Sell me on the Haven

[JamieLogical]

Just got off the phone with my PCC and my parents are all booked! We were able to pay $25/person to guarantee we will be on the same flights together for the trip down to Montego Bay. I am so so excited to show my parents all the videos and resources that all of you have shared about the Haven experience to help get them prepared for the trip!

[davencl]

On 5/4/2021 at 12:31 PM, JamieLogical said:

 

Good to know you were on the Joy. That is the ship we will be sailing on for our September cruise. One concern I have, specific to the Joy, is that it has a lot more "Haven" rooms than the typical Breakaway Plus class ship, due to nearly all of the formerly "Concierge Suite" (or whatever they were called) rooms now being converted to Haven rooms. I am concerned about the Haven areas being more crowded.

We were on the Joy panama canal cruise in Feb. of 2020.  Fully booked.  The Haven was not crowded at all.  Once in the Haven hard to go back. So be forwarned!  We've so far used the bidding process to upgrade to the Haven.   Always has been a bit cheaper but no guarantees. 

[JamieLogical]

8 minutes ago, davencl said:

We were on the Joy panama canal cruise in Feb. of 2020.  Fully booked.  The Haven was not crowded at all.  Once in the Haven hard to go back. So be forwarned!  We've so far used the bidding process to upgrade to the Haven.   Always has been a bit cheaper but no guarantees. 

 

Since the COVID shut-down, more of the Concierge Suites have been designated as full Haven. Only two categories if Concierge Suites remain. That's the reason I am a bit worried about crowding. 

[Seany527]

42 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Since the COVID shut-down, more of the Concierge Suites have been designated as full Haven. Only two categories if Concierge Suites remain. That's the reason I am a bit worried about crowding. 

I’ve seen people talk about this quite a bit so I’ll add my two cents now.
 

I was in the Joy Haven prior to adding the extra cabins. There was plenty of space. I think once in the 16 days I had to wait about for a table at dinner.
 

25 to 50% of the saved Haven seats in the theater were always open. 
 

No issues ever getting a seat on the suck deck or in the lower level by the pool. There are some seats that over look the front of the ship.  They were always open as well. 
 

The Library was empty every time I went in there. Some mornings before 8am I was the only person in the Haven observation deck. It got busy as the day went on but there was always a place to sit.  
 

I did a Haven tour which is uploaded on YouTube. The sun deck area was filmed during the day before we entered the first lock in Panama. 
Going through the canal is the highlight of the cruise and you can see how many seats were open. 
 

With all that being said, I did not count how many extra cabins they added but I don’t think that will make or break the Haven experience. 
 

If it does hinder the Haven, it will be difficult to tell at first since we will not be sailing at full capacity. 

[JamieLogical]

@Seany527 Thank you for all of the info. That is encouraging.

[Sthrngary]

1 hour ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Since the COVID shut-down, more of the Concierge Suites have been designated as full Haven. Only two categories if Concierge Suites remain. That's the reason I am a bit worried about crowding. 

Jamie: 

I was also a bit worried after reading about the converted cabins.  Then I noticed that very few actual Concierge Cabins were converted.  I then went on the Deck Plan and counted the Haven Suites.  The number is very low.  Not an issue after I studied it a bit.  We all will be just fine. 

[WarfRatWA]

5 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Since the COVID shut-down, more of the Concierge Suites have been designated as full Haven. Only two categories if Concierge Suites remain. That's the reason I am a bit worried about crowding. 

Hi Jamie...I'm sailing on the Joy as well in January, so I see value in your concern.  To put it into context, if you compare the Joy Haven to the Bliss Haven, the Joy has an additional 154 people if you base the calculation on max occupancy for all the haven suites.  I realize not all suites will be at max occupancy..in fact very few will be I suspect, but its the easiest way to make a comparison.

 

Do 154 people stress the Haven facilities?  I don't know, but in all my Haven sailings, I have never had an instance where I thought the Haven was even close to being over crowded. That said, I've never sailed on the Joy.

 

I look forward to hearing about your experience and the effect of the additional converted suites when you return.

[MaryZ]

Out of the three, Joy's haven is smaller. 
You would only notice this if you sailed in haven on Bliss & Encore. 

aaargghh....I just saw your post about the screen of death.  I really hope for you that they let you move your booking with the ship and same cabin. 
It's really becoming ridiculous how the cruise lines can just click cancel and basically say, you can't go on your cruise but here's your chance to rebook at a higher price.

I'm waiting on our Sept Mardi Gras cruise to be canceled.  This will be the 4th time we've been canceled on that ship.  I'm determined to go on it.  Our first cruise as a married couple was on the original Mardi Gras...lol  But seriously this is getting crazy. 

