Back from Getaway yesterday (5/3); VERY extensive review :)

[chloe173]

Hi all,

 

Just off the Getaway yesterday. I know there have been many reviews on here already, but I went ahead and wrote up a monster of a review, and am happy to take any lingering questions.

 

A little about us - 29 & 31 y.o. married couple, no kids. Big foodies/wine drinkers. We were in a BA balcony cabin, room 11842. It was our second Norwegian cruise.

 

Overall:

We definitely enjoyed ourselves and the ship is lovely. The food was mostly good and the shows were fantastic, however the other shipboard entertainment was so-so. Most of the staff was excellent. We felt like three sea days on a seven day cruise was kind of a lot. I think they would do well to add one more port to the itinerary and/or offer a 10- or 14-day itinerary that hit a few more spots.

 

I should note, however, that you could DEFINITELY feel this ship rocking and rolling on the water. If you're prone to seasickness, bring some medicine. It was pretty intense.

 

Embarkation:

We wanted Vibe passes, so we got there super-early. We were at the port by 9:15am. At 9:30, they let us into the security screening area, but that was a little strange: They made the first people in sit around the wall, and later people stand in the security line. At 10, they opened security, and we had to complain when they almost let the line people in before the chair people who got their first. Check in was a breeze, and we got passes in the first group to board.

 

However, even though we were the FIRST people in GROUP 1 to board from the "B" side of the terminal, and we RAN to guest services on deck 6, there was already a line for Vibe passes as soon as we got on board. (Haven, VIPs, and disabled passengers got on before, plus I think terminal C started before us.) We got the LAST cabana pass for vibe...more about that later.

 

Cabin:

We had a BA cabin on deck 11. Overall, we thought the cabin was about a foot or two longer than the balcony we'd had on the Sky last year, but they took that extra room from the balcony (tiny) and the hallway (very narrow...you had to turn sideways to pass someone).

 

The cabin was as expected, and the bathroom was actually a nicer size that expected. Only electrical outlet is by the "desk", none in the bathroom, so bring yourself a power strip.

 

Our cabin steward, Danny, was top notch. Room was always clean, and we saw some of the better towel animals we've come across. All the other stewards we met in the hallway were also very friendly.

 

You have to insert a key card to use the power while in the room; while any non-Norwegian key card will do, there's a little light on the exterior of the door that shows if you're using the power or not--and that's how the steward knows when to clean your room.

 

Also, we didn't figure this out till the last day - there's a movies on demand station on the in-cabin tvs. Would've been good to know as they only have sports and news channels, and basically nothing else.

 

Dining:

Some places were better than others. It seemed to me that most people never discovered the Flamingo Bar and Grill on Deck 16, especially for breakfast. The buffet was always a madhouse for breakfast, but if you wanted drip coffee out of a carafe (instead of the instant machine) then you did have to swing by on your way up to Flamingo. My husband HATED the coffee out of the machines - said it was ultra-weak and far too hot to drink; however, he's Swedish, and they can be very picky about their coffee, haha.

 

For lunch...we did day one lunch in the main dining room and thought it was terrible food with very slow service, so avoided the main dining rooms the rest of the time. Instead we usually popped by Flamingo (which had cuban sandwiches, burgers, pulled pork, etc.), the buffet, or got wings at O'Sheehans for lunch- in fact we got wings multiple times...they're delicious :)

 

For dinner, we ate at the Illusionarium (terrible), La Cucina (ok), Le Bistro (great), Cagney's (good), sushi (ok), noodle bar (ok), and Ocean Blue (good). We were never blown away by any meal, but we did encounter a few really excellent dishes - the mussels in Ocean Blue were fantastic; the french onion soup in Le Bistro was wonderful; the 8 oz filet and the creme brulet in Cagneys was great. Everything else was acceptable but not amazing.

 

Also, we found the a la carte prices to be far cheaper than the traditional specialty restaurant cover charges - we'd spend maybe $20 total at one of those and be full instead of having to shell out a $15-$50 cover per person at the other restaurants. Perhaps as a result, we often saw the entertainment crew eating at the a la carte restaurants too. I just wish they had bigger menus.

