5 lbs of Crepes - A first timer review of NCL Getaway

Well I started this thread here because I have a pretty long review to write and didn't think the cruise review could handle all I wanted to say. I will do a smaller review in a little bit if you don't want to read the lengthy story.

Some background; My parents took my sister and I and our families on the cruise Norwegian Getaway. Total there were 11 of us, 6 adults and 5 kids. My parents have cruised before but most of us had not been on a cruise. With that being said, I have read everything I could find on here and every other cruise site in order to prepare. I felt pretty prepared.

Packing basics; there are lots of forums on what to pack. They all have some good insight and reality to them based on your situation.

Here's what I took and did not use; plastic ziplock bags. Here's what others said to take that I did not take and didn't need; bug spray, magnets, whiteboards. Here's what I took that was unusual and found it nice to have; febreze air freshener, post it notes, pens, pencils, paper, playing cards. Here's what I might have been nice to have: towel clips.

Embarking: The shuttle drops you off right there at the ship. A team member takes your bags, labels them and they say you will see your bags in a couple hours. We dropped the bags off at 10:30 and we received one by one throughout the day until 6pm. Embarking was pretty easy, you shuffle through lines and provide your information and get called to go on the boat. Pretty smooth sailing, no pun intended. The boat is super crazy about cleanliness with hand sanitizer everywhere and people actually squirting your hands with sanitizer and washing stations at every food area. It's a great precaution.

First Day Excitement: We jumped on the boat and went everywhere. Luckily the hotel reservation is right as you enter the boat. We found out that if we had the Ultimate Dining Package, we could make reservations for the Illusionarium for free on the first night only. We stopped there, canceled and made new reservations to many of the shows we had previously made plans for. We had the UDP but I'll talk about that more later.

We visited our cabin and toured the boat with everyone else. For our cabins, we had adjoining rooms with our children on the 13th floor with balconies. Only 2 people in any cabin. I think that if I was trying to save money all 4 in my family (husband and children, 8 and 10) could have fit in one room. It would be tight but it would work. This was better and I thank my parents for it. The balconies a must. But being my first cruise, I think I got real spoiled really quick on this cruise. I have nothing to compare it to, just know that I loved hanging out on the balcony. There is lots of storage and I loved the lighting. I never thought there was too little or too much. I just have no complaints about the room.

We did take the 1:30 Guided Ship tour which just goes to a few key places on floors 6, 7 and 8. Actually they take you through the library and the card room, which some of you may never see again. We toured around, ate lunch, watched the boat take off and went to the Illusionarium that night.

The Illusionarium is great. It was a fun show that they make exciting for the entire family. My niece is an easily frightened child at 6 years old and there are parts that frightened her. Just note that. The dinner we ate there was one of my least favorite. We had some type of steak that had a gravy on it. The gravy was horrible and 3 of the 6 adults didn't eat it. Not great.

Later that night we went to the Dueling Pianos in Headliners. One gentleman was great. Funny and entertaining and engaging. The others were not as much. They could sing though and it was nice to watch.

We also visited the Casino and the Welcome Dance Party at the aft(back) of the boat. I read many reviews about the casino. I did not notice smoke in other areas except the casino and maybe I'm used to Vegas but I never felt it was as bad as Vegas. They had an entire area that was smoke free and it was much better. The casino bummed me out the first few days. The lowest blackjack table is a $6 table. There are 2 of them. 2!!! They were always full. We couldn't ever sit at those tables until the end of the cruise when everyone either already lost all their money or was too drunk/tired to show up at the table. One lady said she watched a guy fall off the chair at the table. Wish I would have been there to see that. Needless to say tables that were designed for us frugal folks were limited. I love Pai Gai and was excited they had a table...it was a $25 table at ALL times. I never played Pai Gai. My dad and husband played in a couple Texas hold'em tournaments. You can rebuy into the tournament for the first hour. For those of you that play poker there is some strategy to the re-buy poker playing.

The parties in Spice H2O... We didn't visit Spice often, maybe twice but it seemed very fun. Had I been with a group of partying folks, I would have had a great time up there. It has a great environment out in the open and they were always having a good time.

