Live from the Getaway August 5-12th (Haven)

Background: about us

I’m starting this as we are on board the Getaway, it’s Day 4, we are in Harvest Caye and it’s raining, but as DH pointed out, if it had to rain, this was the best day for it as we didn’t have anything planned other than hanging out on the beach, which we did yesterday in Costa Maya and we are doing tomorrow and Friday at Infinity Bay and Nachi Cocum.

So, to start, a little about ourselves, we are in our early sixties and live in south Florida. We’ve actually lived here for 40 years so although we are semi-retired, we’ve lived and worked here for most of our lives. We have one adult daughter, she left for college in another state 1000 miles away nine years ago and never returned, so it’s just us and our two doodle dogs who are our babies.

So let’s start! Our first cruise was on our honeymoon 32 years ago tomorrow on the NCL Southward. We had a tiny room on the front of the ship, where we could hear the anchor going up and down. The room was so tiny, when I showered, I stuck my foot in the bathroom sink to shave my legs!

Our next cruise wasn’t until 2005, right after my father died, my mother wanted to take a cruise with us so we took a 7-day cruise on the RCL Mariner of the Seas. We seemed to go in 5 year spurts as our next cruise was in 2010 on the RCL Oasis of the Seas. Then in 2015, after my mother passed away, we went on the Allure.

2016 marked our 30th wedding anniversary and my 60th birthday so for a big celebration we took the Oceania Riviera on a western Mediterranean cruise, which was amazing. To be on a cruise to celebrate the actual date of our anniversary, we took a short cruise that same year in August on the RCL Enchantment of the Seas.

I got antsy not going on a cruise in two years so I started looking for another trip for our 32nd anniversary. Since we had done many of the RCL ships that sailed out of our home ports of Fort Lauderdale and Miami, and having heard good things about NCL, I started looking at NCL ships. I was captured when I saw the itinerary of the Getaway since it went to ports that we have not been to yet (except for Cozumel).

Im going to post this in short posts as it will be too long in one long one.

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Preparing for the trip:

To begin, we originally booked a balcony room on the hump towards the back of the ship, but then I started reading about upgrade bidding and decided to bid for the Haven courtyard room. I spent several weeks agonizing over this decision. To go for it, or not go for it? Is it worth it or not? Just stay in our balcony room, which has always been good enough for us in the past, and use the savings towards another cruise? Or go for it, and if we get it we get it, if we don’t we don’t? I ultimately decided to bid 1000 pp on a Haven aft and forward cabin and 800 pp on a Haven courtyard.

All was fine until I started reading more about the Haven, and it’s perks, and after many conversations with DH, he said he really liked the idea of having a restaurant right outside they room, he liked the idea of having a separate area of the ship, so we should definitely go for the courtyard room.

Thanks to GADave on cruise critic, who was obsessively (his words) checking the Getaway for his cruise in the fall, he noted that prices in the Haven had dropped to close to what he had bid, and with the OBC that they were then offering, he decided to go for it. So I quick got on the NCL website and checked for our trip, and indeed, the price of the Haven courtyard had dropped. So now for the rationalizations. The Haven at that time was I think about 1200 pp more than what we had paid. I was willing to bid 1000 pp for an aft or forward Haven room. When we booked it, we got “free” port fees and taxes as the promotion they were offering at that time. I would lose that if I upgraded directly, but I would get two more perks than what I had originally booked. Also, 300 OBC that would just about cover the port fees and taxes ($321) that would be added if I upgraded directly instead of waiting to see if we won the bid. So I was able to rationalize that if we upgraded directly, we would only be paying a few hundred dollars more than what I was willing to pay had our bid been accepted, and some of that would be covered by the additional perks. So, I pulled the pin, made the phone call, and upgraded to a Haven courtyard room

Then the buyers remorse set in. It may have been only a couple of hundred over what we were willing to pay had our bid been accepted, but we were actually paying more for the upgrade than we originally paid for the whole cruise! What did I just do?? We could take two cruises for the price of this one! Was Haven really worth it?? It wasn’t that we couldn’t afford the Haven, but whether it made sense to pay double for the cruise that was really not any ore special than the other cruises we have taken to the Caribbean. I mean, it’s not like it was a European cruise or even to anywhere exotic. I ultimately rationalized that by remembering that we had not cruised the year before, so basically we were using the money we would have spent had we cruised last year. OK that was a stretch, but I’m really good at rationalizing. I also rationalized it by saying this was our first NCL cruise after mostly doing Royal, we are not sure we are NCL people vs Royal people, so we may not do any more NCL cruises, so might as well do it right. See, I told you I was good at rationalizing.

