old nutter

Been in a number of Haven suites on the Jade and 14012 is probably the best one. One of the reasons we have settled on that one is that it is on the starboard side so if you want to see something on that side it will be visible from your balcony if it happening on the port side, a quick trip up the stairs opposite the door and you have that huge sun deck above the 145xx suites where you have a port and stern view.

There are only four suites that can see right down to the side of the ship because there is a canopy under all of the other suites that cover the walkway on deck 13 that sticks out under them. Two of the four are two bed suites (14512 and 14012) and the other two don't have the extra bedroom (14014 and 14514)

The only marginall real downside we know of is that it is just possible for someone to look up at the big floor-to-ceiling window in the shower and the window over the bath tub. However, they would have to really stretch out over the balcony to see in and the windows are slightly tinted so you can't see in during daylight. Best counter to it is to drop the roller blinds if you are using either bath or shower and it is dark so the lights are on in the bath area.

Because the suite is at the opposite end of the Haven to the drinks and titbits on the counter you have to walk at least 60-80 feet each way to get to them - oh dear.

No doubt for us 14012 is the best suite in the Haven. In fact the only ones to even come remotely close, if you don't want to be in the Haven, are the aft ones but if you feel that the Haven is worth the extra cost, go for 14012 or 14014 if you don't want the extra bedroom.

All of the speculation about this series of events is just that - speculation. We know very little by way of proper facts. We should know a bit more about the latest problem if and when a report is published or NCL say something.

Saying anything about what was, wasn't or might have been done is worth very little. Just for example, we do not know what caused te captain to stop using the azipods. We do know that the weather was kind to them and that the ship appeared to be safe with thrusters available. We also know that it was far from dead-in-the-water with substantial reserve power available. We do not know if the shutdown was precautionary or because of total failure of some critical parts, be those mechanical or electrical.

It does look at present as though the repairs may well be fairly rapid. Perhaps that was due to being able to stop the azipods before anything broke completely and did not damage things by running them sub-optimally. We also do not know whether the captain could have used the azipods at all if it had become necessary because of bad weather coming in before getting back to dockside.

The top and bottom is that we have no idea whether this last incident was handled well or badly. We also cannot and perhaps should not second guess the actions of company, captain or authorities on the basis of what we know at present.

Just because the cruise companies go for a washy, washy disclaimer doesn't mean they can't be successfully sued. Those disclaimers are only a starting point. The law normally takes a view based on natural justice so if something did go wrong, the company would still have to prove thet did everything they could to make sure they did not have some responsibility, irrespective of the extreme wording on contracts. It comes under " a nice try" but no way legal system. Don't forget that most cruise companies are based on islands that have a legal system based on British Justice.

You cannot completely sign all your rights away no matter how hard you try.

Keith is spot on about ignoring the embarkation ports in your decision making. Civitavecchia is not anywhere near Rome - it is around an hour away and is a bit complicated for first-time European visitors. Venice has that fantastic sailaway but the airport is a complete mess - badly organised and way overloaded. Barcelona is probably the best one to use.

If you want to use either Civitavecchia or Venice, be prepared to extend at both ends. The best advice is to decide whether you want to do the Eastern loop or the Western one.

The Adriatic is best for fabulous scenery. The Greek islands are beautiful and Greece has a lot of early civilisation to see. The Western loop is much more about Renaisance history.

I have to say that I do have a degree of sympathy for the OP, not much but some. I have just had a mailshot knowing telling me that NCL UK are offering "Half Deposits Fleetwide for February". Knowing how adept NCL are at hiding their eligibilty criteria I searched for the small print.

At first sight, I found the usual list of exclusions for the cheap rooms but after quite a lot of extra searching, right at the bottom of one of the T&C pages, I discovered the offer does not apply to Suite bookings either. So, the punters paying the highest and earliest deposits gain nothing from this offer. I call that bordering on dishonest advertising. It was only because I was aware from CC that NCL have this habit of hiding the small print exclusions that I distrusted the big text headlines.

I am not sure I would have been so diligent at reading ALL of the small print if I was more of a casual cruise customer. So somewhere in the original less than readable rant there is quite a fair critical comment.

So any details on the Jasmine would be greatly appreciated. Now whether Cagneys and Le Bistro on the Jade is as good as on the Getaway and Escape remains to be seen or should I say tasted😉

Thanks

Tom

Been on Getaway and Jade and I would say the food is very similar in both Cagney's and Le Bistro. Liked Jade better because it is more personal because it is smaller and the service seems to be better.

