Bluestar01

hello:

Trying to decide between Bermuda & Caribbean,

how does the snorkling and other beach activities for oder kids compare in bermuda and Caribbean?

Thanks for your inputs.

Hello experience cruisers,

Trying to decide between Bermuda & Western caribbean (Bahama, Jamaica etc). Where will the kids have more fun? in terms of snorkling, beaches, water activities etc?

Thanks

Hello:

Experienced Alaskan cruisers, please advice best time to cruise Alaska, looking for 2017. Cruising with families of school aged children. We love the activities the ship has to offer on board during our sea days, pools, slides, etc, hence was curious whether we'll be able to do those during Alaska cruise or is it too cold.

Thanks

Hello:

Experienced cruise members,

Please post where to cruise in the month of June? Looking for family friendly cruises in June, am planning on surprising my daughter on her bday. We've done eastern & western Caribbean however, I believe June may be hurricane season? Looking for departing either FL, east coast or may be Seattle? Are Bermuda and Alaska more popular summer cruises?

Thanks,

thank you for your great review. We are so excited to be taking our 2 grand daughters 8 and 12 the first week of March. My daughter is a little concerned about taking the girls to the islands. Did you have any concerns in your recent trip?

Frankly, after reading a lot of reviews on this forum, I too was concerned about taking our kids to the ports, that's one of the reason why I booked thru NCL for Bahama. I was also concerned about the 'nudity' at St. Maarten beaches, however, frankly didn't experience anything. Mullet's bay was not crowded, but the water was rough, & Maho beach was just too much crowded, but the main attraction were the planes.

At Coki Beach we did see a bunch of local beach bums openly drinking & smoking somewhere in the corner, but none came to bother any of the tourists. Walking around in Nassau didn't feel very safe just because of the number of people on the street, & could be compared to walking in any inner city, so we of course we had instructed our kids to stay in close proximity with us. But all the islands have their own beauty, the crystal clear water, soft sand, & crashing waves!

We are going on the Getaway in April as well for Spring Break! There will be 5 of us...2 adults and 3 children. First cruise for all 5 of us!!!

You would love it, if you don't mind a slight movement, & hustle bustle, you're bound to get addicted to cruising!

Things I didn't care for: The wait time to get main course at the complementary MDRs, the iConcierge App, which was good to stay connected, but didn't work more than 1/2 the time, the 7th deck where we had cross thru smoke smelling casino all the time, Mullet's Bay in St. Maarten, & taxi services in St. Maarten.

Will I cruise again with NCL: a big Yes, on Getaway? Another Yes.

Bahama Port:

I had read in a lot of reviews abt the dirty Nassau port, although it does smell like horse poop, there are some neat shops around, such as Tortuga Rumcake shop. Back on the ship we were greeted by the music & dancing NCL crew which is always a delight. The main attraction of tonight was Farewell variety show followed by the dance party. All the disembarkation info was delivered to the cabin, & announced by Joel. The Farewell show was again compromised by the cast of Legally, Blonde, Burn the floor. In addition there was a cute video of the crew, & again lovely interaction with the officers! Its hard to believe these people do the same things every week, yet, it feels they are doing this just for us!!

The disembarkation process was quick & good, a little but longer lines at the customs though! But after 7 days of wonderful cruise we were back in Miami.

Some highlights of this cruise, the wonderful Getaway, rope course, slides, Illusionarium, Levity comedy, Burn the floor, Le Bistro, Splash academy & Family circus show as usual, & the most important, the wonderful & friendly crew.

Day 7: Nassau, Bahamas

Last day of the cruise, & yet another port day. The kids were a bit anxious by now as they knew the cruise is coming to an end & they didn't want to leave): So didn't we! The time to get off was around 10 am today. We had booked Blue Lagoon Island break thru NCL which included lunch. There was ferry ride of about 50 min to reach to this lagoon. During the journey we were shown houses of richest in US such as Oprah, Tiger Woods etc.

That's Atlantis.

