littlelulu01

Any final thoughts on the vibe?  I was thinking about Vibe cabanas on viva med September in lieu of balcony staterooms.  We had a great balcony on the spirit right outside of spice h20.  We found we didn’t use balcony much and used spice h20 all the time. 

So glad you are enjoying the Viva. We are booked for 30 nights this September.  Went with vibe and spa passes and the upgraded beverage package so will take advantage of ship excursions.  Those add ons bumped the price of the cruises up considerably but i think they will make our vacation more enjoyable. Love your pics and posts. 

Have a wonderful vacation. Excited to hear about it!

18 hours ago, Joan18 said:

do you have a place where you posted your reviews? looking for the mediterranean

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2727265-mediterranean-ship-excursions-review/page/2/#replyForm

Not Bird travels but I posted reviews of about 14 Mediterranean ncl excursions on this review.  It was just prior to the pandemic but same excursions still on offer through ncl so you might get some ideas. 

Important notification emails are not typically cause for a laugh. Wonder if the writer just had a good sense of humor or if the removal of the milking demo is a meaningful loss. 

3 hours ago, hlperez said:

I know someone who has 2 passports.  When he went to board his cruise, he took only the other passport with him to the ship, not the one he had used for the online check in.  He was refused boarding.

 

Interesting.  

Great job op and remaining calm.  Such good advice!
 

Wonder if a duel citizen could get by using the additional passport. I have US and Italian passports.  I have never used the Italian passport to exit or enter countries and always list my US passport but wondering if US passport was lost if the Italian passport could be used to get on ship and flight back into the states and then deal with replacement after home from vacation. 

6 minutes ago, mapleleaves said:

Our cruise ended in Trieste, but we were on the Gem not the Viva.  The first guests could disembark at 7am. These were pax with NCL transfers to VCE. "independent guests' could disembark at 7:30am.

It's about a 15 minute walk from the cruise pier to the station. Flat, easy walk.  We just had 1 carryon sized case.

(Our issue was heavy rain when we got off the train in Trieste. So EVERYONE was waiting for a cab to the ship .... took an hr).  So be prepared in case of rain.

Thank you. Walking seems the easiest option. If ncl transfer is allowed off at 7 we might be able to self assist off a little before 7:30. Will probably spend the $ for refundable tickets just in case we miss the train and need to take Trenitalia instead of Italo. 

We end our NCL Viva cruise in Trieste arriving in port at 6am. I know it takes a while for the ship to clear and passengers ok’d to debark.  I’m guessing if we have early self debark/carry luggage we could get off ship at 7:30. Is this estimate reasonable? 
 

I want to book an 8am Italo train from Trieste to Florence. It’s the only daily nonstop fast train option. 
 

Thoughts on booking this option?  Every minute will count if we only have a half hour so I want to have a solid plan.
 

Sounds like a bus to train every 10 minutes.  The taxi sounds like a faster option but idk about lines for taxi at 7:30 am and are they willing to take a fare to train station or are they waiting for the longer fares.  Walking depends on where the ship berths.  We’re capable of brisk walking and will only have one small wheeled bag each and happy to do that if it’s the best way.  
 

Thank you for advice. 

If you have any pre paid shore excursions the cn staff can exchange with the shareholder $. 

This pic was taken May 20, 2023.  Still quite a bit of snow at the summit but we were able to do our train up to Canada and then bike down excursion. Have also done the train/bike excursion in September too and it was breathtaking with fall foliage. 
 

46 minutes ago, luckybecky said:

 

Thanks for the pictures! Much appreciated. I can't quite tell from the photos -- was there any seating in the room besides the stool at the desk? Any sofa/chair/loveseat?

 

 

All very good information! Thanks everyone for the helpful comments. Littlelulu01, did you find the hot tubs to be warm enough? We were on the Spirit a few years ago and they were barely lukewarm, and certainly not hot enough for a cold weather cruise (we were in Norway). 

Hot tub was plenty warm.  I’ve had issues with hot tub temperatures on some of their other ships including not able to keep it warm enough in our balcony hot tub on the brand new Prima in Norway. We sailed the Spirit Alaska in May. In comparison to other refurbished ships, they really outdid themselves with the Spirit.  I understand the work was extensive and not just surface aesthetics.
 

