8/8 Getaway review-first time NCL-er's!

[cardbucfan]

Our family of 4 just returned from the 8/8 Getaway cruise and had a good time. Was it perfect? No. Did the non-perfect things affect my vacation? Not significantly. I don’t have any pictures to share since I was in charge of taking them and my phone went swimming in Virgin Gorda. :eek: DH had a brain cramp and well, there ya go-no phone, no pics!

 

First, a little about us, we are DS18, DS20, DH and me. We’ve cruised most of the major lines in previous years but this was our first NCL cruise. Several months ago DH and I booked the NCL Spirit Grand Mediterranean for next May because the itinerary is the best I’ve seen. Ever since we booked I’ve been scouring the NCL boards learning all I could about the line and frankly starting to get a little worried that we had made a mistake! (I’ve already booked the airfare so without paying substantial change fees; we are locked into that cruise).

 

We haven’t taken a family vacation in quite some time. High School sports and college messed with our ability to go anywhere together. When we found out that all 4 of us had one week where we COULD all do something the search was on. We’ve always enjoyed cruising because everybody can do what they like without being stuck together the entire time and it’s an actual vacation for me! I quickly found 4 cruises for that week to the Caribbean (had to be the Caribbean since there was no time to fly anywhere and we live in Florida): 1 RCCL, 2 Carnival’s and the Getaway. We didn’t really enjoy our one RCCL cruise we took many, many years ago and the thought of being on a ship with that many passengers (it was the Oasis) made me twitch. So I went on both the Carnival and Norwegian boards and asked what college kids could do. When I found out that NCL lets parents sign a beer/wine waiver for 18-20 year olds I was sold. (They may be underage but they’re in college and I’m not naïve!)

 

Here are my thoughts/suggestions/take-aways:

 

-The Getaway is a pretty ship with a few design flaws. Only 1 pool for that many people is ridiculous. Yes, there’s a water feature in Spice and a little kiddie pool near the play area but it’s not enough in the hot Caribbean.

 

-The open stairways between deck 6 & 7 are nice in theory but what they allow is all the casino smoke to drift downstairs to Le Bistro, Headliners, the Art Gallery and the waiting area for Teppanyaki.

 

-There is only one place for cigar smokers on the ship-the Humidor and 8 hard chairs outside. These chairs were always filled with cigarette smokers who have multiple outdoor places to smoke. DH totally gets why most people don’t want to smell cigar smoke and was fine with having to go there to smoke his cigars. His complaint was with only one place available; he rarely got an outside seat.

 

-This was our first experience with a big ship and I’d say for the most part, it didn’t feel that big and I didn’t feel like I was on a ship with that many fellow passengers. Until you had to embark/debark from the opposite end of the ship from your cabin and had to schlep down those long, skinny hallways for what seemed like forever. We did wise up during the week and go through the ship on Deck 6 or 8 before hitting the stairs (I’m sure they appreciated our dragging our wet dive gear through the atrium!) but it would have made way more sense for the Terminals to be assigned by forward/aft vs. what deck you were on for embarkation.

 

-Every other ship I’ve been on, the fitness center is at the very front of the ship with spectacular views. Not on Getaway. The cardio room is on one side and the weights are on the other. Pretty small and very, very crowded with a wait on sea days.

 

-We had the UDP and ate at a specialty every night except the last when we couldn’t get our reservation changed. I hated the reservation thing. It was a pain to deal with and really detracted from what I’ve always heard NCL was all about. We did Cagney’s twice, Le Bistro twice, Teppanyaki once, and Moderno once. We also ate at O’Sheehans for lunch and DS20 had second dinner there on Prime Rib night!

 

-The food was good at the buffet, pretty good at the specialties with a few WOW dishes (the mussels at Le Bistro-OMG!!) DS20 and DH had the 32 oz. Porterhouse at Cagney’s and DH said it was the best steak he’s ever had on a cruise ship. DS20 had the 32 oz. Ribeye at Le Bistro (which is supposed to serve 2…..) and he said that was one of the best steaks he’d ever had (different cooking styles appeal to each of them). We never were charged the $10 upcharge for any of those items when we ordered them. We aren’t big drinkers but the Japanese Martini at Teppanyaki was oh my, so good! A lot of the meat at Moderno was over salted and over cooked for our taste.

