SLO Live/SLO Jam 5/10/2018 Bliss

Really enjoyed this review and photos!!!

Is Margaritaville free for lunch (haven guests) only on embarkation day or every day?

 

Is the haven observation area every noisy? There are 2 bedroom suites right outside that area and thinking of booking. But concerned if the area is too crowded.

No not noisy, every time I visited it was as quiet as a library. They had pleasant music playing.

We did have two cocktail parties there. It did get noisy then with people visiting and talking. They only lasted about 45 minutes and they were during cocktail hour.

You should be fine, and it will be an excellent location.

Margaritaville is free for Haven guests for lunch on the day of embarkation.

Here is a link from port of Los Angeles

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Quick question

Who cares about Haven, if you dont use the Race Track or Ocean Loop?

This is what the ship is about and not about people who have their nose high in the air, because they book Haven.

Quick question

 

Who cares about Haven, if you dont use the Race Track or Ocean Loop?

This is what the ship is about and not about people who have their nose high in the air, because they book Haven.

Hmmm, having cruised (we cruise once a year) in all categories of cabins since 2004, I have enjoyed all of my cruises except celebrity in 2004, (those were the days of having to dress up in formal wear and sit with new friends, strangers), I really enjoyed that one too but once we tried NCL freestyle, that suited our likes better.

We have only cruised in the Haven twice. It is very expensive, but the food, the service, the experience is just over the top!

I hope that I wasn’t putting my nose in the air; only trying to share my experience. Yes we did enjoy the Haven restaurant and Haven spaces a lot.

We did do 2 rounds of the go carts. It was super fun! I wanted to do the water slides and loops. They look fantastic. I should have done them when it was hot. By the time I got the nerve up, it was cold. I have a fear of heights and as you can see we are big people and I had a little fear of getting stuck.

Instead we thoroughly enjoyed the spa (which is why we chose the cabin we did).

I think cruising is a great experience for a lot of people specifically because there are so many choices of how you want to spend your hard earned time and money and how you want to experience YOUR particular cruise.

I love people’s reviews of their vacation experiences and thought that I would write a semi live review of our great Bliss trip.

Hmmm, having cruised (we cruise once a year) in all categories of cabins since 2004, I have enjoyed all of my cruises except celebrity in 2004, (those were the days of having to dress up in formal wear and sit with new friends, strangers), I really enjoyed that one too but once we tried NCL freestyle, that suited our likes better.

We have only cruised in the Haven twice. It is very expensive, but the food, the service, the experience is just over the top!

I hope that I wasn’t putting my nose in the air; only trying to share my experience. Yes we did enjoy the Haven restaurant and Haven spaces a lot.

We did do 2 rounds of the go carts. It was super fun! I wanted to do the water slides and loops. They look fantastic. I should have done them when it was hot. By the time I got the nerve up, it was cold. I have a fear of heights and as you can see we are big people and I had a little fear of getting stuck.

Instead we thoroughly enjoyed the spa (which is why we chose the cabin we did).

I think cruising is a great experience for a lot of people specifically because there are so many choices of how you want to spend your hard earned time and money and how you want to experience YOUR particular cruise.

I love people’s reviews of their vacation experiences and thought that I would write a semi live review of our great Bliss trip.

I thoroughly enjoyed your review. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your wonderful vacation with us.

No not noisy, every time I visited it was as quiet as a library. They had pleasant music playing.

We did have two cocktail parties there. It did get noisy then with people visiting and talking. They only lasted about 45 minutes and they were during cocktail hour.

You should be fine, and it will be an excellent location.

 

Margaritaville is free for Haven guests for lunch on the day of embarkation.

Food Republic was 50% off for Haven guests for dinner on embarkation day

Food Republic was 50% off for Haven guests for dinner on embarkation day

Yes we went there first night, I think, to get the discount.

Hmmm, having cruised (we cruise once a year) in all categories of cabins since 2004, I have enjoyed all of my cruises except celebrity in 2004, (those were the days of having to dress up in formal wear and sit with new friends, strangers), I really enjoyed that one too but once we tried NCL freestyle, that suited our likes better.

We have only cruised in the Haven twice. It is very expensive, but the food, the service, the experience is just over the top!

I hope that I wasn’t putting my nose in the air; only trying to share my experience. Yes we did enjoy the Haven restaurant and Haven spaces a lot.

We did do 2 rounds of the go carts. It was super fun! I wanted to do the water slides and loops. They look fantastic. I should have done them when it was hot. By the time I got the nerve up, it was cold. I have a fear of heights and as you can see we are big people and I had a little fear of getting stuck.

Instead we thoroughly enjoyed the spa (which is why we chose the cabin we did).