We will be three adults in a two-bed suite, all of us Platinim Plus, on our next cruise in June. It will be interesting to see how the "meal for two and one per stateroom" will be handled. Clearly this rule is written for couples with or without children, so how will our adult Platinum Plus daughter receive any of the incentives she is apparently entitled to in the new program, if she cruises with us in one of the 2-bed suites?

The North Africa/Southern Spain and the Canaries plus Madeira are a superb European winter choice. As far as the weather is concerned around this time it can be varied but as long as you have several light layers you will be OK. Big overcoats are very unlikely to be necessary. As long as you have a light waterproof/windproof top in your bag for when it rains you will normally only need tee/polo shirt and a light jumper at the most.

As far as the sea is concerned, we have had worse seas crossing the Caribbean than ever on this route. Probably the worst bit can be around the entrance to the Med where the various currents between the Atlantic and Med can be a bit messy. The Canaries and Madeira are not far very from the African coast so they tend to have less issues because the ocean is more about swells than waves.

Canaries are very picturesque destinations with Teneriffe having the highest Spanish volcanic mountain. The area around the top of Mount Teide is fascinating because of the strange volcanic terrain. I gather the Apollo astronauts did some of their training driving the moon buggy around the area.

Madeira is absolutely beautiful. The Botanic Gardens up near the top of the cable car in Funchal has a wonderful variety of trees and flowers because of the stable climate created by the ocean. We took a taxi from the dock into the town that I think cost around 5 euros but the younger fitter of you can easily walk round in about 10-15 minutes. We actually met a taxi driver near the bottom of the cable car and after chatting to him about the island for a while (in English) he offered to take the three of us round the island. We ended up with him for most of the day and he took us pretty well all round and showed us all of the sights and stopped at a number of viewpoints. We learned a great deal from him about the island and it's people. If memory serves me right it cost us 90 euros for the day. We stopped in the botanical gardens for about 45 minutes and he dropped us off at the top gate and met us at the lower gate so we just walked down inside the gardens and saw it all.

The taxi driver offered to let us ride down in one of the wooden sledges and meet us at the bottom, but we declined after watching them a while. He finally dropped us off at the ship well in time for departure, unlike this shopper when we went last year!!! http://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/showthread.php?p=49627930#post49627930

http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2016/12/15/norwegian-escape-new-york-cruise/95455208/

 

"Escape will be replacing the three-year-old Norwegian Breakaway, which will move from New York to the Baltic for the summer of 2018."

 

A better ship for the Baltic than Getaway heh...

Yup - some parts of her will make her the most up-to-date ship after the dry dock she is having prior to starting the Baltic runs. :)

So Breakaway it is then - a big ship designed to live with cooler northern weather. Dry dock after TA and then doing the St Petersberg runs from Copenhagen. It really looks as though the NCL team have done some proper research and have got a really sensible range of itineraries for 2018 (as long as they don't mess them up in the meantime!!)

Just had a quick spin through the itineraries that are on the UK web site now. Clearly not all there yet and there are also some interesting gaps in the "big" ships summer and later itineraries in Europe and elsewhere. The Breakaway and Getaway are both currently missing and the second half of the year for the Epic is also missing, so they could be even more interesting. From the late summer transatlantic, Epic will be sailing around Europe all summer. The Epic sailings currently available are the "bread and butter" 7-day runs round the old circuit in the Western Med - much easier to plan. Thus maybe there will be some more interesting ones coming later.

It is very clear from the itineraries that are available that somebody in NCL has been thinking about what types of different itineraries will be competitive in Europe. Thankfully, those stupid North Sea ferry trips from 2017 pretending to be to the well inland capital cities are not going to be repeated - presumably a lesson that could have easily been avoided by listening to just a few European travelers have been learned. The extra lengths of summer holidays in Europe are also being reflected in the increase in more than 7-day milk runs. Well done NCL.

The Adriatic trips are improved, particularly with the frequent visits to beautiful Kotor for the Star. The Jade Northern itineraries are also much better planned by avoiding mixing UK Southampton and Hamburg Germany itineraries by having the UK ones in the earlier part of the summer and the German ones in the second half.

All-in-all pretty good so far and possibly getting better if they decide to use the Breakaway for the Baltic because of it's Haven roof and generally better facilities for the colder trips up North.

