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Our Mardi Gras Getaway on the Getaway (2/23-3/1/2020)


bkcoogler
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We recently took a seven-day cruise on the Norwegian Getaway out of New Orleans, with an itinerary that visited: Cozumel, Roatan, Harvest Caye, and Costa Maya. This trip report will probably take a few days to fully write, but will cover what I continue to feel was the best cruise and vacation experience we’ve had to date.

 

I don’t have scans of the daily activities, I have very few pictures to include and we spent a LOT of time in the casino – so we didn’t spend time on water slides, comedy shows or trivia. What I can offer is our account of the mainstage shows, the casino, our food and beverage experiences, ports, excursions and a reasonable amount of snark and whit.  

 

About Us

My partner and I are both in our 30’s, no kids (but plenty of pets back home), and currently live in the Seattle, Washington area. This is my partner’s 3rd cruise (first time on NCL) and my 7th (second time on NCL, previous cruise on the Jewel). We chose this particular itinerary based on cost, location, casino reviews, ports that we hadn’t visited together, and to escape the cool, wet climate that we tend to loathe by February of each year.

 

Pre-Stay

We flew into Houston to stay with my family for a few days and drove to New Orleans the morning before embarkation. This cruise was in the midst of Mardi Gras and we booked back in December. Upon booking, the hotel selection was extremely limited, and the rooms available were RIDICULOUSLY priced. I was able to score a room at the Embassy Suites near Julia St Pier in New Orleans with some points from my Chase credit card – SCORE!

 

Traffic was complete madness! Though we honestly expected nothing less. We arrived to New Orleans around noon and it took us roughly two hours to navigate to the Fulton Place parking garage. There was loads of confusion at the garage, with the attendant but in the end, we paid roughly $160 for the entire stay (8 days) in the garage. It was a very easy walk to our hotel and again from the ship when we disembarked (though they did offer a shuttle).

 

I can’t recommend Embassy Suites enough for a pre-cruise stay out of New Orleans. The staff was friendly, our room was very spacious and during Mardi Gras, they were right on the parade route for the nighttime Endymion parade. We checked into our room, dropped off our stuff and went out to Canal street to explore. On our way, we found that the Tucks parade was in full swing. We joined in, caught TONS of throws and had such an amazing time. During the parade, we found a bar to duck into – there we had our first of many drinks that our liver still hates us for and some great views of the spectacular floats that ventured down the street in front of us.

 

We decided to walk over to Harrah’s and check out the casino. There’s not much to say there, we donated our money, walked the spacious casino and had a few more drinks. By this time, it was time to head back, as the Endymion parade was going to start within the next hour. We went back to our room and freshened up, then headed down to the hotel bar to grab a drink to take outside and watch the parade.

 

To our surprise, the hotel bar had happy hour from 5-7p and were giving away very potent hurricanes in a little plastic cup that you could take outside. YES PLEASE! There we waited, and waited…. Waited some more and come 7p we were coming up on the time our dinner reservations were scheduled for. We had 7:30p reservations at Mulate’s just a couple of blocks away, but we didn’t want to miss the parade. We decided to head over early and see if they could get us in 30 minutes before our scheduled time. Sure enough, the could and sat us immediately. Mulate’s was UHMAZING! I don’t want to hear your comments if you have anything negative to say about this establishment, the fried gator, crawfish prepared three different ways and seafood platter were fresh and absolutely delicious. Our server was incredibly attentive, friendly and one of the highlights to our experience. We did notice that by 8:30p (as we were wrapping up our meal), the parade hadn’t started. Our server came by and informed us that yet another person had lost their life during the parade, and that all the floats after the incident had been cancelled. What a shame, it was sad that this happened again… just a few nights after a similar situation. We walked back to our hotel, and watched the first 13 floats before heading to bed. I can’t imagine how amazing Endymion is in it’s entirety, what we were able to see was simply breathtaking. We had such an incredible time during our pre-cruise stay in New Orleans.

 

Next Up – Embarkation, our experience with Priority Access, O’Sheehan’s and first impressions.

Edited by bkcoogler
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Day 1 – Embarkation Day!!!

We both wake up really early in our daily life, and today was no different. I opened my eyes as my partner was saying “I think the ship just pulled in”. I knew he was teasing me and mildly mocking my obsession, so I quickly went to our hotel room balcony, sure enough… there she was – The Getaway. This would be the biggest ship I’ve sailed on thus far, and the only time I had sailed from a port other than Galveston or Houston (back when Houston had a port). Cruise day for me is something really special and this was meant to be a combination birthday/Christmas present rolled into one.

