Hello CruiseCritic!
We just got off the Getaway's 7-day sailing from New York to Bermuda, so I figured I'd post a brief review with my thoughts.
We're a family of 3: my wife and I are both 39, and our daughter is 6.
Booking
We are from Philly, so we've done a ton of cruises out of New York to Bermuda. Our first was on the Star in August of 2012, celebrating our first anniversary. We had cruised aboard the Epic for our honeymoon and loved it, and wanted to do another cruise, so we booked a last-minute inside cabin to Bermuda and had an absolute blast. We've been cruising to Bermuda ever since -- and so far, only with NCL.
Even though we're seasoned Bermuda veterans, we've only ever been there between May and October. Late March was a solid month before our earliest trip there, and we knew going in that it wouldn't be as warm as our normal summer trips, especially the water temperature.
Our first inclination was to go to the Caribbean instead of Bermuda; we're already booked for a Bermuda cruise on the Joy later this year, and the Caribbean would be warmer. But there were no sailings to the Caribbean out of NYC in mid to late March, and prices out of Florida were sky-high. If we wanted to cruise NCL, Bermuda was our only viable option.
We initially booked an inside guarantee, and put in a $200 per-person bid to a balcony, which was accepted 6 days before the cruise -- yay!
Delayed Departure and Embarkation
Two sailings prior to our cruise, the Getaway had some "mechanical" issues, and was late getting into New York after coming up from the Caribbean. We watched the sailing just prior to ours with great interest, to see whether the mechanical issues would continue to plague the ship.
It didn't appear that they did, but the ship was late getting back into New York due to rough seas.
We got messages the night before the cruise telling us that the ship wouldn't arrive until noon on Sunday, and that we shouldn't arrive at the pier until 3 or 4 PM on embarkation day.
We were driving to New York anyway, so no biggie -- we simply delayed our departure for New York until 2:30 PM, and got to to the terminal at 4:30 PM, securing one of the last parking spots on the pier -- whew!
It turns out that many people showed up well before 3 PM, and the parking at the pier very nearly filled up.
The flip side of this is that we cruised right through embarkation. There was basically no line, and we were through embarkation and on the ship with no waiting -- it took a half-hour at most.
That was great, but we did miss a solid 5 hours of our embarkation day -- that was a disappointment, since that time onboard prior to sailing is always so full of excitement. I missed that. But hey, we're still on vacation,so let's go!
Delayed Arrival to Bermuda
Unfortunately, Mother Nature decided to continue to throw monkey wrenches our way.
We got the announcement on Monday that our arrival to Bermuda would be delayed 1 day, until Wednesday.
Our original itinerary had us in port from 8 AM on Tuesday until 7 AM on Friday, which is a lot of time in Bermuda -- and we were really looking forward to that.
We had two rough sea days. Many people were sea-sick. We were packing Bonine, ginger candies, and sea bands. They helped stave off nausea, but they don't do anything about the ship lurching about. It made it harder to sleep and walk around.
Then, when we got to Bermuda, we got word that we'd be leaving on Thursday evening instead of Friday morning -- a further reduction to our time on the island.
They gave us $200 OBC ($100 for the late arrival, $100 for the early departure). This is much-appreciated, but it's a real bummer that you can only use non-refundable OBC for items that are marked up. I would have loved to have used the OBC to buy a CruiseNext certificate, but that is no longer permitted.
Bermuda
Bermuda itself was absolutely lovely. The weather was a balmy 72°F, and the water temperature was a chilly 68°F, but we still visited the beaches and my daughter played in the wet sand.
The island is just a wonderful, wonderful place. We'd come back in March -- but honestly, I don't think we'd cruise there again in March. It's just too much of a gamble with the weather on the way down: the past couple sailings and the current sailing were also affected by weather.
It does raise the question why NCL isn't offering better itineraries out of NYC for Spring Break.
On the Cutbacks
OK, so everyone on CruiseCritic was talking about cutbacks, to the point where I started actively avoiding the boards so that I wouldn't poison my own opinion of the cruise before we even set sail.
What's the verdict?
Well, there have been cutbacks for sure, mostly around food and entertainment.
I'll go into both.
Food
We noticed a decline in MDR food quality, as well as the number of options available on the menu. The right side of the menu has been reduced from 6 or 7 entrees in 2023 to 5, and the left side lost an entree as well.
There's now a big section of the menu devoted to food you can order from Cagneys.
Want lobster in the MDR? Well good news for you -- you can get it! Bad news is that it's an upsell.
And that big section of food you can order from Cagneys conveniently means they don't have as much space to put regular entrees there.
As for the food itself, it was OK, but it wasn't great. We have always been fine with the MDR options, but this time I think I would have been really disappointed if I didn't have a couple Latitudes vouchers for specialty meals.
