Better Late Than Never - Getaway March 29, 2014

[epaul78]

I can't believe how the days have slipped by since our Spring Break vacation cruise came to an end! We had a few days pre and post cruise in Florida, largely due to the cost of airfare and ended up being gone for two weeks, so we are just now digging out from under everything that piled up while we were on vacation - phew! Time for another cruise!

 

This sailing was our family of four in stateroom 12222 - pretty easy to remember! My husband Eric and our two boys ages 7 and 9 enjoyed a few days in Orlando before making the trek to Miami where we dropped off the rental car at the airport and took a cab to the cruise terminal.

 

I'm not any kind of photographer, so please excuse the quality of the pictures. We've been on several cruises before and in general like NCL because we find it to be a good mix of family friendly as well as adult activities and our kids really enjoy Splash Academy. I'd say that we are amateur foodies but we are not especially picky and we like to do our own thing for the most part when it comes to ports of call. I'll try to include some details, but not go overboard - if there's something you really want to know, please ask and I will do my best to answer! I'll spare you the details of the Orlando bit of our trip, except to say that we had fun but once was enough for Universal Orlando and the kids are getting too old for Legoland so we will probably stick to WDW next trip.

 

 

 

We arrived plenty early, as planned due to a big festival in town. After dropping bags with the porters we headed through security. For this cruise we brought our own wine onboard.

 

I often take my own wine when traveling, especially when we cruise.

 

I’m lucky to live in the Yakima-Columbia Valley area of Washington State where great wines are plentiful and, especially if you belong to a wine club, relatively inexpensive. We also visit Napa and Sonoma with some regularity and have some of our favorites shipped to us by the case a few times a year. We're not wine snobs, but we know what we like and have a good idea of what wine costs.

 

Sometimes we bring our own wine because there is a particular vintage that we want to enjoy on a special night, or sometimes it is because I plan to open a bottle to have in our stateroom when cruising. Often, we bring our own wine to avoid the ridiculous markup that many cruise lines and restaurants charge- sometimes 400% or more over wholesale (not kidding!). I do my homework and figure out if my bottle is going to be a better deal after factoring corkage fees than what’s on the wine list where I’m going, many times makes sense to BYOW (Bring Your Own Wine).

 

When cruising, the BYOW policy of the cruise line is important to know and understand. I print a copy to take with me on embarkation day, just in case there’s ever a question about the policy when boarding.

 

Recently we sailed on Royal Caribbean and were allowed to bring two bottles of wine per stateroom. It didn’t matter how long we were going for or how many people were in the room. There was a corkage fee to drink our wine in the restaurants of $25 but we wouldn’t have had to pay this if we enjoyed our wine in our stateroom. By contrast, Norwegian Cruise Line doesn’t have a limit on the number of bottles that we were allowed, and the corkage fee was only $15 per bottle, but the fee was charged to us when we boarded the ship regardless of where the wine was consumed - so I paid a corkage fee for wine that I uncorked myself in my room.

 

If you are planning to BYOW, you should also plan to carry on for the cruise – exactly the opposite of what one would do when flying. Because you want to bring your wine through security with you and have it checked in. If you put it in your checked bags, not only do you run the risk of having your bottles manhandled and possibly damaged, but there is also a very strong likelihood that you will get to spend some quality time with the security guys in the "naughty room" who will want to know why you’re sneaking booze aboard the cruise ship.

 

Of course, when picking your vintages, you should account for the jostling of travel and go with a bottle that isn’t particularly fragile in terms of contents – a delicate library wine for example would best be enjoyed at home, and anything sparkling might be a tricky traveler too. Another option is to locate a wine store at your embarkation point where you can get the goods before you board the ship which is what we did this time because flying with wine is a real pain.

 

Anytime you BYOW to a restaurant or specialty dining venue on the cruise ship you want to make sure that your wine isn’t already on their wine list.

 

We always try to balance the BYOW with the opportunity to try new things, especially when traveling, so don’t BYOW for every meal, but it might make sense to BYOW sometimes to save a little money and perhaps enjoy a wine that you know and love rather than choosing blindly from a overpriced wine list.

 

Anyway, we had no troubles with security - I just announced that we had wine before putting it through the scanner, and then we were directed to a sticker-ing area to have the corkage fees applied and our bottles tagged.

 

Check in was also pretty painless, as has been all of our previous NCL experiences.

 

Then we got to go to the waiting area...

 

It was a long wait with restrooms out of order and a man sitting near us with quite the potty-mouth, as my two kiddos listened with rapt attention to every F-bomb.

 

But eventually we were able to board and get to the business of sourcing some lunch and exploring the ship! Nothing compares to those first few magical hours with days of vacation and endless possibilities ahead!

 

(Leaving Miami)

 

[mianmike]

Thanks for the review especially love any photos of the Getaway . . . looking forward to the rest!

