Quick review: Getaway sailing June 3-10th 2018

Hi all,

I am usually a pretty prolific writer so this may be short for me (but long for others). We'll see once I get started, LOL. This was our second sailing on NCL, but the first was out of Tampa on the Dawn for a "cruise to nowhere" several years ago, so we only had 2 nights on board. I wasn't sure what to expect so I did a lot of research in the few weeks we had between booking and boarding. I am going to try to answer questions I had that I could not find answers to beforehand. (Doesn't mean they aren't out there; only that I couldn't find them.)

To begin, this was to be a nursing school graduation celebration cruise for me. I am 46 and just finished RN school. But we had a pretty unexpected and tragic event occur the Tuesday before we sailed. After some debate we decided that going on the cruise was better than not in the wake of what we had experienced (and we did not have trip insurance)... but that also meant that the cruise itself had a lot to overcome for us since we were not leaving on the high, happy and anticipatory note that cruisers usually do. In short, we were pretty sad on embarkation day, and a little nervous to be leaving.

I can say that NCL went above and beyond. They, of course, did not know our circumstance, but the service and entertainment and overall experience was just what we needed at a difficult time. We loved it so much we left with quite a few Cruise Next credits.

Some quick background: We typically sail Carnival on 4, 5 and 8 day trips, and we like Carnival very much. We just like people and activity and fun, and Carnival appeals to us with its lower prices and quick access to us (we live near Tampa). I don't like Royal Caribbean; we've been on 2 sailings and it's just not a good fit for us. So I wasn't really sure how NCL would pan out of us.

We booked into a balcony but "won" an upgrade to an M6 category mini-suite on floor 8 with a poor bid of $75. We were in 8120. We loved the room... mostly. The balcony was beautiful, the room was spacious enough, the bathroom better than most. It seemed to be on a water line somehow (like maybe a flush/shower main line?) and so it was sort of noisy. As a new nurse, it sounded a lot like hyperactive bowels through a stethoscope, LOL. It did not bother me but my husband and daughter said they heard it in the night. Something to consider if you are researching rooms and are a light sleeper or sensitive to noise. We also felt like we could never get it as cold as we like. But overall it was an excellent place to spend 7 days and 7 nights and the first balcony we ever really utilized due to its spaciousness and the fact that it had 2 loungers, 2 chairs and a nice sized table.

So, in bullet form, here are some of our other observations:

• We were happily surprised by the generosity of the drink package. We could get 2 drinks per card, as often as we wished, as many as we wished and for as long as we wished. The bartenders were not afraid to pour a stiff drink, LOL. The drinks were really really good, too. They had a neat drink menu. The Rebellious Fish (which is the dumbest, hardest to remember name ever) was a favorite of my husbands and I heard it ordered often. Everyone just called it the fish drink.
  
• The entertainment staff was so fun and funny and enthusiastic. Zack was amazing, Ash is hilarious, the comedy was so very good. We did not like the adult comedy shows (and we are not prudes) and found the "family friendly" comedy shows to be REALLY good. They were family friendly but the kids were the butt of the jokes which was fun for everyone (maybe not the kids but like the comedian pointed out: It's not like they are paying for the trip, LOL!!!!). Seriously though, it was kind of great how it didn't turn into some sort of kid-level silly humor but really was amusing for all no matter the age or even if you aren't a parent!
  
• We did not at all like Burn The Floor, sorry. Such talent, but the show was just so repetitive and no obvious storyline and just ... not good to us. It turned us off to seeing Million Dollar Quartet, because we weren't going to be rude and leave BTF, so we just thought it best we skip MDQ and do something else instead of getting "stuck" in another show we didn't enjoy.
  
• The "contests" were awful. We put our guess in for what we thought was the value of a prize (a pendant of some sort), sat through a sales presentation about the supposed prize, then the drawing winner was handed a Bella Perlina set. What? I wasn't the winner but if I had been I'd be pissed. We bought cards for Deal or No Deal but basically unless you are one of the 2 people picked to go on stage, you threw away $25. I will say that the game show is SO much fun to watch so be sure to go ... just save the $25 unless you feel lucky enough to be one of 2 winners.
  
• The food.... OMG. We loved just about everything we ate. If we didn't like something it was because we were stupid and chose something we wouldn't typically eat anyway. We had the upgraded dinner package thing x3 nights and ate at Cagney's, Moderno and Teppenyaki. SO good. SO SO good. Also, we noted that whereas most time dinner can take fooooorever on a ship (especially the fine dining places), on this cruise the timing of food presentation was spot on. It was slow enough to be enjoyable but not so slow that you got restless or felt like you spent the whole evening at the dinner table.
  
