Getaway, Apr 2-9 Review

[reaperman]

We just got home from a few extra days spent in Miami, post cruise. For starters we enjoyed our vacation and have been on 8 prior cruises. We like to alternate our vacations between cruises and land based. Our vacation last April was a cruise on the Celebrity Equinox, and yes we felt like the youngest passengers aboard (young 50's). So some comparisons I make will most likely be to the Equinox since it is a similar sized ship in length and most recent. Our last cruise before the Equinox was on the NCL Sun.

 

For starters, embarkation went well, we arrived about 11:30 and was on the ship approx 1:00 pm. Like everyone else, we headed to the buffet since we were hungry and didn't feel like waiting for a sit down lunch. We expected a crowd on the buffet line and we were right. It was then when we realized just how narrow the food line was to the adjacent wall, only about 8 feet on average, a tad bit more in some spots. With the lack of room between the food and the wall, people trying to navigate the food line from both directions. And a occasional worker pushing a large/wide cart of dishes, there is simply not enough space to accommodate a large crowd. Now take all of these people and try to sit them down is another story. The space for the dining tables is only about 20 feet wide by the length of the buffet room. This space is only good for about 3 tables wide. One reason is the chairs don't slide under the table because the tables base is so wide. So the dining chairs stick out 1.5 to 2 feet in all 4 directions. The buffet food was as expected. The carving stations offered a nice selection of meat over the coarse of the cruise. From whole brisket, to fully baked turkey, prime rib a couple times, and others. The buffets pizza was excellent. The salad bar was a disappointment to me since I have salad at least once daily or more at home. Very few offerings other than lettuce and a few regulars. What I didn't like was the salad dressing, none of it. In fact I actually stopped making a salad after day three. Not everybody likes a strong taste of vinegar in every dressing offering. Plus the breads/rolls offered were the same each day with limited varieties. The Equinox has a awesome bakery aboard, fresh different breads and tons of varieties daily.

 

Night one, we ate in Savor, a main dining room. I started with the French onion soup, normally a cruise favorite for me. But not this time, the soup tasted like something that came from a can with very little flavor. The dinner rolls were good and the main coarse was also good. What wasn't to great was how long it actually took to eat supper, almost 2 hours. For a starter, main coarse, and dessert. To me that's way too long for 2 people just to eat. In fact we ordered coffee with out dessert which didn't come for at least 10 minutes after our dessert was served. For this reason we didn't eat in the MDR each night. We both had two different fish dinners later in the cruise that was also very good. One night I had a turkey dinner which was very tasty, but only about enough meat to make a sandwich. Compare that with the buffet line one night they offered turkey. The butcher cut a hunk of meat off a fresh baked turkey that almost covered my plate.

 

Day two, I thought I would try O'sheehans. I got there at 11am since the daily paper said that's what time they start serving lunch. The lady said come back, they don't take orders until 11:30. I must have read the paper wrong, so I checked, I was correct is says 11am. I didn't come back a half hour later, instead I hit the buffet. The next day, I left Harvest Key around 11 and headed back to the ship for a 11:30 lunch at O'sheehans. I get there and the lady says they aren't taking orders until noon, ***? Back to the buffet line we go for lunch. So after we get in from the day at Harvest key, I stood in line to eat at O'sheehans once again. Finally, I make my way to the head of the line. The lady sits the couple in front of me then tells me there full, strike three. I'm starring at a half dozen empty tables plus a few empty bar stools on the restaurant side. I point them out and she says, sorry were full. But you can sit on the bar side and order from the red (limited) menu. I never understood that either. The different menus between the bar and the restaurant side for ordering???? This time I left with the question in my mind just what my daily gratuities are actually covering? I did drop a note in the suggestion box at the front desk asking them to update the daily paper as to when O'sheehans actually starts taking lunch orders. Finally I did get the opportunity to eat there a couple of times, the food is good with generous portions.

 

More to come

[ilovetotravel1977]

The salad bar was a disappointment to me since I have salad at least once daily or more at home. Very few offerings other than lettuce and a few regulars. What I didn't like was the salad dressing, none of it.

 

On our Escape cruise, that salad bar saved me from gaining ridiculous amounts of weight LOL I thought it had decent options. Maybe the GA was lacking in variety...

[reaperman]

Now I will talk about our room #8174 what a great location. A regular balcony room with a queen size bed. The bed was most likely the most comfortable bed I've vacationed on. The pillows, 2 per side, were larger than standard hotel pillows and very homey. I slept great with no complaints. Our room steward was very friendly and efficient. He remembered our names since day one and was always helpful in needed. One error he made was partly my fault. One day I noticed 2 sales slips beside the rooms telephone. They were charges ($26) from our mini bar (refrigerator) despite never consuming anything from it. One day I took 2 bottles of water out of the refrigerator and set them aside to make space for our own water bottles. I later took our bottles out and never put "theirs" back. But their bottles were on the floor right next to the refrigerator. Somehow, he must have figured we drank them, even though they were not opened. And perhaps threw them away and refilled the frige. Funny thing is I was charged for 4 items, not two. At first I didn't realize the charges were from my refrigerator. So I went to guest services and told them the charges weren't mine. The clerk explained the charges were from my room and I told him the story. He said he would remove the charges. Well, he only removed half of the charges I found out the last morning of the cruise when I got my final bill. I just paid it instead of standing in line forever for $13. Overall, the room is adequate size for two, three people may be a bit tight at times. The bathroom was efficiently sized with a decent size shower. The faucet on the sink needs to be centered with the middle of the sink instead of sitting off to one side. Because the faucet sits too far away from the sink so there is no way of washing hands without slopping water over the counter top. The toilet paper is about the thinnest I've yet to see anywhere. So no issues with the room, the balcony for my needs was big enough despite being very narrow.

