erdoran

Every Haven cruise I have done I watch the price carefully, from booking till sailing.  So far I’m on booking 3 after final payment, with two more on deck.  In each case the Haven sold out but prices stayed the same or increased.

For the booking we have now after FP, prices stayed the same and then went up a bit, but our category sold out fast so nothing to compare to; however, within days of booking I saw a 10% price increase on Haven cabins overall, then additional increases.  Our June, 2020 went up 10% after we booked, and just jumped another 10%.  Our 12/20 stayed the same for CY PH, but went up 10% for aft PH.

So for all the folks taking about price reductions - has anyone actually seen that happen for Haven?

Hank, thank you.  That is reassuring.

On 10/15/2019 at 4:48 PM, Hlitner said:

I am not questioning your read of their language but simply telling you how it all worked when we filed what most would call a major claim.  I assume (and this a big leap on my part) that GeoBlue is using language to avoid paying for things like outpatient "infusions" which is an issue with many policies.  In our particular case, DW received IVs with a powerful sedative, IV antibiotics (while still in the procedure room), a script (filled by the Japanese hospital pharmacy) for oral antibiotics...all of which were reimbursed by GeoBlue with no issues.  In fact, with tons of claim info (her treatment on an off the ship spanned about a week, the only item denied by GeoBlue was a big taxi fare to get DW from Yokohama to Narita.  The irony about that taxi is that if we had allowed her to be transported by ambulance it would have cost over $1000 a would have been reimbursable under the Med evac section.  But using a taxi to save the insurance company money (and call less attention to her case which might have discouraged the airline from the transport) backfired on us.  Tis life.

 

I spent over 35 years in the Medical Insurance industry (government) and was actually quite impressed with how GeoBlue handled our situation.  We had fast access to a very professional medical  case manager (this is usually a good thing) who even followed-up with a few phone calls after we had returned home.   Our case was a bit unusual (I posted the details more then a year ago) and the insurer turned out to be reasonable (not always the case with insurance companies).   Does this mean that everyone will get the level of service we received?  Who knows since we can only speak to a single complex claim over a year ago.  

 

Speaking of them having a network, this is quite unique among travel insurers.  We live in Mexico part of the year and there are actually network providers near to our home (fortunately we have never needed their services).  I know that one of the Internal Medicine physicians has a terrific reputation (hope we never need her services).  In the case of our Japanese Hospital, it was the largest major teaching hospital in Osaka and was not part of their network.  While DW was still at the hospital I had telephoned GeoBlue (it is good to get medical insurers involved at an early stage) and they immediately told me that the hospital was not part of their network and wanted to know if I had the ability/means to pay the hospital.  I have no idea what would have happened if we could not pay...since just like US Hospitals our last step on her discharge was to visit the accounting department :).

 

Hank

Hank, you may have said this before but for your wife’s stay in the out of network hospital, were you ultimately on the hook for $$$$$$ or a reasonable amount?

I think the Christmas gift thing is because it’s “expected”.  I would think that the expected tipping would happen no matter what.  

Personally, I’m of mixed mind about a Christmas “gift” (aka extra tip because that’s the right thing for gift givers).  It’s customary in the US (at least in my area) to give extra money at holiday season to everyone and their brother who you do regular business with during the year:  trash guys, newspaper carrier, hairdresser, manicure person, doorman, concierge (if you have, I have neither), dogwalker, etc, etc.  Federal workers can’t accept $$ so a small gift card is customary...

but note the “with whom you’ve done business all year”.  Crew are total strangers before you board, you have no personal ongoing relationship.  Absolutely, 100% DSC and any other tips you would ordinarily give.  beyond that my opinion is if you are in the holiday spirit and want to tip more generously than usual go for it, and it will be appreciated, of course!  Entirely optional; the DSC and auto-tips have covered all expectations, other than the non-DSC staff like butler, concierge, childcare

Are you able to upgrade pre-cruise and get the credit for 250 mins?  I thought you weren’t, that you had to wait till you are onboard.

We did bliss in Alaska and loved everything about the haven!  We had indoor pool and hot tub on cold days, two great hot tubs on haven sundeck in warm weather, priority on/off boat, haven bar and restaurant. Really only way to travel!  And let me not forget that gorgeous uncrowned lounge!  I’d run there every morning to see where we were!

