Getaway - Long time cruiser, first time NCL review Feb 11-18, 2018

Do you honestly believe that?

Do you honestly believe that if someone watched an empty chair for 20 minutes then sat in that chair for 20 minutes, that same person would get up if John returned?

The OP might and I have commended them for that but the vast majority of people would not....which is sad since John has done nothing wrong and doesn't deserve to lose his chair.

 

 

You are using the wrongs of the chair hogs to justify the wrongs of the people who would move John's items and take his chair.

 

John has done nothing wrong.

John is not a chair hog.

John should not have his items moved and shouldn't lose his chair.

I will say it... according to NCL's rules, you shouldn't move John's stuff nor should he lose his chair. But it wasn't John's chair and stuff... it was Bob's and Bob was a chair hog who left a towel for hours, so the point is moot. Chairs near the pool tend to be a real commodity and a big bone of contention for so many.

If the world were a perfect place, people would always do the right thing. I have been beside chairs with an odd item on them for hours and hours. I've seen things removed and pissy folks returning hours later wondering why? I think all we can really do is try and be a good person and do the right thing ourselves. If I get up to get a drink or use the restroom or go in the pool, I'll leave my stuff. However, if I leave the area to eat or watch an activity or take a nap, I always take all my belongings with me because I wouldn't feel right keeping a chair I have no plan on using for quite some time. I'm not the type that wants to be by the "action" though, so I'm okay finding another chair if/when I return.

Life's short... I'm gonna have a margarita, listen to my own music, and be a decent person.

I will say it... according to NCL's rules, you shouldn't move John's stuff nor should he lose his chair. But it wasn't John's chair and stuff... it was Bob's and Bob was a chair hog who left a towel for hours, so the point is moot.

No, the point is that John and Bob are 2 different people who are doing 2 different things. Bob is doing something wrong while John is not. Should John and Bob be treated the same? No.

Chairs near the pool tend to be a real commodity and a big bone of contention for so many.

Yet, nobody can explain WHY chairs near the pool are so much better than the chairs that aren't near the pool.

If the world were a perfect place, people would always do the right thing.

That's only possible if people know what the right thing is. If someone thinks that 20 minutes is "long enough" and moves John's items, that person is wrong. Your post even stated that John's items shouldn't be moved.

If I get up to get a drink or use the restroom or go in the pool, I'll leave my stuff. However, if I leave the area to eat or watch an activity or take a nap, I always take all my belongings with me because I wouldn't feel right keeping a chair I have no plan on using for quite some time.

You are free to leave and take your items but you are also free to leave your items for a specified amount of time. Anyone within that time shouldn't have their items moved. Those who are outside of the specified time are wrong.

No, the point is that John and Bob are 2 different people who are doing 2 different things. Bob is doing something wrong while John is not. Should John and Bob be treated the same? No.

 

 

Yet, nobody can explain WHY chairs near the pool are so much better than the chairs that aren't near the pool.

 

 

That's only possible if people know what the right thing is. If someone thinks that 20 minutes is "long enough" and moves John's items, that person is wrong. Your post even stated that John's items shouldn't be moved.

 

 

You are free to leave and take your items but you are also free to leave your items for a specified amount of time. Anyone within that time shouldn't have their items moved. Those who are outside of the specified time are wrong.

Life's too short for this... Like Pitbull says, I'm free to do whatever I want. I'll leave it at that.

Life's too short for this... Like Pitbull says, I'm free to do whatever I want. I'll leave it at that.

...and that is the exact same mentality that leads to people getting up at the crack of dawn to reserve several chairs that they won't use for hours.

The "...ignore the rules, do whatever I want..." people are the problem. :rolleyes:

Really enjoyed your review! Quite entertaining to read. I also happen to agree with just about all of it, especially your comments on the odd ship design (atrium & tiny cluttered pool deck). Personally I think these ships are poorly designed, especially when compared to the competition. I didn't have the smoke issues or the unhappy crew, but it doesn't surprise me one bit.

My saving grace on GETAWAY was Vibe. It's a shame you have to pay for a bit of peace and quiet and the ability to get a deck chair, but it was worth every cent in the end.

We were on the Getaway a couple months prior (over the Holidays); Great review Poncho and agree with several areas. Saving of the main pool chairs happened every morning- i'd be out for an early morning walk and seating was incredibly limited. Now, we stayed in the Haven, so our pool time was predominantly "there", however, our daughter (teenager), wanted to be in the mix of the huge crowds, so it was more her frustration than ours! I did write a review of our trip, includes videos and such, so easier to post the link in case you're interested. https://gotravellife.com/2018/01/03/about-us/

I will say that of all the NCL ships, Getaway is our favorite. Once our daughter is off to college tho, I see us migrating to Oceania (which we tried a couple years ago and LOVED, except for evening entertainment); and we did a Viking Cruise last summer thru the south of France, which was amazing. We will be doing another Viking cruise most likely next year.

