NCL Viva Haven vs MSC Yacht Club

Admiral Tim Cruise, we're here aboard NCL's Viva to talk about the Haven and compare it against MSC's Yacht Club. We've done both several times now. Uh-oh, there's the competitor MSC Fantasia in the port right next to us at Palermo. Ooh, they're watching everything I say. But is NCL's Haven equal to or better? I don't know. Let's look at some of the differences. This is NCL's Haven. which to the best of my knowledge MSC does not have on any of their ships and you need your little key card to activate it. Although on MSC you can use your little wristband and override and uh I don't know. It's on several floors going all the way down to 11 and uh everything kind of happens on 16. This is where the Haven Lounge is. So the first thing you're going to see up here when you come out of the elevators is the concierge desk. And on the other side you'll find the Haven Bar. It's exclusively for Haven members. Now you do have to have a drink package unless you buy per drink. You could do that too. There's a couple different drink packages to choose. One is a premium. It gets a little bit better liquors but the regular drink package is fine. Now this is the difference here. This is the lounge area. It's kind of completely separated from the bar which is in my opinion a little strange. I thought MSC's kind of like semi-circle area where everything was together made a lot more sense. So nobody really sits back here in this part of the lounge. So it's kind of separated. There is drink service back here sometimes but there's a lot of secret entrances too on just about every floor. So you have these little these little sneaky entrances. You put your card up and then you can open the door and sneak into the Haven which is different colors. So you'll know you're in the Haven. It's got Haven all over the place and it is honestly a different feel than the rest of the ship and you pay for that. So going out the back this is past the concierge desk. There is an outdoor lounge area and these are all first come first serve. You take any one of these you want and they're never really crowded out here but again we were in a Mediterranean cruise off season so it wasn't super hot out here but I can imagine how these would be pretty crowded. There's another bar outside too. Very very good service out here too. All the Haven service is impeccable. It's awesome. These guys work their butts off for it with an infinity pool overlooking the back of the ship accessible only to Haven guests which is very very nice and it is heated for the colder climates. There is a sauna back here for Haven people and also an ice room which I never saw anybody in. It's kind of weird. I guess in the warmer climates maybe you can use that and then there's a second level where there are two hot tubs exclusively for Haven guests and that's kind of nice too. A bunch of seating up here with incredible views of whatever port you're at. We're in Cadiz, Spain today. Now the Haven restaurant is another interesting find. It's pretty big. It's on one side of the ship. Not as big as you would expect. There is an outside seating area too which is combined with some more of these loungers and seating areas if you want to sit outside. You can actually sit outside while people are having dinner. They call it al fresco if you want to eat outside but the menu never changes. The dinner, lunch and breakfast menus never change. This was an 11-day cruise and by day six we're like oh really? Come on change the menu. We end up eating at other places. So let's take a look at our room here in the Haven. We have an HE suite. Oh hey thanks for coming. Coming for a second. Take a look around my Haven HE suite. Look at how spacious. I can actually spread my wings in here and move around without bumping into anything. How great is that for just a few dollars extra than your normal room right? Okay maybe more than a few. Like a lot of few. Let's start over here with the closets. First I have a full-length mirror. Although the light here is terrible. You can't really see yourself so this is kind of stupid. I wish it would move but it doesn't. Wait come here and look at this. These are your heat and cooling controls and you can say do not disturb. We have that on all the time. These are quick cool. I don't know if that really works. You have this little thing here which comes in the room. I don't know if that's in regular rooms. You have to pop that in for the lights to come on. You know how that thing works. All right the closets have a light in here. This door actually stays around Prima. The door is like plenty of hangers and it will bring you more. You have a butler on these cruises and the butler is super attentive on this one on our Prima cruise. Worst butler we've ever had but this one he's on point. I'll give you his name later in the video. Room down here for your shoes. Although my size 12's a little too big. They don't fit but Felicia's shoes will work there although she chooses not to use that. All right and then there's this side of the closet which has a bunch of little shelves. We can see we didn't use any. Is there anything in here? Oh you did put things in. That and our safe which is great to have a little safe and more room for your shoes down here. I guess I could put my shoes like that. We should try that Felice. And this is a nice little magnetic closure so when the waves are a little rocky like they were the first couple of nights these do not move Over here you have some silverware and a pop topper so then it'll charge you a corking fee. I don't