seguetocaribe

Ha! Thank you for the input. We are Disney cruisers so maybe that's why I'm so set. I'm traveling with a 7 year old so early dinners and early shows are a must. If it were an adult only trip, I might be going for the freestyle thing. But since a kid who needs to eat and needs to go to bed at a decent hour is with us...we will be planned. I'm NOT going to end up at the buffet every night due to my lack of planning.:eek:

Completely agree...I am a planner and if I did not have all of our reservations set ahead of time, I would not have been relaxed! Lol! Just my personality. I was glad to have the reservations set for the whole week, especially towards the later part of the week when it seemed harder for people to get reservations!

I scheduled very similar to you and booked all of our reservations beforehand (except we did the shows first and dinners afterwards - we tend to eat late.) The only thing that I would suggest that you consider is on your port days - you may not want your dinners to be scheduled so close to the time you are due back onboard unless you plan on coming back to the ship early. If you have excursions planned, you will probably come back to the ship sweaty, sandy and tired and need some downtime to shower and relax before dinner!

Hehe me too - my pax 3 and 4 (will be aged 15 & 12) have to sleep wherever they are told as they don't pay anything towards it!!

Agreed! The day my pax 3 and 4 (age 11 - both of them) get to choose the cabin will be the day that they are paying for the cruise!! :D

The ones who should decide are pax # 3 and # 4. Would they prefer the different configuration?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Really?? Most often times pax 3 and 4 are the kids of pax 1 and 2. Why would I let my kids decide the cabin we get??

Thanks for that advice. As per above, there will be four of us and, as the upgrade cost was minimal, I'm hoping the tiny bit of extra space and the extra storage will be worth it. However I take your point on the service.

That is what we did too. Wanted to book 2 connecting regular balconies for the 4 of us...That is what we were able to do on our last cruise a few weeks ago on the Getaway bc the prices went down. Now I am spoiled and it will be hard to go back to the 4 of us in one stateroom! But the price is too high right now to do 2 connecting staterooms. So we booked a minisuite with large balcony hoping that the bit of extra space will help!

Yes, agree with above poster. We were on the Getaway a few weeks back in March and it was definitely on the St Maarten night and they started at 10:45 pm.

Sorry still don't quite understand fully. I see the sq ft of the mini suite is more than for a balcony and I get that the extra is length not width (although on the NCl Epic deck plans the minisuites look a bit wider) but, as the furniture looks identical, what part of the minisuite cabin is longer?

From what I gather after looking at diagrams of a regular balcony room vs a minisuite, the part of the minisuite that is longer is the entranceway when you first walk into the cabin because that is parallel to where the bathroom is and the bathroom is definitely bigger/longer.

Ok, thanks for the responses. We ended up booking one mini suite with large balcony for the 4 of us. Would love to have connecting balconies (even if its not a large one!) in order to have the extra space and extra bathroom! But, just too expensive right now to do it that way. Will watch to see if prices drop before final payment. I, too, am wondering if the cabins that they show to the left in the gray boxes are the only ones avail or if it just a partial listing of what is available.

And it sounds as though it will not be free on the first night to anyone with the UDP as they have done in the past. Anyone have any info on that?

If you have the UDP, then no, you will not be charged. We had made all of our dining reservations ahead of time online for a party of 4. One of my children did not join us for dinner on 1 of the nights and they did not charge us for her.

If you do not have the UDP and you have to pay at the time you make the reservation (if making them online), then my understanding is that you need to give 24 hrs notice for anyone not coming and they will give you a refund in OBC.

Of course, it would be helpful to the staff if they were given 24 hrs notice regardless of having UDP or not since they could then open up the free space to others :D

Although I used concierge on the breakaway I didn't use the pay portion

I know it works on NCL's wifi but if you turn the wifi on you become subject to international usage fees from your cell phone carrier so I think you should turn everything off on your cell or else you might incur high charges on your cell bill

Nope, this is not accurate. When you put your phone in airplane mode, you won't be subjected to any usage fees. After you put your phone in airplane mode, you then connect to NCL's wifi and it is only for use on the ship - not for making calls outside of the ship. We used the iconcierge on the Getaway a few weeks ago and it was well worth the $7.95!

Wow, you are handling these judgemental responses better than I would be! Since I don't think that you are looking for info re: your child's behavior, I will stick to your question...