 

One tip for those of you wanting to do chef's dinner - get to embarkation early, sit by the windows, and you can start using iConcierge and sign up for the chef's table at 11am, before you get on the ship. We didn't do the chef's dinner, but did see that you could have signed up if you wanted to.

 

Oh, and btw: unless you like rubbery shrimp and salty, dry steak, say you're a vegetarian for Illusionairium and Wine Lovers. I wish I would have done this with Illusionarium, but I learned my lesson and tried it for Wine Lovers (whose menu is almost exactly the same) and I got a delicious eggplant parmesan instead - leaps and bounds tastier than the "normal" meal.

 

Shows:

Overall we were VERY impressed with the shows on the ship. Burn the Floor was stunning! We absolutely loved it. Legally Blonde was also cute, but had some fairly awful actors. Wine Lovers the Musical was a cute concept. The Illusionarium was one of the better magic shows I've seen, and I've seen numerous Vegas shows.

 

One small issue: when Burn the Floor does their followup shows in the Tropicana Room (at 6pm in the later nights of the cruise) there's nowhere to watch if you don't want to eat dinner there. Kind of frustrating as we would have liked to see these mini-performances too, but we don't eat dinner that early.

 

We also went to one of the comedy shows (Dan Villapondo) - he wasn't funny at all. However, his opener (James Ervin Berry) was hilarious. I would have happily listened to him for another hour. Oh, and just as a beware - the chairs in Headliners are very uncomfortable. Go for one of the tables in the back or sides instead.

 

However, BY FAR the best show of the cruise was at Grammy Experience. We had Sugar Blue who plays blues harmonica, and he was absolutely amazing. We live in Austin, Texas, the live music capital of the world, and this was as good a show as I've seen from any blues legend in the business. If you like live music, you may just want to go here every night.

 

Other Onboard Programming:

This was the only thing we thought was really lacking. We felt like 95% of the programming was either for the family crowd or the 50+ crowd. Especially after about 9pm on non-show nights, our options were essentially casino or Bliss. (And no one was ever in Bliss. I didn't see more than 10 people there the whole cruise.)

 

I liked the addition of Bandaoke (live band karaoke) to the normal karaoke lineup, but they could do so many more interesting things...for example, mixology classes, djing lessons, mixers for people in their 20s or 30s (they had mixers for nearly every other group...why not us?), drink-and-paint type classes, even just lectures on interesting, modern subjects (instead of the lecture after lecture by the spa sales staff about how to get rid of cellulite...) And encourage the Howl at the Moon and other live band acts to play a little something from the 80s-90s as well as the old Sinatra and Van Morrison and James Taylor stuff.

 

We did go to a wine tasting - and it was the biggest waste of $15 a person on the cruise. The sommeliers--first of all, I kind of doubt they're even certified, they were so unknowledgeable--were dry and uninteresting, everyone was just talking over them by the end. But even worse, the wines they chose to taste were a joke. Beringer White Zinfandel was on the list. Seriously? If I want to drink $5-a-bottle jolly rancher wine, I'd just get a bottle of Boone's Farm.

 

Trivia was fun, but they could have spiced up the subjects there too. One day was "Ships of the World" trivia. Zzzzzzzzzz. And, unless you really want your time wasted, don't go to anything called "trivia" in the duty free shops. We went to "liquor trivia" expecting it would be similar to the other ship trivia - instead, it was a 40 minute sales pitch followed by one of the sales guys asking people to shout out prices to random liquors he'd mentioned during his pitch and awarding the most enthusiastic "shouter" a bottle of Baileys. Utter waste of time.

 

Finally, if you're planning on going to whatever evening "party" is in Spice2O, get there super early if you want a seat. On the night of the fireworks, every chair was taken 2 hours in advance. The other nights, it was mainly just a crowded children's dance party.

 

I will say that the fireworks at sea were very cool though. The show went on longer than I expected it would too - we watched from the sun deck in the aft of the ship and it was perfect.