know if that's available in other places. What the heck is that? More what? Did you know that was there? Okay and you have tea and coffee over here in this little coffee machine. Lord knows how often they change that. Then you have some sugar and some creamer and stuff here. This hidden sneakily is your refrigerator. Look at that and it's not just a cooler it is a legit refrigerator so that is pretty cool. This is your tv. Now the problem with the tv is you can't really get behind it. I've tried to feel behind this and I thought I felt an hdmi but it's not real user accessible. So you've got kids that are trying to play nintendo or playstation or something and probably not going to be able to connect to it unless you call somebody in tech support which in the suite you can probably do that but no airplay or anything I wasn't able to figure that out. Right the tv this is a nice feature in the suites. I didn't realize because I never got to this point because you have to watch the whole 14 minute safety video which I've never done before and I should put it on and I went to the bathroom and I came back out it was gone but all these movies are free and we watched about eight movies I think you know trying to fall asleep and some of these movies are movies that I would never have purchased but they're completely free. I guess the all haven people or somebody in it made a huge mistake but thank you for that and there's some really good first run movies on here I was really impressed at the selection on the tv and then you've got some information about the shows that are going on here we did see the Fleetwood Mac rumor show that was great and we saw Beetlejuice and Beetlejuice was it was okay I just think the script was weak and your concierge can help you get tickets if you didn't get tickles and a good looking stage and it was pretty well done but I just I just wasn't into the script bottom bottom honey push push push no honey no hey look at that nothing in there huh little area over here now look at this this is important can you see this see how they have the two us plugs here and there's a space between them with usbs which is incredibly convenient on msc these two plugs are right next to each other which is insane you can't really ever use them if you have a wide most of the adapters are like this this is all 110 power which is very very convenient here a little couchy area so you can sit here and have dinner with a nice look what oh my god is that caviar i'm eating that totally right now okay oh my god those are m&m's well everyday m&m's commies and fresh fruit when you put down this is looking all rank this thing needs to go overboard they give you fresh fruit and whatever all right let's finish with the room come around this way a couple of drawers a lot of books you are so rough let me work you press from the bottom no you press right here no no no whatever i'm pulling out from the top it's supposed to work that way i don't know you got some books and no one ever reads another drawer here which is cool and i didn't know this was a drawer that's nice that's pretty cool right the bed is super what do you think about the bed i love the bed super comfortable super comfortable it is a king you can't move it anywhere wait talk to me about all those controls over there my goodness now this is still confusing and you got another set of ac like 110s over here us plugs over here so that's nice with usb c and usb a right there this is your light controls which i haven't really figured on yet sometimes they work sometimes they don't window controls you have electric shades which will make these shades go up and down i'm not going to do that there's good light in this place now the bed's location is kind of a little tweaked i'd like to see it moved over a foot because when felicia's getting ready at this little makeup station here what would you call us a makeup station yeah you're sitting out about here yep and how do i have to get there over the bed i'm like this i'm trying to do this with my tequila look at that you did it see it's not that hard it is a pain in the butt so this really should move over about a foot norwegian people if you're listening to us there's a drawer here with all kinds of girl stuff here a lit mirror does this twist nice and your phone your room service menu they do 24-hour room service and your butler brings it to you so that's really nice i believe it is included the drinks are not it's really weird because everything is pretty much included in our free at sea except bottled water the only thing you really need is not included that's extra i just paid 650 for an aquapona plus a tip don't ask there's a drawer under here so that's nice well oh your hair dryer right 110 is it plenty of uh yep i don't know all right so coming to the bathroom now this sink is pretty cool it's wide it's modern it's cool looking when you turn your water on you wash your hands it kind of splashes back up at you and there's like almost no counter space in here so that is a small problem but i wish they had a little more counter space i'd rather see two smaller sinks and just push back a little bit but mirrors are great power over here you see this for shaving usbc and a usba and you've got your yep that's nice super cool and you've got storage under here too which is really nice we just throw our towels over here they give you a bunch of towels here too as many towels as you want even they do a little bit extra a couple of drawers for all your stuff here and um this for storage well but with the absence of counter space