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To Vibe or not to Vibe

OK, having accepted that choosing the Haven was, indeed, the right decision for us, the next question was whether to go for Vibe passes or not. That decision was not made until the day before the cruise. To Vibe or not to Vibe, that was the question. Whether twas nobler to have another exclusive area of the ship, or simply stay on the Haven sundeck. Well, so many ways to argue that one. The Vibe has hot tubs, Haven sundeck does not. But we are not hot tub people, so that was irrelevant for us. The Vibe is adult only, was the Haven sundeck? Lots of conflicting info on that one. Ultimately found the answer is that the Haven sundeck is 16+ so that worked for us. Next consideration was non-smoking. I read that Vibe allowed smoking at the bar area. Haven has a non-smoking area somewhere up on their sundeck. Hmmm. Well let’s go to the next issues and put that one on hold. Vibe has a bar. Haven sundeck does not. Ok, that may be a deal breaker. ‘Twas nobler to have a bar right there or have to actually go down one flight, across the courtyard, and into the lounge to get a drink. Points go to the Vibe for that one. But the Vibe bar supposedly has a smoking section. Points deducted for that. Back to square one.

Next issue was shade. We are not really sit in the sun people. We like to sit in the shade, but be able to see the ocean. According to the videos I watched on YouTube, both the Haven sundeck and the Vibe had umbrellas and shaded areas. That was a tie.

How to break the tie?? The main issue seemed to be the bar. But the Haven sundeck has waiters and waitresses that come around for drink orders. But the Vibe has a bar you can just walk up to. But the bar has smoking. Back and forth I went. Finally DH broke the tie. He pointed out that we don’t usually spend much time, if any on any sundeck, shade or no shade. We are not go-in-the-pool-on-ship people, so chances are great we will not be hanging around the Haven courtyard pool, we will not be hanging out an any sundeck much if at all, and we have four days where we are getting off the ship to hang out at pools or beaches on shore, so why bother with Vibe? DH makes a lot of sense. We skipped the Vibe passes.

Once on board, we tried hanging out on the Haven sundeck. The shade was not very shady. The umbrellas don’t really fully cover the chairs. The covered areas aren’t that covered or shady. It was really hot up there. We spent ten minutes there and left. I decided to try to spy on the Vibe and found a staircase from deck 17 to deck 16 that actually overlooked the Vibe. It looked like a nice place. They had umbrellas that also didn’t seem to fully cover the chairs, and they did have a nice bar. If we weren’t staying in the Haven, I might have gone for the Vibe, but like most people have reported, it was pretty empty and I’m sure if we had purchased Vibe passes, we wouldn’t have spent much time up there, either.

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Day 1: Check in and arrival

Well all that as background and we haven’t even gotten to day one! Let’s go there now! As I said, we live in south Florida, so we drove to the port of Miami. It’s about 45 minutes from our house on a Sunday morning. We left around 9:30 and were parked and in line to go into the building by 10:15. I will say it was a little confusing about where to drop off our bags. When we got there there were still tons of people who had just come off the ship waiting to be picked up or for rides, standing with their luggage on the sidewalk on the island in front of the building that you go into. There were lots of taxis picking up people. We asked a couple of the men directing traffic where to go to drop off our bags, and they said to go all the way down. DH spotted a porter in the middle and said to go there, but the men with the whistles directed us to go down further. We got to the end, stopped, and there were no porters, no one taking bags, so DH asked and they pointed to the porter where he had wanted us to stop. I just left him there and went to park, and he said he had to go find a porter to take our bags. Parking was not as easy as in the parking garage at Fort Lauderdale airport, where they tell you which decks and lanes have spaces available. I was able to find a space, but then found it really hard to cross the traffic to get to the building that you go into.

We were on a short line by 10:30 to get into the building. Once we got in, the Haven check in was in a separate room right as you come in. There was a lady in training there who wasn’t sure what she was doing, so it probably took longer than it usually does. They had a coffee urn that no one seemed to be able to make work. We all thought it was empty which was weird since it was only 10:30 and people were only starting to arrive. We asked someone who worked there, who fiddle with it and voila! We had coffee. They also had little danishes and other things. After we checked in and got our key cards, they told us to wait in another waiting room right across the hall, where we were for maybe two minutes before someone came and escorted us to the upstairs waiting area. It was fairly warm up there. They began the boarding at 11:30 and we were escorted on to the ship and taken up to the Haven.

