NCL First-Timer Getaway 5/15 Review

[buckeyefans8890]

Here's a short review of last week's Getaway sailing from Miami. My wife (26) and I (28) were celebrating our 4th anniversary and were joined by my parents. They recently sailed on Pride of America and we had only sailed on RCCL (once) and Carnival (4x). Please remember these are just opinions and every sees things different, I'm just trying to help out the group and especially people who are going on this itinerary soon! We had the UBP and 4 free speciality meals, parents purchased a 4 meal package on top of their interline discounted rate.

 

Friday/Saturday

We got a great deal on Delta on our flights from CMH-RSW, MIA-CMH only $270 pp round trip so we happily added two days to our vacation. We drove down to Naples and spent two nights at the Gulfcoast Inn, a place my parents took me when I was child and we had went there a few years ago for a long weekend. It's definitely a hole in the wall but it does have its pluses: Only $180 for two nights, a free dinner and drink, and a nice pool with cheap drinks and all sorts of Buckeyes stuff!

 

Sunday- Cruise day!!!

We drove our rental car over to Miami early Sunday morning, about 1:50 to the rental car center, grabbed the free National Car Rental bus to the port and entered the terminal at 9:55am. Check in was quick with an incredibly unfriendly agent, she looked like she would rather be absolutely anywhere other than where she was, maybe not the best job for her! Boarded the ship at noon and walked briskly to guest services to get our Vibe passes. My parents flights on Delta from CAK were changed a few weeks back, making their arrival in MIA go from 9:45am to noon, the gentlemen at Guest Services was nice enough to let me buy all 4 passes after I explained that they would be coming. Ate at Savor for dinner and had a family with out of control kids screaming and playing in the windows with the curtains when we got there. Luckily they were done about halfway through dinner, lowering the decibel level of the dining room by half, overall a normal MDR experience after that.

 

Days of the Cruise will be a little shorter...

 

Monday- Beautiful weather on the sea day and we went to the Brazilian steakhouse, absolutely delicious! One tip however, do not over-eat the salad bar!! There's tons of meat coming your way...

Tuesday- Maya Key excursion in Roatan, very nice beach and good food, drinks were a tad expensive, after one each we just waited to get back on the boat! This is where things began to go downhill for the night..We decided to try Shanghai for a quick dinner in order to watch the Cavs game in O'Sheehan's. The food was just overall bad, in my noodle bowl I had three strips of BBQ pork and my wife said her beef was fatty and tough. Even my parents admitted it was nowhere near the quality of the Asian restaurant on POA. We head to O'Sheehan's where I'm going to finally have some dinner and watch the Cavs. Only problem is the atrium is having a Bob Marley tribute concert so loud that we couldn't think let alone talk to one another. The girls bailed to the rooms after halftime as my wife now had a thundering headache and Dad and I go in bar searching to watch the game without experiencing more hearing loss...only positive, Cavs win game 1!

 

Wednesday

Belize- Been there two times already so this way a stay on the boat day all along. Short lines at the waterslides and on the ropes course. I couldn't believe it but my 55 year old Dad (who's afraid of heights) walked the plank ahead of me! We dined at Tropicana Room and had another uninspired waiter who rolled his eyes when Dad asked for a wine list. Looking back on it I should've called him out on it but we were on vacation and sometimes it's not the time. This guy continued to make it even more known that he wasn't enjoying his night working, it was almost shocking considering in all our cruises we had never had a server be so unhappy and disconnected.

Thursday-

Costa Maya- Chacchoben excursion, a very HOT day but a fun excursion just the two of us did. The parents snorkeling excursion was cancelled due to gusty winds and waves. We decided to split up for dinner this night, we went to La Cucina, they went to Ocean Blue. Very good meal and great service by Frederick our server, he asked us to fill out a comment card and we happily obliged and gave him a nice tip. This was the night we decided to celebrate our anniversary and we even got sang to! Overall just a great meal and fun time together, after the past few nights we definitely needed it. Cavs win again, we now use the Sunset bar as our place to watch without losing hearing.

