Room service 7 Layer Chocolate Cake = Cagney's 7 Layer Chocolate Cake

[bkrickles1]

Review of my Getaway sailing from 4/19 - 4/29 (finally, after a busy week back at work)

Those that have been crushing NCL, I question your sanity as we had a great trip! Not perfect, but great nonetheless.

 

Embarkation was super easy and quick. We decided to drive in later than usual and park at the pier ($290 total for 10 days!).

We parked at 1pm and were onboard by 1:30pm. We did our muster in 30 seconds and went straight to Vibe and stayed until sailaway.

 

Food, for us, was pretty much the same as it's been since we started back up with NCL in 2018.

Anywhere from mediocre to very good! And most things were good or above.

There may have been less choices in the mdr's, but there's still so much to choose from on a daily basis that it didn't matter to us.

Went to Cagney's on the first and sixth nights and we enjoyed our meals. My lamb chops on the first night were excellent!

We pretty much stayed away from the buffet, especially after the rumors of what was onboard. From the sources I was able to cultivate, I'm sticking with that it was flu like symptoms.

We ate at American Diner, which had a pretty good burger. O'Sheehans was pretty good for a fast breakfast and good late night snacks. We watched a Knick game there one night and had so much fun with some other passengers.

And the mdr's were solid for us but super slow as usual.

And we did do room service once, which was ok. I did prove the theory that the title of this thread mentions and that made me and my daughter pretty, pretty, pretty happy! Lol!!

 

Crew/service was outstanding!

Our cabin steward, Joanne, was terrific! She never seemed overworked or tired and ALWAYS had a smile even though she was tested with an issue we had. My adult daughter slept on the sofa bed in our balcony cabin and it was awful. It's just a thin mat on a piece of wood. For the first 2 days we asked for a topper and extra blankets and nothing really made a difference. Joanne finally came in on the 2nd day with like 5 extra blankets and 5 extra pillows and built something on that sofa that finally improved things for my daughter. She went above and beyond and we thoroughly enjoyed our experience with her. The bartenders, waiters, general crew were all friendly and seemed to do their jobs well. Everyone said hello when we passed and the vibe of the ship was good. The blackjack dealers were friendly too, but they were on my you know what list by the time I was finished! Lol!! A special shout out goes to Mark at the Sunset Bar, which was my go to bar every night before dinner and when we were waiting for the line to form for Syd Norman's. He made a great G & T and took really good care of my girls!

 

Entertainment was very good!

We had 2 comedians. One was good and the other was very good. We did only see the adult shows.

Didn't love the Howl at the Moon people. They were good, but didn't hook us.

We loved Million Dollar Quartet! Very interesting show with a ridiculously talented cast!! Jerry Lee Lewis was outstanding and the Johnny Cash guy was spooky good too! I also loved the guy playing the stand up bass. Again, super talented.

Many from the cast also did Broadway Unplugged in the Illusionarium, which was also sooooo good! Reimagined Broadway tunes done by some talented people. We had front row seats to both shows and that only enhanced our experience.

Syd Normans was everything that it was hyped to be. Very talented band playing some great music in a small venue.

I didn't love having to line up early for all these shows, but we sucked it up and enjoyed them.

The one gaffe we had here was the night of the Rumours show. We were 2nd in line and waited and waited and waited until the show was cancelled right before showtime due to an illness (flu like symptoms). The line behind us was none too happy and they were never able to redo the show, so I was bummed about that. They did do an acoustic show on the last night that was fun, so we saw them a total of 3 times.

We only went to one of the outdoor parties in Spice. We went to the 70's party and it was fun but we were so tired by the time these things started, that we ended up going to bed early. Lol!

 

In Tortola we did Escape to Jost Van Dyke and it was enjoyable like the last time we did it. It's such nice ride back and forth and the beach is beautiful! We had the later time, so it was a little crowded when we got there but a few painkillers did the trick!

In Puerta Plata we stayed at the port. Taino Bay is so nice! We hung out at the loud pool as my wife was missing the action at the ship pool due to us lounging in Vibe every day. We found a great day bed with a canopy, got served some fine cocktails and spent a lot of time in the pool. A really enjoyable day!

 

Vibe Beach Club. I will never sail NCL again without a Vibe pass!

It was everything that I thought it would be and totally made our trip!

Victor was our main bartender, with Jodie being the guy who ran around taking ridiculous care of us.

A couple of things to know though. It gets windy up there which can lead to no umbrellas which can lead to no shade anywhere but at the bar. It can get windy enough to be closed entirely, which it was one day (I think day 9). This actually led to another gaffe. Vibe was closed, so we went to Spice which was perfectly nice and they even came around with fruit skewers like in Vibe. The problem was that we found out the next day that Vibe had reopened that previous day in the afternoon, but we didn't know it. We thought there should have been some kind of notification, but it wasn't a big deal.

