brookie848

So glad you are traveling (or soon will be) over the Atlantic.

And rum helps with most anything.

Definitely looking forward to this! We sail on the Viva in February.

2 hours ago, cruiseny4life said:

WOW!! You're going to be exhausted! Caribbean?

Yes.

The 2024 cruise won't be too bad -- we're only getting off in Tortola, St. Maarten and Antigua.

The 2025 will be a bit more tricky -- more ports that we might want to visit or we haven't been to as many times (Dominican Republic, Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao). Decisions will need to be made.

4 minutes ago, Bryton-1 said:

Would maybe like a hot water bottle pad work? I’m just thinking outside the box… 

 

thank you for the insight. 

Thanks for the suggestion, but the heating pad is not needed at this time. It was originally needed to warm up dialysis fluid. We ended up just putting the bags of fluid on the floor in front of the windows (we had a forward-facing cabin) and that ended up working quite well for us.

3 hours ago, cruiseny4life said:

To those that don't enjoy sea days....we have one left after an extra! I still don't have enough time to do everything!!

 

 

Our next two cruises have ZERO sea days. For February's cruise, we only have plans for three ports. The others we plan on exploring and enjoying a (hopefully) pretty empty ship.

A few tips for using the access desk...

If you have a good PCC with NCL, they can sometimes transfer your Access Desk requests from cruise to cruise. We have a liquid exemption and our PCC just transfers it to our next booking so we don't have to fill out the form again.

We've had good luck dealing with the Access Desk and found them to be overall very helpful. The only thing they couldn't supply to us was a heating pad. We knew we couldn't bring one, but were hoping we could get one on board. That was a no-go.

We actually had dialysis supplies delivered to the ship and NCL was easy to work with. We were in a DOS on the Dawn and the butler came to find us in the waiting area to let us know the supplies had been delivered and were in the cabin. That was a huge relief to us.

Enjoy your cruise!

2 minutes ago, CruisingFun2023 said:

Can we board at noon, have lunch on the ship, and then leave the ship to old San Juan?

The ship doesn't dock in Old San Juan, so this would mean taxi rides (time) in both directions.

I'm not sure what on-board time is, but I think on previous cruises it was 5:00 or 5:30. I wouldn't do it, but everyone has their own comfort level.

When we've sailed out of San Juan (Dawn and Epic), boarding started normal time -- between 11 and noon.

Traffic getting to the port can be interesting -- especially if there is more than one ship there. So you might want to factor that in to things. The waiting area is like an old warehouse with high ceilings. I didn't notice it being overly hot, but it could get hot if you were stuck waiting outside for security.

2 hours ago, JIMESOPUS said:

Must be cold at home, heater cycling every hour

 

I'm a bit north of you in Albany, and it is chilly -- in the high 30s. We had snow last night, but it disappeared overnight when the rain came through. Now we just have a little bit sticking to the grass.

Heading further down into the Hudson valley this afternoon to pick up our Thanksgiving pies.

Enjoy the warm weather while you can!

We've done this before on the Dawn. We had a server that was awesome and we just asked to be seated in her section every time we went to the MDR after that. The only time it was an issue was when she was also serving the Latitude Dinner with Officers -- I think we had to wait a bit that night.

9 minutes ago, JIMESOPUS said:

Indulge food hall - tip of the day, you can modify your order by clicking just below the item you picked. Carol likes the pulled pork without the bun, watching those carbs, myself I'm trying to cut back by having no sides. Don't think it's working.

 

 

Thanks...I was wondering about this. There are a few things we want to order, but would need to modify. Some just preferences, others for real reasons (blue cheese is one of the things my husband can't have because he's had a transplant). I'm glad this can be done.

Enjoy lunch!

17 minutes ago, UKstages said:

oh, geez. i’m an idiot. i’m reading this for days, i know it’s the prima, but I got temporarily confused, i think because of the references to the viva. my bad. nothing to see here. carry on. 
 

by the way, I have no jet lag, so I can’t blame it on that.

I think all of us stuck at home are bouncing between the Prima and Viva lives.

3 hours ago, cruiseny4life said:

First in the Haven waiting area! 

 

 

Ahh...this reminds me of the "lounge" in San Juan.

1 minute ago, UKstages said:

is that a starbucks in the indulge food hall? all previous reports were that it had been removed, to make way for much needed seating.

 

It has been removed on the Viva.

Sail out of San Juan. You move ahead on your flight and stay in Atlantic Time Zone the whole cruise.

3 hours ago, cruiseny4life said:

We had an interesting landing in Barcelona today. I didn't know passenger planes could shoot almost straight up! At least it felt like it even the pilot aborted our landing. He let us know that the speed he was going was too fast so instead of landing we shot up into the sky! 