• Laundry - this one the joke was on me. On our longer Carnival cruises I usually go half way through to the coin laundry and wash all of our stuff, so we can pack about half of what we'd usually pack for 7, 8 days. So half way through, I asked the steward where guest laundry was. "Oh no ma'am" he said. "You have to send out." Okay! We pull out the laundry itemized price list and holy crap. It would have cost us about $100-200 to do our laundry. So industrious me handwashed some of our stuff with the Tide pods I'd brought for the washing machine and hung it to dry. It never even occurred to me to research laundry facilities so here's that little tidbit for ya!!
  
• I don't know if we were just lucky or if this was typical, but our fellow passengers were just top-notch people. Kind, friendly, accommodating, polite, fun, engaging - just really GOOD people. When we'd get off the ship and encounter a jerk... yep, they were from another ship. It was that distinctive.
  
• A tip: Reserve seating for what you can ahead of time on NCL.com. When you get on board, watch your dailies for reservation sign ups on board for things you really want to do. We made the mistake of thinking that if you wanted to sign up for (for example) the escape room, you went that day and signed up for the one that day. What we did not realize is that we should have gone and reserved for any time on the cruise at the earlier time. We could have waited on stand-by but we didn't feel like it. We waited stand-by for comedy shows we would have rather have reserved seats for (we like to sit at the bar at Headliners so this mattered to us). We got into any SHOWS we wanted to, so it wasn't that we got shut out, but we wish we'd known to go reserve the shows we wanted so we could get a pick of our seating by being one of the first let in. And that's not to say that in future sailings stand-by people would not be allowed in .... so the moral of the story is go early to the reservations counter to chose your shows and activities if you can't reserve them online ahead of time.
  

I think that's all ... I will add if there is any more I think of. I know I have some complaints up there in my bullet points but our overall experience was just excellent. It was truly relaxing, it allowed us some recovery and distraction (that is specific to us, of course, but I am mentioning it because the overall vibe was just so relaxing and fun that no matter your mindset, you really are going to relax and enjoy). The staff was great. We didn't wait long for anything, including drinks (I've seen that complaint - I did not have it myself). Embarkation and debarkation went smooth as silk.

We can't wait for the next one!! (And yes, this got long ;);))

I am so glad you were able to relax & enjoy!

On the older ships the cabin hallways carpet includes a red fish that swims opposite to the rest of the school (others are swimming forwards) - the Rebellious Fish cocktail honours that fish haha.

Thanks for including the comment on the contests. My wife is a big game show fan and we were thinking of trying all of the offerings. Now, I will only plan for one early on and we will see if she likes it before committing to others.

I also appreciate your comments on Cagney's, Moderno and Teppenyaki. We have already reserved all three and are doing Moderno on night two for our 30th anniversary celebration! My wife loves the grilled pineapple at Fogo, so she is really looking forward to saying "oh, pineapple boy!" again. :')

Congrats on your RN! My mom was trained and licensed as an RN years ago at Brooklyn Hospital, before it was normal to get a BSRN. She decided at the age of 58 to finally complete her BSRN. We were so proud of her for achieving that in the latter part of her career!

No Norwegian ship has self-serve laundries. Every week there is a Laundry Special Offer-- Fill a Bag for $19.95.

I am so glad you were able to relax & enjoy!

 

On the older ships the cabin hallways carpet includes a red fish that swims opposite to the rest of the school (others are swimming forwards) - the Rebellious Fish cocktail honours that fish haha.

Well that's cool! And now I won't forget! Thank you for that insight!

Thanks for including the comment on the contests. My wife is a big game show fan and we were thinking of trying all of the offerings. Now, I will only plan for one early on and we will see if she likes it before committing to others.

I also appreciate your comments on Cagney's, Moderno and Teppenyaki. We have already reserved all three and are doing Moderno on night two for our 30th anniversary celebration! My wife loves the grilled pineapple at Fogo, so she is really looking forward to saying "oh, pineapple boy!" again. :')

Congrats on your RN! My mom was trained and licensed as an RN years ago at Brooklyn Hospital, before it was normal to get a BSRN. She decided at the age of 58 to finally complete her BSRN. We were so proud of her for achieving that in the latter part of her career!

Thank you so much! I am so excited to be a nurse, and I start my RN-BSN program in the fall. Stories like your mother's inspire me!

I don't like grilled pineapple so I didn't try it, but I made sure my family did and they loved it! She won't be disappointed!

