NCL Getaway Sept. 19th Eastern Caribbean Review

NCL Getaway Quick Review

Decided to do a small little review of my time on the Getaway. This will not be photo intensive, as most of the time I did not have my camera or phone with me, but thought maybe someone might find some useful info from our experience! Feel free to ask any questions!

I cruise mostly with my husband, TJ, and this was my 10th cruise, his 9th (had a short girls cruise without him!), and this was our second time on the Getaway. I feel like we had a much “better” cruise the second time around. I say this just because I feel like they were still ironing out a LOT of kinks when we first sailed the Getaway last August.

*Pre-Cruise*

We flew out of DFW on Friday night on Spirit Airlines (Save your boos, I like to save money!!!!) and in order to save EVEN more, we brought only two backpacks! We have gotten SO good at traveling light and getting rid of the things that you really don’t *need* to bring. I also watched a lot of smart packing videos on youtube and how to pair up outfits for many different looks. I actually ended up with 2 extra outfits, so I could have packed lighter! I ended up brining two dresses, when one would have been enough. It’s easy to travel lighter, especially with NCL Freestyle!

For those curious, for two flights out of DFW airport on Friday night on Spirit Airlines, with no checked bags, we paid 218.00 including taxes for two people! On any other airline, would have been 2x as much. So it was a great deal! No, they don’t give you any soda and snacks on spirit, but they are very reasonably priced and I bought a soda while on board to make my flight a little more comfortable.

Here are some pics of the Spirit Airlines onboard menu and an example of the legroom!

Sorry for the huge pictures - I forgot how to scale them down! If anyone knows how, let me know and I will fix it

I found the legroom comfortable and the seats were ok. This isn't first class, or even the comfort of other big carriers, like Delta, but personally, I am never super comfortable in any airplane so I just grin and bear it! and for a 2.5 hr non stop flight, it really isn't bad! I just put some headphones on and read from my kindle a little bit and soon we were landing in Fort Lauderdale.

*Pre-Cruise Continued*

After landing at 9pm in FLL airport, we rented a car from Budget, which was supposed to be 32.00 total. We drove to Miami where we had the Element Miami Doral booked. We have stayed at Element Miami Airport and loved it, but the Miami Doral one was cheaper, so since we didn’t need the free airport shuttle, we booked with the Miami Doral. I think with taxes it ended up being 123.00 for our King Room with pull out queen bed. Free continental breakfast included. They did offer a shuttle to the cruise port from the hotel for 12.00pp.

Check in was a breeze, and we got two free alcoholic drink certificates to use at the Aloft hotel, which is right next to the Element, but since it was late and we left early in the morning, we didn’t use them. It was a nice gesture though!

I forgot to take photos of the lobby, but this hotel is very nice and eco friendly. Has a very modern, sleek feel! I did take loads of pictures of our room! If you ever need to have a extended stay hotel booked, the Element is the way to go - ALL of their rooms have kitchenettes with barstools and cooking utensils

Doorway into a large bathroom

Rain Shower was amazing! The shampoo conditioner combo they had was OK, good enough for one night and had nice tea tree smell to it.

Lots of towels in this bathroom, which I love! I just love having them there, so you don’t have to call the front desk in the morning to get clean ones! Like I said, everything is super modern, even the sink! I love it, personally, and it feels very high end in the room

Here’s the toiletries included. Love the lotion, used the whole bottle, smells great

Closet space is decent - not that it was an issue for the short time we were there and because I only brought a backpack.

More pics of the room in the next post...

View of the kitchenette. There are a couple of barstools tucked under the far end by the coffee maker

Here is a list of items included in your room. And the prices if you want to purchase or steal them, haha. As you can see, the room in equipped with a ton of stuff!

Dishwasher and Microwave

Small sink with very nice faucet and a separate drinking filtered water faucet.

Coffee Setup

Some coffee mugs, plates, dishes

Pots and pans under the sink

Console/Desk parallel to the kitchen

Desk and TV - TV swivels so you can watch while in bed or while in seating area.

King Sized Bed - VERY comfortable. Simply the best pillows!

Queen Pull Out Couch area

Another picture of the pull out couch

Hopefully next time while we are in Miami pre cruise, we can find some friends who might want to share, as the Element was only asking about 20.00 dollars for a 2 bedroom with 2 Kings and 1 Queen Pull out.

took a quick picture of the espresso machine in the lobby - sorry so blurry

Didn’t take any pictures of the continental breakfast. It was a little disappointing, but really it’s just nice to have anything included. The best thing they had were smoothie “Shots”, but they had eggs, bacon, french toast, some potato dish, anything you might need to get a jumpstart on embarkation morning!