 

Ship Facilities:

 

If you wanted a chair near the adults pool, you needed to be getting to the pool to claim a spot and start camping out by 10am at the absolute latest on sea days. Even the upper sundecks were all totally full by noon on sea days, so don't sleep in if getting a good lounger is important to you. We popped in to the adult pool a few times, and while crowded, it was never too crowded to enjoy cooling off.

 

We did the water slides on the second sea day, and they were all fun. Of the five water slides, the purple, orange, and pink are fairly mild; the blue and green are heart-in-your-throat-screaming-to-the-end worthy. Get there before noon or after 4 on sea days to avoid lines.

 

While we don't have kids, the children's play area looked fun, however I'll echo what I saw another poster say - it appeared that parents really had no options except to hover over their children, as there wasn't a good spot where parents could watch their kids playing and see them unblocked.

 

We loved the ropes course, but it's definitely a bit scary!! Especially if it's a windy day, being near the edge of the ship can be downright terrifying. We really enjoyed going all the way through it though. The mini-golf course was also very enjoyable, though it's hard to be very good on a rocking ship!

 

Our favorite hangout was O'Sheehans. The mini-bowling is a blast, and we played multiple rounds of darts and Big Buck Hunter as well. We visited the video arcade once as well, and they had a few interesting games (Guitar Hero, Temple Run, etc.), but most were geared towards young kids. Le sigh.

 

As for the casino, though we spent plenty of time (and money!) there, I found it disappointing. The only "brand name" slots they have are Deal or No Deal (1c) and Wheel of Fortune ($1). No Wizard of Oz, no Monopoly, no Sex and the City, no Goldfish. My favorite machines were "Wild 70s" and "Alice in Wonderland". Also - just an observation, but it seemed the slots were consistently looser from 5-7pm than they were later in the evening. Also, as a precaution, if you spend more than 5 minutes in the casino at night, you WILL smell like an ashtray the rest of the evening. Blech.

 

And finally, let me not forget the ice bar - WOW it was cold! Most people couldn't even stay for their two free drinks - they were in and out in under five minutes. We enjoyed it, but you're essentially just walking into a deep freeze. They played good music though, so you could dance to try to keep warm.

 

Vibe Beach Club

As previously stated, we also had a Vibe cabana. If we were sailing again, we would probably wouldn't do it, or maybe just get the pass and not the cabana. The cabanas have almost NO air flow and so they get massively hot. All three of the center cabanas took to tying their cabana doors open just to try to get a little breeze. (Luckily, we packed some paracord...) And while the cabanas have good sun for the first two sea days, they're entirely shaded on the final sea day.

 

They have plenty of other loungers in Vibe, including the "bed style" loungers that the cabanas have out on the other side of the hot tubs for anyone to use. Those got better sun and a lot of breeze. Vibe never felt crowded - at most there were 40 people tops in there at the busiest moment. And the bartenders in Vibe--Kervin and Sean--are seriously top notch. Kervin's quite easy on the eyes too :)

 

In the end, it was nice not having to play the chair game with everyone below, but unless you're planning on spending nearly the entirety of your sea days laying out...I really don't know that it's worth it. We are pretty early risers so could have easily grabbed chairs by the main pool, and then gotten to see the activities going on as well.

 

Ports

In St. Martin we did Maho Beach on our own - it was definitely fun to see the planes coming in, but with two other cruise ships in port, the beach was PACKED. We got there just before 11am and got the last pair or loungers and umbrella from the Sunset bar. The good time for planes is about 11am - 2pm.

 

The water at Maho Beach gets deep very quickly, with a bit of an undercurrent, so not necessarily great for anyone with young kids. And the beach itself is quite rocky, and we saw at least one older woman fall--if you have mobility issues, you may want to look elsewhere. After the beach, we went to Marigot on the French side for lunch, and had a traditional Carribean creole lunch at Rosemary's, which was tasty and fairly cheap.

 

St. Thomas was the second port, and we did the Champagne Catamaran cruise through NCL which was really great. We saw turtles and rays and even squid, plus plenty of fish during the snorkeling, and the champagne and rum punch was flowing on the way back.

 

Finally, we did Atlantis in Nassau. We'd done it before, and that's already well covered on these boards so I won't go into more detail. I was interested to see that they noted in the Freestyle Daily that the US govt had recently issued a warning for tourists in Nassau, and the cruise cautioned people against going to non-tourist areas or on non-ship tours.