Well that was just my first day but I must go to bed. More tomorrow on our UDP, food and Splash Academy. Good night. Wendi

Nice start!

Looking forward to reading about the UDP. We are sailing next month...

Welcome back! Since I had a response about the UDP I'll tell you about that first. We actually didn't think we were getting the UDP. We booked through a travel agent who had promised ship credit and the UDP plan however we never saw it. My parents kept pestering the travel agent and 1 week before the cruise low and behold we have the UDP and ship credit. Very exciting but again we had done lots of planning and reservations ahead of time thinking we didn't have the dining plan. So that changed things up and we wanted to try everything. I'll start by saying we didn't go to any al a carte places. There are a few; Wasabi Sushi, Ocean Blue, Shanghai(we NEVER saw anyone there. I imagine NCL will do something else with this restaurant at some point), Dolce Gelato. We would have gotten a 20% off with the UDP at those places but we had too many other places to go.

Again you get a free show at Illusionarium the first night only with the UDP.

Cagneys: Our favorite by far. My parents went twice. The bison was the favorite cut of meat. I heard multiple times that the Au Gratin potatoes were "the best potatoes I've had in my life" They were to die for potatoes. I didn't know I liked Au Gratin potatoes so much. All desserts were beautiful dressed and great. Loved the raspberry creme brulee. This was our first restaurant we went to so we were spoiled for the rest of the cruise. No other restaurants compared.

La Cucina: We really enjoyed La Cucina. I had the seafood dish and it wasn't as good as the others. But everyone else loved it. They didn't have as big of a selection of food. Interestingly, they had Tiramisu as a dessert there and they also had Tiramisu in the Garden Cafe earlier that day. So we had to try it to compare the two. La Cucina's was far better, meaning they don't create the same stuff for all restaurants. We found out that the ship has a total of 19 galleys and chefs ranging in skill and expertise all over the boat. We sat out on the waterfront at Cucina and it was our quietest and most relaxing meal we had on the boat.

Teppanyaki: Loud, loud place. But we expected that. The chefs seemed a bit premature. The 11 of us were at 2 different tables and each chef had their pluses and minuses. It was a great show and the kids loved it, but I was at a Teppanyaki place 2 months prior and they seemed better there. The food was still excellent. We enjoyed everything we ate.

Tropicana Room: We were told by the crew that Taste, Savor and Tropicana were all the same. We only visited Tropicana and were not impressed. No one really enjoyed their food. We didn't go back and I don't suggest it if you have kids because you are selecting from a menu vs getting whatever you want from the buffet.

Moderno Churrascaria: The salads at this place were great. I love the assortment of salads at Brazilian restaurants. Our server was the best we had all trip here. Very hilarious and engaging. My husband said that he wanted Nothing for dessert and that is exactly what he got. The server made him a plate and wrote "Nothing" on it in a drizzle. Very cute. The meat was ok. They had so many kinds, some was better then others. It is a fun experience and I suggest it if you have the time.

Garden Buffet: Our easy go to. We ate lunch in here every day and one or 2 dinners. There is such a huge variety that I can't imagine that someone couldn't fine what they wanted or liked. If you don't like it, pick from the hundreds of other choices. You are not going to go hungry. We loved it for the kids and CREPES. Unfortunately this is where my title comes from. We discovered crepes the 2nd or 3rd day. Every night they open the crepe bar. Even after having dessert at every place, we would come here and make ourselves a crepe. Strawberry was to die for. Crepes were a fun little treat and super delicious and we loved our night time snack. Oh and the pizza people complained about, we all loved!! We thought it was better then some store bought.

I thoroughly enjoyed all food on the cruise and had no problem gaining the weight. We did not make it to Le Bistro or O'Sheehans. There is too much to do and see on this boat to make it to all. Oh yeah and we had no trouble with reservations even for the 11 of us. When we waited until the end of the cruise and booked the day of, we had some trouble and moved things around but otherwise they were pretty accommodating. They also post on screens everywhere and in your room if the restaurant is getting full or not. Any questions let me know. Wendi

I'm hanging on your every work:)

We are on the 13th deck in a few weeks! Can I ask what cabin?

