carry their 2 bags or by sneaking in with the handicap folks going through on the side. The agent we saw didn't even ask us any questions until his neighbor did and it was almost as though he forgot he was supposed to confirm we had nothing to declare and weren't bringing in anything illegal. Guess we just look the part of a normal low risk traveler, or since they did facial recognition stuff maybe we flagged as pre-screened global entry folks. Once outside with our bags the line for the airport transfer didn't look too bad - but it didn't move. At all. 20 mins later and we had made it to the end of the first turn, with another loop back towards the bus area to go before we could board. So now it's 10am, our boarding starts in 40 mins, and we're not even close to being on a bus. Hubby hopped out of line to find an NCL rep - none to be found. He eventually walks back with a guy who says 'oh, you're going to Miami? I thought FLL. Yeah.... you're not getting on a Miami bound bus for at least another 2-3 busses'. Then he just walks away from us. Walks. Away. As I'm trying to explain our flight, that they booked us on, is boarding in 40 mins and we still need to get to the airport, drop off our bags, get through their security, and get to the boarding area. So the angry NY'er comes out and every curse word in the book and a few new made up ones come flying out. Apologies to anyone who was in ear shot, but what the bloody hell was NCL thinking having folks on an 11am flight in the same color zone with folks that had flights through 2:30pm and not doing anything to help prioritize anyone when they saw they were falling behind and didn't have anywhere close to enough buses. Anyone who had a tour with airport transfer was prioritized and expedited. Those with just airport only had a single bus for Miami and a single bus for FLL. Got off the line, had to walk behind the buses with everyone yelling at us not to - only there was no other way to walk. The front of the buses was blocked with seas of people and luggage and we needed to get the hell out of there. Took 20 mins to walk out of bus area and get to the taxi/ride share zone and get our Lyft to pick us up. Apparently there was a green tag that we should have been given for early morning flights which would have gotten us through that mess at least 30 mins earlier. Still doesn't excuse the lack of buses for the seas of people that needed them. It's not like NCL didn't know exactly how many transfers they had sold, so I don't get it. Now it's 10:24 and we're in the Lyft on the way to Miami. Thankfully traffic gods were on our side as we got there pretty fast. But the line to drop off bags was long. I found an airport worker and said our flight was boarding in 10 mins and could they help us get to the front of the baggage drop line faster. He made an announcement for anyone on the 11:21 LGA flight and the 11:34 JFK flight (ours) and we got to at least expedite dropping our bags off. 10:54 and we were through security and at the boarding gate. Naturally, I was picked for a 'random' security check, so had to go through the body scanner thing. Then they didn't like my shoes and I had to take them off and send them through the regular scanner by itself. But we made it to the gate right as they were boarding the first class passengers (not us this trip). Stopped to catch our breath first, reorganize the passports and such, and then went on the plane with the comfort + folks. Sitting in our seats at 11:15. So there was no way possible we would have made the flight if we waited for the NCL transfer bus. Flight there was with AA, flight home was Delta. I get free checked bags on Delta so that helped, and I think it was about $50 to put us in exit row seats. Tons of leg room for hubby, but the seats were narrrrrrrow. No moveable armrests, so I'm thankful it was a short flight for my fat behind and wide hips. No tv in those seats either, but midway through the flight we found one between the seats that pulled up from the bottom. Only plus was a free beer and several bags of chips they freely gave to us. The row we were in had a small jump seat for the flight attendant on the aisle, so we had some good chats with her during take-off/landing. For our particular sailing there was a FB group as well, and folks in there said they had to wait in line for 3 hrs to get the transfer bus to the airport. So yeah.... I'll be writing a letter to NCL requesting a refund on our transfers as well as my cost for the Lyft at a minimum to compensate for having to do my own transportation in order to make my flight. The flights themselves were fine, and at a cost of $250 total I have nothing to complain about. But the transfers both in LA and at Miami were a disaster and not worth the hassle, headache, and anxiety at all. We've already dropped our included transfers for the upcoming Iceland trip (they wanted $600 for those!!), but going forward I will unfortunately not be able to stand behind or ever support the use of NCL transfers for the cruise. I'm sure if we had just sat there and missed our flight that would have been an entirely new headache and much higher costs than the $22 Lyft fare. Overall the trip was lovely, but when it starts and ends in disaster it definitely puts a bad taste in your mouth. We were finally home in NY around 3pm, and as we were leaving the house to run to UPS to pick up a package the dog sitter was actually walking down the street with our pooch. Pure luck, but it was good to get puppy kisses after having none for 2 weeks. We just chowed down on take out chinese, hubby is already passed out, and I'm about to go nap with the pooch on the couch. But yeah.... NCL dropped the ball on this transfer mess big time. Tons of photos and stuff to come as I scan in the dailies and transfer photos from my camera & phone that I haven't uploaded yet. But it's good to be back home.

7am is NOT the appropriate time for a life boat drill on disembarkation day.

