chloe173

DH and I (39 and 41, no kids) are looking at booking the 2nd sailing of the Disney Treasure. I assume it will likely be a sold out ship, given the ship's newness and that it's over the holidays. We have never sailed DCL before, and will not be in a Concierge room if we do book. Would I have any shot at being able to get into Enchante and/or Haunted Mansion Bar as a party of 2 with no status? If it's unlikely, we're probably better off waiting a while for the popularity to die down...

Thanks for the tip! We did Celebrity Solstice to Alaska and liked it, but that was such a port/scenery intensive itinerary any line that got us to each stop on time probably would have been just fine 🙂

Yeah, sounds like we have a fairly similar view on it then. It's funny to me that I've got folks mad at me for stating anything at all negative, when the first 10 lines of my original post were all the good things that we liked. What is it you like better about Princess? I've never tried them.

You would think that, but surprisingly it only seemed to affect people at the very front. I guess maybe because that's where the coast guard ship docked alongside us? Since there are a lot of Haven cabins that are forwards, it was a very hot topic of conversation in the Haven bar the day after it happened — everyone sharing their "story of survival", lol. But others who we talked to, particularly those who were in the rear of the ship, said they were only awakened by the 2:30am in-cabin "stretcher team" announcement, but then were able to get back to sleep.

Just off Bliss in a Forward Facing Haven Balcony on 11 on Saturday. My review is floating around here if you want more details, but after that experience and it being a very full ship, we regret not having stayed in the Haven complex proper. Would have made several things easier, e.g.: Disembarkation (don't have to fight with the masses for an elevator to get your luggage up to the Haven in order to get priority disembark) Port Priority (same as above, without the challenge of hauling luggage) Easier to take advantage of pool/hot tubs/sun deck (not having to walk across the ship in your wet swimsuit when you're done) More access to your Butler (our butler on 11 said she had 10 rooms across 5 decks, which i assume means she has all the Haven forward suites that aren't on 17/18. She was constantly having to run between rooms and the Haven to service her guests. If you value Butler services, stay in the Haven proper.)

Omg, not sure I'd be brave enough for that move in a full elevator, lol. We got enough dirty looks for being escorted ahead of folks trying to get off in ports!

Oh, that's another fun issue from our sailing I forgot to even mention, lol. There was a fire in the Local one night. You can likely find the video going around about it if you search on that other site CC won't let us mention. Smoke pouring out of the kitchen, alarm going off for like 30 minutes. Yikes.

The challenge with that on this particular ship was really mostly around the elevators making it difficult to get anywhere. There isn't an elevator bank for guests in the front of the ship, just the ones at the mid and back, and so all the elevators were crammed all the time, and that made it difficult to get to the Haven to take advantage of our perks. So, for example, because we were Haven we could get priority walk-off disembarkation. But we had to get ourselves and our luggage up to the Haven to take advantage, and with the mid-ship elevators totally jam packed for disembarkation day, it took close to 20 minutes just to get an elevator to get us to the Haven. I suppose we could have lugged our bags up the 6 flights of stairs to get there that way, but that wasn't super appealing first thing in the morning either, lol.

I think that's exactly right, and it boils down to lack of experience. One of our favorite crew members this trip was Yuliya in the Cellars Wine Bar. She told us it was her 15th contract, she had met her husband on ships, etc. And she told us that a LOT of the more experienced folks like herself that have done numerous contracts didn't come back after the covid break, and so it seems like they're operating with a much higher percentage of rookie crew members, or crew who started right after covid and so had never seen a full ship before.

Yep, he's booked a dentist appt for next week. He says it'll feel totally fine most of the time, and then out of nowhere he'll get a twinge of pain in that same spot again, so clearly something's still up with it. Thanks for the recommendation!

Was just on and don't have a copy, but can tell you it's a pretty extensive list (maybe 20-25 pages or so?) that doesn't appear to have been updated in about 3 years. For example - they have Lizzo Good as Hell, but nothing more recent. I laughed to see that they had about 8 Billie Ray Cyrus songs - but zero Miley songs. If you're hoping to sing Elvis or Sinatra, though, you'll be in very good company, as that's most of what we heard when we stopped by karaoke one night.

Just wanting to add that American Diner (free for Haven guests on Embarkation day, otherwise an upcharge) also has lobster & shrimp "sliders" that are essentially mini-lobster rolls in their appetizer offerings. We added a lobster tail one night in Haven to our meal (free for Haven guests) and it was roughly the size of a deck of cards and pretty overcooked, so didn't order it again, lol. I can confirm it was available as an upcharge in both Cagneys and Le Bistro on our sailing as well.

Absolutely agree about this. I honestly sort of misunderstood the ship deck plans re: the courtyard suites - I mistakenly thought they overlooked the courtyard directly, rather than having a hallway between them and the courtyard. I thought being right on the courtyard could possibly be noisy. But now that I have seen the actual layout, I absolutely would have chosen the courtyard rooms instead. Hindsight is 20/20, but being in the Haven complex would have been a step up for sure.

Annnnnnd at least 6 people in the FB group for this cruise are now reporting testing positive for Covid. Great. Just super.

Yeah, wasn't saying that Virgin was the only line for me - someone asked a specific question about my experience there that I was responding to. I've actually cruised NCL more than any other line - this was my 4th NCL sailing, and the other three (all pre-covid) were all considerably better experiences. Ah, there you are, I knew as the ultimate NCL apologist you'd be here soon. 😄 I won't bother arguing with you except for this one, because the situation I explained that happened the first night wasn't "normal" front of ship movement. It literally sounded and felt like a helicopter was landing on top of our room - that's how much movement we're talking about. Glasses in the living room bar area falling out of their holder by the wall, the closet turning into a strobe light because of how much it was shaking. We literally called down to Guest Services to ask what was going on and if we needed to move to a Muster station - that's how much shaking we're talking about. It was like nothing I've ever experienced on any ship. Others who had rooms at the front of the ship had similar experiences - this was definitely NOT something to anticipate no matter where your cabin is.