Bahamas is beautiful, the water color itself is awesome, the transparency of water is excellent. However, in Jan, the water temps were a bit on cooler side & although a good beach day, not really comforting water temps. The Blue Lagoon itself has a lot of activities for kids, along with the tickets, they provide the floating mats, the noodles, the tubes for free, there are also other big water floaters around. However, the water was only waist deep all around, not a good place for snorkeling, and the Aquapark, dolphin encounter etc are at additional cost. The lunch was included in this excursion, & they served a good lunch, hamburgers, hotdog , barbecued chicken, fried plantains, cookies & a lemonade/fruit punch, not bad at all. However, on a warmer day we may've stayed a bit longer, but the ferries to get back were either at 1, 2 or 4, so we decided to head back to the port by 2 pm ferry.

Coki Beach: The food here was a bit pricy & the beach was getting very crowded too, hence around 1:30 we headed back to the port. There are a lot of shops inside the port area, which were closed int he morning, hence just looked around a few before getting on board. We were celebrating my Bday today, & really NCL goes above & beyond, they had a towel cake in our cabin, a cute cupcake & the cabin was decorated with balloons(:

We had made reservation at Le Bistro for dinner tonight. After dinner we went to see the Legally Blonde show, it was a good quality production, however, the lead Elle Wood's voice was too shrill in my opinion, also the content is not really appropriate for younger children, hence they were at Splash academy. We also went to the Ice bar. I'm not sure whether this is on any other ships, but the ice bar is where the temp are 17F all the time, they've big over coats for you to wear. Its cover charge of $20 pp. Inside, are ice sculptures, all Miami based. Its fun!

There was sing it if you know it game show in the Atrium.

Day 6: Another sea day

The clocks were turned back an hr today. The kids were going to perform in the family circus show this afternoon, so they were mostly in the Splash academy during the day to practice. This circus show always excite my kids, its a lot of fun, especially if you're a clown! While they were practicing, we enjoyed fruit & veggi carving demo, Nassaue tour presentation & cupcake demo. At noon, there was family balloon twisting workshop, which was another fun activity for the kids. Don't know about other ships, but NCL always has Crew talent show as well, which is usually fun to see international crew displaying their talent, be it sing, dance, draw, or even magic. The Family circus show followed this event in the Getaway theater,

We had also reserved Tropicana for dinner, which is their complementary MDR with live music, dance floor etc. Again, had to wait a lot for the main course to be served, also found this restaurant to be more crowded. It was Chocoholic night, so all the desserts served were chocolate based yum yum!

We had booked Levity comedy show for tonight. Its hilarious, don't miss it, not for children though!

At 10:15 was GLOW party, don't miss this either, a lot of fun, see the video. Its up version of previous white out party. In fact should one of the party young kids can attend too!

Back at ship, Norwegian always welcomes you with cold towel, a drink, a place where you can exchange your soiled towels, and of course wish-washy hand sanitizer! All aboard was at 5:30 pm

We had booked planned to attend 3D movie Maleficent, however, were late getting to it after dinner. So as a family, we again enjoyed the pools, slides, rope course, etc and then the kids went to Splash academy. There were fireworks (best seen from port side) at 10:45 pm.

Day 5: St. Thomas, USVI

The ship arrived in St. Thomas early hrs, we were allowed to get off at 8 am. Here, we took a taxi to Coki Beach, $9pp & around 40 min ride each way. There are taxis available inside the port, however we walked all the way outside to the taxi stand, assuming it may be a little less money there): Coki beach is also a small beach, but beautiful, water calm & a lot of shacks around that serve food & drinks, rest rooms were ok too. We rented 2 lounge chairs & 1 umbrella for $20. Coral World ocean park is nearby which has $19/adult entrance fee, or $60 I believe for a family of 4. However, we decided not to go there, as the kids & DH wanted to snorkel. There are a lot of beautiful fish around here. The day was perfect for beach & we had to be all aboard by 3:30.

Some pictures of Coki beach:

The dome shaped structure is Coral World, it has underwater observatory & other activities such as sea lion encounter, snuba, helmet trek etc.

BTW, there was a small shack on Mullet's Bay where food, drinks were sold after 11:30am, however, around that time we started walking to Maho Beach to see the airplanes landing/take off. It was about 15 min walk, not bad, a couple of places, no side walks, but doable even with kids. We saw SUBWAY on the way, stopped there for lunch. Very offbeat place, only wheat bread available, no honey mustard etc, however had WiFi, hence got caught up with the world before heading to Maho beach.