We got up early to hit walmart for some sunscreen and few essentials we couldn’t pack in our backpack and headed to the port of Miami super early. We took our car to the rental car place to catch the shuttle for the cruise port and the rental car charged us 15.00 because we drove the car less than 75 miles. So be sure to read all the fine print, because if we had simply drove around for 10 more minutes we would have saved 15 bucks.

I downloaded iConcierge, as we always pay to use the calling/texting feature on the ship! Love seeing that countdown of only “2” hours.

passed Carnival and NCL Headquarters/Offices

Check in was a breeze, but passengers in the last sailing were super slow getting off the ship. There were still groups of people disembarking as of 11am.

We booked a inside GTY with the UBP promo and got assigned a handicapped inside. So we did get a pretty good deal, I think. We had an aft facing balcony last time we went on the Getaway, so definitely a huge difference, but any cruise is a great cruise to us, even in an inside!

We got to the port around 9:30 and were inside the terminal B around 945-10am. They had coffee, lemonade and water, which was nice, but all the bathrooms were shut down, so good luck if you needed to use them! I only drank one cup of coffee because I didn’t want to chance it - good thing too, because we never saw any of the bathrooms open up. I think they started boarding people around 11:30am, and we were group 2, so among the first ones on.

Will post more later on today!!!

We went to O’Sheehan’s for lunch, with a super nice couple we meet through our Cruise Critic Meet and Mingle and had our first free drink - Bahama Mama :)

Around 1pm, our room was ready so we headed to check out our handicapped inside.

I forgot to take pictures when we first got into our room, but remembered to get some right before we disembarked so pardon the messy room - We were in a hurry to get off the ship! But I figured there might be some interest to what a handicapped inside was like.

Not sure if they are all the exact same layout, but they are bigger than a standard inside. The door is automatic, so when you insert your room card in the door, the door automatically opens and closes for you. There is a door bell, and for the hearing inpaired, “strobe lights” that go off to signal that the door bell has been rung.

Our room was 11425

The large button opens the door

and outlet to plug in wheelchairs and such

and some hooks

Amoire and some storage and the where the mini fridge is

Inside

you can pull this white thing and the clothes rack will pull down for easy access for those in wheelchairs

TV with magazine slot

the mini fridge

Corner Desk with Safe

bathroom

Shower

After we unpacked, we headed to the muster drill which was pretty short and definitely one of the easiest muster drills I have been to.

Our meet and mingle had a spillway get together scheduled, so we headed to the sunset bar for some drinks and fellowship!

Definitely a hopping bar!

Great bartenders, especially Jay!

More selfies! (after some shots made by Jay, of course!)

Me and my husband

*Day 2*

Day 2 is a sea day, and we had the meet and mingle at 11am at Cagneys, followed by a short group lunch at O’Sheehan’s, then a Slot Pull, Cabin Crawl, and Pub Crawl

We had a great turn out to all the events, most people I have ever seen at one, and the nicest of people! Sponge bob made an appearance, as well as JC, the cruise director and other directors and officers!

We played the Haunted House machine for the slot pull, just to try something different than wheel of fortune and after everyone had their spins, we were down to about 100.00 - so we all decided to play it through - and we hit a GREAT BONUS, and basically won most of it back, every one leaving with only -3.00. Was definitely worth it for the fun of that bonus game!

Cabin crawl was good too, got to see many different cabin types, including the solo cabins and lounge. No Haven suites on this crawl unfortunately, but we still had fun trying to fit through the hallways.

Pub Crawls are always fun and we had a lot of people turn out for it! Our favorite bar was the Sugarcane Mojito Bar with Candize - who is seriously the best bartender on the Getaway. She makes those mojitos so tasty and is so efficient and friendly! We definitely had a great time there

The raspberry mojito was definitely my drink of choice and I loved it when Candize was there to make one for me!

More to come on Day 3 later on tonight :)

Great review and beautiful pictures!! Looking forward to Day 3[emoji3]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I have a lot of pictures of day 2 pub crawl I didn’t include because literally they make no sense lol, too much alcohol.

Evening on Day 2 we went to the Comedy Headliners show, both seatings. Before the show’s first seating, I went to the Headliner’s bar to get two sprites (After the pub crawl, I was taking a break from the alcohol) and came back to my seat. By this time, the comedian was on stage. A bartender kept walking around with two martinis, trying to find who ordered them, and finally i waved her down and just said we’d take them, and showed her my card. My husband doesn’t drink much, but I think everyone in the audience was tired of watching the bartender search for the people who ordered the drinks. The comedian joked how she’d take a martini, and my husband went up on stage and gave her one the martini’s we claimed. It was hilarious and a good time.