Again, Vibe is awesome! Comfortable loungers and day beds, fruit multiple times a day, cold wet towels when hot, fantastic and friendly service and no crowds/kids. Was always able to hop in a hot tub too. It was just so nice to turn to my wife and daughter and discuss where to go for lunch and then go together without the guilt of being one of those chair hogs by the pool or in Spice. It made the trip that much more relaxing!

 

Military Appreciation. I think NCL does a good job with this. The 10% discount is nice, of course, but the recognition onboard was nice too. I know some on here have commented on how there experience was, so I'll quickly mention mine.

The package they give you in the cabin is ok and I did, for the first time, go to the reception. It was not well attended, but there was probably 30 vets there. Officers were lined up when we entered Headliners, and they had a ton of crew serving drinks and apps. The Jerry Lee Lewis guy from MDQ came and sang the national anthem and then there was a group picture taken and individual pictures with your family. The whole thing lasted less than 30 minutes, but was a nice touch. I think we received those pics the same night too.

 

I know a lot was written about debarkation, but for us it was easy.

The problem for others is twofold. With a late arrival time of 10am, a lot of people had some travel issues and a lot of people just don't follow instructions. We always do self assist and that's the first group to debark. We ate breakfast in the mdr and then sent our daughter to get on line. My wife and I went and gathered our bags and joined our daughter and did the long wait. It wasn't enjoyable and some people were downright nasty, but when they started letting people off, we were in our car in 15 minutes and home within 90 minutes.

 

It was a great trip!! 10 days is the longest we've ever done, but we had great weather and the 3 of us barely fought at all!!! Lol!

 

AMA!!!

 

 

 

 

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[Sand and Seas]

Thank you for sharing!   

We love the entertainment on Getaway too.  MDQ cast & Broadway Unplugged are outstanding!  Sorry you missed Rumours....another favorite of ours.

 

I was pulled in by the mention of 7Layer Chocolate cake..... but stayed and enjoyed your entire review😎

[DorothyB]

I got the chocolate room service cake on Pride Of America (we were in a suite) in February.  It smelled so, so good . . . but tasting it was a bit disappointing.

[david_sobe]

32 minutes ago, DorothyB said:

I got the chocolate room service cake on Pride Of America (we were in a suite) in February.  It smelled so, so good . . . but tasting it was a bit disappointing.

Something about NCL desserts that make them look way better than they taste.

[vacation44]

17 hours ago, bkrickles1 said:

Review of my Getaway sailing from 4/19 - 4/29 (finally, after a busy week back at work)

Those that have been crushing NCL, I question your sanity as we had a great trip! Not perfect, but great nonetheless.

 

Embarkation was super easy and quick. We decided to drive in later than usual and park at the pier ($290 total for 10 days!).

We parked at 1pm and were onboard by 1:30pm. We did our muster in 30 seconds and went straight to Vibe and stayed until sailaway.

 

Food, for us, was pretty much the same as it's been since we started back up with NCL in 2018.

Anywhere from mediocre to very good! And most things were good or above.

There may have been less choices in the mdr's, but there's still so much to choose from on a daily basis that it didn't matter to us.

Went to Cagney's on the first and sixth nights and we enjoyed our meals. My lamb chops on the first night were excellent!

We pretty much stayed away from the buffet, especially after the rumors of what was onboard. From the sources I was able to cultivate, I'm sticking with that it was flu like symptoms.

We ate at American Diner, which had a pretty good burger. O'Sheehans was pretty good for a fast breakfast and good late night snacks. We watched a Knick game there one night and had so much fun with some other passengers.

And the mdr's were solid for us but super slow as usual.

And we did do room service once, which was ok. I did prove the theory that the title of this thread mentions and that made me and my daughter pretty, pretty, pretty happy! Lol!!

 

Crew/service was outstanding!

Our cabin steward, Joanne, was terrific! She never seemed overworked or tired and ALWAYS had a smile even though she was tested with an issue we had. My adult daughter slept on the sofa bed in our balcony cabin and it was awful. It's just a thin mat on a piece of wood. For the first 2 days we asked for a topper and extra blankets and nothing really made a difference. Joanne finally came in on the 2nd day with like 5 extra blankets and 5 extra pillows and built something on that sofa that finally improved things for my daughter. She went above and beyond and we thoroughly enjoyed our experience with her. The bartenders, waiters, general crew were all friendly and seemed to do their jobs well. Everyone said hello when we passed and the vibe of the ship was good. The blackjack dealers were friendly too, but they were on my you know what list by the time I was finished! Lol!! A special shout out goes to Mark at the Sunset Bar, which was my go to bar every night before dinner and when we were waiting for the line to form for Syd Norman's. He made a great G & T and took really good care of my girls!

