Getaway May 17-24 Review

[Aixia]

I sailed on the May 17, 2014 sailing of the NCL Getaway with my husband. What a fabulous cruise! We had sailed on the Breakaway before, so the layout of the ship and the basics similar to both sisters were familiar. I'm going to stick to the basics here, and not do a blow-by-blow of the whole trip, but if anyone has questions, please feel free to ask!

 

Overall, the food was wonderful, and we ate in the MDR nearly every night. The only specialty dining we did was at Moderno and Wasabi (plus Illusionarium). Moderno was a first for us, and was simply incredible. Our favorite meal, hands down. Things were a little hit or miss at the Tropicana Room, where service was terribly slow and clumsy one night, and perfect the next (different waiters). Dancing to the live band was fun. Taste and Savor were both great. We ate many breakfasts at the Flamingo Grill, on Deck 16. It was never very crowded, and had plenty of tasty options to choose from. Much less hectic than the regular buffet on Deck 15. We only did one breakfast in the MDR, but it was very nice as well. As has been mentioned elsewhere on CC, lobster night has changed on the big ships and is now a seafood night (with lobster tails) in the buffet. We went, and the lobster itself was just as good as in the MDR, but now you could get more, along with the other great options, like a tasty grilled fish and a wonderful paella. We went around 7 PM and had no trouble with lines or anything, it was pretty sedate for being the over-hyped lobster night.

 

I have food allergies, and the wait staff everywhere was incredible dealing with it. I pre-ordered my dinners (and MDR breakfast) for each day either the night before or the morning of. Everything was handled perfectly and I didn't have to worry about getting sick. They really do take great care to make sure allergies are taken care of safely.

 

We hopped on the ropes course as soon as it opened on the first sea day. Make sure you do the ropes course and water slides, and other activities that this ship provides. They are so much fun, and worth doing at least once or twice. There is nothing like the plank, make sure you go on it, even though it's scary. The thought of it is so much scarier than the actual plank! We finally did the slides on our Nassau day, after missing them due to bad weather on the Breakaway. Lots of fun!

 

We had a spa balcony cabin, which is just like every other balcony cabin, but comes with an included spa pass and is located near the spa. We went every day, and made great use of it. We also met quite a few others with these cabins, since we were all there so often together, and had a great time with them. The spa is lovely, though admittedly pretty loud with the pool jet noise. We liked that the salt room was warmer than it had been on Breakaway, and the steam room was great. And of course, the heated loungers are the best part. There were usually heated loungers open, but if there weren't, the regular loungers were perfect for reading a book or just staring out to sea.

 

Our particular cabin, 14150, had an angled balcony, and let me tell you, those angled balconies are absolutely worth the hype on CC! It was really fantastic having the extra room. We spent a good chunk of time out there. You do have slightly less privacy when standing at the railing, simply because while you're there, you can be seen by everyone forward of you, but it wasn't an issue for us. In fact, it helped us have a nice conversation with our neighbors one day!

 

Entertainment was top-notch, as we've come to expect from NCL. The Illusionarium was really fun, and we managed to snag a spot at the 20% discounted first night. It would be worth full price, but hey, take advantage of a price drop while you can, right? We also did the Wine Lover's Musical which was cute, and saw Burn the Floor and Legally Blonde, which were both great too. Legally Blonde has some of the worst wigs I've ever seen, but what can you do? The actors were good though, and I liked the use of the LED screen for scenery.

 

We took the behind the scenes tour, and really enjoyed it. If you want to see how things are run, it's a great way to see it! Our tour was on the last sea day, but they were doing them on all sea days I believe. We booked it on the ship just after we got onboard.

 

The ports were ok. We'd been to Nassau many times before, though St. Maarten and St. Thomas were new to us. We'd go back to either of those, but Nassau is getting old. I wish NCL would swap that port with Great Stirrup Cay, or something else entirely.

 

We really enjoyed the CC meet and greet, and the slot pull. We met some fantastic people we ended up hanging out with quite a bit onboard. (Hi guys!) It was so much fun putting names to faces and meeting everyone from our very active Facebook group as well. We were also really impressed with the way the slot pull turned out. We hadn't expected much more than just a fun time, but NCL gave us free rum punch, and even gave us back all of our buy in, even though we technically should have been about $0.50 short each. I think it's safe to say that NCL made their money back on us all, in one way or another!