 

More to come soon!!! I will also do some pros and cons on things I don't mention for each day.

[coolcruiser86]

Can't wait to hear more!

[daisyh]

We head out on the Getaway soon. Can't wait to read the rest.

[cincicruisers]

Great review, looking forward to the rest.

[buckeyefans8890]

Friday- Cozumel

 

We all did the Playa Mia excursion together. Its a nice resort, especially if you have little ones, plenty of things to do for the whole family. Nice lunch under the covered pavilion and a very friendly bartender who kept our drinks full for the few hours. We did Le Bistro for dinner, somewhat robotic but efficient server. Everyone liked their entrees, only item that wasn't right was my salad with goat cheese. We think they messed up the salad dressing in the kitchen, it tasted extremely bitter, I even had my wife try it to make sure it just wasn't a bad mix after the crab salad but she agreed. I've never had a salad dressing taste that awful so I really do think there was a mistake made somewhere. I had the Dover Sole entree and it was absolutely delicious. Very slow service for dinner, plan 2 hours! Did comedy with Andy after dinner.

 

Saturday- Final Day

 

Multiple trips on the waterslides and nice relaxing day in the Vibe. Cagney's was absolutely packed when we arrived for our 7pm reservation. Amazing dinner and service but over 2 hours from start to finish. Million Dollar Quartet finished off our cruise, what you want to watch on your final night!!

 

Sunday- Disembarkation

 

We had a 11:15 flight on Delta to ATL then our connection to CMH and parents to CAK. Took our own bags off and got in line at 7:05, off the ship at 7:25-7:30, in a cab by 8am, at MIA and through security by 8:45, very easy! Arrived back home into CMH on time at 4:30 and pulled in the driveway at 5:30 with time to mow the yard, literally the easiest travel we have had home.

 

The Recap- We all worked together on these in Atlanta airport lol

 

Pro's

 

Room layout and shower

Ropes course

Million Dollar Quartet

Speciality dining

Vibe- buy a pass, you will NOT be disappointed!

Cold towels arriving back on the ship

 

Cons

Customer service friendliness- noticeable difference between them and RCCL and Carnival, always worries me thinking how does management treat these people?

Atrium noise- Its not a concert hall or nightclub NCL, its a pass through place. I can't imagine an exec from NCL cruising and seeing people at guest service having to scream to get a question answered and thinking "oh yeah this is just what we imagined"

Housekeeping- Claudia couldn't do the same basic functions the parent's housekeeper did perfectly fine. Not overly friendly either, when you have to ask repeatedly for beach towels and bar soap, finally get towels, and then don't get them replaced, I was starting to get pretty frustrated. Here's the kicker: final morning while double checking under our coach, we find beach towels she'd put in for the next cruise!

Room A/c unit- shut off during the night resulting in us waking up sweating just to turn it back on, I think the thing was possessed honestly!

Roatan disembarkation- Extremely crowded and a mess overall

O'Sheehan's waiters were the least friendly of the boat- not sure if it's the worst assignment or just the traffic runs them down but they always seemed not that happy.

Time changes- Drove us nuts, Tuesday night I think we were all asleep by 10:30, never could get our bodies to change!

 

Ship Overall 8

Room 9

Housekeeping 5

Things to do on ship 9

Entertainment 8

Speciality food 8

Normal food 6

Customer service/Cruise director 5

Ports 7

Excursions 8

 

Overall 73/100 7.3/10

 

Had a great family vacation, enjoyed some things but probably back to Royal for us, hoping for Harmony next year!

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.

[Clarea]

Nice report, thanks.

[shukapaw]

Thanks for your honest opinions. We will be experiencing the Getaway in a couple weeks so I'll try to use the information you've provided to optimize our experience

 

 

Brian

[ROCruiser]

Thanks for the review!

[Keith1010]

Enjoyed your review/trip report.

 

Keith