On the second seating of the comedy headliners that night (the adult show) the only seating area was the bar. So we sat at the bar and I told my husband he should send up a shot of water to the comedian. So we got a shot glass full of water and handed to the comedian. The whole show, it was hysterical watching her trying not to drink the vodka. I told my husband that I bet she didn’t drink it right away because they have rules about drinking while having a show, so it was hysterical when she finally drank the shot and said “is this f-ing water?” :D

So Comedy was a good time to be had, make sure you don’t miss it!

Day 3…

was another beautiful HOT sea day!

Even though this was my second time on the Getaway, I forgot how CROWDED the pool deck and pool bar get and didn’t really spend any time there, unfortunately. Spice was also always overcrowded. Next time I sail, I might splurge for the vibe pass to use during sea days.

We walked around the Waterfront, which is my favorite feature of the Getaway! Truly beautiful! When one side of the waterfront got hot, we just moved to the other side :)

This was aft, deck 8 on the water front

my husband enjoying the view and nice breeze

I absolutely love the aft, and wish we could have afforded the aft facing balcony, like we had last time on the Getaway. But as we sail more and more, the room we have becomes less important, and we have been splurging on more onboard amenities, like the Beverage Package, Dining Package, excellent excursions, etc with the money we save by booking insides and ocean views.

onto Day 4 - St. Thomas

We have been to St. Thomas a few times, and have done the Champagne Catamaran in St. John, but decided to do something different so we did the "twice as nice" excursion through the cruiseline

It was well priced and had a "turtle bay" stop, and I've never seen turtles while snorkeling so figured it would be a good excursion to try

We were on the "Stars and Stripes" which is hilarious, as we have been on the ACTUAL stars and stripes when we were in St. Maarten doing the 5m Yatch Racing excursion through NCL

Anyhow, here are some pics of us snorkeling and some pics of the turtles!

TURTLE ALERT!

We look awesome, don't we?!?!

Turtle coming up for a breath of air - watch out!

Just hangin' out!

We had two snorkeling stops, one at the shipwreck, which I don't have any great pictures of, and one at the turtle bay or cove, can't remember exact name.

The crew were great and actually got in the water and told you about the seaturtles and other marine life, and actually SHOWED you where the turtles were, and one of the crew members dove down and brought up a conch with a crab living inside! :eek: some people held it, but I wasn't brave enough :(

The actual catamaran sail back was amazing, the crew were great, and the painkillers they offered were quite tasty - there were some packaged snacks for anyone who needed some too.

Our tour started at 8am, and ended about 11 or 11:30, so plenty of time to do other things in St. Thomas.

Here are some pictures of the catamaran Stars and Stripes

After the catamaran, a group of us cruise critic members went took the skylift up to Paradise Point, something I have never done before and decided to cross that off the "Bucket List"

The skylife at the desk is 21.00 round trip per person. The ride is short, but beautiful and the view is amazing at the top

We ate at the restaurant on top of Paradise Point which was OK. It is strictly American food, nothing resembling Caribbean food at all. I got a jerk chicken wrap, which was good, but not spicy at all, and mac and cheese, which was gross. Service was slow to start, but eventually picked up and was fine. we paid 30.00 including tip for 2 people, so pretty affordable and a GREAT view

gotta love some panoramas!

Hopefully, someone is still reading this haha!

I am not really covering what my husband and I did in the evenings on the Getaway because it really wasn’t anything other than eating or drinking. We went to the occasional game shows, which were hilarious (especially the Sing it if you know it one) but because this was our second time on the Getaway, we had already done Legally Blonde, Burn the Floor, Illusionarium, etc. So it really made the evenings a lot more relaxing and laid back. We did more game shows this time around.

Day 4 - Tortola

We had never been to Tortola before, so planning excursions took a little more time than usual. We LOVE St. Maarten, so the bar was pretty high for Tortola. A fellow roll call member and I decided we were going to try to do the Baths “On our own” with no NCL excursion. We planned for weeks, reading up here on Cruise Critic reviews and different ferry websites and schedules and we thought we had a pretty good idea of how to get where we needed to go.

Me and Kelly (sweetpee_1993, and I got permission to post her lovely face :D)

We ended up having around 8 people join us in our endeavor and the information I am about to give you is CRUCIAL if you have never done the baths before AND are going in OFF SEASON. Sorry if the information I am giving you guys on Tortola seems overkill, but I remember planning it and looking for info, so I figure maybe someone might be in need :)

We all met at the Atrium bar at 6:30am (SO EARLY!) and waited for everyone until about 6:45

My husband and I before getting off the ship

We were off the ship around 7, and walked maybe 10 minutes to the Ferry stop. We got stopped on the way by Egbert, who operates a water taxi to the baths for 50.00pp round trip. In hindsight, we probably should have done this to really maximize time at the Baths, but I do not know FOR SURE if it really WOULD have been better. Next time, I think I will try to water taxi.