Have a great day.

Following. Thanks

Following. Thanks

Huh? Unless you've got a question, my review is long complete.

Nice Review. I have been reading reviews of Norwegian for the last month now to see if I have been missing out on anything over the years. The drinks included ( drunks ) and all the smoke to stay away from is enough to keep me sailing on Royal.

Mistake! We prefer the Away class ships over the Oasis RCI ships. Was like a floating mall on RCI compared to an incredible ship on NCL. Don’t get me wrong, we had tremendous times on both. But we missed the ocean on the HOTS. On the Away class ships an ocean vista is right there for alfresco dining on the waterfront. Or drinks at the many bars Waterfront. Everything was inside the interior cabins on RCI. I wanted the water! Also the night life on NCL is much better. RCI felt like a daycare/Club in the evenings that closed by midnight. Not our vibe. We cruise with our adult children and others toddlers on the dance floor kind of kill the “out at a bar” vibe. We don’t get out much during our non-vacation life so found that disappointing on RCI. NCL has outdoor deck parties that start at 11PM. It was pretty much over by then on RCI. We aren’t stumbling drunks and we didn’t encounter any on NCL. But we enjoy late dinners and late nights on vacation. RCI seemed to roll up the carpets early. I can’t imagine a bad vacay on either! But would seem like a loss to write off NCL!

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Thankyou very much for your honest, detailed hilarious report!

Well done:-)

Kerri

Thankyou very much for your honest, detailed hilarious report!

Well done:-)

Kerri

I try. Thanks!

We leave on the Getaway on June 10th. We're total "pool" people so I'm not looking forward to a totally crowded pool. My law enforcement wife probably won't be too impressed if we get the same drunk people problem you did. We've only cruised on Celebrity before and the service is always awesome on that ship. Friends of ours booked this cruise so we're tagging along with them. They are in Haven, we are not. We've put in bids for various Haven rooms. If we get it, great, if not, I won't be sad.

The Good (continued):

Pepper grinders on the tables!!! W00t! I really liked this.

 

I also liked the abundance of hand sanitizing stations around the ship and sinks in the buffet. I do understand that hand sanitizing has a lot of pros/cons and most importantly that actually washing your hands is important, but I'm always thankful when I see someone sneeze or cough and sanitize. That's at least something in the positive direction since common surfaces are abundant in cruising.

 

 

 

The Bad:

Well... this is probably where I lose friends I didn't have yet in the NCL loyal crowd.

 

The ship itself is a major bad in my book. The design is extremely poor for anyone who dislikes cigarette smoke. The 6-7-8 Atrium and midship staircase are both beautiful, but you hit a massive wall of smoke when you get about 200' from either of them on decks 6 & 8 (the casino is on 7) and it will hit you hard if you have any sensitivity or dislike of smoke.

 

I'm a live & let live guy on smoking. I don't go to the casino because I know it is a haven for smokers. It's a rough world for smokers in today's world, but I feel deservedly so. Smoking is one of few vices (drinking and driving being another) where YOUR vice becomes MY problem. Smoke doesn't see walls or lines where the carpet changes color. It goes everywhere. I *try* to stay away from known smoking locations and I'm not someone who walks into a smoking area and waves my hands/squishes up my nose. However, there were far too many smoking places on this ship.

 

The same problem goes for the Waterfront. We went out there several times, but each time smokers drove us back inside. The exception was the section of the Waterfront on the back of the ship with no bars. We stood out there several times and were never around smokers.

 

Ditto for the Raw Bar, Wasabi and especially Bliss and Shanghai. Those last 2 were basically IN the casino. We sat down to eat at Shanghai and there was a blackjack tournament going on that had probably 25 smokers in and around the tables watching. It was nuts. We left prior to ordering because it was just too bad.

 

The smoking COMBINED with exhaust fumes also ruined Spice H2O for us. Events held on this party deck were beautiful, but all allowed smoking. The exhaust fumes from the funnel were extremely strong here, as well. We went to a couple of the parties up here, but never stayed long because of the smoking/fumes. It was truly a waste of a great location and what seemed like they could have been great parties. The waterfall area looked awesome, but we didn't use it.

 

***end smoking issues if you don't want to read them***

 

The pool deck was microscopic. People were jammed in like sardines and I believe it is because where the Haven is located or maybe as an incentive to pay for the Haven???? It was the most crowded deck I've ever been on in my entire cruise life. There were people everywhere and they were jammed in. Finding a lounger anywhere was the worst we've ever seen, as well.