 

Edited May 25, 2021 by MaryZ

[RocketMan275]

There is another issue beyond cost.  We can only do one cruise per year because we do not want to kennel our dogs more than once.  Since we are time limited, cost becomes less of an issue.

[graphicguy]

7 minutes ago, RocketMan275 said:

There is another issue beyond cost.  We can only do one cruise per year because we do not want to kennel our dogs more than once.  Since we are time limited, cost becomes less of an issue.

I understand that.  I HATE to kennel my canine (he's not real fond of it, either).  But, I'm willing to do it for only a week at a time.  My preference is to have him stay with trusted friends.  Sometimes doable...sometimes not.

Edited May 25, 2021 by graphicguy

[graphicguy]

12 hours ago, MaryZ said:

Out of the three, Joy's haven is smaller. 
You would only notice this if you sailed in haven on Bliss & Encore. 

aaargghh....I just saw your post about the screen of death.  I really hope for you that they let you move your booking with the ship and same cabin. 
It's really becoming ridiculous how the cruise lines can just click cancel and basically say, you can't go on your cruise but here's your chance to rebook at a higher price.

I'm waiting on our Sept Mardi Gras cruise to be canceled.  This will be the 4th time we've been canceled on that ship.  I'm determined to go on it.  Our first cruise as a married couple was on the original Mardi Gras...lol  But seriously this is getting crazy. 

 

Was looking at a Carnival cruise and stopped over to that thread to see what Carnival passengers are doing for start up.  Can't really sift through all of it because it is WAY political....to the point I don't even want to sail Carnival any time in the foreseeable future.  There's some unfortunate craziness from a lot of the foilks who are Carnival fans.

 

Had to come back to the relative sanity in the NCL threads...... 😉

 

[RocketMan275]

4 hours ago, graphicguy said:

I understand that.  I HATE to kennel my canine (he's not real fond of it, either).  But, I'm willing to do it for only a week at a time.  My preference is to have him stay with trusted friends.  Sometimes doable...sometimes not.

 

We've almost always had dogs.  We lost our last dog, a Great Pyrenees, to a very aggressive cancer on his tongue about a year ago.  Now that our grieving is over, we have two standard poodles, males from the same litter about 3 months old.  They'll be just shy of a year when we take our next cruise.  Wife won't stand for more than one week in the kennel.   

[graphicguy]

Have always had big dogs….2 setters and a Golden Retriever.  Swore after my lass Golden passsed, I’d never get another dog.  About 2 years ago, a neighbor called me and said they’d found a dog at the local park that looked emancipated, matted and sickly.  I went to see it, and found it was some sort of Chihuahua mix.  He was not in good shape.  Someone had abandoned him.  By the looks of it, he had been out there for a while and fighting to survive.  He immediately jumped into my lap with those sad doe/dog eyes.  That was it.

 

He’s been with me since.  It took about 3 months to get him well and more than a few trips to the vet.  But, he’s happy and healthy now.  

 

Tough to leave them as they’re family.

[RocketMan275]

46 minutes ago, graphicguy said:

Have always had big dogs….2 setters and a Golden Retriever.  Swore after my lass Golden passsed, I’d never get another dog.  About 2 years ago, a neighbor called me and said they’d found a dog at the local park that looked emancipated, matted and sickly.  I went to see it, and found it was some sort of Chihuahua mix.  He was not in good shape.  Someone had abandoned him.  By the looks of it, he had been out there for a while and fighting to survive.  He immediately jumped into my lap with those sad doe/dog eyes.  That was it.

 

He’s been with me since.  It took about 3 months to get him well and more than a few trips to the vet.  But, he’s happy and healthy now.  

 

Tough to leave them as they’re family.

That's a wonderful story.  In the past we've had three great danes, an english mastiff, and a great pyrenees.  We've downsized to standard poodles.  We're expecting these two to come in at about 65 pounds.  Our danes were in the upper 100's and the mastiff was a bit over 200.  One of our danes, we found in a shelter.  She was emaciated.  You could see every bone in her body.  The vet said that if we hadn't taken her that friday, she'd have died over the weekend.  The pyrenees was a 'showed up', he 'showed up' one day.

[graphicguy]

4 minutes ago, RocketMan275 said:

That's a wonderful story.  In the past we've had three great danes, an english mastiff, and a great pyrenees.  We've downsized to standard poodles.  We're expecting these two to come in at about 65 pounds.  Our danes were in the upper 100's and the mastiff was a bit over 200.  One of our danes, we found in a shelter.  She was emaciated.  You could see every bone in her body.  The vet said that if we hadn't taken her that friday, she'd have died over the weekend.  The pyrenees was a 'showed up', he 'showed up' one day.