One option for the upcoming Jade drydock that could be tried would be to leave Moderno where it is on Deck 8 rather than move it up to Deck 13. I must admit it is OK where it is. Maybe the Blue Lagoon that is currently opposite Moderno could be changed to be a bit more "Pub-ish" still with 24hr snacks.

A bit of juggling with the stairs that currently head up from by the elevators to the Haven would have them redirected to give them access from the Haven directly down into what is now the Star Bar. That "outer" part of what is now the Star Bar could remain as an area for the Concierge plus a "Suites Only" bar. Access for suite guests would remain via the door opposite Cagney's (it actually already has a card access lock on it anyway!). The inner area of the current Star Bar would then make a superb area for a "Suites Only" restaurant. The rear of that area could have direct access to the current Cagney's servery. :cool:

The beauty of this plan is that the new Deck 13 "Suites Only" bar and restaurant area would be able to serve all of the suites thus making it more viable for staff utilisation and more used than now whilst also retaining exclusive access up to the Haven suites and courtyard. Also, the actual changes needed to complete this new masterplan would be minimal and not very costly either - probably less than the one tried on earlier Jewel Class ships associated with the unnecessary moving of Moderno upstairs.

Us poor folks use Airplane mode to avoid the outrageous roaming fees (particularly data) charged by our carriers. Must be nice not to have to worry about that.

It is possible to set you phone not to use data via your airtime provider without using airplane mode. This stops any possibility of you getting any of those outrageous roaming data charges when you are overseas. We use wi-fi when it is available because that doesn't trigger any airtime roaming charges for data access (you can use apps like "whatsapp" using wi-fi instead of airtime data). And you can still use your phone to receive texts that come to you free without using airtime data.

One major advantage of using airplane mode when you use the phone as an alarm on holiday is that it stops texts and incomming calls while you are sleeping.

Absolutely right Ellie, my bad. I forgot that when you walk along the promenade deck 7 with the lifeboats above your head, that would put them opposite the midships oceanview windows on deck 8!

Thanks.

Can't really help I am afraid because we have not been in one. What I can say is that there should be no obstructions looking out because the lifeboats are on the promenade deck 7 and there are only public rooms on that deck.

Set the phone to manual time for you whole cruise. Leave the time setting alone and just adjust the time zone setting to suit local time wherever you are. In manual there is no need to use airplane mode unless you are on an airplane - clue in the name. Once back home, you can go back to automatic and the phone will reset time and time zone after a few minutes contact with your home provider.

Switching to Airplane mode works, but is a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut since it stops the phone from being a phone. If you open it up at any time it up to use it when it gets in range of a transmitter even just to receive texts there is a danger that it will change the time settings without you realising it.

The time on the phone will maintain accuracy for days, so the first thing we do is to take off the automatic time setting. Make sure you also take off the automatic time zone change as well. This will stop the system making time changes to your phone whatever you do. All you have to remember then is to change the Select Time Zone in the Settings each time the ship time zone is changed. You will then have a completely reliable alarm clock. It is also great to keep at your bedside in the dark because the time is usually displayed when you wake the phone up, so you can get back to sleep in peace without worrying about what time your poor confused brain thinks it is overnight when moving between different time zones.

Omar O'Besso- very good too

Rather than do a full review, I thought I would jot a few notes down to help anyone on future cruises like the one we recently took.

The cruise was a B2B of two Venice round trips, one to the Adriatic and the Greek Islands and the other to the Greek Islands. The cruise was cobbled together after the mess up with the dry dock that came up at the same time as the mess that was made at the time of announcing the new Far East cruises. The second half of the cruise was then messed up again when the Turkish port call for us to see Ephesus was cancelled and a second visit to Santorini was put in instead (we would much rather have gone to somewhere like Kotor instead of repeating Santorini). So all-in-all, it did not exactly do much of what we intended on the second half when we booked it, but we made the best of a poor deal since any day on the Jade in the Med is a lot better than one back home!

First note is about currencies. The majority of the cruise was in the Euro Zone, but we had two ports stops in Croatia, at Dubrovnik and Split. Last time we went to these ports, we had no problems using Euros so we did not need to change to Kuna. However, there has been some political changes in Croatia and the government has apparently imposed some serious constraints on the use of Euros in the country and shops have to have expensive licenses to enable them to effectively become exchange shops so most have refused to pay for these licenses and only accept Kuna. No real problem if you are going into Dubrovnik first because there is a small money exchange shop on the right-hand side just as you go into the main street. And then you can go into one of the little ice cream shops and get some of the best flavored ice cream in the world to set you up for the town visit.