Good morning from Miami. Celebrity was pulling away as we got in, and RCC is here with us now. Flight home today is at 11:30, so headed off the ship at 9 for our airport transfer.

I'll have to look at the photos again to refresh my memory. The one paired with the stout was a mole over plantains. There was a fish ceviche, pulled pork something.... I'll fill in the gaps when we're home in ~14 hrs 😞 Lots more photos and stories to share, but for now I'll just put up the officer list I remembered to capture while waiting to go into Q for dinner. Made a ton of new friends this trip, had a good time with old ones, and overall a great once in a lifetime bucket list vacation in the books. After getting back to reality time to start planning excursions for our upcoming Prima trip in September.

Snorkeling trip was great, hubby didn't get in the water though. He's blind without his glasses, we have prescription goggles for him but folks took all the seats on the lower deck so we were up a narrow ladder on the upper deck. Juggling carrying his fins (my fins, we brought the wrong ones from home - oops), wearing his goggles, having them fog up, and getting down the ladder just to get to the deck to get off was too much for him. If we were sitting on the list deck he would have tried but just too much to navigate. Will post the underwater pics & videos when I'm back home.

Late at night (1am) they power wash the deck above. If we're already asleep we never heard it, but when we were just stumbling into the room you did. Nothing obtrusive. Early in the morning around 6-7am folks start shuffling deck chairs. Again, not enough to bother us. The folks going to deck 15 observation lounge are bigger piggies than the buffet hounds. Can't tell you how many times they would come out of there with 3 players of snacks pulled high and race me to the elevator. But again, on the Joy these HH, HI, HJ rooms are by far our favorite and a great value.

Same. I've been sticking with a scoop of ice cream or splitting one thing with hubby then getting frozen cocktails as dessert. I've got some photos of the Holland ship that day, and Celebrity Apex just joined us here in Cayman. Those edge villas sure look nice....

Dinner on the previous sea day at the Haven restaurant, and more snacks in the room. You can see how repetitive they've gotten where they're just not even enjoyable any longer. We've tried to leave notes to say stop, but they keep coming. Just a waste of food at this point. The "specials" in the Haven restaurant are just a pick from the MDR offers of the night. I went with the kids menu for an app as the regular food there just doesn't appeal to me. We've been fine with the food in general, but I've heard others complaining about declining quality in general (no particular restaurant). Except apple pie - cannot find a decent apple pie anywhere on the ship. It's an odd gelatinous mush. The small pie at Cagney's was the best of the bunch, but bring the best of the worst isn't a real compliment.

Some views of the moon last night, dinner at ocean blue, and lunch off menu in the Haven restaurant yesterday. We've been skipping meals because there's just too much food. Between what is waiting for us in the room, meals on the ship, meals off the ship, cocktails.... I'll have to revise my Butler letter for next trip to specify 1 tray only per delivery. For us it's meant to be a snack, not meal #4, 5, 6...

Just made it to Grand Cayman, so tons of photos from the canal transit, Cartagena, and sea days to catch up on with posts. But for now, enjoy the gorgeous sunrise I caught while watching Carnival pull in near us. We've got a sunken ship snorkeling adventure booked for today. Not sure how some of you guys do B2B, but 15 days is loooooong.

Sitting on the balcony using my free TMobile WiFi this is my speed test results. For comparison, the other day using ship WiFi I had the second set of results (tonight is the results with Dallas as they server). I think I still have about 25 mins of free internet under my name and another 300 mins to tap into under hubby's name. So for us and having free WiFi at port with our cell phone carrier, the unlimited internet is not a value add. I think I've been checking in here a decent about of time considering I'm no travel blogger, and I still have plenty of time left. All depends on what you want to do and what is important to you. But the Internet is slow when you're in certain parts of the world. So just because it's free doesn't mean it's good.

Anywhere you find a bar or at the buffet or your room yahoo is perfectly fine. We've been filling our bottle from the bathroom tap and leaving it in the fridge overnight. There's a couple in the Haven that bring 2 large refillable bottles to the bar at night and they refill them with something for them free of charge.

You can get glass bottles of aqua pana (still) or pellegrino (sparkling) in addition to the large boxes of flow water. No limit, we have a few friends on this trip with PP who nab an extra bottle for us at the close of the night with no issue.

The paid tour includes a visit to the bridge and one other place that the free one skips. Make sure you have closed toe shoes.

Way too many drinks, trying to sober up before climbing in bed for my 5am alarm to see us under the bridge. This was not a well planned out evening. To quote UK Bob, I'm bollocks. We're even now at least...

Finally some lighter snacks in the room. I had a burger at the local, hubby had just a plate of French fries. Then lots of drinks (way too many, first time I've ever been drunk on a trip) up at the bar. Sitting on the balcony with fresh air in my PJs while hubby closes out the bar again. I had to tap out around 11pm when drinks were coming faster than I can put them down. They've changed our departure time 3x, so I think we'll pass under the bridge at 5am, first locks around 7am. Who the heck puts mayo on a burger? Had to eat mine without the bottom bun tonight as it was covered in gross goo.