Don't give up all hope that they can be together in the kids club. One year we did a cruise with our cousins (during busy spring break), and they let us have our girls move down to the younger kid group. They had just turned the age for the next group level. The younger cousin was not allowed to be in the older group but they did let my 2 girls go into the younger group so that they could be together. Of course it is more fun if they are together! Why would your daughter want to go to the kids club without her best friend? And if having her best friend there gives her the courage to join a new group and see what it is like to put herself out there in a new situation, that would be wonderful! Enjoy! :)

beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The op received this as exceptional customer service, period. No need for anyone else to qualify whether it is exceptional. :rolleyes:

like!

Hi All,

I am searching for connecting staterooms on the Escape and I just want to see all of my options. I seem to remember at some point being able to enter a specific stateroom number while doing a mock booking on the ncl website but I cannot seem to find where that option is now. Can anyone tell me how I can go about doing that? Thank you!

Family balconies are typically located close to the kids club or pool area

Thanks.. so no difference in size? Just refers to location?

Ok... another question: what is the difference between a 'family' balcony and a 'regular' balcony?

I know that the difference between the mini suites and balcony rooms on the Getaway/Breakaway really have to do with the size of the bathroom. Does anyone know if it is going to be different on the Escape? I haven't been able to find any specific info but on NCL's website, it says that the mini suites will have more 'living space' than the balcony cabins. Wondering if that still just means a bigger bathroom or if the cabin will actually be a bit bigger. Anyone know?

Thanks for posting. Glad you had a good time. We're looking forward to checking out Escape.

That's what's next on our agenda too!! :D

Just a quick question.

 

Do you have any idea of how many kids were onboard? Our Son has always loved the kids club, but I've heard stories of 1000+ kids being onboard the Getaway at this time of year, which I suspect would affect his enjoyment (and our queueing time at opening).

 

Did the kids club seen really crowded?

I don't know the number of kids onboard but it is spring break so I imagine the number is quite high! Certainly did not seem overrun with kids. When we would go over to the kids club, there were usually a few people waiting in line to drop off but never seemed overly crowded. Likewise, when I would peek my head in to try to see what my kids were up to, never seemed like too many kids at any given time - in fact it always looked like a nice number!

Thank you for posting about your cruise. I always look forward to Saturdays to see new reviews come in.

I have a question about the iconcierge app... did you call home with it or just use it on board?

Also just my $0.02 about changes to gratuity and increases in drink costs. For us it isn't a big deal. I will still tip my server and bartender in cash. I hear a lot of complaining about the changes, but honestly costs increase as the years pass, and what was normal 10 years ago is no longer the case.

The iconcierge cannot be used to call home. It is just for use on the ship. You have to download the app before you board. Once you are on the ship, put your phone into airplane mode and then connect to the Getaway Wifi. It then gives an option for the $6.95 charge to get text/calling option. If you opt for this, it assigns you a phone number that is yours for the duration of the cruise and you can give it to who ever you want on the ship so you can text and call each other. Very useful when I wanted to contact my husband and also the kids club! I could call the kids club and they could call me if my children wanted to talk to me or have me come get them. Def worth the 7 bucks!

We have done NCL in the past but it looks like the inside cabin size is shrinking with very little storage space. But we were just on the Carnival Sunshine and noticed less closet storage space and no side tables next to the beds. Any feedback on closet space would be appreciated

We found the closet and storage space to be fine but we were in a balcony cabin. I'm not sure how it compares to an inside cabin. Also, we actually had 2 balcony cabins - connecting with my kids (which was absolute heaven). My husband and I were joking that we could not decide which we appreciated more - having the UBP for free or having 2 cabins so that we were not all over each other! :D

If we had 1 cabin for the 4 of us, I think that the storage space would have been tight (but doable). Definitely more than fine for 2

Thank you so much for your reply. I am feeling great about our upcoming sailing! We are a pretty go with the flow, not picky, happy to be on vacation kind of family but not huge fans of crowds in small spaces. Glad to hear you never really felt too crowded. Thanks for the feedback on the kids club and pools too. My kiddos didn't like Camp Carnival (9 & 13) so we will see about this time. Any excursion recommendations that your family enjoyed? We are visiting Tortola for the first time:).

Based on your attitude, sounds like you will have the best time!! Look, we all know there is always something that we can complain about but what's the point? We are all spending our hard-earned money to have a good time - so let's do that!!