A couple pictures from Mullet's Bay.

At Maho Beach, the water was rougher, a lot of crowd & a small beach, however since we hadn't come there for the beach, we just managed to find a spot to watch the airplanes. My DH had downloaded the schedule so we were just waiting for the big ones to come by. Every time the plane would land/take off, that sent rippling effect in the ocean & formed giant waves, we saw many kids, elderly being knocked over by the waves.

Just a few pics & a failed attempt to shoot video of 747 take off!

Returning from Maho was a bit upsetting, lots of taxis & all the taxi drivers trying hard for your business, sort of pushing us to get inside their taxi so the taxi gets full & they can get maximum fare. We asked our taxi driver to drop us off at front St where we had heard that there are lots of shops for camera, jewelry etc. He dropped us of in front of his wife's little shop of purses, mementos etc. All in all, we finally found the street & the shop we were looking for, bought a good Nikon lens for much cheaper price than in US.

Hello:

Your review is really good, especially the way you've compared the ships b/w cruise companies. Just a note, we were on the same cruise on Getaway, which was our 2'nd cruise. Our first cruise was on NCl Star, a few yrs ago, & although that's an older ship, as a vegetarian, I found better food choices on that ship. Although smaller ship, that too had many activities. In fact the same team, Hotel director, Sean, Restaurant manager Gonsalves, etc were on Star. They had exactly same level of personal interaction with the guests. In fact, I was told the same team is going to start the restaurants on Escape when it starts sailing, so another reason for you to sail on Escape & if you do we'll look for your wonderful review!!

Day 4: st. MAARTEN

Clocks were turned 1 hr fw today. We docked in port during early am hrs, however, were not given clearance to get off till abt 8:30 . The port looked clean, rest rooms kept well, several shopes in the port. The taxi stand was right outside. Reading through to review s here, we decided to go to Mullets Bay, took cab $9 pp took us abt 20 min to reach. Taxis were good quality, driver very informative. However after reaching to the beach was a disappointment. The water was very rough, sun & sand very good, but the beach was not flat, it was sloping down & water was deep. It was tough for kids to play in the water. There were other travelers from Disney ship who mentioned that th4had been there be4, but not experienced such rough water. A local guy was renting umbrella & 2 lounge chairs for $20, some other regulars mentioned Orient is better beach on French side. Initially I had decided against it because of reviews mentioned nudity, however looking at this water we decided to take our chances. Walked back out for cab who demanded $12 pp, & travel time of 40 min. We wanted to come back to Maho beach (which is 10 min walking distance) from Mullet by noon to watch the KLMs 747 land, so we decided against this plan, went back to Mullet, found a shallow spot near the rocks, & decided to enjoy there for a couple of hours.

Day 3: another sea day. Typically we'll get up early & take turns walking on the jogging track on Deck 16, also gave us opportunity to click some pictures.

https://plus.google.com/photos?pid=6109797550246412098&oid=115004424082977527880

There are a lots of classes/presentations during sea days such as about health/fitness, Origami, cake decorations, photography etc. I had planned to attend a few, but never managed. However, my husband attended technical presentation by the officers on this day.

There was also a Nick Live! show by Poolside, its a game show where kids can get slimed, but've loads of fun

Tradewinds is the shopping area on getaway on deck 8, they had advertised $10 blow out sale, suddenly at 11 there was so much crowd over there, we realized the same sale is also in Marketplace by poolside, basically wallets, cheap watches, scarves etc, & also although mentioned just for a couple hrs etc, this sale continues till the end of the cruise, almost on all sea days!!!

Cruise ship is such a captive market, why would one buy designer watches, purses & Jewelry on a cruise ship??? But since we are there & walk around the shopping area several times, it gets tempting to buy something(:

I also attended towel folding demo in the Atrium in the afternoon, they also have vegetable carving, ice carving, cupcake decorating etc demos through out the week, definitely worth attending.

Presence of officers on this cruise ship is worth mentioning, they mingle around, answer questions, always greet with a smile, its hard to believe they are doing this 4 months in a row w/o any weekends. They just make you feel so special. Special mention of Hotel director Sean, Restaurant manager Deepak. Some of this crew was the same we had seen previously on Star & they did acknowledge us.

