An Objective and Hopefully Gracious Review of the Getaway (1/10-1/17)

[CruisingNovice92]

This was our fourth cruise with our third different cruise line. As you can see from our sig line that our last two were with RCL. Full disclosure: We approached this cruise with a natural bias towards RCL due to a great experience on our last two cruises. But a friend talked us into giving NCL a try and the freestyle option along with a newer ship appealed to us. So here goes my review:

 

Ship: Beautiful, clean, and classy looking. However, I found the layout of it to be a tad difficult to navigate. Things seemed cramped at times. Especially on sea days. The pool area was a lot smaller than what we’re used to. It was nearly impossible to get a chair anywhere on sea days.

 

Cabins: We booked an inside stateroom to save some money. They put us in the front of the ship and the room was loud with a number of noises at night and early morning hours. However, the room had lots of storage area and the bathroom seemed a big bigger than on ships we had previously cruised on.

 

Crew: For the most part, exceptionally hard working, good spirited, and helpful. It was great getting to know a number of them. But it felt as though that they were vastly under-staffed. This became apparent on sea days.

 

Dining: We actually enjoyed the complimentary restaurants more than we did La Cucina where the service was incredibly slow and the food was subpar. Our favorite was the Tropicana. Great service, food and the band were awesome. Enjoyed eating breakfast at the Garden Café and thought the service there was incredibly good. Even when it was cramped and crowded.

 

On a side note: The night of the Cuban refugee rescue was something we will never forget. It made me realize that some of the things we complain about and take for granted are things that people who live in the under-developed world would love to have to complain about.

 

Overall: I’m not sure that we would book a cruise again with NCL. I know it’s great for some. But we really love the fact that with RCL you don’t have to pay extra for a private adult swimming area. I’m also biased towards the layout and setup of RCL ships and find them much easier to navigate and more spacious.

Nevertheless, we had a great time and made some incredible memories.

[Sauer-kraut]

A very gracious review. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I might suggest sailing on the SUN or the DAWN for more space and a true theater that will sit at least half of the passenger population at one time. :D

[drneal]

Hi could you let me know a little more about the refugee rescue? I seem to find conflicting reports. Was it the Getaway or a Carnival ship?

[CruisingNovice92]

Hi could you let me know a little more about the refugee rescue? I seem to find conflicting reports. Was it the Getaway or a Carnival ship?

 

It was indeed the Getaway.

[grandmarnnurse]

This was our fourth cruise with our third different cruise line. As you can see from our sig line that our last two were with RCL. Full disclosure: We approached this cruise with a natural bias towards RCL due to a great experience on our last two cruises. But a friend talked us into giving NCL a try and the freestyle option along with a newer ship appealed to us. So here goes my review:

 

Ship: Beautiful, clean, and classy looking. However, I found the layout of it to be a tad difficult to navigate. Things seemed cramped at times. Especially on sea days. The pool area was a lot smaller than what we’re used to. It was nearly impossible to get a chair anywhere on sea days.

 

Cabins: We booked an inside stateroom to save some money. They put us in the front of the ship and the room was loud with a number of noises at night and early morning hours. However, the room had lots of storage area and the bathroom seemed a big bigger than on ships we had previously cruised on.

 

Crew: For the most part, exceptionally hard working, good spirited, and helpful. It was great getting to know a number of them. But it felt as though that they were vastly under-staffed. This became apparent on sea days.

 

Dining: We actually enjoyed the complimentary restaurants more than we did La Cucina where the service was incredibly slow and the food was subpar. Our favorite was the Tropicana. Great service, food and the band were awesome. Enjoyed eating breakfast at the Garden Café and thought the service there was incredibly good. Even when it was cramped and crowded.

 

On a side note: The night of the Cuban refugee rescue was something we will never forget. It made me realize that some of the things we complain about and take for granted are things that people who live in the under-developed world would love to have to complain about.

 

Overall: I’m not sure that we would book a cruise again with NCL. I know it’s great for some. But we really love the fact that with RCL you don’t have to pay extra for a private adult swimming area. I’m also biased towards the layout and setup of RCL ships and find them much easier to navigate and more spacious.

Nevertheless, we had a great time and made some incredible memories.

 

Thank you for the review! I am sailing the Getaway in January 2017, and am really looking forward to it. I have cruised with Carnival for 7 cruises, but my last 2 were with RCCL (The Independence and The Oasis). I fell in love with Royal and how it was laid out, but NCL was offering a great deal package that I could not turn down, so I booked. Actually, we are happy on just about any ship, so I know we will have good time. We always book only inside cabins, because we spend so little time in our cabin, it was a waste of money for us to book something more. We found the inside cabins on RCCL much smaller than Carnival, and I think the inside cabins on NCL are even smaller--although the bathrooms do seem bigger. The bathrooms on RCCL are incredibly too small, and quite frankly, I have to wonder how anyone that may be of a bigger size could comfortably fit in those shower "capsules"!

