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SliceofLife's GETAWAY REVIEW (including pictures, MDR menu's and more!)


SliceOfLife
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This was my 4th cruise (all with Norwegian). I was lucky to sail the Breakaway last year to Bermuda so it was fun to sail on the Getaway and compare the ships. It was just my husband and I, we are in our early 30’s, and we had a mid ship mini-suite cabin 10804.

 

Here is a fantastic tip I figured out from my cabin. If you view the casual dining options on your television you can see the menu for each day of the week for the main dining rooms. So, on day one of the cruise, you can view the entire seven days of dinner menus in advance. It makes it helpful if you don’t want to miss something in the MDR or know when to go to the specialty restaurants.

 

Adventures to FLL and Miami:

 

While going through airport security I noticed an Apple laptop got left behind. Luckily my husband saw who it belonged to and ran down the concourse to get the guy. He was thankful to be reunited with his laptop and he thanked us over and over again. This began our lucky vacation!

 

We flew into FLL on Friday and our wonderful captain managed to get us to the gate a half hour early!! I love FLL because your baggage is ready for pick up not long after you land. I think we waited about 10 minutes for our bags to arrive. I have used SAS transport for our past two cruises so I booked them again. I will sadly say I will not be booking them again after the pick up from the cruise debacle (more on that later). We walked out of the airport and stood in a waiting area for about a half hour before we were picked up. Once we were loaded on we had to circle the airport a few times to pick up more passengers and then we were off to area hotels to pick up more people. I believe after an hour we were finally on the road to Miami. We were lucky to be the first ones dropped off at our hotel.

 

On our Epic cruise we stayed at the JW Marriott Marquis Miami and loved it so I booked that hotel again. I am a Marriott Gold Elite member and booked the hotel on a free reward certificate. The advantage to being a Gold member is you are offered upgrades when available. It was a little before noon when we checked in and no rooms were ready. The front desk lady did say I was upgraded to a different room but didn’t tell me what the room type was. They took our luggage and stored it so we could roam around Miami and eat some lunch.

 

I love Yelp! It is my best friend while on vacation. After consulting some reviews we decided to go to Sparky’s Roadside Barbecue. It was packed but luckily we did not have to wait for a table. You are stuffed in there elbow to elbow with other patrons but it is worth it. I had the Tyler’s Pressed Sandwich (beef brisket, pulled pork, sautéed onions, American cheese & bbq sauce) and my husband and The Ex Patriot Pressed Sandwich (mojo bbq pork leg, sautéed onions, swiss cheese, mustard and pickles). My sandwich was amazing and the one my husband got was just okay. It was a little dry tasting. The service was quick and I would certainly go there again for lunch.

 

We still had a few more hours to kill before check in so we walked around the area and then sat on the second floor of the hotel in the sitting area until they called to let me know our room was ready. I went to the front desk and we were promptly given room keys to our upgraded room, a suite!! This room was so ridiculous and I wish we would have had more than one day to enjoy it. The suite had three separate rooms, a living room, office, and bedroom. It also had a half bath when you first walked in! The bedroom was huge and had a flat screen tv, attached to the bedroom was a gigantic bathroom. The bathroom had a tv in the mirror! A separate toilet closet, jetted bathtub and a large walk in shower. We spent some time relaxing watching tv before heading out to dinner.

 

For dinner we went to the Filling Station and Garage which is just a short walk from the hotel. We discovered it when we sailed on the Epic and knew we had to go back! The wait staff is very friendly and attentive and I can’t say enough good things about it. They have amazing tater tots! I ordered the Hog (fried chicken, smoked ham, peppered bacon and garickly mustardy mayo) and my husband ordered the J’s Challenger (buffalo chicken, fried mozzarella, swiss, bacon, lettuce, and pickle). Both sandwiches were amazing!! I love this place! If you’re in the area you have to go!

 

After dinner we walked back to the hotel and that is when I discovered I forgot to pack the bottle of maple syrup! I have heard how nasty the new syrup is on Norwegian and I didn’t want to chance a week of no waffles because I hated the syrup. We walked to CVS to pick up bottled water and the mini bottles of Coca-Cola. Unfortunately, they do not sell maple syrup. Sadness! I found a Publix about a half mile away so off we went on an adventure. It was about a fifteen minute walk through a really beautiful part of Miami and the weather was perfect. Maple syrup was acquired and we walked back to the hotel. While in the elevator an older lady inquired where we bought the water and gave her directions to the CVS. Later we would see her almost every day on our cruise. It’s a small world!