 

Overall, we had a great time. We purchased a cruise reward, so now we just have to figure out where to go next!

[netchik]

Thank you for the great & concise review! We'll be on this Saturday's sailing in a Spa balcony too! Excited!

[Automation]

Thanks for the review! We can't wait for our turn.:)

[clancy43]

Loved your review ~ thanks for the input :)

[Aixia]

I realized I forgot something important. Our cabin steward wasn't the best we'd ever had, but he was ok. The basic job was done, though we never saw our Silver Latitudes chocolates, towel animals were missing some days, and the empty bottles of wine and used wine glasses were never cleared. Anyway, we had followed the advice here and planned to use a spare card for the room power slot to charge things while we were out. I used my casino card on Breakaway, but when I signed up at the casino this time, I wasn't given a separate card, they said that everything was done with just room keys now. (Dangerous! We were fine, but I can see a lot of people getting in trouble there!) We luckily had a card from our previous night's hotel stay, so that was fine, so we left that card in the slot to charge stuff while we were out. Our steward stole the key! We noticed it was gone, figured he must have taken it, and when we tracked him down to let him know we were leaving a spare card in the slot to charge stuff, he basically (yet oh so kindly) told us off for leaving it there. *Sigh* He then showed us all the keys he had confiscated from other rooms, and there was our very distinct purple card from the Hyatt Place. Luckily, we had another spare, and used that when we needed it, and hid it when we didn't need it. The purple card was actually taken by the steward when it was in the slot but not powering anything, it wasn't actually pushed down all the way in the slot, so the light was off above the cabin door to say we were out, but the card was very obviously there and ready to be pushed in the rest of the way to engage the power when we returned.

 

So, if you plan to use a spare card for charging things, tell your steward right away if you can. Otherwise, you may find yourself missing whatever it was you were using.

[mhkanter1]

We were in the same cabin on the May 3 cruise. Yes that bit of extra space in the corner made a big difference! Have to agree with your opinion of the cabin steward. Marginal at best...overlooked expected things like re-filling tissue box, etc. Not impressed with that.

[susieq76]

Thanks for the great review! We sail on her in 9 days!!!!

 

Quick question- which of the main dining rooms is the "dressier" one?

[mrobstad]

I made some similar observations....service at Tropicana was unbelievably awful! And my cabin steward didn't leave a clean wine glass in the room, too....but loved the Getaway! Dining outside for speciality restaurants was a highlight! And loved Vibe!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

[PathfinderEss]

Thanks for your report.

[Keith1010]

Enjoyed your review and so glad you enjoyed the cruise. Thanks for taking the time to write and oat this review.

 

Keith

[Aixia]

Thanks for the great review! We sail on her in 9 days!!!!

 

Quick question- which of the main dining rooms is the "dressier" one?

The Tropicana Room is the dressier MDR. We ended up there twice, and I'm actually glad we went the second time, since the first was pretty terrible service-wise and the second couldn't have been better. It was funny, we really didn't like our server that first night, but when we arrived for our only breakfast in Savor a couple days later, he was our server there too! Luckily, he wasn't that bad at breakfast, just a bit scattered.

[LWcalif]

What was the cost of the Behind the Scenes Tour, and how long was it?

 

I did one on another ship and there was a lot of walking up and down stairs. Is that the case with this one?

 

Thanks!

[Aixia]

I can't remember offhand the cost, something around $60 a person maybe? We did 3 different excursions, so I can't remember which was which.

 

There were a lot of stairs involved, and only one elevator ride. If you can't do stairs, I don't recommend it. The crew staircases are much narrower and steeper than the guest stairs, and easy to lose your footing.

 

Our group had two small children in it, maybe 5 and 7, though I thought there was an age limit. The young boy had a nosebleed during the tour (right by the meat locker- ew!) and while they were fairly good in terms of behavior, but they were clearly bored through most of it, and really didn't belong there. The dad couldn't pay attention to what was happening because he had to tend to the antsy kids. If you have kids, wait until they're teens to do this one, it's not going to interest anyone younger than that.