DH was quite impressed with the priority service of the check in process, and the snacks and coffee in the waiting areas. He also loved being escorted around the crowds in the check in area and the waiting area. He said “I could get used to this!”

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Day 1 continued: Finally made it to the promised land.

Arriving in the Haven, we were shown the lounge, where the restaurant is, and the pool and courtyard. We were told we could drop off our carry on bags in our room, which was still being readied, so that was nice we could off load our carry ons.

The concierge desk was pretty crazy the first day. They had one person working excursions, another working restaurants and a third working other reservations and wi fi. We were encouraged to not upgrade the wi fi until the next day, saying it would only cost $55 to upgrade instead of $85 the first day and the line to upgrade was pretty long so we decided that we could live without wifi for one day. They did allow us to upgrade by only paying the difference even though the 250 minute package was a perk. That did not seem to be an issue for anyone and in fact they had a printed form that said “Guests who wish to upgrade their Free at Sea or Distinctive Voyage 250 gift plan will receive the full $125 retail value towards the purchase of a Premium or Basic Unlimited Plan.”

We did wait on line to get reservations for the things that we were not able to reserve in advance such as the comedy shows, and that took a long time since many of the people ahead of us had not made any reservations, or they had, but there was some mix-ups.

We did not see the butler when we first arrived, but called and asked him to empty our refrigerator and give us pitchers of water every day and also asked him to exchange those bulky wooden hangers with skinnier plastic ones. We had asked for distilled water for DH’s CPAP machine via email before we boarded, but that was not in the room when we arrived. It took several reminders until that was delivered, but we chalked that up to first day confusion. DH also asked for chocolate chip cookies which he loves, and which are not available for some reason on RCL ships. It took a really long time for the butler to come, which is understandable the first day, but he did bring the hangars and eventually the cookies. He did not empty the refrigerator or bring water until we reminded him again the second day. But when he came he asked if we had any allergies and DH said, just hay fever, and he said, oh, do you want me to take away the flowers? That was a great idea! Yes thank you! Some flowers do trigger our allergies, we didn’t even think of that.

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Day 1 continued: Afternoon and evening

We ate lunch at Margaritaville, which had really good drinks. I was looking forward to the Volcano nachos, but they looked so big and they said they serve 6 people! There were only two of us, so we just had the regular chips and salsa instead. I ordered the fish tacos which were good, and DH enjoyed his fish sandwich.

After lunch, we explored the ship and walked around the Waterfront. I thought there’d be more places to just sit and chill but we discovered we really like the area outside of the Sugarcane Bar, which is the mojito bar, great mojitos for me. Unfortunately, they could not make lemon drop martinis which DH likes, but there is another bar not too far from there for him, so we grabbed some drinks and sat out there. The only downside to sitting on the waterfront is the lifeboats are right there, so you’re really looking at the lifeboats as opposed to the water right below you. We also discovered that the side with the Sugarcane bar is the place to be for us since the other side of the Waterfront allows smoking.

Our luggage was delivered much before the 7:00 pm promised to the rest of the ship, so we were able to unpack before dinner. Dinner in the Haven restaurants was really nice. The service is good. Some people complained that it was slow, but other than asking twice for ice tea, it was fine. DH had the short rib appetizer and it was so good I ordered it the next night. The meat just melted off the fork. My Ceasar salad was quite tasteless. Maybe more dressing would have helped. I ordered the surf and turf. The filet was really good but the shrimp was overcooked. DH had the scallops. He said the smaller ones were really good but the larger one as were tough. I didn’t listen and ordered that the next day and found he was right. The desserts looked better than they tasted but that didn’t stop us from tasting several of them! One thing that was bothersome was what sounded like banging continually throughout the meal. I asked the waiter what that was and he said they were getting ready for the sea day the next day, so they were doing something on the sundeck. However, the next night, there was also much banging, so I don’t know if it was coming from the sundeck and them putting the chairs away. It sounded more like doors slamming.

After dinner we went to the Welcome Aboard show and were surprised that some of it consisted of them playing videos. Usually the Welcome Aboard shows showcase all the different entertainment, but I guess they couldn’t show the Cirque show live.

OK going to dinner now, will try to write more later so we can catch up to real time!

