rbxlady

Thank you @Seas2mountains! I hadn't seen any pics of the new pool yet so appreciate those. Also, my memory failed me, and I thought the bathroom had a shower/tub combo. My mistake!

Nope, no bedroom. It's the same lagoon villa I booked last time. (Well, maybe not the exact villa, but the same level, so to speak.) There was a discussion a little while back on this, and someone said theirs was only so much a few weeks either before or after our cruise. I think the pricing depends on the timing. The first time we went was not during a school break, so things were relatively quiet.

Thank you! I appreciate the up-to-the-minute confirmation!

Wow, this is a (relative) steal! I paid $899 after the shorex credit for our visit to GSC coming up in a few weeks. When we went in late 2022, we paid $749 after the shorex credit. I think the price changes based upon the season, and unfortunately we are going during a high season this time. It was a splurge for us then and is now, but we are introverts and don't like the crowded, party atmosphere that often exists elsewhere. The villa is clean and modern. There are chips and salsa waiting for you, there's the Moet champagne bar included with your drink package (I believe, we had FAS+ so had the upgraded drink package), and getting bar service was a nice little perk. I'm not too big on the beach anymore (I'll still wade), but the water is nearly still and shallow, and the kids could have fun swimming without my having to worry too much about them. We could easily keep an eye on them from our reserved beach chairs under an umbrella. There are also loungers on the lanai of the villa, or you can sit inside in the AC. Having a villa to put stuff, as well as a closet with a safe, is nice, and one of the best perks is having your own bathroom with a shower/tub combo (with toiletries) if you want to clean up and/or get dressed before returning to the ship. The Silver Cove buffet was also delicious, and a lot of the staff working there were Haven staff from the ship. Getting shuttled around on an extended golf cart-type vehicle was fun. Last time we were there, only two other villas were booked, and we were grouped together, three villas in a row. I wish they had spread us out, but I'm guessing they were filling them in order as people booked, and we were in the middle. However, the other two groups were quiet and non-disruptive, and our kids played with the kids from the next villa over. I highly recommend it, and it was one of the first things I booked after booking the cruise, even though the price stung a bit.

Thankfully we all have iPhones. At worst, if NCL closed whatever loophole that allows that, or if something got messed up, I don't mind having to pay $20 to get them both set up for the week.

No worries! It's easy to forget details sometimes. We're only human 🙂

Oh, I just read this more carefully. That makes sense. If I need to buy them access to the app, then I'll just create accounts for them and make sure I put the login info in a safe place so we can access it for later. Thank you!

Thank goodness! If iMessaging doesn't work for whatever reason, I don't mind spending $20 for our kids to have access to the NCL app for the week, especially if it gives them the daily rundown. I wasn't up for spending $140 for the week, though, especially when our cruise is slightly more port-intensive than our last one, just for access to the app.

Y'all are so knowledgeable, I appreciate it! We are all iPhone users, so we would be iMessaging. I had heard about a loophole but didn't know if it was "closed". Thanks!

Related question: my kids won't have an internet package but will want to use the NCL app on their phones. Is it fair to assume they will need their own logins, or should I just log them into the apps as me? They're not quite old enough to have NCL accounts but old enough not to mess around with things they shouldn't. I just want to be able to message them, really, without paying for wifi for them. Thanks!

We are booked in the Haven on the Epic with an embarkation day of 3/31, and I found my pre-cruise concierge e-mail in my cruise folder, dated 1/17. However, I had reached out to pre-cruise concierge earlier that day with a question and apologized if it was early to be asking, as I'd not yet received my Haven "welcome letter". So to be fair, they might have sent me a generic one because I reached out first. For our last cruise in the Haven (on the Getaway), our embarkation date was 10/22, and I got the exact same e-mail on 10/7. However, we didn't book the Haven until August (we had been booked in Club Balcony since March but decided to upgrade ourselves). I did not get any other pre-cruise concierge e-mails except to acknowledge/confirm my requests. Is this the e-mail you're looking for? It's the one I got on 1/17. I noticed it mentions booking dining 130 days out, so it would be silly to send it out later than that, but regardless, it has the e-mail address you need at the bottom. Edited to add that our luggage tags arrived yesterday, which was 34 days out. You probably should bet getting yours soon if you haven't already, in case you need to inquire about that.

Clicked for the dog pic, stayed for the Haven pics, was not disappointed!

I'll be on what I think is the last cruise on the Epic before your TA cruise (we disembark on 4/7), and I've never been on the Epic before, but from what I have learned on this forum, it's one of the best, if not the best, Haven in the NCL fleet. I've been in the Haven on the Getaway, and the restaurant was great, so great that we rarely ate elsewhere. When we did, we regretted it, with the exception of O'Sheehan's because we were in the mood for bar food, and it hit the spot.