thank god that here you really have nowhere to put anything it's really crazy this is your shower and it's a really nice shower and oh i shouldn't do this it is a rain head you see this ready nice huh and it's super comfortable cozy you set your temperature here to whatever you want and then there's this thing you turn this on this is for i guess you put this in your butt i don't know for places you can't get to with the rain head and there's never mind and there's this little thing which is the guitar string i like to tell you this when i take a shower you've got your your shower douche gel douche it says there and then you have douche and then we just learned what fire wasn't cut along today i can't say that right and you have your shampoo and your conditioner and a little cut out here what do you call these little cubby alcove hey i can't get out hello oh oh oh what's this for this is a glory hole you know what a glory hole is all right so the bathroom's nice too because it has this door so when you're making like felicia makes those really loud noises when she poops and i can close this and kind of get some of it out of there but you can still hear it a little bit all right it's me and wait wait wait listen this is my favorite sound listen i'm gonna make this with my ring cone that's what i'm talking about now well look i leave the floor dirty so that's the bathroom dirty oh wait come here i'm gonna show you one more thing in the bathroom we're gonna make everybody everybody dizzy this is the jesus christ bar jesus christ i can't get up with this they give us champagne actually they give us prosecco when we came in i use this for a phone holder oh i think y'all have a phone you have my phone i put that in there i moved it the first night and then he moved it out of here and i put it back and he kind of decided that maybe i'm serious about this so i put this here and keep your phone here right nice bathroom storage there's no ledges or anything here sort of thing who doesn't go to the from the bathroom without their phone right now let's go outside i think that's the rest of the room right did we miss anything okay and these are i told you these are electrical here's your outdoor patio a little oversized bigger than the normal patio plenty of room here look at the size of this table the table's huge just give you information what it is you could eat dinner out here you can sit on here you put your laptop out here very nice table i consider bringing this inside but i don't really care and these chairs are fine i almost killed myself the first night trying to figure that out but you can recline out here and this is the basic haven suite now you can go up from here there's more expensive ones and more pricey ones ones that have separate bedrooms separate bathrooms but not really necessary i think this is really all the average haven person would need okay because we escaped the haven because that menu is driving us nuts like after day three yeah i just can't too many days we're down here in indulge for like the third day in a row because they've like a at least a varied menu right oh yeah it's a great all right so yacht club on mse versus ncl's haven final thoughts what do you like better i think i like the yacht club why i like the spaciousness of the outcome the yacht club lounge i agree i like the menu changes all the time the menu does change that's nice i like um that in the lounge they offer snacks oh that's right now they do bring snacks to your room here in haven like your butler will bring like a tray of things but you can't pick what you want he kind of picks what it is and it's kind of a mishmash i don't know what's up it's like egg salad or something today i don't know what that yeah the blts are pretty good you know in the haven they'll bring you chocolate and gummy bears and that's kind of a nice you know but they have a lot of snacks in the yacht club lounge and you can kind of pick what you want and then they have that tea day they do this is pretty cool right so i agree with you i think um i mean the service i think on both has been great service has been exceptional butler's great the room attendant the bartenders are super fast great memory and they make awesome drinks on but i do agree to those things that you were talking about there i love the yacht club lounge i love how it's all together and they have a piano player out there they have atmosphere there you know what i mean it's all in one place and everybody's kind of chilling and and you really don't have all you have is really the bar area the inside and outdoor bar area but it's not really cohesive you know what i mean i mean you'll see people that you've never seen before i'm like wow where were you i was outside the whole time i didn't know that yeah i gotta say that if i had to choose i would probably go with yacht club over ncl's haven you know what i mean and it's just for those very few reasons but i can't say bad things about ncl because i really like haven but if i had to choose if they put a gun to my head and say i'd probably say msc yacht club again again i can't complain about i mean haven's nice too if you've already got ncl status and you get points keep it it's a great experience you will love it as long as you could deal with that menu for 11 nights you're gonna be okay all right for felicia this is admiral tim cruz thanks for watching make sure you hit that subscribe and like and comment with your thoughts below because we all learn together if we all comment together and engage you know what i'm saying thanks for watching