 

Entertainment was very good!

We had 2 comedians. One was good and the other was very good. We did only see the adult shows.

Didn't love the Howl at the Moon people. They were good, but didn't hook us.

We loved Million Dollar Quartet! Very interesting show with a ridiculously talented cast!! Jerry Lee Lewis was outstanding and the Johnny Cash guy was spooky good too! I also loved the guy playing the stand up bass. Again, super talented.

Many from the cast also did Broadway Unplugged in the Illusionarium, which was also sooooo good! Reimagined Broadway tunes done by some talented people. We had front row seats to both shows and that only enhanced our experience.

Syd Normans was everything that it was hyped to be. Very talented band playing some great music in a small venue.

I didn't love having to line up early for all these shows, but we sucked it up and enjoyed them.

The one gaffe we had here was the night of the Rumours show. We were 2nd in line and waited and waited and waited until the show was cancelled right before showtime due to an illness (flu like symptoms). The line behind us was none too happy and they were never able to redo the show, so I was bummed about that. They did do an acoustic show on the last night that was fun, so we saw them a total of 3 times.

We only went to one of the outdoor parties in Spice. We went to the 70's party and it was fun but we were so tired by the time these things started, that we ended up going to bed early. Lol!

 

In Tortola we did Escape to Jost Van Dyke and it was enjoyable like the last time we did it. It's such nice ride back and forth and the beach is beautiful! We had the later time, so it was a little crowded when we got there but a few painkillers did the trick!

In Puerta Plata we stayed at the port. Taino Bay is so nice! We hung out at the loud pool as my wife was missing the action at the ship pool due to us lounging in Vibe every day. We found a great day bed with a canopy, got served some fine cocktails and spent a lot of time in the pool. A really enjoyable day!

 

Vibe Beach Club. I will never sail NCL again without a Vibe pass!

It was everything that I thought it would be and totally made our trip!

Victor was our main bartender, with Jodie being the guy who ran around taking ridiculous care of us.

A couple of things to know though. It gets windy up there which can lead to no umbrellas which can lead to no shade anywhere but at the bar. It can get windy enough to be closed entirely, which it was one day (I think day 9). This actually led to another gaffe. Vibe was closed, so we went to Spice which was perfectly nice and they even came around with fruit skewers like in Vibe. The problem was that we found out the next day that Vibe had reopened that previous day in the afternoon, but we didn't know it. We thought there should have been some kind of notification, but it wasn't a big deal.

Again, Vibe is awesome! Comfortable loungers and day beds, fruit multiple times a day, cold wet towels when hot, fantastic and friendly service and no crowds/kids. Was always able to hop in a hot tub too. It was just so nice to turn to my wife and daughter and discuss where to go for lunch and then go together without the guilt of being one of those chair hogs by the pool or in Spice. It made the trip that much more relaxing!

 

Military Appreciation. I think NCL does a good job with this. The 10% discount is nice, of course, but the recognition onboard was nice too. I know some on here have commented on how there experience was, so I'll quickly mention mine.

The package they give you in the cabin is ok and I did, for the first time, go to the reception. It was not well attended, but there was probably 30 vets there. Officers were lined up when we entered Headliners, and they had a ton of crew serving drinks and apps. The Jerry Lee Lewis guy from MDQ came and sang the national anthem and then there was a group picture taken and individual pictures with your family. The whole thing lasted less than 30 minutes, but was a nice touch. I think we received those pics the same night too.

 

I know a lot was written about debarkation, but for us it was easy.

The problem for others is twofold. With a late arrival time of 10am, a lot of people had some travel issues and a lot of people just don't follow instructions. We always do self assist and that's the first group to debark. We ate breakfast in the mdr and then sent our daughter to get on line. My wife and I went and gathered our bags and joined our daughter and did the long wait. It wasn't enjoyable and some people were downright nasty, but when they started letting people off, we were in our car in 15 minutes and home within 90 minutes.

 

It was a great trip!! 10 days is the longest we've ever done, but we had great weather and the 3 of us barely fought at all!!! Lol!

 

AMA!!!

 

Thank you for reporting back and I am so happy the three of you had a wonderful time.

 

Welcome to the will-not-cruise-without-a-vibe pass club!   

 

We will definitely be ordering the seven-layer cake one night from room service as the young adults in our party are going to Food Republic the night my husband and I are taking my sister and her husband to Cagney's for dinner, and they will miss out on the cake.  