Now for the food---we only go to coomplimentary venues, so please tell me more about the food in them. I know that there are three different main dining rooms. Do they all offer the same menu nightly, as they do on other ships? Or do they differ, and we should check out menus daily to decide where to eat? I saw that there were other complimentary places, also, including a place called O'Sheehan's(I think that was the name). What is their food like?

Thank you in advance for your help.

[bambione]

I was also on this cruise, it's hard to come back to snowy weather when it was 82 degrees in the Caribbean. To answer your question about food and the complimentary venues. I loved the food. The food is the same at Taste, Savor, and Tropicana each night, and then changes daily. O'Sheahans has a pub style menu, burgers, fish/chips, wings, that type of thing. We had 16 in our group and some of them would sit in there and watch football games. We made reservations each night in one of the main dining rooms because we had a large party of 16, and my 90 yr old dad wanted to be waited on. The Garden Café can be chaotic, like the OP mentioned. But the food was quite good with a lot of variety. I would go in there for snacks, and end up with pate and other delicacies. There is also the Flamingo Grill, with Cuban style food. And the noodle bar is also now complimentary. That was good, but nothing I'd want to eat every night. There is something for everyone on the menus, prime rib the last night, Beef tenderloin, Mahi Mahi, lamb, shortribs. I better stop, I'm getting hungry and am now on a diet after eating too much of that good food.

I'm sure the OP will chime in here about the food as well.

Karen

[BensonFan711]

I was on that same cruise. The Cuban refugee rescue was pretty spectacular to watch. But I absolutely agree with the OP about the crew. The ship *was* understaffed. I've only cruised Norwegian, but the Getaway just didn't live up to NCL's usual standards. I had much better experiences on the smaller ships.

 

Will I cruise with Norwegian again? Probably, but nothing bigger than a Jewel class. NCL missed the mark when they tried to scale up.

[grandmarnnurse]

I was also on this cruise, it's hard to come back to snowy weather when it was 82 degrees in the Caribbean. To answer your question about food and the complimentary venues. I loved the food. The food is the same at Taste, Savor, and Tropicana each night, and then changes daily. O'Sheahans has a pub style menu, burgers, fish/chips, wings, that type of thing. We had 16 in our group and some of them would sit in there and watch football games. We made reservations each night in one of the main dining rooms because we had a large party of 16, and my 90 yr old dad wanted to be waited on. The Garden Café can be chaotic, like the OP mentioned. But the food was quite good with a lot of variety. I would go in there for snacks, and end up with pate and other delicacies. There is also the Flamingo Grill, with Cuban style food. And the noodle bar is also now complimentary. That was good, but nothing I'd want to eat every night. There is something for everyone on the menus, prime rib the last night, Beef tenderloin, Mahi Mahi, lamb, shortribs. I better stop, I'm getting hungry and am now on a diet after eating too much of that good food.

I'm sure the OP will chime in here about the food as well.

Karen

 

Thank you! This was very helpful! It's going to be hard waiting until January 2017 to set sail on the Getaway!

[Demonyte]

Hi could you let me know a little more about the refugee rescue? I seem to find conflicting reports. Was it the Getaway or a Carnival ship?

 

There is a thread about it here (the pics are not from this incident, I haven't gone through my pics of this one):

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2301098

[CruisingNovice92]

Thank you for the review! I am sailing the Getaway in January 2017, and am really looking forward to it. I have cruised with Carnival for 7 cruises, but my last 2 were with RCCL (The Independence and The Oasis). I fell in love with Royal and how it was laid out, but NCL was offering a great deal package that I could not turn down, so I booked. Actually, we are happy on just about any ship, so I know we will have good time. We always book only inside cabins, because we spend so little time in our cabin, it was a waste of money for us to book something more. We found the inside cabins on RCCL much smaller than Carnival, and I think the inside cabins on NCL are even smaller--although the bathrooms do seem bigger. The bathrooms on RCCL are incredibly too small, and quite frankly, I have to wonder how anyone that may be of a bigger size could comfortably fit in those shower "capsules"!

Now for the food---we only go to coomplimentary venues, so please tell me more about the food in them. I know that there are three different main dining rooms. Do they all offer the same menu nightly, as they do on other ships? Or do they differ, and we should check out menus daily to decide where to eat? I saw that there were other complimentary places, also, including a place called O'Sheehan's(I think that was the name). What is their food like?

Thank you in advance for your help.

 

From what I know the food in the complimentary restaurants all have the same menu. But again, we only went to Tropicana and Savor. When we looked at the menu at Taste it looked the same as the other two. The band is what made the difference for us at the Tropicana.

O'Sheehan's was good. We only ate their once. The day of embarkation. And....they were very slow and we had to track down a waiter after sitting there for 20 minutes without being given a menu or taking an order for our drinks. I cut them some slack though due to the fact that it was very crowded and it was embarkation day. Their food is very bar and grill style. It was very good.

 

The bathroom for the inside cabin may have been a tad bigger than RCCL but nothing too substantial.

 

But overall, it was a cruise on the Caribbean in absolutely beautiful weather enjoying a beautiful ship, great food and incredible scenery.