hockeygirl14 Posted February 23, 2014 #1 Share Posted February 23, 2014 Hey everybody! I just got off a weeklong cruise on the Getaway and want to share the vacation with you! It was an amazing ship !! This was our third cruise with NCL – previously on the Pearl and the Epic last year. We did a little pre-trip which I will talk about as well. There were 6 people in my party – ranging from 16 to 67. Unfortunately, I can’t really answer questions about the kids / teens clubs as we didn’t use them. We had 2 balcony staterooms on the 9th deck, starboard side. We were right above the waterfront, which again is something that I will talk about!! Our itinerary was St. Maarten, St. Thomas and Nassau. We have previously sailed this itinerary but we wanted to try out the Getaway. Now, lets get on with the review! OVERALL OBSERVATIONS: I will start with some overall things about the ship. 1) The ship is huge. Not quite as big as the Epic but the layout is different. We loved the layout – it makes much more sense. 2) The Cabin layout is MUCH better than on Epic. We found it more spacious and had more room to move around. Comparing a mini-suite on epic to a balcony on Getaway; we had more room (or at least it appeared) on the getaway. 3) We were above the waterfront (which is GREAT!!) 4) We loved the pool deck. We never had an issue getting deck chairs and the pool closest to the slides never had people in it for some reason. BUT 5) Over 1300 people missed the ship due to weather. Jorje the cruise consultant mentioned it. This is absolutely why the ship never felt busy or crowded on sea days!! 6) The shows were great! We did Burn the Floor and Legally Blonde. Loved them both. 7) We ate at La Cuicina, Cagneys, Teppanyaki and Moderno, plus taste/savor. I will review those each on their respective day Ok – now on to the review. PRE CRUISE: Due to difficulties getting flights, we ended up flying into Orlando. This was great for me! Having worked at Disney over the summer, I was itching to go back for dinner so that’s what we did. We went to the Grand Floridian Café at the Grand Floridian resort for arguably the best meal of the week (that’s saying something!). We then hit the outlets and downtown Disney, and stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn Lake Buena Vista. I would totally recommend this hotel if you’re in the area and don’t want to stay at Disney! The next day, we were on the road by 9. We rented a car from Budget but returned it to the downtown Miami location. In the future, we would just rent from the airport because it was a pain getting to the location. We were told there would be a shuttle – this wasn’t true so we took a cab. We would also rent from this location on the way back (learned our lesson) – it’s almost impossible to get a cab back to that location (will explain later). Anyways, we made it to the port on time and boarded the ship! Our rooms were ready so we dropped off our stuff and headed up to the buffet! We had no problem getting a table and there was a good selection of food. We went to our lifeboat drill, and headed to our balcony to watch sail away (with the drink of the day in hand, of course) Tonight, we had dinner reservations at La Cuicina, which will be continued in the next post!! I will work on getting my pictures uploaded - my iphoto is being a little strange right now but hopefully for the next post I will have it figured out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SissasMomE Posted February 23, 2014 #2 Share Posted February 23, 2014 Another review!! Yay!!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LrgPizza Posted February 23, 2014 #3 Share Posted February 23, 2014 HURRY UP!! :D I mean, thank you and I look forward to following these posts. Yay! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacrossemitch Posted February 23, 2014 #4 Share Posted February 23, 2014 Thank you so much for starting your review! Can't wait to read more! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrNora Posted February 23, 2014 #5 Share Posted February 23, 2014 HURRY UP!! :D I mean, thank you and I look forward to following these posts. Yay! Yes, what Lrgpizza said.....THANK YOU! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WildcatRock Posted February 23, 2014 #6 Share Posted February 23, 2014 1300 people missed the cruise due to weather? Holy cow that's a lot! Sent from my XT1080 using Forums mobile app Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david_sobe Posted February 23, 2014 #7 Share Posted February 23, 2014 (edited) 1300 missing the ship? I hope they had insurance. I feel for them but what a luxury vacation for you. Were you able to watch the Canadians Hockey team on the ship? Congratulations. The USA game was a very tough and thrilling match. Cant wait to hear more!!!!! Edited February 23, 2014 by david_sobe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hockeygirl14 Posted February 23, 2014 Author #8 Share Posted February 23, 2014 1300 missing the ship? I hope they had insurance. I feel for them but what a luxury vacation for you. Were you able to watch the Canadians Hockey team on the ship? Congratulations. The USA game was a very tough and thrilling match. Cant wait to hear more!!!!! Thanks! Actually yes - they did have the game on one of the sports channels and played it in the atrium! We did an excursion in Nassau that day but we got coverage at the hotel we went to!! What a game!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3DBeach Posted February 23, 2014 #9 Share Posted February 23, 2014 Looking forward to more :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SissasMomE Posted February 23, 2014 #10 Share Posted February 23, 2014 Where is the rest of the review?!!! :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3DBeach Posted February 23, 2014 #11 Share Posted February 23, 2014 Where is the rest of the review?!!! :D I wish CC had a "LIKE" button ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeaShark Posted February 23, 2014 #12 Share Posted February 23, 2014 One benefit to completely writing your review/travel diary before posting it is that you avoid the verbal flogging that comes if you don't post installments "fast enough". We should be saying "Thank You" to people instead of "faster, faster" "more, more" before people just stop posting reviews at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavyB Posted February 23, 2014 #13 Share Posted February 23, 2014 one benefit to completely writing your review/travel diary before posting it is that you avoid the verbal flogging that comes if you don't post installments "fast enough". We should be saying "thank you" to people instead of "faster, faster" "more, more" before people just stop posting reviews at all. Like Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hockeygirl14 Posted February 23, 2014 Author #14 Share Posted February 23, 2014 I'm still trying to get my pictures to upload :confused: it won't show my most recent uploads when I try to upload onto photo sites. Weird. Anyways I'll post some more tonight :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacrossemitch Posted February 23, 2014 #15 Share Posted February 23, 2014 I'm still trying to get my pictures to upload :confused: it won't show my most recent uploads when I try to upload onto photo sites. Weird. Anyways I'll post some more tonight :) Thanks! Can't wait to hear more! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hockeygirl14 Posted February 23, 2014 Author #16 Share Posted February 23, 2014 After sail away, I think we might have explored the ship and then got ready for dinner! Tonight, we had La Cuicina (which may have been my favourite meal on board!) Our reservations were at 8pm and we were seated promptly. The restaurant was kind of empty but I assume it was just because it was the first night – the rest of the week it was always busy. Having dined at La Cucina on the Epic, I knew what to expect on the menu and had to decide between the chicken parm, or the beef lasagna. I chose the lasagna, and it was a good choice! We even tried the Bolognese pizza, recommended by our waiter, Genevive (who was EXCELLENT!!!), and had a lovely meal! I had the chocolate tart for dinner, again it was pretty good. We walked around the ship some more and headed to bed kind of early. The next day was our first sea day! We got up early to get chairs and managed to get a pretty good spot in between pools on deck 16. There was no problem getting chairs all week and I didn’t notice many “chair hogs” – most people were in their chairs or they were vacant. Today was kind of lazy – woke up late and missed breakfast but managed to hit the buffet for lunch. I didn’t see too much that I wanted so I ended up at O’Sheehans and got mozza sticks and chicken fingers! We ate at O’Sheehans a lot this week, LOL. I noted that it was Seafood night at the buffet – we didn’t go because we have TEPPANYAKI tonight!! Teppanyaki was excellent! I had the Chicken Yakuidon. I am not a huge Asian-food lover but this meal was delicious and our chef was hilarious!! After dinner, we headed to the Getaway theatre for Burn the Floor! I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I ended up enjoying it! It definitely adds to the Miami theme of the ship – it’s a latin dancing show (without giving too much away). After the show, we explored the ship some more – walked around the Waterfront and checked out the 70s party that was going on at Spice! It looked fun, I personally didn’t stay too long but others in our party did and had a great time! The nightly parties were always busy and seemed like a lot of fun. We also went down to check out Bliss but it wasn’t too busy yet – it was around midnight. I’m not sure if it was like that all week or just that night, didn’t really bother going back because we were too tired…(how boring). Anyways, we turned in not too long after to get ready for our next day at sea!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdvmd Posted February 23, 2014 #17 Share Posted February 23, 2014 Keep it up! Thanks for sharing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McDebbie Posted February 24, 2014 #18 Share Posted February 24, 2014 Looking forward to the rest of the review. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VanessaM Posted February 24, 2014 #19 Share Posted February 24, 2014 Thanks for your review HockeyGirl14! Excited to read more.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boopsahoy Posted February 24, 2014 #20 Share Posted February 24, 2014 Looking forward to more.:D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ehornick Posted February 24, 2014 #21 Share Posted February 24, 2014 We were on the same cruise, and had an amazing time. Thanks to the Upsell Fairy we ended up in The Haven and enjoyed all the benefits there. I have written a complete review and submitted it to Cruise Critic as a review of the Getaway (the short version: we loved it)! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeski27 Posted February 24, 2014 #22 Share Posted February 24, 2014 We were on the same cruise, and had an amazing time. Thanks to the Upsell Fairy we ended up in The Haven and enjoyed all the benefits there. I have written a complete review and submitted it to Cruise Critic as a review of the Getaway (the short version: we loved it)! Just saw your review, but was some of it cut off, was there more? Seems like what was there ended abruptly after "Entertainment". Just curious, but great to hear you loved it! Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeorgiaGirl14 Posted February 24, 2014 #23 Share Posted February 24, 2014 Loving the first hand report, before I board this weekend. Thanks!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thephillykid Posted February 24, 2014 #24 Share Posted February 24, 2014 Great review so far. Keep it coming....lol...I know how much time it takes to put it together, so we'll be patient. I do have a question. ?.....do the 3 free dining rooms have different menus on the same night? On the dalies that were posted, it lists the Tropicana restaurant separately from the other 2. Thanks for posting. Howard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PDIDDYwife Posted February 24, 2014 #25 Share Posted February 24, 2014 (edited) One benefit to completely writing your review/travel diary before posting it is that you avoid the verbal flogging that comes if you don't post installments "fast enough". We should be saying "Thank You" to people instead of "faster, faster" "more, more" before people just stop posting reviews at all. Ummm..Bad Day? Good Lord! people are excited..does this seriously bother you? Sorry.. I see lotsa thank yous and no guns too anyone's head! FLOGGING? It is JOKING!!! Edited February 24, 2014 by PDIDDYwife Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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