Love that, too!  Your pets sound wonderful!

 

They certainly know you rescued them.  They show it every day!

Edited May 25, 2021 by graphicguy

[renji]

On 5/14/2021 at 8:57 AM, Sthrngary said:

I loved your post above.  I write a lot about the Haven and how much I enjoy it.  I am sharing the Haven with my Adult Children at the end of November.  What I came to realize is that, just like you, the Haven got me thinking about, "What if the entire ship was the Haven?"  You are right, that can only be done on a Luxury Cruise Brand.  SO, just like you, My wife and I are sailing on the Crystal Cruises sailing for 7-days to the Bahamas at the end of July 2021.  Funny thing, my suite on this Luxury Cruise Brand is less then many of my suites in the Haven.

So I don't make anyone upset. I am still a huge Haven fan as many of you know.  I just figured, I really want to know what a Luxury Cruise Brand does differently.  

Thanks again for your post.

Did your Crystal cruise work out? I’ve taken the Crystal Serenity to the Caribbean and 10 day from Monte Carlo to Venice, amazing food and very relaxing, but I was with a dance group. I’m not sure I would do a luxury line without a dance group or partner as the late evenings can get a bit quiet (nice disco but often no one in it) and there’s no food after dinner. Even Cunard and Princess had better late night activity and options after dancing, if not as gourmet as Crystal.  I’m worried that Seaborn, Regent Seven Seas, Viking and Silver sea will be very quiet—-perhaps best for an exhausting port intensive trip.  I’m going to try the Haven this October given the vaccination policy on NCL and likelihood that it will be adult only.  I need a bit of activity evening/late night, even if it means giving up dinner at Crystal’s Nobu! (Holland America had amazing food and dueling pianos but then shuts down at 1130…so I wouldn’t do it again.) 

I also have credits I have to use within the year on Celebrity (Retreat), RCCL in a suite (no separate “Haven” but love Boleros and the piano bar) and Cunard in a grill so will have a decent comparison.  But of course I’m doing Haven when it’s not a real comparison and the ship isn’t even at capacity….

[phillygwm]

On 5/5/2021 at 9:31 AM, Sthrngary said:

I read every single comment.  You asked, "Sell me on the Haven".  You did not ask, if the Haven is the least expensive option.  To some, you can go on three cruise to one in the Haven.  To others like me, my time is to valuable to not have the very best food, drink, service and amenities on a big ship when I cruise.  You do you.

I've never done the Haven but I do understand the point.  When I was 20, when I travelled somewhere I'd stay at a Motel 6 or somewhere similar.  Why?  Because it was what I could afford; the alternative was to stay home.  Now, I can afford better.  That doesn't mean I need to stay at the Four Seasons, but it's gonna be someplace considerably more upscale than that Motel 6.

 

I travel with friends but stay by myself in a balcony or "club balcony."  If I were travelling with a partner (i.e. in the same cabin) I'd probably splurge for the Haven.  However, in my situation, my friends won't be splurging with me so I'd either be self-isolating or not availing myself of the perks.

 

Edited September 5, 2021 by phillygwm

[Sthrngary]

3 hours ago, renji said:

Did your Crystal cruise work out? I’ve taken the Crystal Serenity to the Caribbean and 10 day from Monte Carlo to Venice, amazing food and very relaxing, but I was with a dance group. I’m not sure I would do a luxury line without a dance group or partner as the late evenings can get a bit quiet (nice disco but often no one in it) and there’s no food after dinner. Even Cunard and Princess had better late night activity and options after dancing, if not as gourmet as Crystal.  I’m worried that Seaborn, Regent Seven Seas, Viking and Silver sea will be very quiet—-perhaps best for an exhausting port intensive trip.  I’m going to try the Haven this October given the vaccination policy on NCL and likelihood that it will be adult only.  I need a bit of activity evening/late night, even if it means giving up dinner at Crystal’s Nobu! (Holland America had amazing food and dueling pianos but then shuts down at 1130…so I wouldn’t do it again.) 

I also have credits I have to use within the year on Celebrity (Retreat), RCCL in a suite (no separate “Haven” but love Boleros and the piano bar) and Cunard in a grill so will have a decent comparison.  But of course I’m doing Haven when it’s not a real comparison and the ship isn’t even at capacity….

Yes, we enjoyed our Crystal Cruise.  We will be in the Haven in November.  Crystal is like the Haven but with Crystal it is the entire ship.  When you leave the Haven, it is not the same.  That said, I now realize we like the much larger ships, with the night life better.  You said it in your post.  It was still great to experience a luxury cruise.  
 

Cruise well.