The Haven Experience
Charlie soaking up the rays on our Haven AFT balcony (and scarfing down a banana from our daily fruit selection)
The Haven experience was fabulous.
I’ve read so many reviews of The Haven and they can vary ship by ship. I chose an AFT cabin on the 13th deck which required us to use the elevators or stairs to access The Haven courtyard and pool, as well as the private Haven decks, restaurant and bar. Honestly it didn’t matter to us AT ALL! We loved our cabin location and if I were choosing The Haven again I would not hesitate to be on a different deck than the main amenities.
Our butler and cabin steward were top notch, greeting us by name all the time and asking my children lots of questions about what they liked and didn’t like. I prepared a typed out letter with what our preferences were for beverages and snacks (this was a recommendation from other Haven passengers on cruise boards) and our needs were met at every turn. My oldest has some anxiety around weather and when we arrived in Bermuda the weather was not great. Our butler spent some time chatting with her, helping to assuage her fears about the cloud storms and the rain. I was so impressed by the caliber of the staff and the attention paid to each of my children.
If you can believe it I don’t have a single picture of the cabin itself! I guess we were too busy enjoying it to take pictures but in the first part of this review I Iinked to Cruisedeckplans.com with images of our suite - this link is to the full ship. We had a 1 bedroom with a large bathroom with a jacuzzi tub and a standalone shower with 2 sinks, as well as a separate 1/2 bath with toilet and sink just off the entrance to the room which was mighty handy with 4 ladies sharing! My girls and I bunked in the bedroom and our au pair Naomi had the main room with the pull out couch. It worked very well for us.
After our first day we decided to camp out at The Haven pool which was never crowded. My kids had a blast and there are 2 jacuzzi’s that were never full. My only criticism of the pool area is that there are no poolside loungers. All of The Haven loungers are one deck above. It’s a lovely and quiet area - great for reading and chilling out but not great if you have to keep an eye on the kiddos in the pool. Around the pool are tables and chairs which were totally adequate and also allowed for food service and bar service at most points during the day. We spent almost all of our sea days by The Haven pool and loved it.
The Haven dining is a step up from the regular dining room and buffet. Overall it was a superior experience. One note for parents, the kids menu in The Haven Restaurant is serviced by the main catering area - that means that when your kids order off that menu their food comes from another deck and can be delayed. This happened to us during one rather tense lunch where it took more than 45 minutes for my kids’ food to arrive and they were starving and restless. If you can find items on the main menu that your kids will be happy with I highly recommend that so your food will arrive at the same time. It was a good lesson for us and we didn’t make that mistake twice!