 

Disembarkation

Let me start off by saying that the Getaway DOES NOT participate in the BAGS program, which is really unfortunate. Our flight home wasn't until 4pm and we were hoping to see some of Miami before we headed to the airport.

 

Without the BAGS program, your options for doing so are basically either the hop-on/hop-off sightseeing buses through the ship, which we didn't want to do, or renting a car and hauling your luggage around with you.

 

But, as far as disembarkation itself, it was very smooth. We did walk-off on our own, had breakfast at the buffet around 8:30, and then walked off at 9am. Customs took 15 minutes, tops.

 

 

I *think* that's about everything! Let me know if there are any questions, and I'll do my best to answer them. Thanks!

[kylenyc]

Nice review, tips, and a few chuckles. Thanks!

Edited May 4, 2014 by kylenyc

[hpecorari]

Hi all,

 

As for the casino, though we spent plenty of time (and money!) there, I found it disappointing. The only "brand name" slots they have are Deal or No Deal (1c) and Wheel of Fortune ($1). No Wizard of Oz, no Monopoly, no Sex and the City, no Goldfish. My favorite machines were "Wild 70s" and "Alice in Wonderland". Also - just an observation, but it seemed the slots were consistently looser from 5-7pm than they were later in the evening. Also, as a precaution, if you spend more than 5 minutes in the casino at night, you WILL smell like an ashtray the rest of the evening. Blech.ou

!

 

Wait! No Goldfish!????

 

Sounds like you had a great time! Good for you.

 

Harriet

Edited May 4, 2014 by hpecorari

[SissasMomE]

Wait! No Goldfish!????

 

Sounds like you had a great time! Good for you.

 

Harriet

 

They don't have the leprechaun slot machine either :(

[mjm325]

great review! quick question.... are there any umbrella's for sun shade on the pool deck? I love to lay out but can't get sun (you know, that whole skin cancer survivor thing) and I'm not familiar with NCL so don't know if they have any umbrella's in the main pool area?

 

if they don't, are there any shaded areas that are still near the pool so you can feel like you are part of the action??

thanks!

[chloe173]

great review! quick question.... are there any umbrella's for sun shade on the pool deck? I love to lay out but can't get sun (you know, that whole skin cancer survivor thing) and I'm not familiar with NCL so don't know if they have any umbrella's in the main pool area?

 

if they don't, are there any shaded areas that are still near the pool so you can feel like you are part of the action??

thanks!

 

The main pool deck is on level 15, and the vast majority of the loungers on that level are actually shaded by the floor of deck 16. There's also some shaded areas on 16, but if you stick to 15 you'll be fine.

 

The only place I saw actual umbrellas were in Vibe.

[LrgPizza]

Great review! Thanks for sharing.

 

I love the Wild 70's machine! 5-7 is when the kids club is closed though, so I'll have to send my husband and son off to do their own thing while I try the loose slots. LOL

 

We had already decided not to get Vibe passes, but were still thinking MAYBE if we got a cabana. Based on this review, we have officially decided no. Thanks for sharing your experience.

[TifffanyD]

Thanks for all the info! :)

 

 

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[mjm325]

The main pool deck is on level 15, and the vast majority of the loungers on that level are actually shaded by the floor of deck 16. There's also some shaded areas on 16, but if you stick to 15 you'll be fine.

 

The only place I saw actual umbrellas were in Vibe.

 

great, thank you! Off to google some pictures now =)

[surran12]

Just curious if you happen to recall what table game they had going besides craps, roulette and BJ? Thanks for the review!

[DrNora]

Did you notice what the latest time you could leave on the last day was? Our noonish flight is now a 325 pm flight....

 

Thanks for the great review

[shugey]

Chloe - Do any of the bars have Happy Hour prices? I know on Holland America there are a couple of bars that do, and I was wondering for our roll call.

[david_sobe]

Fantastic review

Welcome home :)

[aubreyc1988]

My husband and I are booked to go in august and we are in our twenties. We are planning to get the alcohol package and we love hitting the bars and meeting young people our age....what bars would you suggest? And are there any prime bar spots where you can drink and have a snacks?

