NCL Getaway Oct. 14 Review

[Warm Breezes]

About us:  This was DH and my 18th cruise, 5th on NCL.  We are both 52, from West MI, and this cruise was to celebrate our 30th anniversary.  We splurged and booked an Aft balcony (cabin 9918) using our Cruise Next certificates we purchased on our NCL Escape cruise last year with the UBP and SDP.  To this date, the NCL Escape cruise is still one of our favorites. 

 

Pre-cruise:  We flew into FLL and rented a Mustang Convertible for the day.  We drove along A1A South to Miami and visited Casino Miami which was next door to our hotel Embassy Suites-Miami.  They were kind enough to let us leave with $80 of their money.  We returned our car to the Miami airport and took the hotel shuttle back to our hotel.  Embassy Suites is one of our go to hotels when vacationing.  Love the large rooms, managers receptions, and hot breakfasts.  This hotel lived up to our expectations.  We took a shuttle from the hotel to the cruise port for $10 pp and arrived at the cruise terminal around 11:00.  There were no lines to check in and embarkation was relatively smooth.  We were in Group 15.  

Edited October 29, 2018 by Warm Breezes

[Warm Breezes]

Our Room:  As mentioned above we splurged and booked cabin 9918 an Aft Balcony.  Well worth the upgrade.  Absolutely loved our room and our room steward kept it nice and clean with ice daily.  Ours is the room with open slider....must have taken the picture while he was cleaning our room.  There was a suite next us that our neighbors let us tour.  It was a beautiful room with a huge balcony but I wouldn't be able to justify paying twice the price for the two of us.

 

Edited October 29, 2018 by Warm Breezes

[GA Dave]

Following.

[Warm Breezes]

Food:  I can always find something I enjoy at NCL's buffet.  I can't say the same for Carnival as I can rarely find anything that even interests me there.  The only thing I wasn't too fond of was there deserts.  While I enjoyed many of the deserts on the Escape it seems Getaway was back to the same old blah deserts I remembered from previous NCL cruises.  DH and I both enjoyed the food we had at O'Sheehan's.  The wings were fantastic.  We only ate in the MDR one time.  I thought the food we had was very good.  I loved the baked brie salad.  For our SDP we ate at Cagney's 2x and Moderno 1x.  I have to say that I am not a meat eater but DH is.  He absolutely loved Cagney's on the Escape.  Getaway's Cagney's did not live up to his expectations.  He was disappointed in Prime Rib and Steak.  My pork chops on the other hand were great and cooked to perfection.  In Moderno's I could live on their Brazilian rolls and Pineapple....DH said the meat was great too.  We had great service at all of our meals.

[Warm Breezes]

Some Pic's.

[Warm Breezes]

Entertainment:  The shows on this cruise were some of the best I have seen.  IMHO they were better than the shows we saw on the Escape.  As a dance mom I was really impressed with Burn the Floor.  The dancers were wonderful and to go a full hour with the fast pace of the dances and quick changes....I was amazed at their stamina.  Million Dollar Quartet was also great.  One of our roll call members son played Carl Perkins and I have to say he and the others did a great job.  I enjoyed the flash back to my youth.  My Dad was big listener to all of this music I listened to it all the time growing up.  The comedians were good.  For some reason we didn't get a chance to see Howl at the Moon.  I'm sorry I missed that as I enjoyed it on Epic and Escape.  We made it up to Spice H20 for the 70's/80's party.  It was a little bit of a let down....but that could have been because I was coming down with a cold which I still am not fully over.

[Warm Breezes]

St. Thomas:  We have been to St. Thomas quite a few times in our past cruise but have never done the Sky Lift.  We decided that we were going to do that on this cruise.  Cost is $21 pp.  We just walked up to it from the port and purchased the wrist bands.  We had to wait for a passing shower before we went up the stairs for the ride.  Beautiful views from up there.  Afterwards we did a little shopping and then back to the ship to enjoy an empty Spice H20 hot tubs and grotto.

[Warm Breezes]

Photos from St. Thomas.

[Warm Breezes]

Tortola:  We had been to Tortola once before and did the Dolphin experience.  Our sailing was the first NCL ship to return to Tortola since the hurricanes last year (our Escape cruise was re-routed to the Western Itinerary due to them).  We decided to get an island tour from the pier.  They were easy to locate and were $20 pp.  While there some glimpses of the hurricane damage, the island was absolutely beautiful.  I thoroughly enjoyed this tour.  

[Warm Breezes]

Tortola:

[Warm Breezes]

Nassau:  My least favorite of the islands we visited.  We got off the ship briefly and then went back on to enjoy the ship.  

[Warm Breezes]

Nassau:

[Warm Breezes]

UBP:  We had the ultimate beverage package.  The drinks were delicious.  I especially enjoyed the Raspberry Guava Mojito, Havanas and Bananas, BBC, Mudslides, and Miami Vices.  There was never a wait at the bars and the bartenders had no issues filling our tumbles with pop when we asked.  We brought our own reusable plastic straws and were glad we did since they did not have any straws on-board.