I think cruising is a great experience for a lot of people specifically because there are so many choices of how you want to spend your hard earned time and money and how you want to experience YOUR particular cruise.

I love people’s reviews of their vacation experiences and thought that I would write a semi live review of our great Bliss trip.

There was a time I had to get the cheapest trips I could fine and even at that I loved to see the high end suites and service others got because they could afford it. It allowed me to dream about having that ability and then after many years of hard work I can now afford the finer things in life.

Thanks for sharing and hopefully some day others who can afford it today will be able to someday in the future.

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Great review! We were on too and was fun re-living the trip reading your write-up.

Quick question

 

Who cares about Haven, if you dont use the Race Track or Ocean Loop?

This is what the ship is about and not about people who have their nose high in the air, because they book Haven.

That is way unfair to these two cruisers who shared a lot of their cruise experience to educate us on our future cruise. Why is it important to anyone what stateroom the reviewers are in? They gave a great informative review and I am grateful to them. They took a lot of time out of their cruise experience and should be commended. [emoji4]

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I know the gratuities are shared among the crew, but when you tip directly (like your favorite bartender or your cabin steward) do the individuals get to keep the entirety of that tip or do they also have to be pooled?

I don’t know the answer to this question. When you have UBP, I’m not sure how the gratuities are distributed.

When I was in Alaska several years back, in the days when UBP was not a common perk, they gave you slips that included a tip, then you had the opportunity to tip over and above that. I used to slip the bartender a $1.00 bill, instead of giving more on the slip. He said it went straight into his pocket; whereas the other automatic tip was somewhat elusive and it was not clear who actually got it or how much.

Nowadays with everybody seeming to have UBP and prepaid gratuities. We tip cash as we go for excellent service or a fancy drink or if we have a big or a moderately big win in casino.

In the Haven, I tipped also at end of cruise several people including Emir who made our cruise fantastic and memorable.

If anybody knows what actually happens with the 18% (? I think) that you pay up front when you book, (months and months) ahead let all of us know. I have no clue.

Hope that helps.

Got tips and hero cards completed! Yay!

Shout out to:

Yaz-D

May

Elvy

Clarence

Bong

Christian

Yousef

Kelly

Emir

Joy

Nicholas

And many many more.

 

 

 

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One more thing about tipping:

We budget this in before the cruise, as long as we get excellent service, which we did, we expect to tip our room steward over and above the service charge, our concierge and our butler. We also tip at the end of the cruise anybody who gave us outstanding and memorable service. But that’s just us, there is no need to.

The crew works very hard and give great service tips or no tips.

Quick question

 

Who cares about Haven, if you dont use the Race Track or Ocean Loop?

This is what the ship is about and not about people who have their nose high in the air, because they book Haven.

Why would someone even post something like this? The ship is about everything that it brings, and the Haven is something that NCL brings that is very unique.

You don’t need to care about it Fanatico, but shouldn’t be disrespecting others that do, and, in particular, disrespecting forum members that have spent a lot of time documenting their experiences so that we can all share in them.

- M

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Hey, you two are in this video ... https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=56078649&postcount=248

 

Great review and pictures! Keep it up!

Thanks I’m just seeing this for the first time once I got home! The video wouldn’t load while on the Bliss for some reason. Thanks for posting this and for letting us know about it. I’m glad it was speed-up.

Can i ask you something about the weather?

Is it possible to sunbathe every day on deck ? I ofter read about windy nights, cold to swim, etc....

I d like to do this cruise next year but we will only go if we ll have sun since we don t have a lot of that in Europe :)

Thanks,

Sue

Anybody know if there is an adult only pool on Bliss?

I’d say no.

There is spice H2O that has 2 jacuzzis, one on either side of aft. And a water feature.

Then there is the vibe, which is adults only; but you have to be one of a lucky group of 90 (?), who get in line right after boarding to buy passes to vibe, approximately $100. There are 2 jacuzzis there, no pool.

There are 2 pools on pool deck, a kids water park playground pool area. These are for all passengers to use.

I’ll post pics from the cc ap.

I believe this cruise next year will be earlier in the year by less than a month maybe?

Anyway, the ports that you will stop at are warm all year long, hot and muggy as a matter of fact. Bring clothes for warm weather 80% of the time.

Many people were sunbathing everyday on the pool deck and the deck above. A lot of people got a nice tan. (We aren’t sun worshipers and prefer dappled shade, since we live in sunny Southern California).

Indoors the air conditioning was not too cold where you need a sweater. But I brought a light jacket just to cover my big arms. Lol.

You’ll need warmer clothes once you leave your last stop in Mexico as the climate changes on the pacific side of Baja California. Only your last two or so days it gets windy and cold.