 

 

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[chloe173]

Just curious if you happen to recall what table game they had going besides craps, roulette and BJ? Thanks for the review!

 

They had Let it Ride, Pai Gow Poker, Texas Hold Em, 3 Card Poker....and maybe a few others. We didn't spend too much time on the tables, to be honest.

 

There's also a separate high roller room that we only ever saw one person in the whole cruise, no idea what games they are doing in there.

[chloe173]

Did you notice what the latest time you could leave on the last day was? Our noonish flight is now a 325 pm flight....

 

Thanks for the great review

 

9:30am is the final call for everyone to get out. (Makes sense, as they let the new cruisers on starting at 11:30a).

 

There were a lot of brunch places open on Ocean Drive in South Beach, that might be a nice way to kill a couple hours and they'd probably let you keep your luggage near you. Otherwise, I'd say just rent a car.

[chloe173]

Chloe - Do any of the bars have Happy Hour prices? I know on Holland America there are a couple of bars that do, and I was wondering for our roll call.

 

There are a few different drink specials -

 

• Every day before 11am, it's something like $1 off Bloody Marys and mimosas.
   
  
• They also have a different "drink of the day" every day that is discount priced, but imo most of them aren't that great.
   
  
• And then there's the bucket of beer special - buy 5 beers, get 1 free.
   
  
• They sometimes run specials in the Freestyle Daily like, book a specialty restaurant before 6pm, get 20% off a bottle of wine; things like that.
   
  
• And finally, if you earn 1500 points in the Casino (by spending that much in cash) they give you a free drink card that can be used only in the casino.
   
  

 

Those are all that I saw/heard of on Getaway, but on some other Norwegian ships I know they occasionally do 2-for-1 martinis or things like that; you just have to watch your Freestyle Daily, as I expect they only do those if their liquor sales are struggling on a particular cruise.

[chloe173]

My husband and I are booked to go in august and we are in our twenties. We are planning to get the alcohol package and we love hitting the bars and meeting young people our age....what bars would you suggest? And are there any prime bar spots where you can drink and have a snacks?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

We really liked O'Sheehans since they have games (pool, darts, Buck Hunter, etc.) and you can also get pitchers of beer instead of just bottles - only place on the ship. O'Sheehans also has 24-hour bar snacks - wings, fish and chips, mozzarella sticks, etc.

 

Bliss also feels younger - but was almost always empty on our cruise.

 

Otherwise, most of the bars had a distinctly "older" feel. Sunset Bar in particular was always packed with the 50+ crowd, and Prime Meridian is generally a "quiet zone". The atrium bar, pool bar, Mixx, and Spice2O bars are just generic. I actually thought the bar scene was much better on the Sky.

 

One last note - the beverage package has been debated to death on these forums, but since you brought it up....

 

We're pretty big drinkers as well (prob 6-8 drinks a day on Sea Days) and we decided not to go with the alcohol package this time around (we did have it last time on Sky). After totalling up our bill in the end, it came out about even as if we had done the package (around $800 in alcohol charges). However, we liked that since we weren't on the package we could order bottles of wine with dinner instead of just by the glass; we could order doubles if we were watching a show and knew we wouldn't be able to order again; we could order pitchers at O'Sheehans; my hubby ordered a nice glass of scotch one evening, etc. Had we been on the drink package, we probably wouldn't have done that b/c we would have had to pay extra - in the end, it was just nice for us to feel like we "could" drink (and in any fashion we chose) but didn't "have to" drink.

 

Oh - and funny side note - we were a little surprised to find that plain carbonated water, out of the bartending guns, isn't free. It's $2.44 a glass.

[aubreyc1988]

We really liked O'Sheehans since they have games (pool, darts, Buck Hunter, etc.) and you can also get pitchers of beer instead of just bottles - only place on the ship. O'Sheehans also has 24-hour bar snacks - wings, fish and chips, mozzarella sticks, etc.

 

 

 

Bliss also feels younger - but was almost always empty on our cruise.