 

Last year, I had spent over a week in New Orleans for a work conference and during my time, I had my first experience with Café Du Monde. I was eager to share that experience with my partner, so I convinced him to spend the morning over at the Café Du Monde located in the Riverwalk Outlet, just next to the port. So we ventured out first to drop off the bag of Mardi Gras throws we’d acquired the previous day, to our car parked at Fulton Place. Then we walked over to the Riverwalk Outlet… I had no idea where we were going. We eventually followed the trail of powdered sugar and wafts of coffee to the café. It was as heavenly as I remembered, though seriously… how do you eat a beignet without getting that stuff EVERYWHERE! We took our coffee to-go and walked outside to find ourselves face to aft with our home for the next seven days. We enjoyed the morning walking around and gawking at just how massive the Getaway was.

 

At this point, it was nearing 9:30a and I wanted to head back to our room, so that we could collect our things and go check-in. I had purchased Priority Access and really wanted to take advantage of it, if possible. I figured things would be hectic, given that it was Mardi Gras and guests would arrive to port earlier than usual. By the time we made the short walk (less than 5 minutes) from the Embassy Suites to the Julia St Terminal, it was roughly 10:45a. We walked straight in and was through security within 10 minutes. The Priority Access check-in line was longer than the general one, so we proceeded to that area and within 10 minutes, we were through the check-in process. Another 10 minutes and we were boarding the ship, Priority Access was called just after Platinum group.

 

My only other Norwegian experience was a few years back, aboard the Jewel out of the port of Houston. On that cruise, I remember how FUN the embarkation was, with a balloon arch, the entertainment crew out dancing and welcoming you onboard, loud music and a slew of Nickelodeon characters. Look – I don’t have kids, but dang it – I love some Spongebob. I knew that Norwegian had ditched Nickelodeon since my last trip with them, but I was hoping they would still welcome us aboard in Style – nope. The gangway/bridge thing dropped us off just before entering a side door, the washy-washy people were there to ensure we sanitized and away we went – down a corridor and into the…. Casino?! Wait, that’s odd. By this point I had watched 1000+ hours of YouTube content from various people that make a career out of cruising (seriously, where do I sign up) and I knew not to expect the classic grand atrium, but I honestly expected a little more of a wow moment than this. Oh well! We headed off to the paradise of cheeseburgers, to get our taste of legendary nachos at Margaritaville! I know, but there’s so much free food on board… why would you waste your money, why go and get an overpriced burger, blah blah blah. I get it, it’s not for everyone. Though, we don’t cruise more than once a year, and more often it’s every couple of years. So when we cruise, we aren’t frugal and prefer to do the things we’d like – without really thinking about the added cost. I prepay gratuities, we pay for the drink package (or choose it as part of the free at sea promo) and opted for the dining package. So the extras that we do while on our cruise are just that, extras. We rounded the corner after passing what has to be one of the smallest pool decks I’ve ever seen, climbed the stairs and there it was – Margaritaville! And just below the iconic sign was a small printed sign that nearly broke my heart “Margaritaville is closed while we work to open American Diner”. Nooooooooooooo. We had missed it by a week. Goodbye Cheeseburger in Paradise, goodbye volcano nachos… oh well again. I wasn’t going to let it spoil my fun, so we headed down to O’sheehan’s.

 

So we got to O’sheehan’s, waited in a very short line to check-in with the host and was sat within a couple minutes. This ladies, gentlemen and others is where I began to notice what would be my LEAST favorite part of this cruise. Now remember, I said this was the best vacation I’ve had to date… that does not mean that there weren’t aspects of the trip that I wouldn’t have changed. As we were sitting and waiting, we noticed that the venue had filled up pretty rapidly and there were only a couple of servers assisting the lot of us. We chatted as we waited, fully expecting service to be slower than it would be at any other point of our trip. Embarkation day is easily one of the most taxing days for the crew, and we get that. But clearly others didn’t. We watched as people complained, stomped away, refused to follow the rules of waiting to be seated and just found tables and sat themselves, and gave the crew a really hard time. I’m originally from Texas (southeast to be exact), I’m overly polite, like to get to know others and I generally have some patience. I get it, I’ve travelled extensively and understand that different walks of life have different expectations, but come on people – get a grip. If your hotdog doesn’t show up within ten minutes, you’ll survive. That drink you ordered, was ordered at the same time as two dozen others… you’ll get yours in due time. I feel like I witnessed the worst in people on this cruise, I’ll share some examples later on in this review. We got our hotdogs, a couple of rounds of margaritas and by this time, my poor partner was dying for some nicotine.

 

He’s a smoker, I am not. So, we ventured off to Spice H2O, where I knew there was a smoking section. As we got up to Spice H2O, we realized there was a small section against one side where there were ash trays and it was already packed with smokers. He did his thing, I ordered more drinks and we vowed to look later, to see if we could find alternative areas for him to partake in a cig when needed.