Hank, 

doesn’t geoblue have $500k medevac?

How does someone even prove a foreign physician is licensed?

22 minutes ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

We are planning a late winter cruise on Escape with my DM and considering a Haven Spa Suite for the spa access.  Have only done H5 and H6 on Breakaway and then bought spa passes outright.  I know the ship layout is similar on Escape but deck plans show the spa suites being located on deck 16, the same deck as the spa.  I am wondering if the Haven spa suites on Escape are within the Haven or outside like on Breakaway?  It looks like they have their own hallway.  Is this are key card access only?  Can the bed be separated?

Also seeking opinions on this suite category over all.  The tub in the corner isn't a draw...but I like the included access to the thermal area. 

Thank you!

Keep an eye on pricing.  I just found one 12/5/20 on the Getaway where the same identical cabin was $550 more with spa pass for 2wk TA .  No idea what the passes will cost then but the 2 wk pass now for w Caribbean is $349

OK—let’s quantify:

$50 on spa services, port days - are there any $50 services?  Perhaps a mani?  For the rest you have to spend over and above—although if you love the spa, I can imagine getting 4 spa days if you don’t care about ports, so that does pay for the deal.

priority embarkation/debarkation - interesting to see how that works out.  It’s behind platinum and Haven, so if you are either, zero value

1 day canapés - you can help yourself at the buffet

Priority tendering - that’s sweet, perhaps again behind platinum and haven?

Free room service - at $7.95 per room service, that CAN add up if you are a room service fan

Verdict - if you are willing to spend extra on spa and come back early (can’t miss the priority tender, IF you have tender ports) and if you would order room service anyway (don’t forget the extra $ you will spend for the obligatory tip) you can potentially get your $$ out of it - 20 room services, no make that 21, if I did the math right, will cover the cost, or sone combo of room service and $50 discount at the spa.

The $50 spa discount got my attention, but at 1/cabin seems like I’d be spending so much more on spa services otherwise that it would cost me to save $.

On 10/15/2019 at 2:18 PM, jenkim11 said:

I have taken about 5 cruises in total and never had any issues with service. I have just signed up for this as a link was sent and wanted to vent about the terrible service.  I had a total of 17 people in my party on a cruise to Eastern Europe for 9 days.  Before the cruise, most of us purchased the thermal spa at $239 per person, the soda package, the water package and the high speed internet for $265 per person.  They had an awesome spa but the spa was not the issue - it was the service.  I booked a massage for $139 for a deep tissue.  It was a special as the regular price was $159.  The special had expired but they said they would honor it so I booked for 2 people.  I got the massage, and about 10 minutes in,  the tech from the person who was doing my sister's massage knocked on the door as my sister did not speak English at all.  She was arguing that my sister had to pay $159.  I told them that they said they would honor the $139.  She left and came back 5 minutes later with a translator.  I explained again and she left the room.  I told the masseuse that if I was interrupted again, I would cancel this massage and reschedule and asked her if I should go to the room where my sister was and explain.  She told me there was no need an they would honor the deep tissue as promised and told me not to worry because they had a translator in there.  I was interrupted a third time towards the end....I was livid and the experience was annoying but held it in.  When the massage was finished, I asked my sister if she got the deep tissue and she said "no" and that she was given a Swedish massage - which she would have never scheduled had she known in advance.  Basically for a $30 difference, she was taken advantage of.  When talking to the assistant manager after, the lady lied and said she was given a deep tissue massage when 2 minutes before, she told me she didn't give a deep tissue because that is not what she paid for and that a deep tissue would have cost $30 more.  The assistant manager talked about giving us a massage to make up for this and the interrupted massage (3 x's during a 50 minute massage), and said she would have the manager give us a call.  Never happened.  When I called the spa manager the next day, she was not available.  I went to guest services the day before the last day and they wrote down my complaint and said someone would get back to me before the end of the cruise.  No one got back to me.  I wrote an email/letter asking for acknowledgement of receipt - have heard nothing.  It is not the money - I spent $8000 including airfare for this cruise for 2 and had 17 people in the group.