I aspire to cruise in that 3-bedroom DOS at some point!

I'd love to be able to go to Bermuda without having to go up to Baltimore or NYC. We live in Charleston and have Carnival here (but not for much longer), which is the one line we refuse to cruise, so we won't cruise out of JAX for that same reason. If the itinerary and price are right, I would be happy to cut my trip to a port down by a couple of hours and cruise NCL out of JAX.

Wow, that's wild, and not in a good way. I figured a level 3 would likely not change anything, but I figured I'd ask more experienced cruisers. I admit that it's not my favorite port, so I wouldn't mind skipping it or going somewhere else. (My kids have never been there, so I would feel bad not getting off the ship, and they're not old enough to go out on their own. I'd rather let NCL be the bad guy.)

I can definitely play the extrovert when I need to, but I get exhausted. When other people make it easy for me to be social, I end up feeling energized for a little while and realize that's what extroverts must feel like when they're around other people. Before we had kids, we cruised on RCCL so had fixed dinner times and shared a table with strangers. On our two weeklong cruises, we had such a great time with our table mates and looked forward to having dinner every night. It was so unlike us, but point being that we introverts appreciate extroverts who appreciate our need to recharge but still continue to make us feel like we're part of the group!

Mods, please note that my question is about NCL specifically, not the port/country. The state department posted level 3 travel advisory for Jamaica yesterday (https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/jamaica-travel-advisory.html). We are slated to go to Ocho Rios in April on the Epic. The Jamaica CC forum doesn't say anything about it, though I did see a post about a level 3 advisory from last May, so I don't know if travel advisories for Jamaica are common. I'm not sure what's changed between then and now, and I know things can change between now and when we are scheduled to be there, so NCL can definitely call an audible. All that to say that I am curious if anyone knows at what level NCL decides not to visit a certain port. Also, if we were to skip Ocho Rios, is there a viable replacement? Our itinerary is Port Canaveral-->Great Stirrup Cay-->Ocho Rios-->Grand Cayman-->Cozumel-->Port Canaveral. Thank you!

You'll be on the Epic before we will (we're on the 3/31 sailing in the Haven), but y'all are the kind of people I like to see. My husband and I are introverts to the point where we could be happy going the whole cruise without talking to anyone but each other and our kids, but when there are extroverts around who are happy, inclusive, and otherwise not obnoxious we end up enjoying ourselves around them. We feel like we're part of the cool kids 🙂

We are 74 days out from a 2BR on the Epic, and these pictures got me pumped! Our kids are champing at the bit, too.

Wow, I must've totally missed this one. Do you know where this was on the forum? I'd be interested to read it. That's pretty crappy on their part.

On our last cruise, I had upgraded to FAS+ and paid for all our excursions ahead of time, so the thermal spa was the only thing we didn't buy ahead of time. Reason being, we had $400 in OBC so definitely made sense to wait, especially since it was a slow time of year. I looked at our final invoice again, and we spent money in stores and in the arcade because we had our kids with us. I bought a pair of $30 sunglasses because mine lost a screw, and no one had a kit, and otherwise we made some other random purchases, like I bought a wallet and a couple of scarves, maybe $50. Otherwise, we bought CruiseNext certificates, but I'm pretty sure you can't use OBC for those.

If you look up "cruise power strip" on Amazon, you'll come up with a bunch of options. The Amazon store "Cruise On" has a bunch of options, plus cruise lanyards, luggage tag protectors, etc. I bought "TESSAN" plug adapters to change the European plugs to North American, and each one has multiple plugs plus additional USB-A plugs. We ended up not really needing so many, but better to have too many and not need them than the reverse.

My husband and I bought thermal spa passes our first day on board the Getaway in October of 2022, so it went on our bill, which our OBC offset as a whole. We are going to be on the Epic on March 31st (unfortunately, spring break is our only chance to cruise for the time being), and if I buy in, I am buying ahead of time because I expect it to sell out, plus I don't have that much in OBC this time around. (I also have to consider whether I want a pass if the thermal spa going to be relatively crowded.) All that to say that yes, you can buy on board if they're not sold out, and yes, your OBC can be applied to this purchase. As for onboard cost, I just looked at our invoice from October of 2022, and the cost was $299pp. IIRC, that was the same price as it would have been if we had purchased them ahead of time. As for taking the risk of missing out, you need to consider how much you want it and how unlikely you are to spend $100 on the ship otherwise. However, I could not say how likely or unlikely it is to sell out.

That makes a lot of sense. We'll keep an eye out for the solo entertainment and for anything Beatles-related going on in the Cavern Club. Thank you!