The Jade dry dock seems to be fixed now for next March in Freeport, Bahamas. Not sure just how much of the Hawaiian decor inside the ship will be scrapped, but there was a team on board with us that were measuring up and taking photos to finalise the plans for it. There has been what looks like some new art work on Deck 7 and so it looks as though there will still be a selection of Venetian and Hawaiian art on Deck 7.

We had been to all of the ports before so did not bother much with the ship tours, apart from one in Santorini and another in Split. We did use hop-on, hop-off buses in Piraeus/Athens and Corfu and they were excellent value and gave a very good summary of what and why things were out there. At 13 Euros, the taxi to and from Dubrovnik town from the port was superb value in contrast to the ship buses and so much more convenient than the long queues for the bus to get back.

Although we had the 75$ per port discount, we only did two ship trips, one in Santorini and the other in Split. In Santorini, on our first week, we went on the early start trip to Oia. After an early breakfast we headed first to the theatre to get our stickers and then were escorted down to a different tender door from the main one so that we could get the special tender to take us to the dock at Athiniois about 2 km to the south of Fira to catch our bus to Oia. The bus ride took about half an hour and we had an excellent guide who gave us the run-down on the origins of the current Santorini and what to expect at Oia. We had about 90 minutes to walk around Oia town and then went back to the bus for the trip back to FIra. That was probably long enough to see most of the town. Back at Fira we were dropped off at the bus park and then had quite a hard walk up some decent inclines to get up to the main centre. It was probably no more than 10 minutes, but it was pretty hard work. Because we had gone out early and we did not need to wait around in Fira we headed to the cable car at lunch-time to go back to the tender dock and walked straight onto the first set of cars. I gather that later in the afternoon there was around an hour wait to go down on the cable car. There were three other ships in at the same time, but it was nowhere as busy as we suffered the last time we visited the island.

The Split trip we took was to Krka National Park. This place is around 90 minutes drive along very well maintained roads. The views once there are nothing short of spectacular. The terrain is some sort of limestone and has formed dozens of small very pretty waterfalls. You can walk round a circular boardwalk that takes you round the main part of the falls that takes about an hour. The last part of the walk is down stone steps to a bridge over the main river that passes in front of the main set of falls at Skradinski Buk. It is possible to bathe in the water but with the water at around 60 degrees F, we passed on that one. As usual, what goes down has to come back up and there are over 100 steps to get back to the bus park, but you can take them as slow as you need or if that is too much it is possible to turn round before the decent to Skradinski Buk and do the first half of the boardwalk in reverse. This trip ranks as one of the best we have even done and I can recommend it to anyone who enjoys beautiful nature places.

As far as the Jade herself goes, she is in superb condition even before whatever they are going to do in the dry dock. We did not see any sign of wear anywhere other the the odd bits of missing varnish on the outside rails and there were no "funny" smells at all anywhere in the ship. Entertainment was mainly high quality with music featuring both in the theatre and the bars. The big show on the penultimate night is "Elements" and it features all of the acts that have been on during the week plus the Jade dancers and acrobats. This show is a must-see and rivals anything we have seen in the West End.

The original style Jewel Class Haven on Jade is alive an well and doing exactly what it says on the tin - a peaceful and calm, exclusive retreat from the hustle and bustle of the ship. The Courtyard Butler has been re-designated as a "Haven Courtyard Valet" and now comes dressed as if he is in an up-market sports club. Roberto is doing that job on the Jade at the moment and nothing misses his eagle eyes. He quickly knows who needs what and keeps the ambience correct with a nice mix of discipline and flexibility. There is coffee, hot water speciality tea bags, cool water and orange juice on tap all day as well as fruit and cookies, M&Ms and Gummy Bears until Roberto clears everything up at about 5pm. The mix of cruisers in the Haven was interesting and there were families made up of parents and young children, adult children and parents and other mixes as well. So the double family rooms were not just for families with youngsters, but were used by all sorts of family mixes. Whilst that second bedroom has the three beds for possible use for small children, the single bed along with the separate bathroom was ideal for a third family adult. And there is a settee in the main lounge area if a fourth adult uses the suite.