 

We were worn out from getting up at 4:00 am to catch our flight so it was early bedtime. Another perk to being a Gold member is access to the concierge lounge which means free breakfast. There was a nice variety of fresh fruit, yogurt, eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes, assorted pastries, juice, coffee and tea. I forgot to mention the day before we learned the race route for the Komen for the Cure 5k had changed and would be going directly down the street of the hotel. We went to the front desk after breakfast to inquire about a taxi to the port. They advised to allow plenty of time to get to the port due to road closures. We packed up our bags, affixed our NCL luggage tags and went down to catch a taxi. We were lucky the roads near our hotel and just reopened (this was about 10:00 and the roads were expected to be closed until 1:00 pm). We caught a taxi and we were off to the port! It took just a little longer than usual with the extra traffic from the race. Our cab fare was close to $20.

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Embarkation and Cruise Day 1

We were greeting by a friendly porter who took our bags and wished us well on our cruise. We breezed through security as there was no line and filled up the new updated health questionnaire. They now ask if you have been to an area affected by Ebola and all that jazz. We entered the Latitudes check-in line and there was no one in it! Check in was quick and off we went to the holding pen to await boarding the fabulous Norwegian Getaway! By this time it might have been a little after 10:30am. No one was handing out boarding group information. I asked a woman who was working there where the boarding cards were and she said the person handing them out wasn’t in yet. Really??? Fast forward a half hour and we notice people now have boarding group cards. My husband went and asked for one and we got boarding group 3. We should have been in the first group, but oh well. We weren’t interested in buying spa or Vibe passes so it didn’t really matter.

 

I think boarding started after 11 and we were on the ship by 11:30 am. We walked around the pool deck and checked out Flamingo Grill for lunch but decided to go to O’Sheehan’s instead. It wasn’t too crowded and we were seating right away. I feel the service in O’Sheehan’s has greatly improved since the Epic and Breakaway. Our waiter promptly came over for our drink order and a few minutes later returned with our drinks and took our order. I ordered the mozzarella sticks, and chicken sandwich, and my husband ordered the spicy buffalo wings and the burger. We shared the brownie cheesecake. I feel the mozzarella sticks have changed, they’re not as good as they used to be. My husband has always loved their spicy buffalo wings and he was happy with his order. They now hand out moist towelette’s with their wings, a nice touch! Our sandwiches were delicious but the pickles on the side were very small and disappointing. The brownie cheesecake and the caramel sauce were amazing!! I do not remember that being on the menu when I was on the Epic or Breakaway.

 

After we were done with our meal the announcement was made that our cabins were now ready. Like I mentioned, we booked a midship mini-suite on deck 10. On the Breakaway we had a deck 11 midship mini-suite so we knew what to expect with our cabin. I selected a cabin with the bed by the balcony. I like that configuration the best because the cabin feels more roomy. We dropped off our carry-on bag and set out to take more pictures and secure a sail away spot. We first went to Spice H20 but it was too crowded and hot back there so we made our way to the front of the ship. We found a good spot on deck 17 forward. On the Breakaway there were hammocks and cabanas to use on the Getaway there were only sun loungers. After sail away we went back to cabin to unpack and get ready for the Illusionarium Dinner and Show.

 

If you book the Illusionarium on the first night you save 20%! I pre-booked the show before boarding and I received an onboard credit for the 20% discount. I thought the show was amazing! I am still wondering how do they do that?? I highly suggest going to the show. The Mentalist couple were incredible, and again, how did they do that?? I won't go into details, you have to go see the show! There was only one grand master I didn’t care for so I took my time eating dinner during that part. The food is not amazing but is not horrible either. I found out if you have a black dinner cloth you have no food allergies and those with a white one have food allergies. We sat across a man who had a shellfish allergy so he received double the steak. The only part of dinner I didn’t care for was the broccoli, it was so hard and it could have used a few minutes in the steamer. Later in the cruise they had a Q&A with the magicians from the show. I found out while the storyline is the same the grand masters (magicians) do change every so many months as their contracts end and new magicians come onboard.

 

We were out of the show in time to make it to the theatre for the Welcome Aboard show. It’s a preview of the shows and what there is to do on the ship during the week. Some of the senior officers came on stage and did a little dance routine. I am glad we went to the show because we saw an act from Legally Blonde and decided it wasn’t for us. We suffered through Rock of Ages on the Breakaway and did not want to sit through 90 minutes of something that did not look entertaining to us.