 

I went on a Royal Caribbean Cruise early this year and when I left one of the restaurants without eating much of the food in main dining - the head of the dining dept came to almost every meal (literally found me at the restaurants) to see if my meal was enjoyable.  

See above bolded - couldn’t get colored fonts to take.

Order anything you like and ask for it to be virgin.

2 hours ago, All-ready2cruise said:

 

When you book service in the Spa, you have 24hrs to cancel, if you decide not to have the service done (massage, pedicure, manacure etc) you will be charged if you don't show up.  The charges go on your room card automatically and when you visit the spa, they take your card and return it after the service is complete.  This would be when you'd need to argue the charges - in the spa, not through NCL customer service. In this case, it wasn't a Free massage, it was a special reduced price.. expired at that, a savings of $30.  Talk about hyper-hyperbole??

I thought OP said he was offered a free massage as compensation after the fact?

9 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

Yes. I think every post above mentioned that there are wines at the Cellars that are not available at other bars. They have a wine menu for the products available at that bar. 

Thanks bird.  My question was if they have additional $15 and under wines

Are there “free” wines there that aren’t available elsewhere, other than by good luck (leftover from tastings)?  Do they have a special wine menu?

39 minutes ago, travelgals said:

I was quoted 7600 to upgrade- 3800 per person. 

 

And yes,  It seems I should have booked Haven originally,  but I didn’t and  I changed my mind and was willing to pay for it. But there is no reason I can think of, or they can explain, why I can’t just pay for the upgrade without being gouged. I’ve sailed in Haven- it’s wonderful! And I was once in an inside- it was perfectly fine. For this trip the inside was fine for my purposes when I booked it, and it will be just fine. But they need to get their act together. 

Call and ask for a supervisor, and ask for an itemization of the upgrade cost, line by line.  I’m curious too.  Just “simple arithmetic, if I book a haven online, with all amenities and taxes and DSC the price is $xx.  Please explain how UPGRADing, which should cost $xx minus what I already paid =$yy, is quoted so high.  Clearly there is a mistake, perhaps if we walk through the numbers together, we can find it”. Or...ask for a written, itemized quote to be emailed to you along with a 24 hr hold, which is free.

8 hours ago, Navis said:

Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge and experience in the Haven.  I would have loved to have seen something like this in advance of our first NCL cruise a few years ago! Since that time we have done 6 NCL cruises (Breakaway and Escape) and overall we enjoyed each one, but like many others on here, we too noticed a steady decline in product from cruise 1 to cruise 6.  In the end, our last cruise could not hold a candle to our first (both the NY to Bermuda trip).  Everything (and I really mean everything) just appears to have degraded in quality cruise over cruise (e.g., service, atmosphere, quality, included amenities).

 

Don't get me wrong, we still had a great time, but after our last cruise we decided to look hard at how we wanted to spend our cruise budget going forward.  We always thought that we too wanted that "ship within a ship" concept so we could take advantage of large ship amenities but still have a small ship feel.  As we thought about our actual activity on the ship, however, we realized that between the Haven and the Thermal Spa pass (which I absolutely LOVE), we rarely went to the other parts of the ship save for dinner and that quality too has gone way down since the ubiquitous SDP promo. And don't even get me started on the ridiculous beverage package . . . talk about inflated prices for well liquor offerings . . . smh.

 

We did a ton a research and ended up following a similar path as OP.  We are heading over to Seabourn next March . . .  much smaller ship with only 450 passengers, but with a nearly 1:1 passenger to crew ratio and a truly all-inclusive offering we are looking forward to trying a luxury line.  What sealed it for us was comparing our perceived "value" of NCL Haven vs. Seabourn vis-a-vis the price and inclusions.  Granted, I'll be giving up that nice DOS on NCL, but for the same price as that suite we'll be in an Owner's Suite on Seabourn . . . but the Owner's Suite includes unlimited internet, complete full in suite bar set up and refill (6 bottles of my choosing, unlimited wines and champagne), all dining included (even their Thomas Keller offering), complimentary limo to and from the airport/cruise port, all beverages at all ship locations/bars (premium liquors, wines, champagne, coffees, sodas), and even caviar on demand (not a selling point for me and I'm hoping I can swap that out for some cheese and crackers, ha).