Hope that helps! You will love the Panama Canal cruise! Especially on our sweet Bliss! You’ll have more than enough sunshine!

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I’d say no.

 

There is spice H2O that has 2 jacuzzis, one on either side of aft. And a water feature.

 

Then there is the vibe, which is adults only; but you have to be one of a lucky group of 90 (?), who get in line right after boarding to buy passes to vibe, approximately $100. There are 2 jacuzzis there, no pool.

 

There are 2 pools on pool deck, a kids water park playground pool area. These are for all passengers to use.

 

I’ll post pics from the cc ap.

Here are pool pics that I have:

I realized that I don’t have very many pics of the regular pool deck.

This is on deck 17 pool area:

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Up early before the alarm goes off this morning, Mike is still sleeping. I thought I’d tell you about us:

We are Joyce and Mike from So. California in the OC (Orange County), between San Diego and Los Angeles. We are in our early sixties, we cruise about once a year, since about 2004. We made it to platinum level a couple of cruises ago. We enjoyed being in the Haven so much on our Christmas cruise on the Escape last year that we bumped ourselves up to the Haven again for this cruise. We celebrate our 40th anniversary this year in September and this is our only vacation this year so we decided to spurge. It’s true what they say: “Once you go Haven, it’s tough going back”.

We book through Casinos at Sea through NCL, (so you’ll find us in the casino). We booked, I think, in Jan of 2017. We have been watching the build of our beloved Bliss in Germany. It was an education in ship building. I can’t believe that today is the day to step foot on our baby, our Mega ship, our home for the next 15 days!

We have had a fantastic roll call for our Panama Canal Cruise on the Bliss. We have 300 plus shipmates who will be attending the meet and greet!

Anyway I’ll try to keep everyone posted and up to date on our fantastic voyage.

Here is a picture of us from an excursion in Ketchikan, Alaska a couple of years ago:

 

 

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We watched a guy juggle a soccer ball on top of one of the lock gates. He was good.

 

And the sun was setting:

 

 

 

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Hi there!

Well, we WERE neighbours (we were in the other spa suite (15864). Hadn't put 2 + 2 together, but we were also on the same Costa Rica bus. :)

Great review/photos, was fun to re-live through you. Too bad I didn't do CC during the cruise, or I'd have said hello earlier.

Looks like you had fun (as did we!). During Panama Canal you look to be just above our friend's cabin where there were about 30 of us having a viewing party. Apologies for the singing, if you were. :)

The soccer player is on their national team, so it's a good thing he was pretty good!

Stephen

.

Hi Stephen (and I think Daniel) Yes I remember bumping into you a lot around the cruise ship. Didn’t you just love “our room”? I am now having Bliss withdrawal. I have been toying around with booking a Christmas cruise. Casinos at Sea won’t make us an offer on the Haven though, darn! My family is pretty jealous that we got to drive those race go carts, hopefully they’ll come with us.

That Panamanian National soccer player was fun to watch!

No we didn’t hear any singing...glad that you got to enjoy yourselves and celebrate!

I enjoy reading your comments on cruise critic.

Here’s to cruising together! Tina (roll call leader) is thinking of Bliss 2021 in Alaska. We’ll see!

Joyce

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I know this review is old but I’ll see if I can add a video of The Panama Canal cruise on the Bliss and some of our Christmas cruise to Eastern Caribbean on the Bliss. Video failed, too large. I added some photos.

what a mess on the video upload sorry. Anyway here are some more photos

Skierjj

Thanks for your intensive review!  A couple of questions.... can your conscierge arrange the go cart rides?  Would you say the Haven Restaurant is comparable to the other Specialty restaurants or better?  Other than our 3 Specialty restaurant meals, our group will most probably eat all meals in the Haven restaurant, hoping we won’t be disappointed.

4 hours ago, sargemrs said:

Skierjj

Thanks for your intensive review!  A couple of questions.... can your conscierge arrange the go cart rides?  Would you say the Haven Restaurant is comparable to the other Specialty restaurants or better?  Other than our 3 Specialty restaurant meals, our group will most probably eat all meals in the Haven restaurant, hoping we won’t be disappointed.

Dear Sargemrs,

Yes, concierge can book carts for you in Haven. Do this as early as possible when you get on board. Have him or her check all of your shows and dinners. They are great at getting everything booked, shore excursions too.

Yes the Haven restaurant was like an air conditioned heaven after some of the hot and humid excursions. There is also a great patio outdoors when the weather is nice. Very quiet, Very pleasant atmosphere and the service is top notch. The food is great and the chef will personally come out to talk to you or to provide any additional dietary needs you may have. We had a fantastic waitress May working our table most days. She has a husband on board who is a bartender: Yad-z.

Thanks so much for that info!  Can’t hardly wait till May!!