We sailed in 10186 last aft stateroom.  I think your location might be better suited for less noise from above.  We had issues with power washing/deck cleaning and dragging chairs above our stateroom at night. I think your room is tucked back far enough that u will avoid that power wash middle of night chore action above. 
 

otherwise the location is absolutely perfect. We had a great balcony but I ended up using spice h20 area more often.  The door to spice is at the end of hallway- the deck plans don’t show it but there’s a door right next to 10186 to enter Spice deck. Those inside staterooms looked really small but with the deck right outside the room I think I’d be fine. 

The Spirit is by far my favorite in the fleet.  So easy to get anywhere onboard. I got a Starbucks every morning and then would sit in spice h20 and watch the wake. Felt a lot more luxurious with padded loungers, a hot tub and panoramic views compared with our balcony. 
 

Probably more key for Alaska but the other bonus is how easy to do a quick check on how busy hot tubs are before putting swimsuit on.  

Haven passengers pay higher dsc because of the dedicated staff in the Haven. I just went back and read through ncl website.  crew that don’t participate in dsc are; any bartenders anywhere on the ship, spa services, youth club staff, concierge and butler.  Youth club staff, butler and concierge is paid depending upon how much we use so their grats are discretionary which makes sense.  
 

Spa staff and bartenders provide us products that have specific $ value so are assigned the 20% grats. So yes all bartenders onboard the ship are not benefiting from the dsc grats but they are most certainly benefiting from the gratuities we pay on the beverages and beverage packages.  
 

When I don’t have a beverage package and order a drink from the Haven bar the bill has the same 20% gratuities as all ship venues do. 
 

My understanding is the bartenders are not actually receiving all of the 20% charges on the drinks. If they did they’d be making more than the captain.  There’s a formula of compensation and the compensation goes up the more $ is made onboard each sailing. If a sailing is making $$$ then more will go to servers and bartenders. 
 

 Ncl says we are squaring crew away with our 20% on beverage, specialty dinners, spa and the dsc and We need to tip extra to kids club, butler and concierge as we see fit. Ncl has thousands of employees many of whom are long term.  They know a thing or two on how to retain employees so I trust they’re capable of dispersing my gratuities/dsc in a manner that is retaining their incredible crew. 
 

Outside butler and concierge we always have standout crew such as room stewards, the hostess or breakfast server, Starbucks barista … who goes out of their way to make our vacation better and we recognize the standouts with something additional towards the end of a sailing but otherwise I trust I’ve taken care of everyone onboard just as ncl says I have. Most people don’t want to walk around on vacation with wads of bulging cash to throw at everyone. I also don’t want to worry that I’m stiffing my servers if I don’t carry around wads of cash to every meal. Ncl thankfully has a compensation system in place to take the hassle out of it for me. 
 

I’m afraid Whoever is saying haven bartenders aren’t benefiting from the beverage gratuity/service charges and haven dining room wait staff don’t get any of the dsc is full of it.  If someone said that to me I’d tell them I’ll make sure and talk to the hotel director and mention that my bartender, “name” says he is not paid any of my 20% beverage gratuity/service fees and my haven waitress xxxx said she doesn’t get any of my dsc. 

Gary- I appreciate your views and although I don’t post much, I do read quite a bit.  I’m very interested in your take on Oceania. As a NCL Haven loyalist looking to branch out, I appreciate the details of your posts and hope you continue that detail with this review. Here’s hoping you have a fantastic vacation. Excited to read about it. Kim 

I’m so sorry about the hot tub. We did the ta and sailing before the ta last fall and had a deck 12 H4 for our ta. we had quite a few power outages in our stateroom on the ta. In hindsight I wonder if this is a wiring problem that needs fixed. 

I booked the post cruise late flight ncl tour last fall after the Prima TA and it was a surprisingly decent tour. The $50 shore excursion credits are valid for post cruise tours like this one. I think the ncl airfare tacks on the pre and post cruise transfer which is just a transfer and not a tour.  Pretty sure you’re able to get a refund for post cruise transfer and then book the late flight tour with airport drop off.  We had a great tour guide, got to keep luggage onboard the bus and they gave us a city tour and let us get off a few places. It was an inexpensive no hassle end to vacation.  I think we got dropped off at lga around 3pm and still had some time to kill before flight.  Delta just recently opened a nice sky club there so check to see how you can get entry.  Delta reserve credit card offers complementary entry but there’s a few other ways to gain entry for a comfortable place to hang out and grab a meal before flight. 

11 hours ago, Rhurst said:

Does anyone know the size of the private balcony hot tubs on Prima? All the reviews and videos say large. What does that mean is it a two person or larger?