During the entire cruise there are several occasions of M & G with the Nickelodeon characters. Sometimes it gets crazy standing in the line, sometimes not.

Oh, & I forgot to mention a lot of liquor tasting going around during the sea days. You name the kind & you'll find something, there was Martini tasting, Mojito tasting, International Beer tasting, Wine tasting has its own Musical show, some of this is free some have cover charges.

Another big one on this cruise ship is dance classes, chacha, MJ's Thriller, Tango, Salsa, Jive, you name it they've it.

We had booked Illusionarium show this night, wonderful show, definitely a Do Not miss category, we had taken banquet seating, I would recommend arriving a few min early for this show. Kids had fun, needed to be seating on the booster seats though in order to have a better view. Although we couldn't see the main dome from our area, we could see the visuals on the screen nearby.

The music around this cruise ship is Latin based, so if that's your taste you would love it. There is also easy listening with Chris Wade where he plays more classic tunes in the Atrium every evening.

This night there was newly weds & not-so newly weds game show, hilarious, embarrassing for those competing, but good entertainment for all(:

We went to see Grammy experience, Sugar Blue plays Harmonica, never heard such energetic & wonderful performance. However a bit too loud, we couldn't stand it for the entire time & had to leave in between.

trying to insert the picture but its not working!

trying to insert the picture but its not working!

Photo #24, what beach (and port) was that, with the inflatable water-slide?

 

Thank you! :)

Its Blue Lagoon, in Nassau Bahama.

More pictures:

ON Getaway there are tons of activities to do. We had total 3 sea days in this itinerary, but never thought there was nothing to do. Its a big ship, so a lot of time is spent in just going from AFT to Forward & so on, the elevators are in AFT & somewhere in mid section, although they are called Forward lobby elevators. There is a lot of walking & up & down, so good for those extra calories put on after that food on the ship.

 

 

On first night, we had to register our daughters in the Splash academy, this is the best place on NCL cruise ships, the counselors are young & enthusiastic & follow a structured program. This being Nickelodeon cruise ship, there was an added fun with the character meet & greet etc.

Getting back to the review:

During Sail away, we completely missed the Sail away celebration as it was in Spice H20, which is in front on deck 16, where as we were enjoying the pool AFT on deck 15/16. The slides were a big hit with my kids. There are 5 big slides, which includes 2 drop down(min weight 100 lbs), & 2 curvy tunnel slides & one family slide adjacent to the kids pool area. Although kids couldn't go on the drop down slide, we enjoyed those a lot. Another hit was the rope course (min height 48cms), the rock wall, the bungee jump bounce, the spider web climb & the put-put golf. So in short lots of stuff to do for kids of all ages.

The Splash down Aqua park in kids pool area was targeted toward little kids, splashes, a small slide & just ankle deep sweet water!The family pool/kids pool has salty water, & is b/w 3-4 ft deep.

Surrounding the main pool (which is adults only) are 4 hot-tubs, out of which at least 2 were marked adults only.

The Splash academy is open from 8-10:30 on the first day. So our kids went there after dinner, & we went to Welcome Aboard show that showcases previews of happening in the cruise ship during the week. The Cruise director Joel was very energetic, enthusiastic person, however, I felt he was a bit prejudiced, just my opinion.

We also attended Howl at the Moon Dueling Pianos where two Piano players play songs which we've requested, it was a good entertaining show, however because of the varies age ranges of the attendees, we were not familiar with few of the songs requested.

Day 2: First Sea day, We had CC M & G in the am followed by cabin crawl, thank you fellow members for sharing your cabins. It was really neat to see the suites, may be someday we'll go in one of those!

We ate in Savor that day. I'm not a foodie & am also vegetarian, so my opinions about food are not like most. I'll take a moment & describe our dinning experiences on Getaway right now:

We dinned at all the complementary restaurants: MDRs Savor, Taste, Tropicana (which I recommend to pre-book as it gets crowded) & also as Garden buffet, Flamingo & O'Sheehan (which is for comfort food). We also dinned at Le Bistro & of course Illusionarium. Food was fantastic every place. They would make sure to offer vegetarian options. Portion sizes were good, however in MDRs we found it took forever for the food to arrive. Our kids always ate from the Kids menu, there food will arrive sooner than ours & then they would have tough time just sitting around watching mom & dad finish their food. Other than that, we found good quality food, a lot of variety & personal attention by the servers, Maître's etc.