 

Aborted landing first for me! 

 

On one flight to FLL,we bounced on the ground a couple of times before shooting back up to the sky. The passengers were very nervous until we safely and smoothly landed a little while later.

Glad you made it safely! Your hotel looks great. Enjoy the city before boarding the Prima.

Sorry to hear about your noise issues.

What type of cabin is whistling? We're in a 2-bedroom in February and hope we don't have this issue. Hangers are bad enough.

8 hours ago, cruiseny4life said:

Not really a snafu, but my lovely husband decided to laugh....a lot. Guess who was given the magical TSA Precheck for today's flight? One guess and it ain't me! 

 

This happened to me earlier this year. I just took my letter from the TSA with us and the gate agent added it to my ticket/reprinted for us. This was American out of ALB.

I'm looking forward to what you think of the Haven and the Food Hall. We're on the Viva in a 2-bedroom in February.

I'm assuming you are past final payment? If you are, this makes things more difficult.

I would see if I could pay to add a third person to the cabin. This would allow the third person to go with you and already be on the reservation.

I wouldn't do this from Chicago in February -- especially if you have a connection. That's just me.

We flew in the day of the cruise to San Juan once, simply because there were no hotels available to stay the night before. This was a few months after hurricanes of 2017 and hotels were really only renting to relief workers. We flew as far as FLL the day before and took the first flight out that morning and were on the ship around noon.

It's not a horrible drive to the port, but traffic can get bad. You are going to be cutting it a bit too close for my comfort, especially if you check luggage.

9 hours ago, graphicguy said:

Henry…..looking forward to this review.

 

Side note….beginning to change my mind about cruise insurance.  I know 2 people who were denied medical coverage/payment due to their “pre-existing” conditions.  Frankly, that’s the biggest part of having insurance..coverage for big medical bills if something that occured years ago occurs again while at sea or in a foreign port.  The payout terms for missing a flight or losing luggage are so restrictive, it’s difficult to collect, according to yet another person who tried to get coverage recently! 

Interesting. A few years ago we made sure all of our cruise insurance covered pre-existing conditions. The basis for coverage was that my husband could sail the day we booked the cruise/policy.

We ended up having to use this in 2020, not because of Covid, but because my husband got the call for his kidney transplant. We ended up canceling our February 2020 cruise and did get everything refunded by the insurance that should have been refunded (we bought through insuremytrip.com).

We'll have to take a closer look at our policies again as we go shopping for our 2025 cruise.

6 hours ago, rbxlady said:

I am really encouraged, reading all of this. We cruised in the Haven in a 2BR on the Getaway last year, and after that, I promised myself we would not cruise any older ships-- although I am admittedly disappointed that there is no option for two beds in the second bedroom on the Prima and Viva.

 

I greatly, greatly disliked the Getaway's Haven. There is really nothing to recommend it. The restaurant is tiny, the eating space in the pool is a joke, and the lounge is crowded.

If I had to choose between the Epic Haven and the Getaway/Breakaway Haven, there would be zero hesitation -- Epic wins hands-down.

From what we got from our PCC, a lot of cruises are sailing at or over capacity.

We received an upgrade email this week for our February cruise. The funny thing is that I don't think there are any cabins above ours available. There is one that is showing up, but that is a "guarantee" with no ability to choose a cabin number. We are past final payment, so there likely won't be a lot of cancellations at this point.

Like others have mentioned, this is an automated process. If nothing else, they are gathering information about how much people are willing to bid to upgrade their cabin.

Epic Haven is pretty awesome.

The restaurant is really large and there is a weird outdoor restaurant part that really isn't outdoors, it just has open sides (Courtyard Grille). Epic Haven has its own small gym and spa treatment room. You also have access to Posh, which has a bar and loungers (no hot tub). The regular bar/lounge area is quite large and there is another bar in the Courtyard Grille for a total of three bars in the Haven.

The pool is not covered, like the Escape's is, but hopefully the weather will cooperate.

If I had to choose between the two ships, it would be tough. I love the Escape as a ship and the Haven was good on the Escape. But Epic's Haven is slightly better.

I would take into consideration port times and cost and what the Escape has that the Epic does not. What matters to you?

We've done the Epic three times and the Escape twice.

9 minutes ago, JIMESOPUS said:

 

 

Okay...I just had to say this. When I was quickly scrolling through your pics, I initially thought those four rolls of wrap in this picture were eyeballs of something looking over the meat or cartoon eyeballs added after the fact.

Really enjoying reading about the Viva. We sail on her in February.