We had the full dining package that had survived the booking changes so we only ended up eating in on of the main dining rooms once. We did use the Blue Lagoon and the buffet for lunch when we ended up out of sync with the Cagney's lunch timings and we found the range and quality of the food there to be excellent. The main issue with the Garden Cafe is noise. Hopefully, the dry dock will do something about soundproofing it. We usually gathered our food and headed outside to the Great Outdoors where it was distinctly more peaceful.

All-in-all it was a most enjoyable couple of weeks on the Jade despite the lack of variety of the port stops from the cruise we booked. The ship is great, the staff are superb, entertainment excellent and the quality and quantity of food was way to good for us - back to the diets again to get ready for the next one.:)

From what I can see there are now three distinct "Havens" on NCL. The megaships have large Havens and virtually all of the issues with disruptive youngsters are in these Havens.

We have sailed in both Getaway and Epic and in both cases the Haven was open to the skies with no moveable roof and as a result of weather that was far from ideal, the Haven courtyard was not overly good for all-day camping of the sort that leads to the leaving of youngsters to make trouble.

We have never sailed in Breakaway with the closed roof Haven, but from other experience in the Jewel ships, I imagine it can be treated like a huge heated play area. Not for me to comment, but could there be some demographic difference in BA customer base that makes it more vulnerable to these disruptive youngsters and adults?

The third "Haven" type is the original group in the Jewel ships. We have just come back from a cruise on the Jade. There was one family in the Haven with three quite young children who appeared in the courtyard on the first day on their own. Within minutes the Haven Butler rounded them up and got them to take him to their parents. They never again appeared without their parents and apart from a minor issue with the youngest one collecting handfuls of M&Ms direct from the jar they were no problem at all and the Haven was most definitely true to the original marketing as a peaceful and exclusive haven.

Maybe the upsize of the Haven on the megaships has destroyed the original concept and the time has come to use a different model and description for these larger areas in some regions of the world.

So anarchy and piracy are socially acceptable these days are they?

NCL were probably looking at making more money out of water and soda and those clever clogs who thought it was a great idea to re-fill their water/soda bottles with booze have screwed the rest of us by giving NCL the excuse to move to ban all the rest of us bringing our drinks on board - thanks for that.

Maybe it is time to try a different drink for a few days. Perhaps you will enjoy it?

You will not be expected to go through customs or immigration checks at each port. The ship will do the necessary clearance before disembarkation starts. Depending on your cruise, all of the countries will probably belong to the EU and have common borders anyway. There will probably be government controls out and into the port, but as long as you show your ship keycard they will normally let you straight through. Some ports have bag search X-rays on return, but they are rarely the cause of any delays. No issue at all.

Strictly speaking each was half the answer. Both answers combined are the full answer to the OP.

If you want chilled ice water at the table in all restaurants your best bet is to ask the server for it and it will be free by the jug full (also available in the buffet for nothing as either flavoured or unflavoured water). If you want portable water around the ship or on shore and also in your stateroom, then one of the water packages is probably your bet at the prices given above if you do not want to drink the tap water or the purified water from the free buffet dispensers.

Because you can't bring water back from ashore trips even if you bought it on the ship, we will be taking wide-top refillable bottles on our next cruise that will be filled before we go for each trip out and will be empty when we get back on board.

Those options are the same across the whole fleet, not just on the Escape.

Can someone answer the question if you are staying in the Haven do you get access to Posh automatically or do you need to buy passes? Sometimes like to get away from children :-)

 

Thanks in advance......

Automatic access for free.

There is an entrance to the glass elevator opposite the bar that goes up to Posh. Keep your key card handy because you will need it to get back. That glass elevator also goes down to the buffet and is great for getting a quick dish of soft ice cream.

2.5 weeks isn't very lock for a dry dock, assuming they are getting rid of the Hawaii theme, adding dining venues, etc. I wonder what they are actually replacing / adding to her?

Why would they want to get rid of the Hawaiian theme off the ship? Surely it is part of her history. I know we Brits are a bit more precious of history, but doing something to make her look like the others is close to vandalism in my eyes. At least I know I am aboard her when I see the decorations on the stairs and in the Atrium. Leave it alone please.

By the way, if you look around outside on Deck 7 you will see quite a lot of art showing her long relationship with Venice, particularly where you come out of the doors next to the Stardust that go onto the deck.