 

-We ate at Taste the last night when we couldn’t get our Moderno reservation changed to La Cucina. The food was good but the staff seemed over worked. No assistant helping our waiter and he was running.

 

-Most of the employees were great-smiling, happy and always with a cheerful greeting. Our steward Jhonnel was sweet but we didn’t even see him until late in the day the second day and it seemed like every day he’d forget something-usually new beach towels. It got to be a joke with us!

 

-Our balcony cabin was fine. A bit small and there is no way we could have fit a third person in there but we managed with 2 easily.

 

-The hairdryer works great! No need to bring one (and I have a lot of hair!)

 

-Bring conditioner and lotion. There is shower gel and an all in one shampoo/conditioner in the dispensers in the shower (love the door!) but not the other stuff. And it smells good and isn’t mint or eucalyptus which I’m allergic to.

 

-the water slides were super fun!

 

-The chair hogs were out in full force with zero enforcement of the rules. I was always able to find a chair but never by the pool. That’s actually O.K. with me since it’s usually super loud, crowded and hot by the pool. The Sundeck became my favorite spot, a nice breeze, not crowded and fairly quiet.

 

- I know most ships are going this route but I hate that there isn’t a true promenade deck anymore. And the jogging track is a joke!

 

-LOVED the Waterfront! We ate dinner at Cagney’s out there one night and it was fabulous.

 

-We saw Burn the Floor, Legally Blonde and the comedians. All really good! I couldn’t drag DH out to any of the parties and DS20 was too busy mooning after his girlfriend. Apparently everybody on the ship knew DS18 though!

He enjoyed ALL the parties and after hours clubs!

 

-For excursions, DS20 and I dove in St. Thomas at Coki Beach independently. Beach was super crowded when we left and the traffic was awful. We had no issues getting back in time though. We did the NCL Virgin Gorda and Baths excursion on Tortola. I chose the one that left at oh-my-god-shoot-me early so we could avoid some of the crowds. Good choice. The later excursion had over 300 people with them at the Baths and the guide told us they were expecting over 700 that day! We got off the buses, listened to the guide then headed down the path. We almost had the rocks/caves to ourselves! Once we got to the other end to Devils Bay, we went to the second beach (lots of folks stopped at the first one), put our stuff (except my phone…:() on some rocks and went snorkeling. We have the diver snobbishness of not liking to snorkel but if you go to the far side of the cove where the rocks go into the water there is so much to see as soon as you stick your face in the water! In Nassau, DS20 and I did the NCL 2 tank dive with Stuart’s Cove since we had such a short port time (12-7). It’s really good we did. We didn’t get back to the ship until 6 p.m. and all aboard was 6:30. I would have been having kittens about missing the ship if we’d been independent!

 

-Debarkation was a breeze! We had so much stuff with us we chose to leave as an independent guest at 8:30. We went to the buffet for breakfast (not that crowded) then we were able to hang out in our cabins until it was time to leave. We headed down a little early and when we hit the debarkation level they just told us to head on out that luggage was ready. We were in our car, fully loaded by 9:15!

 

I think that’s about it. We had a great time and besides enjoying having the family together again this cruise reassured DH and me that we will enjoy our floating hotel when we do the Med next May. Even if we didn’t have that one booked, we both said we’d happily cruise NCL again.

 

Let me know if I can answer any questions!

[sof2sju2srq]

Nice write up..thanks.We are going on Getaway in 2 days.I have one question.Do we have to make a res for the place we want to dine that very same day or have to be done ahead of time?And when its done,now or after we board?Thanks

[cardbucfan]

Nice write up..thanks.We are going on Getaway in 2 days.I have one question.Do we have to make a res for the place we want to dine that very same day or have to be done ahead of time?And when its done,now or after we board?Thanks

 

I would try and get all your reservations before you get on the ship or the day you board. I made everything ahead of time and had to tweak some show stuff once we got on board but by the middle of the week, all the specialties were showing full red and when we tried to make a change there wasn't anything (unless we wanted to eat at (9:30!). Have fun!!

[plunker]

Did they show any movies on the ship and where do they show them? We are booked on the Getaway in Feb and its our first time doing ncl too.

[cardbucfan]

Did they show any movies on the ship and where do they show them? We are booked on the Getaway in Feb and its our first time doing ncl too.

 

 

 

They showed a couple in the atrium, one or two in the Getaway Theater (which has the most uncomfortable seats EVER!) and some in Spice. Check the Dailies. We had seen all the movies before so didn't go out of our way to catch any even though I loved MUTS on Princess.