But I digress - we turned poor Egbert down and made our way to the ferry, which opens at 7:30 ish- so you have a short window to get your tickets. Believe me, they RUSH you at Speedy’s ferry - they prefer cash and will tell you over and over that they only take cash - but they lie - they CAN swipe cards and I saw them do it with a couple of people. But like I said - they really just want the cold hard cash, which I had planned for, so not a big deal for me!

Me waiting at the Ferry area

Lovely view!

LOTS more on the baths to come!

test.

For two people for the ferry, it was 78.00 including a “taxi” to and from the Baths

There ferry ride is about 45minutes to the Baths and they did leave on time, at 7:40

It was a already hot at 7:40 AM, but the breeze made it tolerable

and I believe I finally got my pictures smaller!!!!

When the ferry docks at the other side, you get into a “taxi” that takes you to the Baths, about a 10 minute drive

Little lizard we saw - looks bigger in the photo, but honestly, he was a small guy

So I couldn’t find my water shoes before the cruise and decided I didn’t need them. BIG mistake! The trail to Devil’s Bay is quite an obstacle course and I really could have used them while making my way through the cave trail! Slowly and carefully, I did get through the trail without any foot or any other sort of injury!

Absolutely beautiful! I don’t really have any DECENT photos of this. Our underwater camera sucks and we didn’t have anything else with us to take pictures. So if you want to see some great pictures of the caves and all the rocks on the trail, google has some great ones :D

Once you get the Devil’s Bay, it is a much needed oasis after all the climbing, ducking, squatting you do to get there. The whole little “Cove” is so amazing, definitely the most beautiful beach/island I have ever been to! There are these little white butterflies fluttering everywhere that truly give it an ethereal quality.

We really only had about 30-45 minutes at Devil’s Bay, before we had to head back to catch the 11:30 ferry back. It was really sad, because we could have easily spent all day just floating in that beautiful clear, cool water

More vital info on the Ferry back to come, as well as a little clip of the Devil's Bay!

Nice to have you back! :) Great review.

Nice to have you back! :) Great review.

Thanks, so glad to be back! Uhhhh, not! Would prefer to be back on the Getaway :p

The land trail back to where the taxi was located was tiring. Not sure if it was because I was out of shape, or if it really was a doozy, but I was dehydrated because we forgot to bring some water and very tired. We got some bottles of water for 2.00 each at the restaurant at the top of the trail, and headed to the Taxi around 11:10 to go back to where the Ferry would pick us up.

We get to the ferry location, and we get in line to get on the 11:30 ferry and the guys at the gate tell us “Oh, the next ferry isn’t until 12:40” and we are like “WHAT?!?”

Posted outside the Speedy’s ferry in the morning, they have listed a 11:40 ferry back to Tortola On Speedy’s website, they have posted a 11:40 ferry back to the Tortola. On the 7:40 ferry to Virgin Gorda, they TOLD us the next ferry back to Tortola was 11:40.

So you can imagine our outrage

The 11:40 ferry was only for people who bought the cruiseship excursion. But they had an ADDITIONAL ferry boat docked on the other side, they just weren’t running it.

Normally I would say maybe we had misheard in the morning, but I seriously doubt a group of 10 people all misheard the same thing.

When confronted about their out of date website and the sign posted outside of their establishment in Road Town, they said “Oh well it’s off season”

So basically, we waited one hour by the Ferry dock in Virgin Gorda where there is a small beach, but literally nothing else. Most of us opted to not go to the beach, since we had just toweled dried from the Baths. Nothing else to do, not even any shops. There WAS one small vender cart with a lady selling some soda, gatorade, and some rum. Kelly (Sweetpea_1993) and I got a coke and a gatorade from us that were surprisingly reasonable in price (2.00 for a coke and 3.00 for a gatorade)

We watched some chickens…um…have a good time…and chatted for a while.

But that hour we wasted sitting at the dock could have been better spent at Devil’s Bay…so MAKE SURE you get the correct information.

I was concerned about making it back to the ship on time, which is why we all were going on the 11:30 ferry.

You will STILL make it on time with the 12:40, but the 12:40 ferry is the LAST ONE you can take and still make it

We got on the cruise ship about 2:00pm and all aboard was 2:30 - cutting it too close by my standards…but everything worked out and it really was a gorgeous day!

Here's a cool little clip of Devil's Bay - almost like you are there, right?!?!