Cabin Review

We probably would have enjoyed the cruise more if we had not had not booked room 10004 (Owners Suite with the large balcony) from the beginning. We felt isolated from the Haven amenities and did not feel we received the same level of service as the Haven guests.

If we had booked a lessor category and been upsold or upgraded this room we would have loved it. But, paying for this room made us feel like chumps every time we trudged up two floors to the Haven and repeatedly explain who we were.

People staying on the 14th floor in the Haven received better service, they were on a nicer floor, they had more privacy and were treated with more respect by the staff than we were...on the 10th floor. It didn't matter that we paid more for our room than anyone else (other than the Garden Villa people) it came down to location, location, location. And, we were in the wrong location.

So, word or warning to those people who plan to book the Owners Suite: Please rethink this. You will have a smaller room in the Haven but you will have the amenities right at your fingertips. You really will be treated differently by the steward and the butler (more on him later) on the 10th floor. On the 10th floor there are only two rooms that are "Haven" rooms. You are sharing your steward with non-Haven staff. They are not going to give you the same level of service so don't expect it. They can't give you the same level of service because they are busy with the balcony suites and the penthouse suites. The same is true with your butler.

Norwegian, you should do something about this and give people who stay in the Owners Suite the option of paying more to participate in the Haven or not. It was a hassle to get there and a hassle using things like the hot tub or pool. Using the Haven hot tub was not a better option for us because we were required to go the 14th floor and back to our room on the 10th floor, through security doors, walk by people's rooms, and walk down a long hallway to and from our room.

Our butler was useless. We saw him the first day. He watched my wife unpack. Why do I mention this? Because Norwegian specifically states the following is a perk for penthouses and suites on it's web site, "Butler to unpack your luggage." Our butler watched us unpack.

The next day, my wife asked him why he did not help her unpack and he (the butler) told my wife that he didn't notice that she was unpacking. I must say that I was appalled at his deplorable lack of attention to details since there were three suitcases on the bed and my wife kept putting clothing on hangers. Our butler, on the other hand, managed to move around my wife and show me where the remote control was on the tellie.

My wife asked the butler to explain his duties to her. The butler refused to explain his duties to my wife and preferred that she ask him when she needed something. Then he would tell her if that was something which fell within his job. My wife explained that she would rather know--up front--what his duties as a butler were so she could utilize him in this capacity. He refused a second time and a third time when asked again. My wife told him that she had dealt with staff such as him and they were generally lazy. If he didn't tell her what he did...she couldn't ask him to do it.

That was the pretty much the last we saw of our Butler.

Not having a butler was rough. We learned about the amenities of our room on our own. For example, we weren't permitted to use our front balcony while the ship was moving nor were we permitted to have our curtains open once it got dark. It interfered with the captains light (the captain is directly above our room.)

Nor did we know that there were extra towels stored under the sinks. We found them on the fourth day. And, although our butler told us the tub was a jacuzzi...it wasn't. It would have been nice if he had shown us how to turn off the lights on our bar but we figured it out by the third night. We never did find the lights for our balcony but sitting the dark was just as romantic. And thanks to our steward we learned that a pillow menu available to us so I didn't have to sleep on uncomfortable pillows during the entire trip.

We have posted a video on the Norwegian Facebook page so you can take a look. You can see that the room is spacious. The one thing we didn't lack for was space. If this room had been on the 14th floor we would have really liked it. We would have felt we had more options (we felt we could have requested a different butler). We would have felt that we were part of the Haven group and sharing in the amenities and not their poor distant cousins.