[plunker]

Were they newer movies? Also if you are going to eat in the main dining room for dinner each night do you have to set that up before the cruise or is that just for the specialty restaurants?

[Sauer-kraut]

Were they newer movies? Also if you are going to eat in the main dining room for dinner each night do you have to set that up before the cruise or is that just for the specialty restaurants?

 

Just show up at the main dining rooms ... basically you're booking ahead for the specialty restaurants.

[cardbucfan]

Were they newer movies? Also if you are going to eat in the main dining room for dinner each night do you have to set that up before the cruise or is that just for the specialty restaurants?

 

The movies were more like last summer's movies-Edge of Tomorrow, Guardians of The Galaxy, and Despicable Me 2 are the 3 I remember off the top of my head.

 

Sauer-kraut answered the restaurant question for you. You can make reservations but it's not necessary.

[jenseib]

Great review. My friend was on the same cruise. She said the same thing about the pool chair hogs too and wasn't impressed with the pools. however she had issues with her drink package and a few other things and said she won't sail NCL again.

 

Nice write up..thanks.We are going on Getaway in 2 days.I have one question.Do we have to make a res for the place we want to dine that very same day or have to be done ahead of time?And when its done,now or after we board?Thanks

 

You should make them ahead of time if you want a certain place.

And just a tip...can you stack your signature sailings instead of lining them in a row. It makes the whole thread really wide and really hard to read anything as you have to scroll back and forth the whole time unless you have a really wide screen.

[cardbucfan]

Great review. My friend was on the same cruise. She said the same thing about the pool chair hogs too and wasn't impressed with the pools. however she had issues with her drink package and a few other things and said she won't sail NCL again.

 

 

 

You should make them ahead of time if you want a certain place.

And just a tip...can you stack your signature sailings instead of lining them in a row. It makes the whole thread really wide and really hard to read anything as you have to scroll back and forth the whole time unless you have a really wide screen.

 

That's a shame about your friend. Luckily, none of the things that bothered us were that bad. We even bought a future cruise credit.

 

The other bad thing about the pools was some idiot took a GLASS to the pool and broke it the night before the last sea day. So they had to drain and clean the pool and it wasn't available for most of that super hot sea day. Meant some really long lines for the slides and the ropes course since it was the only pool for adults.

[boopsahoy]

And just a tip...can you stack your signature sailings instead of lining them in a row. It makes the whole thread really wide and really hard to read anything as you have to scroll back and forth the whole time unless you have a really wide screen.

 

I had to make the writing really small to not have to swipe back and forth LOL

[hansolosmom]

Thanks for the review. I'm booked on Breakaway with my mom and sister, but I'm also looking for something for the family. I'm in the same boat so to speak with my ds' being 17 & 19 so I'd like to squeeze something in before ds #2 starts college. What type of room or rooms did you have?

[cardbucfan]

Thanks for the review. I'm booked on Breakaway with my mom and sister, but I'm also looking for something for the family. I'm in the same boat so to speak with my ds' being 17 & 19 so I'd like to squeeze something in before ds #2 starts college. What type of room or rooms did you have?

 

We had adjoining balcony cabins. The base price of an interior wasn't that much less than the balcony at the time we booked and the TA we used had perks only for balcony and above. Combine that with the UDP and we came out the same.

[hansolosmom]

Thanks.

 

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

[LrgPizza]

the mussels at Le Bistro-OMG!!

 

Best item I've had in a specialty! The broth is out of this world.

[Jaco5NC]

Thank you for sharing your experiences...glad you had a great week overall! Sorry about your phone though.

[jenseib]

That's a shame about your friend. Luckily, none of the things that bothered us were that bad. We even bought a future cruise credit.

 

The other bad thing about the pools was some idiot took a GLASS to the pool and broke it the night before the last sea day. So they had to drain and clean the pool and it wasn't available for most of that super hot sea day. Meant some really long lines for the slides and the ropes course since it was the only pool for adults.

 

YES! she said that about the glass too.

[cardbucfan]

Best item I've had in a specialty! The broth is out of this world.

 

 

OMG! The broth! Seriously, I wanted to lick my bowl.