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Thanks for your report! Hope your weather improves. We are really looking forward to Harvest Caye, as we have a cabana rented for the day.

Are you going to any of the specialty restaurants? If so, let us know what you think.

Thanks for posting! I’m a serial rationalizer myself, so we will be in the Haven on the Getaway Nov 25! Following with interest.

Very detailed!! A great read!! We can't wait, we're on the Getaway for the September 30th sailing for our honeymoon!!! We're so excited!!! Can't wait to read more!!

Chris

P.s.-we also have bids in on the Haven suites!!!! Wish us luck!

Following thx for sharing

Enjoying your review ! Following along.

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Fellow Haven upgrader on the next Getaway cruise. Anxiously awaiting your next report. Great report so far!

I'm enjoying reading your review, as hubs and I will be on the Sept 30 sailing, our second cruise this year. We won't be Haven, just a mid ship balcony, but excited all the same. This will be our first mega ship cruise, as we've previously stuck to the smaller ships, Star and Dawn.

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We are doing this same trip in December and even the exact same excursions! I’m most interested in hearing your thoughts on Infinity Bay as I had the hardest time deciding what to do in Routan.

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Thank you for posting, I'm loving your review! (hoping for a Haven upgrade on my October cruise!)

following as well as we are in a courtyard suite for my fiance's 50th birthday next month! so to confirm, Margaritaville lunch on the first day was anything on the menu and free to Haven guests, correct?

Great details so far. Thanks for posting. We are cruising at the end of September and I am really interested to know what you think of the internet onboard. Can you run a speed test? Thanks.

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following as well as we are in a courtyard suite for my fiance's 50th birthday next month! so to confirm, Margaritaville lunch on the first day was anything on the menu and free to Haven guests, correct?

Yes and you can drink at the Margaritaville bar itself included in the UBP.

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We are doing this same trip in December and even the exact same excursions! I’m most interested in hearing your thoughts on Infinity Bay as I had the hardest time deciding what to do in Routan.

 

 

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We are at Infinty Bay right now!! It’s gorgeous. Best beach I’ve seen. Crystal clear water, the sand is not rocky or shell-y and the lounges are under trees with a nice breeze or in the sun if you prefer.

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We are doing this same trip in December and even the exact same excursions! I’m most interested in hearing your thoughts on Infinity Bay as I had the hardest time deciding what to do in Routan.

 

 

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We are at Infinity Bay right now!! It’s gorgeous. Best beach I’ve seen. Crystal clear water, the sand is not rocky or shell-y and the lounges are under trees with a nice breeze or in the sun if you prefer.

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We are doing this same trip in December and even the exact same excursions! I’m most interested in hearing your thoughts on Infinity Bay as I had the hardest time deciding what to do in Routan.

 

 

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We are at Infinity Bay right now!! It’s gorgeous. Best beach I’ve seen. Crystal clear water, the sand is not rocky or shell-y and the lounges are under trees with a nice breeze or in the sun if you prefer.

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Sorry for the triplicate posts. WiFi is wonky here and kept saying it wasn’t posting.

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Thanks for your report! Hope your weather improves. We are really looking forward to Harvest Caye, as we have a cabana rented for the day.

 

Are you going to any of the specialty restaurants? If so, let us know what you think.

We were very underwhelmed by Harvest Cay. It was very crowded, both around the pool and on the beach. No WiFi unless you rent one of those $300 cabanas which are near the pool but not really. We got out there by noon due to the rain and were back on the ship by 2.

We’ve only eaten at Cagney’s so far. Tonight is Le Bistro, tomorrow Moderno and Saturday Ocean Blue so we’ll let you know. Last night we ate at Savor. The food was ok but the service was slow as people have reported.

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Great review. Thanks so much. Could you possibly take pictures of your Freestyle Dailies. We are going on the Getaway on August 19 and I am trying to make reservations and plan as best as I could so having a better idea of the day's schedule would help greatly thanks.

Great review. Thanks so much. Could you possibly take pictures of your Freestyle Dailies. We are going on the Getaway on August 19 and I am trying to make reservations and plan as best as I could so having a better idea of the day's schedule would help greatly thanks.

Will do but I must warn you I looked at the dailies someone posted just a few weeks ago and there was so much that was different! I had planned around a couple of things that weren’t the same as the ones from a few weeks ago. For some reason, the wi fin-on board and in our ports is not allowing me to upload and post pictures so I’ll do it when we get home.