 

Now, I understand that all of that may not be appealing to everyone and some may prioritize one or more over others, but what cannot be argued is that offering should give NCL pause on their pricing models for the Haven.  On all my cruises, even in a DOS, all those things would have been extra charges . . . and one thing that I came to really hate was the constant nickel and diming even after I paid $13-15K for my accommodations.  I am looking forward to my $13K on Seabourn to really mean $13K inclusive of everything mentioned above (I've been told it very common for passengers on Seabourn to disembark with a $0 balance on their accounts).

 

Probably not the right thread, but do tell me more....we do Haven for peace and quiet, lack of crowds, and catering to hubby’s pickiness; we do NCL for entertainment.

5 hours ago, travelgals said:

I agree, I am booked and called to try and upgrade. The website lists haven for 2099 per person. They quoted me over $7600 for two for the upgrade! I asked them why it would cost me more to upgrade than if I just booked the cabin and they we t round in circles and really couldn't answer me. But she did tell me she was getting a headache trying to explain it to me!! There is no logic that makes sense. They also quoted about $3900 (for 2 people) for a balcony room, yet online it was $599 PP

Try again and ask for a supervisor!

If I have already booked a cruise, can I buy CN vouchers onboard and have them applied immediately to the balance due?

Arzeena, I can put it in my cart for $319 each, I don’t see the $249 anywhere for the Bliss January cruise.  I had seen $249 before it was “really” available.

Having a hard time with it almost doubling for my December cruise (if it really is :>)

I am sold on TAs.  I had no idea cruises could be discounted - every cruise my TA has worked with me on has had a substantial discount, paid to me as a discount off the total cruise price, somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 or 8%.  What I do is book directly with NCL online, make sure I really want it and didn't just get carried away :>, make any cabin changes I want up front (for example, on a December TA I had booked an aft balcony then switched into haven to make hubby happier), and then I transfer it to the TA.  You have 30 days, as long as you haven't paid in full, to do the transfer.  Not sure how it would work if you booked after final payment, you might have to do the actual booking through the TA.

Yes, my TA could have done all the above, but I wanted to get the basics out of the way first!

Before picking/transferring to a TA, ask them (in writing) how much of a discount or other benefit they will give you if you transfer your cruise to them - send them your confirmation so they know the details.

OP, I think at this late date you are out of luck on your refund.  You may have your best chance contacting Steiner directly https://www.theonboardspa.com/ with specifics, and I do mean specifics--date/time, names (yours & sister's as well as all Steiner employees with whom you interacted), amount paid, what you were told, etc, etc.

It's really after the fact, but could you have refused to pay for the service right then and there until you had satisfaction--if you were promised a free massage, something in writing stating that your xxx massage on yyy date/time is FREE AND the appointment made before leaving the spa?

The universal here is 'READ THE FINE PRINT ON YOUR POLICY'.  is there no accurate fine print for GeoBlue?

26 minutes ago, SeaShark said:

 

Funny that you say that because I remember a time when people here would complain about drink prices, specialty restaurant prices, shore excursion prices, etc and they would always say "I wish NCL would just include these things in the cost of the cruise".

 

Just goes to show that you have to be careful what you wish for...

$50/cabin towards shore excursions, given the price now (no idea what they used to be) doesn't go very far....but the rest I agree have value.  I just think it's a shame about the booze pkg being so expensive to buy outright because if you think about it, those who want to share a cabin with another couple end up paying highly-inflated drink or drink pkg prices for the additional pax. 

While we are talking about the ideal perk type of thing, I wish they'd price the booze pkgs comparably to other cruise lines, and then offer some dollar credit towards the price of the booze pkg - they could still net the $20/person/day they have targeted but the additional pax would be much more likely to also buy the booze pkgs, rather than balk at $120/day each!  For a 14 day cruise it's cheaper to buy an inside cabin with perks for two and not use it, because the value of the perks is more than the cost of the cabin!

Perhaps someone else who is on a 14-day TA cruise can comment on the price of spa access?  Not certain, but I think my Jade TA was in the $250-$350 range, but Jade isn't comparable to Getaway....