[newmexicoNita]

Our family of 4 just returned from the 8/8 Getaway cruise and had a good time. Was it perfect? No. Did the non-perfect things affect my vacation? Not significantly. I don’t have any pictures to share since I was in charge of taking them and my phone went swimming in Virgin Gorda. :eek: DH had a brain cramp and well, there ya go-no phone, no pics!

 

First, a little about us, we are DS18, DS20, DH and me. We’ve cruised most of the major lines in previous years but this was our first NCL cruise. Several months ago DH and I booked the NCL Spirit Grand Mediterranean for next May because the itinerary is the best I’ve seen. Ever since we booked I’ve been scouring the NCL boards learning all I could about the line and frankly starting to get a little worried that we had made a mistake! (I’ve already booked the airfare so without paying substantial change fees; we are locked into that cruise).

 

We haven’t taken a family vacation in quite some time. High School sports and college messed with our ability to go anywhere together. When we found out that all 4 of us had one week where we COULD all do something the search was on. We’ve always enjoyed cruising because everybody can do what they like without being stuck together the entire time and it’s an actual vacation for me! I quickly found 4 cruises for that week to the Caribbean (had to be the Caribbean since there was no time to fly anywhere and we live in Florida): 1 RCCL, 2 Carnival’s and the Getaway. We didn’t really enjoy our one RCCL cruise we took many, many years ago and the thought of being on a ship with that many passengers (it was the Oasis) made me twitch. So I went on both the Carnival and Norwegian boards and asked what college kids could do. When I found out that NCL lets parents sign a beer/wine waiver for 18-20 year olds I was sold. (They may be underage but they’re in college and I’m not naïve!)

 

Here are my thoughts/suggestions/take-aways:

 

-The Getaway is a pretty ship with a few design flaws. Only 1 pool for that many people is ridiculous. Yes, there’s a water feature in Spice and a little kiddie pool near the play area but it’s not enough in the hot Caribbean.

 

-The open stairways between deck 6 & 7 are nice in theory but what they allow is all the casino smoke to drift downstairs to Le Bistro, Headliners, the Art Gallery and the waiting area for Teppanyaki.

 

-There is only one place for cigar smokers on the ship-the Humidor and 8 hard chairs outside. These chairs were always filled with cigarette smokers who have multiple outdoor places to smoke. DH totally gets why most people don’t want to smell cigar smoke and was fine with having to go there to smoke his cigars. His complaint was with only one place available; he rarely got an outside seat.

 

-This was our first experience with a big ship and I’d say for the most part, it didn’t feel that big and I didn’t feel like I was on a ship with that many fellow passengers. Until you had to embark/debark from the opposite end of the ship from your cabin and had to schlep down those long, skinny hallways for what seemed like forever. We did wise up during the week and go through the ship on Deck 6 or 8 before hitting the stairs (I’m sure they appreciated our dragging our wet dive gear through the atrium!) but it would have made way more sense for the Terminals to be assigned by forward/aft vs. what deck you were on for embarkation.

 

-Every other ship I’ve been on, the fitness center is at the very front of the ship with spectacular views. Not on Getaway. The cardio room is on one side and the weights are on the other. Pretty small and very, very crowded with a wait on sea days.

 

-We had the UDP and ate at a specialty every night except the last when we couldn’t get our reservation changed. I hated the reservation thing. It was a pain to deal with and really detracted from what I’ve always heard NCL was all about. We did Cagney’s twice, Le Bistro twice, Teppanyaki once, and Moderno once. We also ate at O’Sheehans for lunch and DS20 had second dinner there on Prime Rib night!

 

-The food was good at the buffet, pretty good at the specialties with a few WOW dishes (the mussels at Le Bistro-OMG!!) DS20 and DH had the 32 oz. Porterhouse at Cagney’s and DH said it was the best steak he’s ever had on a cruise ship. DS20 had the 32 oz. Ribeye at Le Bistro (which is supposed to serve 2…..) and he said that was one of the best steaks he’d ever had (different cooking styles appeal to each of them). We never were charged the $10 upcharge for any of those items when we ordered them. We aren’t big drinkers but the Japanese Martini at Teppanyaki was oh my, so good! A lot of the meat at Moderno was over salted and over cooked for our taste.

 

-We ate at Taste the last night when we couldn’t get our Moderno reservation changed to La Cucina. The food was good but the staff seemed over worked. No assistant helping our waiter and he was running.