Do go scope out the game show - we made the mistake of plunking down $25/card thinking there would be a greater chance to maybe win something, and we jokingly said the roulette table in the casino had better odds. We thought Bingo was rather pricey, too, but when it's in the theater and Ash is the caller, it turns into a comedy show so that's a bonus!! :D

Happy Anniversary!!

No Norwegian ship has self-serve laundries. Every week there is a Laundry Special Offer-- Fill a Bag for $19.95.

Like I said, I didn't think to research that, and just assumed all ships did, so I am passing that tidbit along. The fill a bag was offered on Thursday for return not guaranteed until Saturday night. That did not serve my purpose - it seemed more for those wanting to go home without a bunch of dirty laundry.

Thanks for the review! Glad to hear you had a great time. We are heading on the Getaway this Fall and can’t wait. We were also platinum Carnival cruisers and decided to try NCL and were hooked;)

Hi all,

 

• We did not at all like Burn The Floor, sorry. Such talent, but the show was just so repetitive and no obvious storyline and just ... not good to us. It turned us off to seeing Million Dollar Quartet, because we weren't going to be rude and leave BTF, so we just thought it best we skip MDQ and do something else instead of getting "stuck" in another show we didn't enjoy.
  

Burn The Floor and MDQ are completely different shows. Don't judge one by the other.

 

 

Congratulations on getting your nursing degree!

We were on this cruise as well! I wish you would've gone to MDQ, it was amazing! We weren't fans of BTF either but absolutely loved MDQ!

We found everyone on the ship to be nice as well and didn't encounter anyone rude! The food was outstanding & we are very happy that we tried Le Bistro for the first time. It was our favorite restaurant!

Ash is hysterical!

I'm so glad you enjoyed your cruise as much as we enjoyed ours!

I may not be the harshest critic so take this with a grain of salt:

I thought BTF was great!!

I am impressed by talent & they all had plenty of that. I thought the guys may have been even better than the girls. They were all over the place!

Now, our group of 8 was down to 3 by the end so there's that.

I don't know. I thought it was a blast. :)

We felt the same way about Deal or No Deal. Complete waste of money unless you were called on stage but it was fun to watch. Since this was our third time on the ship we skipped Burn the Floor (but enjoyed it last sailing) and went to Million Dollar Quartet which was amazing. We also felt that the staff aboard this ship were stellar! It seemed that every single person we interacted with was friendly and helpful.

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Like I said, I didn't think to research that, and just assumed all ships did, so I am passing that tidbit along. The fill a bag was offered on Thursday for return not guaranteed until Saturday night. That did not serve my purpose - it seemed more for those wanting to go home without a bunch of dirty laundry.

my sister has had laundry stolen out of a Princess laundry room, so I would never look for self serve.

So happy to be Platinum, free bag of laundry was a very nice perk, first bag was returned so quickly and on hangers, didn't realize it until the next day (haven't had that level of service again)

Also on the same sailing, I thought BTF was repetitive also and could have been about 15 minutes shorter. Shame you missed MDQ, that show was great and like Kevnick said just when you thought the show was over they came back out for another 15. I loved watching the game shows, but then again I did not buy the cards so it did not cost me anything and I loved watching Ash when he ran anything.

Congrats on your awesome accomplishment! If you don’t mind sharing - Where did you go to bid on an upgrade? Is this something you do through the cruise line? This is new info to me. We are pretty NCL loyal so glad you tried them. Royal is not for us either we aren’t dressy-up people so we love freestyle and love the crew on NCL they do make a huge difference!

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Congrats on your awesome accomplishment! If you don’t mind sharing - Where did you go to bid on an upgrade? Is this something you do through the cruise line? This is new info to me. We are pretty NCL loyal so glad you tried them. Royal is not for us either we aren’t dressy-up people so we love freestyle and love the crew on NCL they do make a huge difference!

 

 

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You should receive an email from NCL 80 days prior to your sail date with your upgrade bid offers. Just click on the link provided and your MyNCL account will open, showing the categories you can bid on. Each category will contain a “slider bar” that you can move to the amount you want to bid. As you move it, there will be a semi-circular scale that goes from poor to fair to good to excellent. You can bid on one, several, or all of the categories with different amounts. Make sure you read the FAQs as there is some very important information in there.

Anytime between the day you bid and 48 hours before your cruise, they will charge your account and send you an email notice if they accept your bid. If they do not accept the bid, you will also get an email stating that.

Good luck!

[emoji106] thanks for the info!

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Thanks for the review. It helps me in knowing that we should have a good experience also in a few months. Glad the staff are holding up. Not much on these boards about the Getaway as she is now considered in an "older ship". We sailed her 4 years ago and loved her. Congrats on your graduation.