 

It was about 2:30p when they announced that our rooms were ready. We took the elevators down to deck 9 aft, where we found our cabin – 9318. Our cabin was an aft balcony, and baby… that balcony didn’t disappoint. I’ve had aft balconies on Carnival, regular balconies on NCL and even an Aft Wrap Balcony once on Carnival… but this was hands down up there as one of the best of the bunch. The cabin itself felt small, which was fine and the bathroom was pretty nice, with a shower door – which I appreciated. Our cabin was decorated for my birthday (I believe the bday package was ordered by my partner), there was a cake and some balloons – it was all really nice. We had ordered the water package and there were 12 half liter cartons of the new eco-friendly water NCL has switched to. I was hoping to find our room steward, to ask that he empty out the mini-fridge… but he was nowhere to be found. We spent some time hanging out on the balcony before being called away for Muster.

 

Up next – Muster, “Grumpy Old Men” in real life, Casino – night 1, and Ocean Blue

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So did you’ll board on deck 7 ?  You mentioned going thru the casino right away.  When we sailed n the breakaway we boarded on deck 6 (guest services, etc) but debarked on deck 7 trailing all thru the casino.

you are correct, no welcome aboard anymore. Nobody to point you to where you want to go. Crazy isn’t it.

will be on Getaway march 8th.

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10 hours ago, cruisinmeme said:

So did you’ll board on deck 7 ?  You mentioned going thru the casino right away.  When we sailed n the breakaway we boarded on deck 6 (guest services, etc) but debarked on deck 7 trailing all thru the casino.

you are correct, no welcome aboard anymore. Nobody to point you to where you want to go. Crazy isn’t it.

will be on Getaway march 8th.


We did indeed board on 7, through the casino. When we disembarked, we wound through the casino and the line filtered us past O’sheehans and out the mid-forward doors past the bowling lanes on 7.

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17 hours ago, zencruisers said:

Looking forward to reading more. We are on The Getaway on April 12th. Thank you for taking the time write a review.


I’m sure you will have an amazing time! Thanks for reading so far. 

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3 hours ago, bkcoogler said:


We did indeed board on 7, through the casino. When we disembarked, we wound through the casino and the line filtered us past O’sheehans and out the mid-forward doors past the bowling lanes on 7.

Wow that is a very unimpressive entrance to the ship. Anxious to see what happens for Saturday morning. Nice thing about coming on at deck 6 is straight shot to dining room.

thanks

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For anyone following along, I apologize in the gap before getting the next section out. This virus madness has resulted in mandatory work from home, and life in general has been chaotic since returning from our vacation.

 

Now on to the remainder of our embarkation day...

 

If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say something like “better grab your buns for the mustard drill” or “Do we get burgers at the mustard drill?” – I’d have something like two or three dollars. I’m going to say it now, and I’ll say it again throughout this trip report, this Norwegian crew was ON POINT with organization, that was our experience. Muster was no different, we showed up to our muster point in the Tropicana, they scanned each of our cards to ensure we came, we sat as they did their thing, and then we were released. Yet, the grumpy old men complained… and complained… and complained. It was if I was on set with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, who were curmudgeonly remarking to every aspect of the cruise. At one point, I already had enough and said something quite loudly to one of my table mates (who had remarked at how nice it was that we weren’t lined up at the life boats, as she had done on other cruise lines) “I know, isn’t it amazing how smooth and organized this MANDATORY safety drill is. It sure is nice that we’re in this comfy chair and not lined up outside under the lifeboats!”. Alas, the grumpy folks were allowed to leave early, as the crew graciously asked if those that needed special assistance wanted a head start. Again, just another example of how well organized and thoughtful this crew was. We stuck back for a few minutes, as our table mates passionately made suggestions of where to eat in New Orleans, I really wish I could remember their names. They were born and raised in Louisiana, the husband had worked in restaurants for over 50 years and they were so eager to share their passion for the local cuisine. They were wonderful, and I wish we’d ran into them again on the cruise, I would have loved to spend more time getting to know them.

 

By the time we left the muster area, the seas had been parted and we were free to move along easily. We made our way forward and took the elevators up to the Spice H2O area. My other half had his nicotine fix, as I struggled to find a space to watch as we pushed off and started to set sail. If this was any indication for what was to come, we were going to have to find the other smoking areas or he’d be left to do this on his own.