Pretty interesting review so far.

Just one thing - it's a ship, not a boat.

Thanks Wendi for your review. I am sailing the ship this January and have never sailed NCL - my cruiseline of choice is Celebrity. I don't know what to expect with NCL. We booked a balcony cabin. We always have breakfast room service - eggs benedict, smoked salmon & bagels, omlettes... - can this happen on NCL. Does the balcony have a table for dining. Can we also have dinner from the dining room menu delivered to our balcony?

Towels at the pool - do you have to sign to get towels or are they like Celebrity and free for the taking. Are the loungers cushioned? Is there a pool that is heated and is there an indoor pool. Can you swim 'reasonable' lengths in any of the pools.

Do they supply the usual hair conditioner, q-tips, cotton balls, hair blower, in the bathroom. Is the shower a glass door or a shower curtain.

Right after this sailing we jump onto a Celebrity ship for a 1 month southern Caribbean sailing and it will be interested to compare the 2 cruiselines.

Thanks in advance for answering my questions.

Sorry for the terminology folks. We were in cabin, 13150 - 13156. with my sister and us, port side.

Since we are talking about the UDP, I'll bring up the ultimate beverage package. My parents received the UBP from the travel agent as well. Fun bonus. All drinks range from 7 to 10 bucks. Even a captain and coke was $6.50 - $7. That being said you'd have to drink 7-8 drinks on avg. to make the package worthwhile. And everyone in your cabin has to get it. The bartenders on the boat...I mean ship...don't keep track of how often you are getting drinks. There wasn't a limit that I could tell. My parents went to one bar and grabbed a drink, drank it while walking to the next bar around the corner and got another one, no questions asked. My parents aren't the lushes I just turned them into. They didn't abuse the system, let's say. Maybe if it was excessive, they would say something but no issues.

The Mojito Bar was one of our favorites. They muddled everything fresh. Not reviewing their menu before I ordered, I had asked for a peach mango mojito. They didn't have that but that didn't stop them. They went and found a fresh peach and mango and muddled a mojito right there on the spot. Pretty impressive, and it was delicious. The other drink favorite was a Miami Vice, half pina colada, half strawberry daquiri. My mom thought the cucumber jalepeno mojito was her "new favorite drink".

One of the things I forgot to share above was the administrative part to our adjoining cabins. This had to do more with the travel agent and ncl regulations. We had attached rooms with our children. Kids 8 and 10 in one room and us in the other. But NCL has regulations that when you sign up for your boarding docs and Agree to all the regulations, the kids could not do that if they were registered to that room without an adult. It caused all kinds of problems. We finally got it switched around so one adult and one child was in each room but then while we were onboard all reservations and room charges are per room. We only wanted 1 account for both rooms. It was possible to do, just a pain to do.

Splash Academy: This place was wonderful. We register the kids on the first day. Takes about 5 - 10 minutes. We provide a security password and they are all set. The academy is really safe. When picking up the kids, they ask for the password, they ask the kids their last name and then they ask us the last name before handing the kids over. They provide services from ~10 to noon, 2-5pm and 7 to 10pm. Times are approximate. During the daytime they have some free time where the age groups mix a little. Most of the time the age groups didn't mix. The night activities were the best. They had different themes every night and the kids always wanted to attend. They must have made this place the bomb. The kids went a couple hours a day every day but on the last day they couldn't wait to attend all day long. They were getting ready to perform a circus for the rest of the ship. They had a 3pm performance on the main stage and it was very neat. The circus activities were easy enough for the kids and surprising to the adults. Some kids mastered the activities really quick. It was fun for all.

What's next?? I'll talk about the Atrium and the Spa tomorrow. Wendi

Hi Ruthk,

Let me answer what I can.

We always have breakfast room service - eggs benedict, smoked salmon & bagels, omlettes... - can this happen on NCL. ** Room service is available all day every day. There is a charge between 12am and 5am but otherwise you can order it. They did have lox at the buffet and an omelette bar so I can't imagine that you couldn't get that sent to your room. Unfortunately, we didn't do the room service so I can't be completely sure what they serve.