 

 

 

Otherwise, most of the bars had a distinctly "older" feel. Sunset Bar in particular was always packed with the 50+ crowd, and Prime Meridian is generally a "quiet zone". The atrium bar, pool bar, Mixx, and Spice2O bars are just generic. I actually thought the bar scene was much better on the Sky.

 

 

 

One last note - the beverage package has been debated to death on these forums, but since you brought it up....

 

 

 

We're pretty big drinkers as well (prob 6-8 drinks a day on Sea Days) and we decided not to go with the alcohol package this time around (we did have it last time on Sky). After totalling up our bill in the end, it came out about even as if we had done the package (around $800 in alcohol charges). However, we liked that since we weren't on the package we could order bottles of wine with dinner instead of just by the glass; we could order doubles if we were watching a show and knew we wouldn't be able to order again; we could order pitchers at O'Sheehans; my hubby ordered a nice glass of scotch one evening, etc. Had we been on the drink package, we probably wouldn't have done that b/c we would have had to pay extra - in the end, it was just nice for us to feel like we "could" drink (and in any fashion we chose) but didn't "have to" drink.

 

 

 

Oh - and funny side note - we were a little surprised to find that plain carbonated water, out of the bartending guns, isn't free. It's $2.44 a glass.

 

 

Thanks for the tip! It would make a great deal for us not to get the package, but I don't drink beer, only mixed drinks, and I think we might be staying on the boat for Nassau. Who knows what we will do, just depends on how much money I can save up haha. I have never done NCL, just rci and CCL. Did the package on rci and loved it, but you did feel like you HAD to drink...but I also tried more new drinks than I would if I knew I was paying for it....I always feel like I have to down the whole glass if I don't have the package, even if I don't like it.

 

Also, Is OSheehans free or for pay? I would looooove to hang out there if they have stuff for the munchies...was the crowd there younger?

 

 

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[chloe173]

Also, Is OSheehans free or for pay? I would looooove to hang out there if they have stuff for the munchies...was the crowd there younger?

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

O'Sheehans is free. There are two separate parts to it, the bar portion and the restaurant portion. The restaurant portion is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for set hours but you can ALWAYS order the snacks at the bar, 24 hours a day, for free.

 

The crowd changes, depending on what's going on. You can see/hear directly down to the Atrium stage from O'Sheehans, so if they're doing a game show or movie or something in the atrium, it kind of becomes a spillover area.

 

But generally, yes, seemed a bit younger. They also have the tvs set to ESPN and the Miami Heat game drew a pretty big crowd of younger guys out especially to watch that with beer and wings.

[aubreyc1988]

O'Sheehans is free. There are two separate parts to it, the bar portion and the restaurant portion. The restaurant portion is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for set hours but you can ALWAYS order the snacks at the bar, 24 hours a day, for free.

 

 

 

The crowd changes, depending on what's going on. You can see/hear directly down to the Atrium stage from O'Sheehans, so if they're doing a game show or movie or something in the atrium, it kind of becomes a spillover area.

 

 

 

But generally, yes, seemed a bit younger. They also have the tvs set to ESPN and the Miami Heat game drew a pretty big crowd of younger guys out especially to watch that with beer and wings.

 

 

Does O'Sheehans just have the beers or do they have other drinks as well...on other ships we always have fun drinking at bars, but then get the munchies and have no where to get them! So this place sounds great!

 

 

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[chloe173]

Does O'Sheehans just have the beers or do they have other drinks as well...on other ships we always have fun drinking at bars, but then get the munchies and have no where to get them! So this place sounds great!

 

 

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They have a full bar, in addition to the beer taps.

[aubreyc1988]

They have a full bar, in addition to the beer taps.

 

 

August is too far away! Augh! I just booked last week and now I'm totally cruise obsessing

 

 

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[youngestof9]

No BAGS program?? I thought that was based on airline/airport, not ship - They did it from Epic in Miami. That's so odd!

 

Thanks for the thorough review!!!

Edited May 4, 2014 by youngestof9

[BLONDE BOMBER]

Thanks for a great review! I noticed you said you could really feel the ship moving, did you have bad weather?