 

-Pause-

Ok let’s go ahead and get this out of the way! So that I don’t harp on it further… this was the second pain point beyond the negative and rude cruisers we experienced. Again, I’m not a smoker… but I definitely believe there should be comfortable, spacious and accessible outdoor areas for smokers to go. As we discovered on our second day, there was a second space near the pool area that consisted of a plexi-glass semi enclosed area that at most could house 20 people and a third space, which was about half of the casino (while playing). These areas were NOT enough, and frankly were poorly designed for non-smokers. On my previous Carnival cruises, and my cruise aboard the Jewel… this was never an issue. Those ships had entire sides of a lower deck, where smokers could go and sit in comfortable chairs in a less-populated area where the wind would help to circulate the air. Instead on the Getaway, the areas Norwegian has designated were in small areas that could not accommodate what I assume to be at least 25% of the ship’s population.   

 

-Now back to our regular scheduled programming

We left Spice H20 and headed down to the casino to see if it was open. Sure enough, it was! We signed up for our players cards; which aren’t required to play, but are quite convenient since you can leave it in the machine and hand your room card to the bar wait staff when they come around asking if you’d like a beverage. Just beyond the cashier and player’s club desk, was a table set up for those wanting to sign up for tournaments. I paid $25 and signed up for the first round of slot tournaments, which were to be held on our first sea day (the next day). The very nice staff that signed me up told me several times “don’t lose your receipt, you’ll need this to play in the tournament”. I tucked it away in my pocket and we ventured off to the land of flashy lights, loud bells and the overwhelming smell of smoke. Almost instantly after sitting down at one of the handful of Lock it Link slot machines, a friendly bar wait staff came up, greeted us and offered a drink. Yes, please!

 

That night, is when we met our two Vacation Heroes. They went above and beyond to check in on us, make sure that we had everything we needed, provide ample amounts of encouragement and conversation, and were just overall amazing! Sandra – the first bar waitress we met, and later on Louie – a fun, sassy and attentive slot attendant, were the highlights to our cruise and casino experience. Even though we didn’t do well in our gambling ventures that night, we had a blast as we got to know them and have fun playing some slots.

 

We quickly made our way back to our cabin, to see if we could catch our room steward, shower and change before we made our way to our dinner reservations at Ocean Blue. Since we booked this cruise rather late (compared to the 1+ year I normally book out), the availability of reservation times in some of the specialty dining restaurants was pretty limited. We both love seafood and really wanted to give Ocean Blue a try; unfortunately, the only time available after booking our cruise, was at 9:00p. This was way too late for us, but I booked it anyway, thinking that we could always go find a snack prior to dinner. Thankfully, when we boarded the Getaway, I checked the app and sure enough – times had opened up and we were able to book a 7:30p reservation. It was our time to head down, so we showed up to the host to check in. I went to grab my room card and realized it wasn’t in my pocket as I had thought. Where had I left it? Sure enough, the casino. My partner found it lying at the last slot I was at – another reason to use a playing card eh? (leaving things in the casino was a trend on this cruise – too much alcohol and fun maybe?).

 

Ocean Blue

We had changed into nicer(ish) clothes, button up shirts with slacks; as we thought that some of the specialty dining restaurants may require that. This was hardly the case, and we noticed this more and more as we progressed through our vacation – WE LOVE CASUAL! Many people on these boards question if Freestyle cruising is still a thing, in the age of reservations and such. I am here to say – YES! Yes, it is! We could have been in shorts and a t-shirt and wouldn’t have felt out of place. I do not understand why Carnival insists on formal nights! It is easily my least favorite part of cruising on Carnival, a line that is known as the FUN ship line, forcing people to dress up on two nights! When cruising Carnival in the past, we would just go to the buffet on those nights, as we never really enjoyed this aspect of the cruise.

 

So, we had a nice table for two, near the windows as we sailed down the Mississippi River. We both ordered the scallops with pork belly, and I added a wedge salad for us to share. The scallops were cooked to perfection, but the pork belly just clashed. My suggestion, just eat them separately. The wedge salad was great, though massive… so it was a great app to share. For our entrées, I had the seafood platter, but substituted the fries and coleslaw for brussels sprouts and au gratin potatoes and he had the Red Snapper with lobster mac and asparagus. Honestly, the meal was pretty good. My seafood medley and his snapper were good (though not great), the star of the show for me were the brussels sprouts; they were a perfect balance of acid and sweet. He said the lobster mac nearly ruined the dinner for him, he said it was really gritty and the lobster just had an off taste to him. We had the dessert in a jar and a key lime pie, both were ok… but nothing that was memorable. The highlight to our entire meal, was a few moments… as we sailed down the Mississippi River, there were fireworks set off along the banks. We assumed this had something to do with Mardi Gras, we thoroughly enjoyed it as though it was meant for us.

 

After dinner, we had a few more drinks in the Casino and called it a night.

 

Next up… our first day at SEA.

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