Does the balcony have a table for dining. Can we also have dinner from the dining room menu delivered to our balcony? ** The table on our balcony would not be dinner worthy. It is rather small, I'd say a 1 ft sq. Enough for a couple drinks. There are other rooms with bigger balconies but I couldn't comment on that. Not using the room service, I couldn't comment to what you could get served.

Towels at the pool - do you have to sign to get towels or are they like Celebrity and free for the taking. **You are given pool towels in your room and whenver you need another one you just exchange it at the pool's towel exchange on Deck 15. Pretty free for the taking. I saw some people take towels without exchanging. These are also the same towels you can take out on shore excursions.

Are the loungers cushioned? **Loungers were not cushioned on Deck 15. There is a Haven Suite. We were not Haven worthy but they might have better loungers...better everything there.

Is there a pool that is heated and is there an indoor pool. **I can't comment on the pool. Thinking about it I never swam. I went down all the slides but I never climbed into a pool. They do not have an indoor pool. Again Haven has a pool all to themselves. Lucky them, all the reviews you read about the pool are true. For 4000 people, it's tiny. Tiny! There are definitely more people then pool space.

Can you swim 'reasonable' lengths in any of the pools. **No, maybe if you were up at 7am to get in the pool when it's open and very few other people are even up, you may be able to swim a length of the pool. It's still relatively small.

Do they supply the usual hair conditioner, q-tips, cotton balls, hair blower, in the bathroom. **They supplied shampoo, body wash and a hair blower. I did not see q-tips, conditioner or cotton balls.

Is the shower a glass door or a shower curtain. ** Glass, plastic door. It is not a curtain. Because the ship is new, I really liked the bathroom. I might have liked the water pressure to be a little more but I had HOT water which is my thing.

Right after this sailing we jump onto a Celebrity ship for a 1 month southern Caribbean sailing and it will be interested to compare the 2 cruiselines. ** How much fun!! You are so lucky. I would love to sail all the time. For my first time, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I haven't even shared that we got rerouted all together and didn't get to go where Getaway always goes. That's coming.

Thanks in advance for answering my questions. **Not a problem, whatever I can do to help others. I know it helped me. Wendi

Great job, Wendi! Thank you so much for taking the time to share your review and I'm glad you had a great cruise. Welcome to the Cruise Addicts Lounge! :D

Ali

Thank you for sharing! Makes me excited for our January cruise.

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Thanks Wendi for answering all my questions - looking forward to trying this ship!

Can you tell me about the connecting balcony cabins? Did you leave the door between them open so it was more like a 2 bedroom area? We are in adjoining cabins on the 12 th floor in a few weeks with our 3 boys and I am wondering how it is maneuvered! Is it like a hotel room where you see a door and each room has to open it to be adjoined? Do the balconies connect? I wouldn't want them to be able to go out on their balcony alone.

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Hello again,

The adjoining rooms are exactly like a hotel room. There are doors on each side and both have to be open to get into each others room. We did leave them open most of the time and kept it like a 2 room suite. The balconies do not connect. We were also worried about them on the balcony by themselves. Our children were pretty responsible and always asked us if they could or we were with them.

The Spa: It was nice but exactly what I expected for a ship spa. They take in your profile and at the end of all services, they really try to sell you on their product. It's a bit of a racket. They have many rooms, the room I was in was right below the weight room. The people in the weight room were dropping the weights on the floor constantly. My masseuse, was getting so angry she actually left the room for a few minutes to have someone tell them to stop. After that, the dropping stopped. I think the best deal was on Tuesday or Wednesday. It didn't seem to get better as the week went on. The provided a mini facial, full body stone and ankle massage for 119 to 129, 90 minutes.