 

The onboard entertainment was a little different in the sense you must book shows in order to see them without hoping for a vacant seat. This is where one gets the idea the ship is out of balance with the amount of passengers vs overall space. Its the first ship I've sailed without a two story theater. The theater is large enough to accommodate 800, with two main shows taking up four nights. On past cruises, our nightly regiment was to eat supper and take in a theater show. This was thrown off kilter this cruise. We saw the two main shows, both very good, burn the floor and the million dollar quartet. Plus the welcome and goodbye show on the first and last nights. In between nights we managed to see the comedian in a smaller lounge called headliners. Headliners is a smallish lounge in comparison to what it should be to event the second largest performance on the ship. I don't know its capacity, but I'd guess maybe 200. In my opinion, the Getaway is in dire need of a decent sized lounge to hold any kind of performance. There are far too many "for pay" restaurants and a few smaller lounges that simply take up too much space. A few lounges we went into had fewer than 20 people gathered for the night, bliss and fat cats come to mind. On the Equinox, was a large lounge on the rear of the ship that was triple the size of headliners on the Getaway. A venue such as this would relive some pressure off headliners and allow more passengers to partake in the ships entertainment. My suggestion would be to overtake the space where Cagneys and Moderno are located. Relocate those restaurants to a smaller area to provide one decent size lounge in addition to the main theater. Until something like this happens, the ship will never give the passengers a good sense of overall space. When passengers miss out on entertainment due to lack of space and not knowing ahead of time they should have booked an event, the blame goes strait to the cruise line. Many passengers I mingled with were frustrated by this arrangement.

 

Before cruising I read the pool area is another area lacking space due to its size. This time I'm on the side with NCL. I've never been a cruise that had a pool large enough for the entire ship to sit along its shores. The upper deck is rather big with a lot of chairs. There is a second pool for children which is nice, they need a pool more that the adults. The children actually spend time splashing around and using the pool. The adults mainly want to sit on a chair and drink. There were always plenty of chairs available on the upper sun deck as well as in the h2o spice area for those who didn't want to fight the crowds. For that reason, I see no need for passengers to fight over those few, coveted Vibe passes. The running track is located one deck up from the pool, deck 16. The track is small (3' wide) and is wedged between a row of lounge chairs and the side of the ship. It is said to be 660' per lap or 8 laps/mile. Whether it is or not that distance I don't know. To me its seems smaller but it really doesn't matter. If you want to use the track I recommend being up and running before 6am or plan on dodging pedestrians as part of your morning regiment. I'm a early riser and found putting in a couple miles before 6 am a real treat. Afterwards I could slip into the garden buffet for breakfast without lines of any kind. Eating breakfast before 7:30 am should be adequate for avoiding crowds most days.

 

 

I wont go over ports of call since they are what you make of them. I liked the itinerary and all of the ports. At first I questioned costa maya as we pulled in. It was windy and overcast as we got off the ship. We got on a small trolley and headed to wherever everyone else on the trolley was going. After a short 10 minute ride we pulled into town. What a cool little town with shops on one side of the oversized sidewalk that stretched about a mile. And the beach dotted with tons of umbrellas/chairs and endless massage tables intertwined with the open air restaurants. My wife ordered up a $20 dollar, one hour long massage. As I choose the Krazy lobster to eat lunch and spend the afternoon. My lunch fare included beach time, umbrella/chairs plus internet for the entire day. It didn't matter what I ordered as long as I ate there, everything else was included. The waiter even said if I want to take out a kayak, no extra charge. After my wifes massage was over she joined me. The water there was calm due to a reef our several hundred feet braking up waves. When our afternoon ended it was only a $2pp taxi ride back to the ship.

 

Overall, our vacation was great. Vacations are what you make of them. Some of the space limitations on the ship weren't accepted well by my wife. She says she wont cruise on a ship of that size again. Its not that the ship is physically longer than most. But rather more decks equal more cabins and passengers in basically the same size ship that has a few less decks and a thousand less passengers.

[Huntingdon1701]

Thanks for giving a balanced review. Some useful tips there about avoiding crowds for when I sail on her in May.

[pixidustmom]

Thanks for sharing your experience. What was the cost for the Krazy Lobster?

[reaperman]

Thanks for sharing your experience. What was the cost for the Krazy Lobster?

 

The cost depended on what you ordered. I had a whole red snapper for $18. I could have eaten cheaper. Your afternoon stay at Krazy lobster isn't a set price, rather as long as you order something your invited to stay.

[reaperman]

One other note worth mentioning. The first stop on our cruise was Roatan, Tuesday morning 10 am dock. Well we encountered some nasty winds on Monday thru Tuesday. Ok, I'm kind of a nerd but I've been traveling with a GPS for over 20 years. It helps me keep sort of a digital diary, not only showing me where we have been. But also the date. Starting already on Monday, I was noticing according to where we were and how far we have yet to travel. There was not much chance of making it on time. I was scratching my head trying to figure out if my calculations were incorrect. Then Tuesday morning approx. 3 hrs before our scheduled arrival, the gps was showing me we had at over 6 hours left before we would reach Roatan. I went to 6th floor and looked at the big screen tv that generally keeps live updates to how long before arrivals will be. That was showing 200 minutes to arrival. Finally, around 8:30am, the captain announced we would be arriving 3 hours late or approx. 1pm instead of 10am. He blamed a medical emergency in Miami (we left the port a hour late) and high winds for the delay. These things happen. Now the passengers were restless having to kill an additional 3 hours. Our port time was extended by 1 1/2 hrs. Now, if my $200 gps knew the ship wasn't going to arrive on time the day before. I would think the ships multi million dollar navigation system also knew. Many passengers, felt we should have been notified earlier than we were. That would have prevented some of the restlessness.