 

After the Welcome Aboard show we went to Spice H20 to watch Despicable Me 2 on the big screen! There were only a handful of people to watch the movie. There were some drunken idiots in the hot tub who decided it was a great idea to cannonball into the hot tub. They ended up soaking a family sitting nearby who were watching the movie. Thankfully we were nowhere near the splash zone! After the movie we went back to the cabin for bed time.

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Day 2 – Sea Day

 

The glories of vacation! No alarm clocks! I woke around 8 am and got ready to go to breakfast. We went to the Garden Café all week for breakfast. I am not a fan of the main dining room for breakfast because it can take so long for service. The secret to the Garden Café is to walk around to the back side away from the hordes of people. We found plenty of seating and not too many crazy people getting in the way. I was happy to see Norwegian changed their waffles! The new recipe and shape are really good! I had waffles, sausage and fresh fruit for breakfast. My husband loves the eggs benedict and he had a waffle with a banana’s foster type topping and some sausage.

 

After breakfast we went to the Morning Officer’s chat in the Atrium and then we hit up the slides and pool deck. We lost track of time and ended up missing the Cruise Critic Meet and Greet. I found a lounger in the shade with no problems and camped out there for a few hours.

 

For lunch we decided to try out the Flamingo Grill. I liked the grilled chicken, it had a good spice to it. I didn’t care for much of the other items I sampled. The coconut cream empanada was really good! My husband had the Cuban burger and the beef short ribs. He thought they were both pretty good but nothing he would want to eat again.

 

I went back to lounging in a chair reading while my husband went on the slides some more. It was interesting to see the differences from being on the 4th sailing of the Breakaway to the Getaway which has been sailing for several months. You are no longer weighed before riding the Freefall like you were on the Breakaway. Also, you are no longer required to wear the backboard to ride the slide. My husband and I have the Land’s End rash guard SPF 50 shirts to wear so we don’t get sunburned. On the Breakaway we were allowed to wear the shirts on the Freefall Slide. The first trip on the Freefall Slide on the Getaway they made my husband take his off. They claimed the shirts slowed you down. The second time down the slides they let him keep the shirt on. I guess he went fast enough the first time that even if he slowed down a bit he wouldn’t get stuck? I don’t understand the logic behind it. There were no lines for the Freefall slide all week but the lines for the orange enclosed slides were quite long. It seems most people were afraid of the Freefall slide. My husband managed to talk a few people into trying it out. He later saw them on the cruise and were glad he talked them into it.

 

We viewed the dinner menus for the evening and nothing grabbed our attention so we went to Modnero Churrascaria for dinner. I am so glad we went! Our last trip on the Breakaway was just okay and we weren’t going to go back on this cruise. We only picked Modnero because it was the only specialty restaurant we could get into without a prior reservation. We dine early too, between 5:30 and 6. We went at 6pm and were promptly seated. We were seated within view of the front desk podium and saw a few people get turned away do to their attire. Read the dress code policy people! Anyway, our waitress was very sweet and attentive. The salad bar alone makes Moderno worth a visit. There are so many fun and exciting dishes to try it is easy to fill up on just the salad bar. It was time for the meats to arrive!! We were offered the special dinner item of the evening, your choice of two different fish dishes. I am not a big fish fan so I passed on the dishes. There was also a beef loin that I have never seen on either the Epic or Breakaway and it was delicious! I hope they continue to serve it on future cruises. I did not like the beef short rib, I thought it was a bit dry, but everything else was super tasty. I thought all the meat servers (I’m sure they have a special name) we all very attentive and would stop by even if you had your card on red. The grilled pineapple changed, it now has a cinnamon sugar coating and it was also very good. I have never been a fan of their desserts, but I tried the coconut flan and it was much better than I remembered from the Epic. Perhaps they changed their recipes because people have complained about the lackluster deserts?

 

The Lego Movie was playing in Spice H20 so we decided to watch that before heading to our 10pm Burn the Floor reservations. Again, it was pretty empty in Spice H20 so we had no problem grabbing a front row chair. I did wonder why they didn’t have lounge chairs out for you to sit in and watch the movie.

 

We made our way to the theater for the show. I thought the show was great, it is different from the show on the Breakaway. The Getaway show has more of a Cuban/Latin style dance style. It was really enjoyable but I was starting to grow very sleeping during the show so I was happy it was over so we could get to bed. Next time I would go to the earlier showing. I’m a young old person… I need my sleep!!!