Comfortable for two person to lay in and soak although the way ours was installed one person will face the balcony door vs the ocean. Can have around 4 adults seated. 

2 hours ago, WillCruiseForMoney said:

The Dawn, Star, Gem, Jade, Pearl, and Jewell have them in the Garden Villa.

The Gem, Pearl, and Jewell Have them in the Deluxe Owners Suites.

The Sky and the Sun in the Owners Suites.

Pride of America in the Deluxe Owners Suite and Owners Suites (except deck 13, although the balconies on deck 13 are huge).

Prima in the Havan Premier Owners Suite, Deluxe Owners Suite, Aft Owners Suite (except deck 10), Haven Owners Suite with Large Balcony (except 12322 and 12926).

Viva should be similar to Prima

 

I do not believe any of the Breakaway, or Breakaway plus, or Epic suites have hot tubs on the balconies. 

The Spirit does not have any balconies with Hot tubs.

Prima and Viva H4 on deck 12 do have the hot tub.  The H4’s on deck 10 no hot tub. All the H3’s and H2’s on prima and viva have the hot tub. The HA’s (aft penthouse with large balcony) on deck 11 also have the hot tubs. The HA’s should be recategorized or at least a separation between the deck 10 and 12 H4’s. So silly they now have the jewel owners suites on deck 10 and 9 separate booking categories due to balcony size, bliss and encore have been separated due to slight balcony size difference too yet the addition or omission of hot tub on a balcony means nothing? They probably miss out on a lot of revenue from upgrade bids because bidders don’t want to risk getting deck 10. When Prima first went on sale they advertised a hot tub on both 10 and 12 h4s and no hot tub on deck 11 HA’s. They added a disclaimer for deck 10 and updated deck 11 HA a little later.  The price and popularity of the HA’s went up and some lucky customers who booked at the lower rate got a nice surprise!  We had a deck 10 booked but were able to switch to deck 12 when someone canceled. 

59 minutes ago, omahabob said:

 

D you remember the number?

I don’t but they were working hard to try and fix the issue while we were onboard.  We were on the sailing prior to first ta last year and then the ta.  Hopefully they fixed it by now. 

We had a Haven penthouse on deck 13 by elevator and it sounded like someone was jackhammering with a click click noise in between the jackhammer sound. We were given a very quiet balcony sleeping room on deck 11 pretty much directly below our crazy train penthouse room.  I was certain it was the Haven metal ceiling popping against the metal underneath it but we had the same ceiling in the aft owners suite on deck 12 for the subsequent ta and we had some typical new ship creaking in rough seas but it was not bad.  I’ve read accounts of noise complaints since then for that particular aft owners suite but having experienced a crazy noisy room, I can attest that the aft owners suites with hot tub on deck 12 is nothing too bad and just normal rough seas a little bit of noise that the average person can sleep with. I don’t remember the room number for the nightmare penthouse we had on deck 13 but was so thankful to have a quiet place to sleep at night in the balcony stateroom for that leg of our trip. The really quiet balcony we had was 11920.  It had no noise even in rough seas. 

15 hours ago, Seas2mountains said:

Here is the lovely Spice H2O area with cushioned lounge chairs. My husband and I think this is like a Haven area without the expense.  There is a bar here, too. 
 

Proof of the period of time we had beautiful blue skies again for a few hours. 

Agree!  We felt the entire ship felt like being in the Haven.  I’m so bummed that when I finally found a ship that was a perfect fit it’s been removed from the mix for a year. 

Have a wonderful and relaxing vacation.  Excited to read along.  How lucky to have 14 nights.  We sailed the Spirit in May and 7 nights went by way too fast. 

20 minutes ago, bluesea777 said:

We’re on the Spirit right now and had an excellent private excursion in Valdez - it was the Valdez Glacier and Icebergs tour on a canoe (no we didn’t do the paddling, there were 5 of us and two guides/paddlers) and it was superbly fantastic excursion- so beautiful. It was our 2nd visit to Valdez but it was our first excursion in Valdez. The excursion was $200 pp. 
 

The first time we visited Valdez (on June 1, during the first leg of B2B from Seward) we didn’t have any excursions booked just because the ones NCL offered were not in our interest or overpriced for our liking. We were prepared to pay for the $15 round trip shuttle to town and back. 
 

We found out when we boarded on May 31 that the Valdez shuttles were complimentary … apparently the pax on previous cruises to ours were quite surprised and seethed about having to pay. 
 