Atrium: The Atrium is on Deck 6. The main hub of the ship. Deck 6, 7 and 8 are the main cruising areas. Being new to the cruising, I'm not sure what I was expecting with regards to the crowds of people. There were about 4100 passengers on the ship according to crew. It was busy. There were a lot of people everywhere all the time. Back to the Atrium, we watched several shows here, including the fruit creations, Newlywed Not So Newlywed Show, Battle of the Sexes and the Technical Talk. Sometimes we watched from the balcony above in O'Sheehans and sometimes we were on the floor. Either way it was loud. This is one area I feel could be done a little better. Next to the Atrium is also all Guest and Support Services, Shore Excursions, a bar and a coffee shop. I understand it's the local hangout but it is hard to hear anything that happens on the stage. It was hard to maneuver in the area if there was a popular show happening. It was hard to find seats after people rearranged all the furniture. It had a lot of energy but if you don't like crowds don't go.

Court, mini-golf, rock wall and ropes course: This is a fun and exciting area all in the same vicinity. The basketball court is the highest place on the cruise and is a fun place where we played family dodgeball and had a Zumba class. Mini-golf is right below the ropes course and the rock wall right below both of those. The ropes course is bigger then I thought. They strap you in pretty good and let you go. There isn't much to the safety of this other then hoping you are good and aware of how a harness works. There is a zipline that spans the width of the boat. When the wind is really bad it doesn't work really well and they close it down. Oh and there is a video arcade but as those go, the tickets you get buy really really cheap toys.

Slides: Good slides. I was really impressed with the slides. Everyone keeps talking about the free fall slides but there is an orange and red one that are just as exciting. They spin in circles until you get to the bottom, you pick up major speed in them. I was shocked. I am one to always try something so I tried the free fall...3 times...and it was great. I was super nervous but it's a couple seconds and then it's over. The blue one was having trouble when I was up there. I was the 2nd person in it after they reopened it. Bad idea. They lock you in a little capsule, I'm sure for protection and then it counts back from 3, and at 1 the floor drops from under you. Well the counting wasn't working. So it would count back and nothing would happen. It did that 3 times, as I nearly hyperventilated and started to think it would never work when all of sudden the 4th time it worked. Gives me shaky knees just writing about it. Still enjoyed every moment of it.

Excursion: I haven't wrote about excursions for a reason. Our trip was Oct. 11th week. Unfortunately a hurricane went through St. Thomas and St. Marteen the day that we were supposed to land there. We got rerouted a day and a half into sailing and had to book it to Jamaica. We ended up going there and to Cozumel. I hadn't been to those places either and neither had our families so we were ok but there were others that weren't. This one couple had planned their wedding at St. Marteen. Their whole family had flown in and they were going to meet them there and get married. Now that would be sucky. I don't want to talk about Jamaica or Cozumel because 99% of the time this ship will never go there again. What I can say is that first day and a half was pretty rough waters according to other cruisers. I normally get motion sick and did not on the ship, but my mom did. I could feel the boat for sure those first couple of days, so those that say you can't, if you are going against the current in semi rough waters you can feel it a little. I didn't feel the motion the rest of the week and my mom got much better after those days.

Well that was another long one. You all have a good night. Wendi

Thanks Wendi for your review. I am sailing the ship this January and have never sailed NCL - my cruiseline of choice is Celebrity. I don't know what to expect with NCL. We booked a balcony cabin. We always have breakfast room service - eggs benedict, smoked salmon & bagels, omlettes... - can this happen on NCL. Does the balcony have a table for dining. Can we also have dinner from the dining room menu delivered to our balcony?

Towels at the pool - do you have to sign to get towels or are they like Celebrity and free for the taking. Are the loungers cushioned? Is there a pool that is heated and is there an indoor pool. Can you swim 'reasonable' lengths in any of the pools.

Do they supply the usual hair conditioner, q-tips, cotton balls, hair blower, in the bathroom. Is the shower a glass door or a shower curtain.

Right after this sailing we jump onto a Celebrity ship for a 1 month southern Caribbean sailing and it will be interested to compare the 2 cruiselines.

Thanks in advance for answering my questions.

We love Celebrity and recently cruised the Breakaway, the Getaway's sister ship. You can look up my recent posts to see a comparison. Just a clarification to wgechter's answer to your towel question. The towels are NOT like Celebrity. You have to check them in and out. You do get two in your stateroom, then you need to return to your stateroom. Yo can also get more on the pool deck, but you have to give them your room number and check them in again when you return them.

We were on your sailing:)! Love your review!