 

Debarkation:  We chose the last time slot for debarkation.  They called our color almost an hour early.  We went down the Aft elevators and the line started right by our elevators and merged with another line from the Front elevators by the Casino.  It seemed like a huge line but it went quickly.  There was no stopping.  It kept moving.  When we got to Customs there was no line at all.  We walked right up to a customs agent.  Very smooth.  

 

Post-Cruise:  We had SAS Transportation take us to FLL Car Rental.  $15 pp.  From there we rented a Mustang for the day.  We were supposed to meet up with my Sister-in-law and her husband but they were both fighting colds/flu so we  ended up going to lunch at Duffy's to watch our Lions beat the Miami Dolphins and then traveling up A1A to our hotel for the night at Embassy Suites Deerfield Beach.  We stayed here once before and loved it.  It did not disappoint.  We had a beautiful ocean front room to celebrate our anniversary night.

[Warm Breezes]

Embassy Suites Deerfield Beach:

[Warm Breezes]

Final thoughts:  Loved the cruise but liked the Escape slightly more.  Can't really say why since I loved the entertainment better on Getaway and loved the Aft balcony which was awesome.  It is possible it was due to the cold I caught half way through.   It seemed there were a lot of complainers on-board too.  I felt bad for some of the bartenders and wait staff as the complaints seemed to be pretty petty.  DH and I are go with the flow kind of people and we just shook our heads at some of the unhappy people we witnessed and overheard.  Cheer up people...you are on a cruise.  

 

PS:  A week after getting home DH and I were able to snag a free cruise on myVegas on Facebook.  NCL Gem here we come.    

[ludicrous_speed]

Great review! We were on the same sailing and it was nice to see your pictures. Thank you!

[PRgymnast]

What were people complaining about?  Also, loved this pic.

[Warm Breezes]

2 hours ago, PRgymnast said:

What were people complaining about?  Also, loved this pic.

A few examples were a woman at the Atrium bar complaining that her Pain Killer drink didn’t taste like the last one she had.  He was bending over backwards trying to please her but he couldn’t do anything to to make her happy.  A lady in Cagney’s sent her steak from her Lobster Bisque back 2x and then her steak from her Surf and Turf 2x and complained about almost everything else.  Wish we weren’t sitting so close to their table as they were really unhappy people.  My Step Dad was a complainer like that and I like to avoid those type people as much as possible...Especially when I am on vacation.  I really felt bad for a bartender at O’Sheehan’s who had a man who was extremely mad and swearing at him because he was limited to giving him 2 drinks at a time with his UBP and he wanted to take 3 with him.  Really unnecessary drama IMHO.

[Warm Breezes]

2 hours ago, ludicrous_speed said:

Great review! We were on the same sailing and it was nice to see your pictures. Thank you!

Thanks.  I really enjoyed reading your review too.

[kmurph22]

thank you for the review, we are on the Getaway in about 4 weeks.  She looks beautiful.  

 

Also upvote for the use of the word "pop"  (midwesterner at heart here).

[SenatorsFan]

Great review and pictures! We were on this cruise too, second time on Getaway and we also were on Escape last Oct. Everything felt very familiar and we really enjoyed our cruise, but I still think Escape gets a slight edge for me. We thought Million Dollar Quartet was amazing and I had many Raspberry Guava Mojitos, too.  And, speaking of complainers, the worst I saw was a woman at La Cucina who kept demanding more cheese, complaining about the sauce, etc. Our waiter did his best with her but she was truly out of control.

Heather

[Warm Breezes]

25 minutes ago, SenatorsFan said:

Great review and pictures! We were on this cruise too, second time on Getaway and we also were on Escape last Oct. Everything felt very familiar and we really enjoyed our cruise, but I still think Escape gets a slight edge for me. We thought Million Dollar Quartet was amazing and I had many Raspberry Guava Mojitos, too.  And, speaking of complainers, the worst I saw was a woman at La Cucina who kept demanding more cheese, complaining about the sauce, etc. Our waiter did his best with her but she was truly out of control.

Heather

LOL...when DH were discussing the complainers post cruise we decided we must have been sailing with quite a few “entitled” cruisers.   There were definitely great people on our cruise too...like those in our meet and greet and our neighbors were awesome.  Just a few bad apples that make you want to roll your eyes and shake your head....I don’t think I saw any complainers on our Escape cruise.  

[Warm Breezes]

2 hours ago, kmurph22 said:

thank you for the review, we are on the Getaway in about 4 weeks.  She looks beautiful.  

 

Also upvote for the use of the word "pop"  (midwesterner at heart here).

Is there any other way to describe Diet Pepsi other than Pop?😉

[jimbri]

Great review.  Especially enjoyed your photos of St Thomas.

[Just Jo]

We, too, were on this cruise with you.  And we also preferred last year's Escape cruise more for a myriad of reasons.  Lovely pictures!