Hard to put my finger on exactly what was wrong. The ingredients seemed lower quality. The MDR food just was bland in general.
The buffet fared a little better, but certain things I enjoyed for breakfast were gone. Everyone will complain about the hashbrowns being gone, but the country potatoes were just not good this time around. They're soggy and disappointing. The old ones were crispier and just better.
The specialty restaurants, on the other hand, were still as good as ever. We dined in Ocean Blue, Moderno, and Le Bistro, and enjoyed them all.
I will point out, though, that the mascarpone & caramelized onion bread in Ocean Blue is gone...gone...which was cause for much sadness for both me and my wife, who absolutely loved that bread.
Food quality otherwise in the specialties was every bit up to par.
O'Sheehans has only ever been average food, but sometimes you just want a nonfancy burger, and it certainly still fits the bill. I don't think food quality has declined here, but there do appear to be somewhat fewer options than before.
The kids menu changed. They eliminated the chicken tenders, hot dog, chicken noodle soup. They added roasted tomato soup, a veggie taco, and a chicken stir fry. My daughter is still in the Only Wants Chicken Nuggets, Hot Dogs, and Kraft Mac 'n Cheese stage (though she's slowly getting better), so this was a bit of a blow. Though we were sort of happy to not let her eat hot dogs all week. At least the pizza is still there.
Entertainment
OK, so somehow I made it through almost 20 NCL cruises without having seen Howl at the Moon, and damn have I been missing out!!! They were so good. I saw the final show, came in at the start, and wound up staying the entire time until 1 AM. Absolutely brilliant. Not to be missed if you love music.
The comedians were fun; I don't think Levity overall is as good as Second City used to be, but still really solid, and I enjoyed seeing them for a couple shows.
Out of morbid curiosity, I went to see Wheel of Fortune, and it was absolutely dreadful. It's sort of a travesty that it's considered prime-time entertainment on a ship of this size. It was basically the cruise director shouting into the mic, and a virtual on-screen wheel. Come on, NCL, you couldn't even come up with a real wheel to spin?
The contestents had obviously never seen the show nor had they ever studied letter frequency in the English language. RLSTNE, anyone? One of them even solved the puzzle without spinning the wheel, which would have been impressive if she didn't just lock in a $0 winning. Thankfully it was over in about 30 minutes.
Woof.
Onboard Activities
Something I learned this cruise -- the Getaway is a much better warm-weather ship than cold weather. We are so, so lucky that we upgraded to a balcony, because at least we could watch the sea on the sea days, while we read books and popped Bonine. If we had stayed in our inside cabin, I don't know what we would have done.
When the weather's not good, there's not a whole lot to do on the ship during the day that doesn't involve purchasing spa treatments, art, or bingo cards.
My daughter went to the kids club once, and enjoyed it, but the lines to get in were so long that we didn't really bother trying to drop her off there. Spring Break, after all.
Service
Service was fine. Not as good as we had in the past, but honestly, it's Spring Break and I think the crew was sort of just trying to get through it all. I get it.
One MDR waiter had us cracking up laughing about all the stumbling around that the crew had been doing due to the rough seas. They were over it by the time we were onboard. Multiple crew members said to me that they couldn't wait to get back to the Caribbean, since the back and forth to Bermuda had been so brutal.
Our cabin attendant was great. I miss the days where there were more cabin attendants and staterooms were usually done by 11 AM or lunchtime at the latest. 4 PM cabin makeup is a bit of a drag -- and that's on NCL, not the attendants.
I said before and I'll say again that the cabin attendant is the most visible member of the crew for almost everyone onboard. If they're overworked, people will notice. I noticed.
Overall Thoughts
We had a good time. It wasn't the best cruise we ever took, being honest. The days in Bermuda were by far the best part -- it sort of reminded us "this is why we're here".
I think we'll skip winter / very early spring sailings to Bermuda from here on out, though. The weather out of NYC is too much of a gamble. Granted, even Florida had their issues that same week, but you have to go with the best possible option.
After nearly 20 cruises, I'm sort of feeling like I've been-there-done-that with NCL, and the prices have gone up significantly. In fact, the rate for the third person in the room was higher than the first and second person -- which was something I never saw before!
We've got an August cruise on the Joy coming up (to Bermuda...booked last summer). I could cancel it, but I think I'll keep it. We love Bermuda, and missed snorkeling and swimming while we were there, and it felt good as we sailed away from the island to know we'd be coming back in a few short months.
But I think after this, we'll take a break from NCL and try some other lines: perhaps Celebrity or HAL.
Let me know if you have any questions, etc. Happy to answer.