[Jenjer]

Yeah!!!! Love photo reviews keep it coming.

 

Did you notice did they have Nutella onboard?

[SissasMomE]

Yeah!!!! Love photo reviews keep it coming.

 

Did you notice did they have Nutella onboard?

 

Yes, they do.

[spielbank]

Wow - I just booked this same cabin for April 2015! I am really looking forward to reading your review.

[irishclover]

Hope you guys had tons of fun. Personally Universal studios is one of my favorites (Islands of Adventures though), probably because I am a huge Harry Potter fan haha

[epaul78]

Getaway is such a beautiful ship, I’m so glad they got rid of the palm tree lights – the replacements are a huge improvement and the art around the ship as well as décor and lighting really give the entire ship a cool Miami feel.

 

 

We didn't do the sail away party, but enjoyed the view from our balcony with a glass of bubbly.

 

Our stateroom is thoughtfully designed and should work very well for our family of four. The bathroom is actually large enough to turn around in and I love that we can still walk around with the boys’ beds out. We are mid ship on deck 12 and can hear the music from Spice H20 on our balcony, I can only imagine that one of the aft cabins would have some major noise issues.

I will post more about our stateroom later – but first impressions were great and it was so so nice to have a NEW room. Eric loves the new ship smell of the hallways, and everything feels fresh and clean.

 

 

We grabbed a quick lunch at The Garden Café (buffet) and really liked the décor and the hand washing stations! I know some folks are not fans, but I like to be able to wash and have the kids wash with soap and water to actually get the dirt off their hands rather than just go over the top with hand sanitizer – those were available too. We also appreciated that the buffet is not in the middle of the ship where you have to walk through it to get to everything else.

 

Justin, our 9 year old, said the cruise is all about having fun and eating – I guess he’s going to get his money’s worth on this trip! Both boys were excited about the Splash Academy and making new friends. I’m not a fan of the hours though, it didn’t open until 8 pm on the first night and is closed from 12-2 on sea days. The wine show that Eric and I wanted to go to is only offered on sea days at 12:30 – doesn’t seem like a very kid friendly entertainment option, so we’re out of luck for being able to see it. It would be nice if there was some kind of childcare option or if this show was offered at another time too.

 

After lunch we unpacked and did the lifeboat drill thing and also explored around the ship. We’d packed the boys’ swim stuff as a carryon so they could go in the pool and the waterslides first thing, which was a great way to do it since it wasn’t crowded and they didn’t have to wait in any lines for the slides. Seems like the kids’ pool area is pretty small given the size of the ship. Actually both pool areas seem small, but the big "stick your feet in" area at Spice H20 seems like a great idea considering how a lot of people actually use the pools.

 

 

 

The boys and Eric also did the ropes course and we played miniature golf. The kids had another buffet meal and found the made to order crepes station. Then they went to Spash Academy and Eric and I enjoyed a leisurely dinner for two at Le Bistro.

 

 

I know some people don’t like the concept of specialty dining, but we don't mind an additional cover charge that is mostly gratuity anyway for more of a fine dining experience and we like to try out the different venues around the ship. We tend to think that if you're spending the money on the vacation anyway, another $20 isn't a huge deal for a special meal, particularly if it keeps the cost of the cruise overall down - for example we didn't have to pay an inflated cruise fare for our kids who are going to eat crepes and macaroni and cheese off the buffet most of the time anyway.

 

I like Le Bistro just fine, but I have to say that compared to RCCL's Giovanni's Table it is a little bit of a letdown.

 

 

As usual, since we have kiddos who follow the early to bed and early to rise regime, we missed out on the late-night happenings on the cruise, but were so glad to be aboard and cruising our way out to sea!

[epaul78]

Hope you guys had tons of fun. Personally Universal studios is one of my favorites (Islands of Adventures though), probably because I am a huge Harry Potter fan haha

 

We enjoyed The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, especially since Justin and I are huge Potterheads! He was so excited to get a chocolate frog in Honeydukes with the famous witch or wizard card inside - such a great souvenir! I was surprised at the crowd management (or lack thereof) in Hogsmead/Diagon Alley areas - seems like there should be a better way to do that and there were people cutting in line all over the place. Also the deal with the lockers was just a crazy mess.

 

 

 

We felt that a lot of the rides were the same too- Transformers was almost identical to Spiderman just with a different movie track and some of the areas our kids didn't even "get" like Gasoline Alley and some of the other comic book area attractions.

 

I'm glad we went, but next time we will probably stick to Disneyworld. :)

[LrgPizza]

Love the pictures! Thanks so much for sharing.

[epaul78]

As promised, here is some more about our stateroom. We have “family” minisuite, stateroom 12222. The only reason this has the family designation is that it is located on deck 12. Splash Academy is on deck 12 so I think NCL is perhaps trying to encourage families to book on this level, which makes sense because travelers with kids are presumably more tolerant of other children and will have a similar sleep schedule.

