Joy - number of cabins with access to Haven?

[Captain-John]

In danger of exposing my poor arithmetic - does anyone have a defintive answer as to how many cabins have access to Haven on Joy? I understand it is one of the  largest in the fleet.

 

Using a large, well known cruise deckplan website, the stated number is 95 - however doing a manual count of each category from HJ to H2 I arrive at 130 (said website counts HE/HF,  HB/HC and H5/H6 in the same category but I have accounted for that). Another site lists cabin types totalling 111 in number Which is correct?

 

 

[DaggoB]

I think there are 95 plus two owners suites. 

[Two Wheels Only]

118

[BirdTravels]

When the Joy first came to the US, there were 80 Haven rooms (consistent with other BA+ ships) and 80 suites (focused on the Asian market)... The Haven facilities are designed to support 80 staterooms. 

 

Then NCL decided to recategorize some of the Suites to Haven. We were scheduled to sail in the Haven on the Joy in the Spring of 2020 to see how that recategorization affected the Haven experience.... unfortunately, that cruise was cancelled and we have not rescheduled it. So,,, I would be curious to hear from those who have sailed in the Haven on the Bliss/Encore and the Joy to see if there is any perceived challenges caused by the number of Haven rooms. 

[Sailing12Away]

We were in Haven on the Encore around Alaska last summer, and Haven on the Joy this September for Canada/NE. No difference in our experience, or if anything I would say Joy was a smidge better. 

 

Before our trip I read lots of complaints here with folks saying because Joy has so many extra Haven rooms the experience was crowded and lesser. Not our experience at all.

 

Encore we were in an aft cabin with a long walk to the Haven area. When we're in Haven we like to spend a lot of time in the lounge/bar area, so being aft was a downer for us. Views and room was amazing, but just not the right experience for us.

 

On the Joy we were in an HH cabin on deck 15 (Haven areas are on 17). So still not in the courtyard, but a quick elevator ride up and we're right in the heart of where we wanted to be. Room was huge, balcony was twice as wide as a normal one so also quite big (no where near as big/deep as the aft one, that was one of the best), and easy enough to get to the Haven areas that it was a great compromise.

 

Both trips were cold weather ones, so not a ton of people in the pool areas. But again, never felt crowded once on Joy despite having more people in the area than on Encore. Those HH, HI, HJ rooms are a great option to save a little money but still be right in the thick of it all. Headed back into an HH room on Joy in February.

[deweytrader]

Been in the Joy Haven twice, no difference in service/crowds than any other Breakaway/+ ship.

[JandC_Cruising]

20 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

When the Joy first came to the US, there were 80 Haven rooms (consistent with other BA+ ships) and 80 suites (focused on the Asian market)... The Haven facilities are designed to support 80 staterooms. 

 

Then NCL decided to recategorize some of the Suites to Haven. We were scheduled to sail in the Haven on the Joy in the Spring of 2020 to see how that recategorization affected the Haven experience.... unfortunately, that cruise was cancelled and we have not rescheduled it. So,,, I would be curious to hear from those who have sailed in the Haven on the Bliss/Encore and the Joy to see if there is any perceived challenges caused by the number of Haven rooms. 

We were on the Joy in a 2BR Haven in June to Bermuda.  As is always the case, the Haven was packed and with good weather, the courtyard pool and Haven sun deck were always full. The one place we felt there was not enough staff to handle the crowd was drink service on the Sun Deck.  There were just too many guest with too few staff taking and running drink orders.  We simply had to resort to going down to the bar ourselves.  (yeah...first world problems).

We tried ordering food for lunch one day up there and after too long a wait, just went to the restaurant.  Funny thing was the server was running our food up to the deck (45 minutes later) and saw us sitting in the restaurant.  We had just sat down so he dropped the food at our table with an apology for such a long wait.

The bar staff did great handling the crowd downstairs throughout the day.

We had amazing service in the restaurant for every meal (breakfasts, lunches, and dinners).  We only had one night when we waited 5 minutes for a table (we were a party of 5).

The concierge staff (led by Patrick) was fantastic and knew all 5 of us by name by the second day and I felt did a great job juggling the large number of passengers.

 

[Captain-John]

Thanks all. I am also trying to calculate how many cabins are filled vs those vacant for bidding purposes, although it is also good to know the service experiences given the larger number of cabins included. 

[BirdTravels]

12 minutes ago, Captain-John said:

Thanks all. I am also trying to calculate how many cabins are filled vs those vacant for bidding purposes, although it is also good to know the service experiences given the larger number of cabins included. 

For bidding purposes, there will be a limited number of unsold Haven rooms.

 

For bidding purposes, there are 1488 other staterooms eligible to bid on Haven rooms. 

 

There is a very very very low probability of winning an upgrade.  

Edited December 20, 2022 by BirdTravels

[Captain-John]

19 minutes ago, BirdTravels said:

For bidding purposes, there will be a limited number of unsold Haven rooms.

 

Quite. We will never be privy to a) How many people who are invited to bid, do so. b) How many are eligible to bid for Haven, do so (I think that rules out Insides and Oceanview?) c) The  'rules' of how bids are awarded (is it ouright $ bid amount, total booking cost etc.) The Joy also has SC category cabins, I am not sure if this is factored into the bid 'sequence.'

 

I have pre-purchased Vibe and I'm very comfortable with the MB cabin we have booked. There will be no bidding war, the number will be submitted and if I get anything, great.

 

But I am under no illusions - it is a speculative punt with no downside. It was just a curiosity to see for example 30% of Haven rooms are vacant, 10%, 50% whatever - that's why I wanted the number of cabins. A curiosity, a side piece, a bit of work for my own interest - I don't think I can gain any advantage.

[vacation44]

10 minutes ago, Captain-John said:

 

Quite. We will never be privy to a) How many people who are invited to bid, do so. b) How many are eligible to bid for Haven, do so (I think that rules out Insides and Oceanview?) c) The  'rules' of how bids are awarded (is it ouright $ bid amount, total booking cost etc.) The Joy also has SC category cabins, I am not sure if this is factored into the bid 'sequence.'

 

I have pre-purchased Vibe and I'm very comfortable with the MB cabin we have booked. There will be no bidding war, the number will be submitted and if I get anything, great.

 

But I am under no illusions - it is a speculative punt with no downside. It was just a curiosity to see for example 30% of Haven rooms are vacant, 10%, 50% whatever - that's why I wanted the number of cabins. A curiosity, a side piece, a bit of work for my own interest - I don't think I can gain any advantage.

We were on the Joy twice this year--once in a Haven cabin and once in a non-Haven suite.  Due to the Haven sun deck always being crowded and poor bar/food service, we preferred the non-Haven suite as we had Vibe passes.    Going forward, I would choose the non-Haven suite again and save the extra money too.