 

-Most of the employees were great-smiling, happy and always with a cheerful greeting. Our steward Jhonnel was sweet but we didn’t even see him until late in the day the second day and it seemed like every day he’d forget something-usually new beach towels. It got to be a joke with us!

 

-Our balcony cabin was fine. A bit small and there is no way we could have fit a third person in there but we managed with 2 easily.

 

-The hairdryer works great! No need to bring one (and I have a lot of hair!)

 

-Bring conditioner and lotion. There is shower gel and an all in one shampoo/conditioner in the dispensers in the shower (love the door!) but not the other stuff. And it smells good and isn’t mint or eucalyptus which I’m allergic to.

 

-the water slides were super fun!

 

-The chair hogs were out in full force with zero enforcement of the rules. I was always able to find a chair but never by the pool. That’s actually O.K. with me since it’s usually super loud, crowded and hot by the pool. The Sundeck became my favorite spot, a nice breeze, not crowded and fairly quiet.

 

- I know most ships are going this route but I hate that there isn’t a true promenade deck anymore. And the jogging track is a joke!

 

-LOVED the Waterfront! We ate dinner at Cagney’s out there one night and it was fabulous.

 

-We saw Burn the Floor, Legally Blonde and the comedians. All really good! I couldn’t drag DH out to any of the parties and DS20 was too busy mooning after his girlfriend. Apparently everybody on the ship knew DS18 though!

He enjoyed ALL the parties and after hours clubs!

 

-For excursions, DS20 and I dove in St. Thomas at Coki Beach independently. Beach was super crowded when we left and the traffic was awful. We had no issues getting back in time though. We did the NCL Virgin Gorda and Baths excursion on Tortola. I chose the one that left at oh-my-god-shoot-me early so we could avoid some of the crowds. Good choice. The later excursion had over 300 people with them at the Baths and the guide told us they were expecting over 700 that day! We got off the buses, listened to the guide then headed down the path. We almost had the rocks/caves to ourselves! Once we got to the other end to Devils Bay, we went to the second beach (lots of folks stopped at the first one), put our stuff (except my phone…:() on some rocks and went snorkeling. We have the diver snobbishness of not liking to snorkel but if you go to the far side of the cove where the rocks go into the water there is so much to see as soon as you stick your face in the water! In Nassau, DS20 and I did the NCL 2 tank dive with Stuart’s Cove since we had such a short port time (12-7). It’s really good we did. We didn’t get back to the ship until 6 p.m. and all aboard was 6:30. I would have been having kittens about missing the ship if we’d been independent!

 

-Debarkation was a breeze! We had so much stuff with us we chose to leave as an independent guest at 8:30. We went to the buffet for breakfast (not that crowded) then we were able to hang out in our cabins until it was time to leave. We headed down a little early and when we hit the debarkation level they just told us to head on out that luggage was ready. We were in our car, fully loaded by 9:15!

 

I think that’s about it. We had a great time and besides enjoying having the family together again this cruise reassured DH and me that we will enjoy our floating hotel when we do the Med next May. Even if we didn’t have that one booked, we both said we’d happily cruise NCL again.

 

Let me know if I can answer any questions!

 

jThanks for a very and balanced review. I am glad you enjoyed NCL and am happy you will be sailing the line again. Our thoughts have always been; most mass marketed lines are more alike than different and yet, they all have a personality of their own.

 

Too bad you didn't care of Modernos that much, we have always loved it but have had some conernes with the service when there have been more that 2 of us. We will be going on the Jewel in less than 2 months, I just hope we do not have problems with reservations in the specialty dining rooms. What time did you usually eat?

 

Thanks again for letting us know your experiences.

[cardbucfan]

jThanks for a very and balanced review. I am glad you enjoyed NCL and am happy you will be sailing the line again. Our thoughts have always been; most mass marketed lines are more alike than different and yet, they all have a personality of their own.

 

Too bad you didn't care of Modernos that much, we have always loved it but have had some conernes with the service when there have been more that 2 of us. We will be going on the Jewel in less than 2 months, I just hope we do not have problems with reservations in the specialty dining rooms. What time did you usually eat?

 

Thanks again for letting us know your experiences.

 

I agree that there are more similarities than differences between lines. I usually look at itinerary and price then let those differences be the deciding factor.

 

As far as dinner, I'm an early riser which means early to bed. To get to the early shows we had to eat in the 6:00 hour. Earlier than I like but it worked well for everybody.