 

 

We have had a variety of staterooms on NCL from no-frills teeny tiny inside to a family suite. 12222 is a good compromise in terms of space and price and our family of four found it worked quite well for our needs.

 

Coming into the room there are two coat hooks on the wall and also a control panel for lights, temperature, and make up the room and do not disturb indicators. The indicators are pretty neat because these correspond to very discrete indicator lights above the door of the room in the hall- so no “do not disturb” cards to mess with. To turn the lights and a/c on or off, one is intended to insert the stateroom key card into the slot, there is also an indicator light in the hall that turns on when a key is in the slot to let the stateroom attendant know that the room is occupied. When you leave your stateroom removing the key from the slot powers off the room. We found it was easier to use a different card than our stateroom key card though.

 

 

I didn’t think to bring any magnets, but I noticed some other people did and used them to adhere the dailies and other notes and invitations to the stateroom wall – very clever idea.

 

Immediately next to the “front door” is the door to our washroom. This is a pretty good bathroom overall – there is even room to turn around inside! I love the larger bath/shower area and while the water pressure wasn’t the greatest, it was sufficient. There is some sort of heat pump which seems to help regulate the water temperature and I never experienced any water temperature fluxuations which has been problematic on other ships – there’s nothing worse than a sudden blast of hot or freezing water! Also the glass shower doors are nice – no wet shower curtain which always seems to stick to me and is so annoying! In the shower is a “shower gel” and “shampoo” dispenser. There are no other toiletries provided so bring your own lotion and conditioner. There are a couple of ledges in the shower and also a clothesline. We used this a lot of drying swimsuits, and also usually had something tossed over the top rail of the shower door too.

 

There is some good storage under and above the sink area. We thought the double sinks were a bit unnecessary though. While the bathroom is pretty large, it isn’t a two person affair, and I’d prefer the second sink be omitted in favor of additional counter space- there’s never enough bathroom counter space. As a solution, I used the table top from the ottoman and found it worked nicely for a little extra room.

 

 

Unfortunately other than an underpowered “shaver” outlet, there are no other outlets in the bathroom, so if you need to use a hair dryer or curling iron, you need to use the vanity/desk out in the main area which is where the only two outlets in the room are located. There are also two European outlets. The hair dryer is hardwired and was sufficient for my long hair, even though the cord was a touch short, it was adequate.

 

The vanity/desk/television unit area is thoughtfully designed. There is a refrigerator (minibar) tucked into one of the cabinets. We asked our stateroom attendant to empty it out so we could use it to keep our bottled water and other things cold and remove any temptation the kids might have to grab a snack.

 

 

We also stowed the single cup coffee maker and accessories since the kids like to make towers out of the little creamers and play with the sugar packets. The coffee onboard isn’t unpalatable and is always available. There is an additional cost coffee bar in the atrium too so we went there for a latte fix. That is one thing I don’t like about this stateroom – no Lavazza cappuccino machine in the room :( Getting rid of the coffee maker freed up some counter space, there’s also a small ledge for sunglasses or whatever and then to the left is the television and a magazine rack that was the perfect fit for our BYOW. There are two cabinets on that side of the desk too. Under the desk is an ottoman that can be used for storage and as a seat or as a table with the wooden top on.

[epaul78]

 

 

Across from the vanity is the couch. This converts into a bed and there is a Pullman bed that comes down from the ceiling too. The nice thing about this configuration is that you can still walk around with the beds down. The closet is next to the couch/bunkbeds and has hanging and shelf storage.

 

 

 

 

The main bed is slightly raised with lifejackets stored underneath and room to stash luggage. Each side of the bed has a small nightstand and a switch to turn off the lights. I have to say this was the most comfortable bed we've ever had on a cruise! In fact the only problem with sleeping was the light from our neighbor's balcony light sneaking in through our curtain, but after I mentioned it to them they were happy to turn it off (like us it took them a little bit of looking to locate the switch for it).

 

Speaking of the balcony, what do you think of our balcony?

 

 

Just kidding! THIS is the balcony:

 

 

But even though it was tiny, we spent a lot of time out there and enjoyed having it.

 

[epaul78]

Here's a few photos from around the ship. I was in love with the light fixtuires - they are all really unique and have a lot of personality. Especially the big color changing chandelier - I was always looking to see what "mood" it was in!

 

 

The buffet (even the lights here are neato):

 

Crowded "adult" pool area. I love Getaway's "ink" splashed around all over - very pretty.

 

Oceanfront:

 

One of the boys' favorite things to do (psst NCL- there should be more than one chess board, it gets used a lot!)

 

Cake Boss Creation:

[cruisinsly]

I have enjoyed your pictures and review so far. Thanks for sharing.