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Day 3 – Sea Day

 

I woke up around 8 and got ready for breakfast again. The entire cruise we went to the Garden Café. We did walk by the Flamingo Grill to check out their breakfast sandwiches but nothing really appealed to either of us. Today I went to the omelet station, where only two people were ahead of me. It pays to keep walking around the buffet to find the empty area. I ordered an egg white omelet with ham, mushroom, spinach and cheese. I grabbed a tasty waffle and some hash browns to go with my omelet. Everything was delicious! My husband ordered the same thing but had a regular omelet.

 

Today was the Technical Presentation in the Atrium regarding the technical aspects of running the ship. The Captain was there along with the head technical engineer. It was very informative. A movie was played showing how the Getaway was built (I watched the live webcams from the Meyer Weft so I already knew some of the stuff that was discussed), there was also a slideshow of the azipods, stabilizers, engine room, bridge controls, and so on. After watching the video and slideshow you were able to ask questions. The Captain is quite hilarious! It is a must attend event if you’re not doing anything in the morning.

 

About an hour after the presentation there was an Ocean Blue cooking demonstration also in the Atrium so we stayed put. The cooking demonstration was enjoyable to watch. The one cook was the head chef for Ocean Blue. She had a helper and they made lobster risotto and a tuna dish. After the show the handed out the recipe for the dishes.

 

For lunch we finally made it to Shanghai’s Noodle Bar, we missed out going there on the Epic and Breakaway so we made it a point to try it out. Shanghai’s is located next to the casino so it is a bit of a turn off because of the smoke. We sat further in the restaurant so the smoke smell wasn’t too noticeable. We ordered the Steamed Shrimp Dumplings, Steamed Pork Pot Stickers and we both had the Peking Style Shrimp and Chicken noodles. I did not care for the shrimp dumplings, I thought they were a bit seafoody tasting, but I did really love the pork pot stickers. I had thought about ordering the shrimp fried rice but thought against it. I am so glad I didn’t because the bowl of noodles is HUGE! I could only eat half of my bowl and I was stuffed. I thought the noodles had an excellent flavor, the chicken was tender and the shrimp used for this dish was really good. I would happily go back to the Noodle bar.

 

We walked around the ship and took more pictures and then sat and read on the waterfront. Next up we wanted to attend the Live Lebo Art painting in the Atrium. We arrived early so we could have a good seat. When we sailed the Breakaway Peter Max was on board so I thought it was pretty cool we were on the Getaway when David Le Batard (Lebo) was also. David started out with just a penciled canvas of what he wanted to paint. I thought it was interesting that he paints with both hands but he does right left handed. I think it was almost an hour of painting before he finished. After he was done painting you could have your picture taken with him and he would sign the photo before he left the ship the next day. The painting was auctioned off on our cruise. I am not sure how much it sold for.

 

For dinner we went to the main dining room Savor. We walked in a little after 5:30 and there was no wait for dinner. For an appetizer we both had the beef burger slider with sriracha coleslaw, for dinner I ordered the Chef Special, Chicken Cordon Bleu and my husband ordered the spaghetti carbonara. The beef burger slider was decent, again a little on the dry side. My chicken cordon bleu was really good. I didn’t like the german potato salad that came with it and again the broccoli was undercooked. My husband’s dish was tasty and he was a happy camper. For dessert I ordered the chocolate volcano, the waitress wasn’t sure if they had any left so I told her if it was not available I would have the bread pudding and my husband ordered the coffee tiramisu cake. Dessert came and all three showed up! Oops! The chocolate volcano was just okay and the bread pudding was good but not as good as it usually is. My husband was very happy with his tiramisu choice.

 

Tonight was the Silver Lattitudes gathering in Spice H20. We received an invitation to the event so we thought why not check it out. Plenty of people were taking advantage of the free drinks and appetizers. Some of the senior officers were on hand along with the captain. It was a bit boring so we left not long after we got there.

 

We had reservations for the 9pm Levity Comedy show. The host James is hysterical! I really wish he was the comedian for the entire night! I was laughing so hard everything hurt. Next was the main act, John Wing, Jr. Oh my gosh he was terrible. He told his first joke and the entire audience was silent. Meanwhile, we were all dying of laughing a minute earlier. I might have laughed once during his skit. It was such a disappointment to go from laughing to what the heck????

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