Can you tell me about the connecting balcony cabins? Did you leave the door between them open so it was more like a 2 bedroom area? We are in adjoining cabins on the 12 th floor in a few weeks with our 3 boys and I am wondering how it is maneuvered! Is it like a hotel room where you see a door and each room has to open it to be adjoined? Do the balconies connect? I wouldn't want them to be able to go out on their balcony alone.

 

The balcony doors have a regular lock, but also a safety lock way up high. Although our tall son could have reached it, we never let him know it was there.

Love the review - and, yes, you are now spoiled with cruising and will never sail without a balcony - welcome to the club!! Jenn

I am enjoying your review. Thank you for the details.

Hi all, it's been a while but one of the things I never shared was about all the entertainment. We went to a lot of shows and I never mentioned many of them. Of course I did talk about the Illusionarium, great show. The others that we went to were both comedians, Legally Blonde, Burn the Floor, and watched a movie in the auditorium.

Comedians were great. We had Phil and Colin. It was Phil's last week and I hear the comedians rotate regularly but these two were great. Hilarious actually. I left both times crying they were so good. I was not impressed with the intro but it wasn't horrible either.

Legally Blonde, good show. It was a good play performance. Interestingly the show had some technical difficulties with their sound towards the end of the show and the crew continued with the show. They did a great job knowing the issues they were having. I heard the 2nd performance that night was even worse, so much so that they had to stop the show entirely and reset. There were a few things like this throughout the week that I thought wasn't quite there normal lay of the land. It almost seemed like the rerouting to different islands due to the hurricane really threw the staff into a tizzy.

Let me explain another occurrence. The fireworks were supposed to be held on Tuesday night. Tuesday night was the day we ended up in Jamaica, not St. Maarten. For unexpected reasons, of which they said was weather we didn't have the fireworks. They moved them to Thursday night, the day we were at Cozumel. We had a huge storm that was all around us. The weather and wind was horrible. We were both outrunning or chasing the storm at the same time. But low and behold without warning, they were shooting off fireworks. They were short and small but for a boat, they were still enjoyable. They send these off on the port side and since our balconies on the 13th floor were port side, we watched them from there. It was just as good as anywhere we thought.

Burn the Floor, really great dancing. This show amazes me with the energy they have. For any of them to dance for an hour plus the way they do. Amazing. Even the kids stayed focused throughout the whole show. Very entertaining.

Also in that same auditorium one night was a 3d feature of Frozen. Now I've been told that I was the last person in the world to see Frozen, for the first time in Oct. It was good and the 3d was a fun twist I didn't expect.

Places we never went, Grammy Experience, Sunset Bar and Cigar Lounge.

One thing I didn't mention was the Photo Gallery. They keep all the photos they take of you all week in this photo gallery. Make sure you check every day because they may put a gold ticket in your binder where your pictures are stored and you get a free package. Pictures taken on the ropes course or any of the action adventure activities are just hung up on walls based on the time of day you completed that activity. Make note when you did those activities. It's not always easy to find your picture.

I can't comment much on the dress attire. We always wore nice casual clothing and felt good about what we were wearing all the time. It did seem pretty laid back but going to the fancy restaurants, people dressed up a bit more.

Thanks illiniwahoo on the clarification of the towels. We always exchanged towels so we never had an issue with checking them out.

Well I think that summed up the week minus our port adventures. Have fun sailing!!!! Wendi

Thank you very much for posting Wendi! It's been great fun to read!

Thanks so much for your review Wendi! My family and set sail on the Getaway in July. I have taken down a few notes from your review :) I am wondering since we have 4 persons in our stateroom will we have 4 towels? I sure hope! I was hoping to leave the beach towels at home. Was your cabin just a balcony room? I was wondering the configuration of the sink. Crazy question huh? ha! I seen some with a double sink and thought that could come in handy. We have a mid ship balcony booked. Mom and Dad are booked one cabin away from us (both port side) and she lucked up and got one of the angled balconies.

Do you have any photos to share of your cabins? Our Group has 10 cabins together on deck 13 cabins 13164-13150, and would love to see any photos you could share,

Thanks much!