Packers & Seahawks were playing in the afternoon, they showed the game on the big screens in the Atrium, as well on the big screen in Spice H20 a lot of fans were frolicking to get good seats. What a game that was, sorry Packers fans!

We had also pre-booked Burn the Floor dance show, although pre-booking is not necessary for these complementary shows, I do recommend that as that gives better way of planning things. The show was really good, however the music was loud & my kids didn't appreciate that as much):

Would you by any chance have a cabin pic showing the 2 beds lowered at night ?

 

Spend so much time online trying to find one for the last few months.

 

Sailing on Feb 28th , inside, family of 4, and would like to anticipate how little it really is.

 

We sailed just husband and I the getaway in october, in a inside stateroom sleeping only 2 and could not visualise how would 4 sleeps and where would the ladders go :eek::eek:

 

We will pack light , that is for sure :D:D

We had balcony, which is slightly bigger than inside, however, we've sailed (all 4 of us in 1 cabin) on Star in Oceanview, its tight space, but doable, as mostly the time is spent outside than in the cabin. :)

I usually take all my photos around 11am on a port day. It's after breakfast and before lunch, and the vast majority of passengers are off the ship. It's worked well for me.

 

Glad you enjoyed them!

Hi:

We were on the same cruise too, enjoyed our cruise, & loved your review. I too was wondering abt your pictures, because I started writing a separate traveling with family point of view, & was unable to find good pictures w/o crowd. So now will just refer to yours:)

Good day everyone!

 

We are a family of 5 going on our first cruise on the Norwegian Getaway in late February. We typically go away 2-3 times a year on all inclusive resort vacations and we know the process to book for tours and getting around etc..

 

This is our first cruise and not really sure the best way to approach this. We want to book excursions for the 3 ports of call we will be visiting during our trip but not sure with who or when to book these?

Is it best to book these in advance? Book through the cruise line, tour operator or book them when we get on the ship? I've also been reading around about people just getting off of the ship and booking them there on the spot.

 

Is there any advantage/disadvantage to booking an excursion in advance? We have 3 kids 1, 4, and 8 years old and wondering if others have any suggestions or recommendations?

 

Any help is greatly appreciated!

We just came back from Getaway, kids ages 6 & 8, as mentioned earlier, Coki beach worked just fine, you can take a taxi from the port, $9pp, negotiate for your youngest child though, on the way back they didn't charge me for our youngest as the taxi cab was almost full. The beach is very small though & yes does get crowded. I've also heard good things about St. John's.

In St. Maarten though the water is very rough, we went to Mullet's bay as it was closest to Maho beach where planes land & that was a wrong choice from kids point of view due to crowd & rough water.

In Bahamas, we booked Blue Lagoon thru NCL, good choice as the food was included, & facility was good too. However, Atlantis, or Hilton could had been just equally good.

In short, you don't have to book thru NCL if you don't want to.

Let's see if these links work, am trying to display some pictures.

https://plus.google.com/photos/115004424082977527880/albums/6109785861645074065/6109785864009268402?hl=en&authkey=CJvw_p63qKOkQA&pid=6109785864009268402&oid=115004424082977527880

https://plus.google.com/photos/115004424082977527880/albums/6109785861645074065/6109790670437318498?hl=en&authkey=CJvw_p63qKOkQA&pid=6109790670437318498&oid=115004424082977527880

ON Getaway there are tons of activities to do. We had total 3 sea days in this itinerary, but never thought there was nothing to do. Its a big ship, so a lot of time is spent in just going from AFT to Forward & so on, the elevators are in AFT & somewhere in mid section, although they are called Forward lobby elevators. There is a lot of walking & up & down, so good for those extra calories put on after that food on the ship.

On first night, we had to register our daughters in the Splash academy, this is the best place on NCL cruise ships, the counselors are young & enthusiastic & follow a structured program. This being Nickelodeon cruise ship, there was an added fun with the character meet & greet etc.

love your review!

Do you happen to have the the paper..."A Look At Your Week??

If so, can you PLEASE post it?!?

Yes, I do've all the dailies & Look at your week, am trying to find a way to post it. May be by tonight