 

We truly missed the Royal chair hog program where the attendants will remove towels after 20-30 minutes of inactivity. I asked a couple of attendants and they said they won't remove towels. One attendant told me the people probably went to lunch and would be back in an hour or two. DUH!!! That's the point of removing towels from chair hogs. I finally just got fed up and we stood talking/having a drink around loungers we wanted for about 20 minutes. No one came back to the towels and I folded them up, put them on another chair and sat down. We sat on those chairs for THREE HOURS (I was napping, the wife was reading) and no one came back. She was awake the entire time and said no one came to any of the nearest dozen chairs for the entire time we were there. A dozen chairs with towels for three hours. That's insulting.

 

Savor & Taste were easily two of the worst dining rooms we've been in. We didn't do any specialty dining, but we did the following: D1 - Savor, D2 - Tropicana Room, D3 - Taste, D4 - O'Sheehan's, D5 - Tropicana Room, D6 - O'Sheehan's, D7 - Tropicana Room. Savor & Taste served the same meals as Tropicana, but with seriously bad service.

 

Story time... on D1 we were at Margaritaville having some drinks. Paquito announced that you could make dining reservations at ANY host stand or by calling XXXX. We went straight to the M'ville host and asked to book. She said she couldn't do it. She suggested we go see the hosts in the buffet. We did and met a lady who told us that we weren't listening and that we had to go to our stateroom and book on the TV. Mind you, this is my wife who is like the kindest, softest woman. My wife was SUPER polite to the lady and she was nasty, nasty, nasty rude. We decided to just wait until we got back to the room. Flash forward an hour or two and we're exploring the ship. Six of us were having a drink at the bar between Savor & Taste. My BIL sees someone appear at the desk of Savor and he says "Oh, since we're going to eat here, I wonder if we should just show up when we want to eat? Can they take 12?" and he said he was going to ask. Who did he encounter at the desk? The same lady. She wasn't pleased and told him that he needed to book on his TV. She then left and a male crew member came by. He said he heard our question and that we should just come back when we wanted to eat and he'd be at the desk. He asked about when and said 12 would be fine around that time. We came back and got in fine. She was super grumpy, though. FYI we talked to the host at Le Bistro a few minutes later and she confirmed that the announcement was correct that you could book at any host stand. She said that a lot of the crew just think it is annoying to do so. She also confirmed that 12 at Taste or Savor was no issue and we didn't need to bother booking them.

 

The drunkenness. This is a by-product of so many people having the drink packages, I'm sure. WOW were there a ton of drunk people. I was at the Wave Pool Bar getting a drink and there was a semi-conscious girl sitting in the chair. ODDLY... during one of her semi-awake moments (no joke, the 5 minutes I was in line I saw her pop in and out of consciousness) she ordered a drink from MI AMIGO RICK (his name wasn't Rick on his nametag) and pass out. He still gave her a drink and took the card from her hand. Bartending rule #1, you don't serve people who are visibly past their limit. On another visit, I also witnessed another girl about to spew chunks on the bar. She was dry heaving. I told her boyfriend, he told me she was fine. A different non-"Rick" bartender confirmed that she was and made the boyfriend get her away from the bar.

 

There was a large-ish fight on D7 in the hot tub. Two drunk girls and their parties were fighting over something unknown. It got a little ugly and a man who might have been the main bad girl's boyfriend was lifting her in the air to carry her away. Security got involved and we also got to see some poor pool server have to hop fully-clothed into the hot tub to stop the fight. The main bad girl also decided to keep the fight going by herself for a full 10 minutes after the actual fight stopped. No one else was fighting, except her. I think one of her own friends wound up slapping her because we heard a hard slap and no one but her friends were over there.

Poncho, thank you for this excellent review. I recently cruised Escape and I agree with a lot of what you said...both the good and the bad.

On a side note....only on Cruise Critic will you get flamed (repeatedly in an insane manner) about removing a ships towel from a chair that wasn't being used. :rolleyes:

On a side note....only on Cruise Critic will you get flamed (repeatedly in an insane manner) about removing a ships towel from a chair that wasn't being used. :rolleyes:

According to NCL dailies, the items can stay there unattended for up to 1 hour.

If you left a towel in a chair and jumped into the pool for 15 minutes, would it be fine if I moved your towel 5 minutes after you went in and took your chair?:rolleyes:

Poncho, thank you for this excellent review. I recently cruised Escape and I agree with a lot of what you said...both the good and the bad.

 

On a side note....only on Cruise Critic will you get flamed (repeatedly in an insane manner) about removing a ships towel from a chair that wasn't being used. :rolleyes:

Thanks man.

This guy is kind of a nutter about the topic. Poor "John" and his towel. He's on this towel thing like flies on a turd.