 

My husband and I did love the NCL excursion to Jost Van Dyke in February.   So much so, we tried to book a room at the Soggy Dollar for next year but the rooms are sold out for when we wanted to go.    I am waiting for that excursion to open up for our February 2025 Viva cruise so I can book it.

 

For me, the MDQ is my favorite NCL show. 

  

Did you book another cruise while on board?

[cruiseny4life]

Glad to hear you had a wonderful cruise! Your attitude makes the cruise and your attitude is obviously a positive one! 

 

Million Dollar Quartet is amazing - and there's gotta be something about how they cast for Jerry Lee Lewis. That actor is always the standout! I, too, love Broadway Unplugged. It's such a delightful show! 

[bkrickles1]

20 hours ago, david_sobe said:

Something about NCL desserts that make them look way better than they taste.

I actually remarked to my wife and daughter that I thought the desserts in general were a little better than past sailings and they agreed.

While the 7 layer chocolate cake is not quite as good as my local bakery, it's still pretty good. The cheesecake at Cagney's, also pretty darn good. And, the tiramisu in the mdr was way better than I expected.

Just to name a few things that I remember.

But, overall, I don't totally disagree with you.

[bkrickles1]

4 hours ago, vacation44 said:

Thank you for reporting back and I am so happy the three of you had a wonderful time.

 

Welcome to the will-not-cruise-without-a-vibe pass club!   

 

We will definitely be ordering the seven-layer cake one night from room service as the young adults in our party are going to Food Republic the night my husband and I are taking my sister and her husband to Cagney's for dinner, and they will miss out on the cake.  

 

My husband and I did love the NCL excursion to Jost Van Dyke in February.   So much so, we tried to book a room at the Soggy Dollar for next year but the rooms are sold out for when we wanted to go.    I am waiting for that excursion to open up for our February 2025 Viva cruise so I can book it.

 

For me, the MDQ is my favorite NCL show. 

  

Did you book another cruise while on board?

My understanding is that there's nothing available at White Bay Beach before 2026.

My wife was also interested as it's become one of her favorite beaches.

 

And we didn't book another cruise just yet.

Our next vacation will be land based, as we like to mix it up a little, and then it'll be another cruise!

 

My wife was super skeptical regarding the vibe passes as she didn't understand why we needed to spend an extra $900 when we've been perfectly fine in the past lounging with the masses. After 10 days of being treated like a queen, she's totally changed her tune and is part of the club!! Lol!

[bkrickles1]

4 hours ago, cruiseny4life said:

Glad to hear you had a wonderful cruise! Your attitude makes the cruise and your attitude is obviously a positive one! 

 

Million Dollar Quartet is amazing - and there's gotta be something about how they cast for Jerry Lee Lewis. That actor is always the standout! I, too, love Broadway Unplugged. It's such a delightful show! 

One of the primary reasons we chose Getaway this time was for a change in some of the entertainment, as that's something we find important.

We'd recently sailed on Escape, Encore and Joy twice, so we liked what Getaway was offering. My girls would have liked Burn the Floor too, but we were a little unlucky with our timing.

With that said, MDQ, Broadway Unplugged and Syd's were right up our alleys and we always enjoy some good stand-up too, which the 2 comedians provided.

 

For those that have been knocking the reduction in entertainment, I included all 10 dailies above and they clearly show plenty going on every day.

 

And I forgot to mention in my review that my wife and daughter won Bingo!!

They had to split with another guy, so it was only $400, but they were sooo excited!

[david_sobe]

4 hours ago, bkrickles1 said:

I actually remarked to my wife and daughter that I thought the desserts in general were a little better than past sailings and they agreed.

While the 7 layer chocolate cake is not quite as good as my local bakery, it's still pretty good. The cheesecake at Cagney's, also pretty darn good. And, the tiramisu in the mdr was way better than I expected.

Just to name a few things that I remember.

But, overall, I don't totally disagree with you.

I am not knocking them because there is no such thing as a bad dessert IMHO.  But sometimes the meal is so good I hate to ruin it by a mediocre dessert.  I found the cheesecakes to be average without much taste. I do agree the Tiramisu is excellent.  But my peeve is the apple stuff.  I love apple pie and especially with ice cream.  The apple pie desserts just disappoint me every time.  I think they used to have an apple crumble at Cagneys.  Its something I would expect to get at Dennys ( and I am not knocking Dennys).  Many years ago this board used to say the NCL desserts were no bake types.  I am no pastry chef so I have no idea.  The desserts on NCL are like what you would get at your local grocery store.  Meh.

Best idea: Stick to ice cream!

Edited May 8 by david_sobe