We did not go to Tortola. I'm not sure when the switch is happening but right now, the Getaway goes to St Maarten, St Thomas and Nassau. Maybe the change in itinerary occurs when the Escape comes to Miami? Not sure. In St. Thomas, we were supposed to go on a tour with Godfrey tours but... they did not show up!!! I guess I could complain about that (LOL!!) Trust me when I say that they got an earful from me but I haven't heard back from them (not surprised). We ended up getting a private taxi to do a tour around the island. It was pretty good. We were not up for a beach that day because we got very sunburned the day before on a boat tour in St Maarten! We've been to Nassau several times and have done Atlantis so for the first time ever, we stayed on the ship at that port and had a nice, quiet day around the ship.

So glad to hear you had a wonderful time! We are booked on Getaway in October and have been slightly concerned with the number of passengers. I noticed you sailed Carnival Dream in the past, so did we. We loved that cruise but did feel that at times it felt crowded. How would you compare the two? Also, I'm not sure of the ages of your children but am curious if they used Splash Academy and how you felt the pool setup was? On the Dream we were able to sit in lounge chairs (in the sun) and were able to watch the kids on the slides. Is the Getaway setup similar?

 

Thanks in advance for your reply:).

I was nervous too after hearing many people talk about how small the pools are and how crowded they get. We were told that there were 4700 pax onboard during our cruise! I think that I waited on lines maybe 3x the whole cruise. Seriously! My husband and I were really impressed with the set-up of the buffets. Very different set-up compared to Carnival (did the Dream last year and the Liberty twice before that). It is set up in different sections and goes around the deck in a rectangle so there are multiple stations to go thru the buffet so lines do not build up - very smart set-up!

Regarding the pools, they are pretty small. When we were there, I spent most of my time over by the kid pool which is next to the slides and the toddler/baby pool. My kids were primarily using the slides but went in the pool a bit. There is another 'adult' pool further down the deck with some hot tubs. But again, I stayed by the other pool since that is where my kids were. Lots of chaise lounges in the shade and some in the sun if that is what you want. Sometimes it was difficult to get a few chairs together but eventually we would find a few together in the area we wanted.

Overall, the Dream definitely felt more crowded to us as compared to the Getaway and we went at the same time of year - March for spring break - definitely a crowded time.

I have twin 11 year old girls. They both went to splash academy. One of them loved it and wanted to go every day. The other one was not as into it but that is how she was in the kids club at Carnival too. The counselors seemed very nice (there were one or two on the Carnival ships that we were not thrilled with.

Let me know if you have any other questions... I'm not one for writing full reviews but I am happy to answer questions!

The apocalyptic (sarcasm) changes include an 18% autogratuity in the specialty restaurants, and an increase in the beverage gratuity to 18%.

 

Some talk also on Breakaway of NOT having reservations for shows.

Basically an increase in prices for specialties and drinks. You had the UDP and UBP so you wouldn't notice.

 

I personally don't care about these changes. They will not affect my cruising agenda.

 

The boards have blown up with NCL devotees who will never cruise NCLS again because of these underhanded, non-transparent changes.

 

I will enjoy my 50% of children fare, my UDP andUBP and prepaid gratuities on my next cruise and still leave a tip.

 

Don't worry- the changes are nothing big unless, and I am not trying to be sarcastic, you cannot afford the extra 18 percent tip in the specialties.

 

Don't know if Getaway is honoring show reservations- did you make any? We will be cruising her in a couple of weeks.

Thank you for explaining the concerns/changes. I did actually notice the 18% gratuity on the drinks and thought that the drink prices seemed pretty high (even though you don't pay for the drinks, you do sign for each and every one of them so you see the price of each - they just do not show up on your bill).

oh, by the way, we purchased the iconcierge to use on our iphones to call/text each other and we thought that the $6.95 charge was well worth the price!! We had no problem with calls/texts going through - I know that this has been a complaint in the past but we had no probs. One of my favorite features on the iconcierge was being able to monitor my bill each day.. Much easier to know what each charge is for when following it each day as compared to looking once at the end of the cruise, not remembering what each charge was for and feeling serious sticker shock!

Regarding show reservations - yes, all reservations were honored. We made reservations ahead of time for 2 comedy shows, legally blonde and illusionarium.