vinotinto

I booked this through NCL because DH wanted to see the waterfall, but I cannot do the waterfall jumping. However, I haven’t found a single review of this excursion. It’s 5.5 hours so a bit of a time commitment to hike to the waterfalls and then a buffet lunch at Hacienda La Huerta.

We're on the Escape too at the end of March, and that is really odd port timing. All aboard is 1:30pm.

Appreciate this info! My friends are worried about the reliability of taxis and getting stranded. It's been YEARS since we've been to Tortola, but last time we were in Tortola in a cruise, we spent the day at Smuggler's Cove and it was awesome. We simply asked our cab to come back for us and of course he did. 1. Is asking the cab to come back for us still a reliable method? (there will be 6 of us) 2. Is Smuggler's still very secluded?

Even if there are a lot of us that follow a low-carb lifestyle (I'm including keto, diabetic / pre-diabetic here), they probably don't offer much because it doesn't get ordered much as we tend to be careful about desserts marked as "sugar-free," because some of them have a lot of carbs that can cause glucose spikes and it doesn't make sense to devote a lot of resources to prepare something that may or may not be ordered/requested. I'm not familiar with NCL's sugar-free desserts, but I've seen crazy stuff marked as "sugar free" that I would never order (e.g., brownies made with flour and starches come to mind). I also need to know what sugar substitute(s) are used as they don't all hit the same (e.g., stevia is OK for me, but I avoid maltitol, sorbitol, etc.) and that is often difficult to find out.

Thank you! Do you know if the Haven will know the MDR rotating entrees/menu the evening before? They get posted the day they get served outside the MDR, but that would not give us enough time to give 24 hours notice...

I have this same question. My daughter is vegetarian, but also sometimes eats some fish and some seafood. When we last stayed in Haven, she ate at the Noodle bar without us a bunch of times and we also had dinner as a family in the MDR (they had shows with the dancers) a coup[le of times, but I have been hearing that with advance notice they can get or prepare something in the Haven for her. Would be valuable to learn more about this and whether they prepare it in the Haven restaurant or if they can bring it from the MDR. When is your trip? We're going at the end of March.

How does the priority tender work for Great Stirrup Cay? If we want to get on an early tender, do they just take us to the early tender or do we sign up through the concierge for an early tender?

What time of the year were these pics taken? I grew up in the Caribbean and ocean conditions tend to vary quite a bit between summer and winter. p.s. - Awesome pics!

Thank you! 🙏🏽 that’s what I was leaning towards! Have a lovely trip.

We have a very odd port day in Tortola, where we are in port 6am - 2pm. I believe all aboard will be at 1:30pm. We are planning on either going to a beach for a couple of hours or take a short tour. We're not staying in the ship. My question is, it doesn't look likely that there will be much open for food in the local beaches early enough, and the excursions also don't include any food. By the time we get back on the ship and get refreshened up, lunch service will have concluded. Have any of you ordered any snacks / room service to take with you out of the ship? If so, did they package it for you, or did you bring stuff to package it. I've sailed many times and always prefer to sample local restaurants and beach bars on my port days, but the timing of this day is super odd and I don't want to find ourselves in a hangry situation. 😉

Do you know if we can rent chairs if we are not staying at the hotel there?

@mitsugirly I see on your awesome site that you’ve had many land vacations in STT. If you were spending a port day via NCL, which beach would you choose? They all look great! Looking for calm, clear water, a little snorkeling, chair rentals, a beach restaurant for sustenance. There is another large ship in port that day (RCCL). Megans, Sapphire, Coki, Secret, Brewster or something else?

Thank you, we’ll reach out to Concierge about the waiting list. We have a solid Plan B in case that doesn’t pan out.

This may or not be a Haven question, we booked last minute (as we usually do), and the excursion pickings are pretty slim. Do they have additional availability for excursions once we are on the ship, the same way that they have additional availability for specialty dining, either through the Shore Excursion desk or the Concierge? Thanks!

Thank you @Sailing12Away and @bookbabe - All 6 of us are in The Haven, so I believe we get priority tendering too. How was the beach near the ocean villas?

@SaltyPawz I love spicy margaritas and spicy bloody Mary’s, so, this sounds great!

Can someone confirm that I’m understanding this correctly: 1) only one person needs to book the Villa? 2) the Villas accommodate 6+ people? 3) if we are traveling with friends and we have 6 people total in different reservations, we just go together to Silver Cove and we get access to the villa reserved by one person? 4) all the villas (beach/lagoon) have an ocean view? thank you!

This is super helpful! Do you remember if they still have Oberon? My plan right now is to NOT upgrade before the cruise and assess the situation once we are in the Haven. Last time, we did not come close to the $500 extra in drink upgrades, and we usually ordered wines that were more per glass than $15. But there weren't a lot of choices as they seem to run out of the higher prices wines rather quickly.

Hi all! Just booked the Escape Haven for March and wondering if anyone has pics of the wine list available at the Haven bar/restaurant by the glass and also by the bottle for the Premium Plus package. We are trying to decide between keeping the free at sea premium package or upgrading and we mostly drink wine. Last time, it made more sense to pay the difference than to commit to $60 extra per day. I’m wondering how much the list and prices has changed since we went in 2022 (I posted pics earlier in this thread). Has anyone returned recently from the Escape, and can comment on how the availability of wines has been recently? We encountered issues with availability of certain wines last time we sailed in 2022. thank you!

We tried basically all the red wines they had by the glass and paid the difference between the price and $15. They have a great red - Oberon. Highly recommend it! Better than some of the other higher priced ones. Two caveats: First, they do run out of wines or they may not have all the wines on that list, so it is a gamble to go with the premium plus, as they may not have the best wines in stock, or if they have them, they may run out. Second caveat, Oberon was $21/glass, so we paid the $6/glass difference. I usually had 1-2 of these upgraded wines with dinner every day, so depending on what you drink and how much you drink and whether some of what you drink is around $20/drink, it can be more cost effective to pay the difference than to pay for the premium plus package. Now, I did not know they had done away with corkage. That is HUGE!

I would love to hear more details about your experience testing positive because the information I've read is sparse and negative. Were you able to stay in your cabin, or were you moved to a quarantine cabin? Were you able to stay with your travel companions? Was the testing required for a port? Were you able to order specific meals from the room service / Haven / main dining room or were they set meals? What about drinks? Were you able to order wine and drinks with your drink package?

This is correct. They are posted fairly early (late morning sounds about right). I would try to let your butler know at least by early afternoon. Note that I highly recommend eating in the main dining room. At least in the Breakway, the atmosphere there was wonderful. They had a jazz band and the dancers from Burn the Floor put up a nice show 2 nights per week. We really enjoyed eating in the MDR and the food was really good!

Their website is visitRoatan. They have many tours and some of them have add-ons that I have not seen available like that in other sites. Is this site just a portal for different vendors or do they run the excursions themselves? Any experiences? TIA!

Traveling with another family. Our daughters are really good friends and are looking forward to hanging out together. My DD is 12 (not turning 13 until 3 months after the cruise is completed), the other girl is 13. Are we able to request the 12-year old to join her friend at Entourage?