We got to town and found it totally different from other towns we’d visited - extra wide roads/streets, one or 2 storey buildings/houses spaced apart, very few shops and that was it. We walked around one big long block and trekked back to the ship on next shuttle. Sorry Valdez. 
 

Today when we were being driven back to the ship after the totally unforgettable excursion the driver (who owns the business with his wife) said to us that today was NCL Spirit’s last visit to Valdez. He said they found out last night about that and his wife called the Harbormaster today and he confirmed it. Reason is $$$$$. Pax on ship weren’t buying the overpriced excursions, town is dead, the $15 shuttles did it in. 
 

Unless you are lucky to get the excursion we had, you would be SOL with Valdez. 
 

Also the ship has to be docked at the Container dock where there is high security and guards. No one can walk around the dock freely. The town dock is too short for Spirit. 
 

Sorry Valdez. 
 

 

We were on the May 16th sailing. The shuttle to town was free of charge.  Passengers were never presented with an option for a $15 fee.  We bought the over priced excursions but they were canceled - so despite trying to spend money we were not able to.  It seemed to me that tourism hasn’t really taken off In Valdez just yet. The sail in was beautiful though. 
 

isp has incredible whale watching opportunities. 

6 minutes ago, YVRteacher said:

@littlelulu01 what did you enjoy/appreciate about the Spirit?  I’m really looking forward to sailing on her.

We had a balcony stateroom booked last minute. We like to sail in the Haven and in my opinion this entire ship pretty much felt like we were in the Haven. I’ve sailed on the Jade and Pearl post dry dock and also spent a month on the Prima in the Haven.  Imo the Spirit is every bit as beautiful as the Prima and the refit she received is in a league far above what the Jewel class ships received.

Some obvious food quality differences between the garden cafe and cagneys or haven restaurant for breakfast and lunch 😂 but that aside there wasn’t the crowds, lines, to get on/off.  We were able to eat, relax, enjoy any public area without that crowding feel I get on the Bliss, or jewel class ship non haven areas. The crew was excellent. Very experienced- most of our servers and our room steward had many years of service with NCL. I asked a few and they said they can make more $ on the bigger ships but they prefer the smaller more intimate feel of the Spirit.  Our service was the best we’ve ever had on any ncl ship. 

No lines at Starbucks! On the Bliss or other ships with Starbucks the lines are kinda crazy.  Also if I ordered a Starbucks coffee from the mdr or a specialty venue with my dessert they had ability to run and get me one and serve it hot and along with the dessert whereas outside the Haven I’ve not had great drink service with meals.
 

Getting anywhere on this ship is a breeze! And so many excellent places to hang out.  Loved spice h2o.  As the cruise progressed more passengers discovered the area.  Our stateroom was on deck 10 and the hot tubs were just feet away from our room.  I could pop my head out and check to see if they were open before we bothered putting a suit on. 
 

I usually buy a spa pass for a place of peace if not in a suite but the spa, while beautiful, is small so we passed on spa passes this time. Might have gotten pass if weather was crummy.  They had plenty of peaceful areas around the ship. We had great weather so were able to enjoy the outdoor areas and while the atrium had events often going on, there was also plenty of times when i could just sit and chill out like i would normally do at a coffee shop in my neighborhood.  The internet was actually usable and fast.  On top of that the internet manager was actually a really nice person. I’m an early riser and husband sleeps in. I’d go to Starbucks in the am and sit and chill and surf the internet over a couple coffees in the atrium or any number of areas around the ship. Loads of whale activity this trip.  We missed the inside passage but had some crazy close whale breaching activity on the last sea day that made up for no inside passage. 
 

only visited the casino once.  I blinked my eyes and $$$ were gone but it was very pretty and I appreciated that it was non smoking (they might have an enclosed smoking area that I didn’t notice like on newer ships). 
 

I will say food was hit and miss.  Some meals were truly outstanding and the best we’ve ever had at sea - especially from Cagneys but we also had a really bad meal there.  We had a really great lunch at the local our first day and then the same burger later in the week and it was a totally different meal- not so great. We had specialty meals every night.  I’d vote cagneys as our favorite which surprised me because they’re usually our least favorite. 
 

there’s a little card room/library by the forward observation lounge. They had sudoku and crossword puzzles and games available. We’re pretty lame about nightlife and shows so we skipped them but I heard positive things. 
 

Have a wonderful vacation and i hope you post a review. I enjoyed reading your last one.