Norwegian Getaway Review with 107 photos & 9 videos!

[triptolemus]

 

Anyway, someone here on Cruise Critic had some fun with my photo. They made a "meme" out of it and posted it in the original King and Queen Of The Chair Hogs thread. I laughed out loud when I saw it![/size]

 

 

 

That someone would be me! :D

 

I'm enjoying your review...your pics are wonderful and I'm happy to have been able to contribute! Cheers!

[david_sobe]

All I can say is WOW

There have been some excellent reviews with photos on cruise critic but yours definitely takes even the best up a notch or two. The photos and their quality are simply amazing. Well written and balanced review.

A++++++++++

[Spaniel Lover]

St. Maarten

 

Up until now, it's all been about the ship. Now, let's have a look at some pictures of all the fun we had on shore... starting with our day in St. Maarten, where we took the "Mirabella Catamaran Sail & Swim" shore excursion.

 

 

It was a beautiful day in St Maarten, and we had a lot of fun in the warm water. The great thing about taking a Caribbean cruise during hurricane season is that the water is as warm as it ever gets all year long... that's why hurricanes form this time of the year. Hurricanes only form when the ocean waters are at their warmest... and in the Caribbean that tends to be August and September and sometimes October. We like to cruise in September and October because of those warm waters and the fact that most kids are in school so there aren't as many kids on the cruise ships. Perhaps an even better reason is that cruise prices are quite low during hurricane season. It's always a gamble taking a cruise during hurricane season, because you do run that risk of having weather-related problems... but so far, we've never lost that gamble.

 

Kellyn took this picture of me snorkeling off the coast of St Maarten

 

This was actually the first time we had ever been to St Maarten. It's been a place I've wanted to visit for a long time now. I first became fascinated with it when I ran into videos on YouTube of planes landing at the Princess Juliana airport in St. Maarten. The runway butts right up against the beach, which makes for some

. The best YouTube videos from the airport in St Maarten are from 747 landings... because 747s are so big that they have to use the entire length of the runway just to land... so they touch down right at the beginning of the runway, right by the beach... which makes for some very dramatic videos.

 

I would have liked to have gone to the little beach by the airport runway and shot some video of planes landing, but that seemed like a strange way to spend my first visit to St Maarten... and probably wouldn't have been something Kellyn would have enjoyed. So, I thought the Mirabella catamaran excursion was probably a better way to spend the day. But as luck would have it, the Mirabella took us to a beach that was not far at all from the Princess Juliana airport... and, as luck would have it, I got to watch some planes land... including a big 747! I just had to capture the moment on video...

 

[YOUTUBE]smZnRzSJJDY[/YOUTUBE]

 

It would have been a much better video if I had been on the little beach right at the end of the runway,

but I had a lot more fun swimming and snorkeling off the Mirabella than I would have had at the airport!

 



A look towards the front of the Mirabella catamaran,

as we headed back to the ship after a nice day in St. Maarten

[Spaniel Lover]

When we got close to the ship, I snapped this picture of Kellyn

 

 

 



She asked me to hand over the camera, so she could take a photo of me, too

 

 

 



While we're at it, how about a picture of just the ship?

[Spaniel Lover]

St. Thomas

 

We've been to St. Thomas many times before. I always enjoy it there. As someone who likes to spend a lot of time in the water, it doesn't get much better than the beaches of the Virgin Islands. There are many excellent shore excursions that can take you to beautiful beaches on St Thomas or on several nearby islands.

 

This time we decided to take the "PowerCat Snorkel & Beach" shore excursion. It's a two-part excursion, with the first part snorkeling at Turtle Cove on nearby Buck island... and the second part hanging out at Honeymoon Beach on St. Thomas.

 

Honeymoon Beach, St Thomas

 

 

 



The Virgin Breeze "PowerCat" catamaran

 

I made a very stupid mistake in packing for this shore excursion! The previous day, in St Maarten, we had some really good snorkeling and I got some nice underwater video of a big school of fish, using my waterproof Olympus camera. It was one of the clips that made it in to my "highlights of the cruise" video at the top of this page. Figuring that I already had all the underwater video I needed, I made the (bad) decision not to even pack my waterproof camera for the shore excursion in St. Thomas. I figured I would try to spend more time enjoying the snorkeling, and less time concentrating on the camera work. In retrospect, I think it may have been a mistake!

 

It turns out that on this particular day at Turtle Cove, we had just about the best snorkeling conditions we've ever seen in all of our 26 cruises! The clarity of the water was perfect, and there was all sorts of marine life to be seen that day. I saw so many turtles that I almost got bored with watching them after a while. There were LOTS of fish, and even a sting ray. Some beautiful coral, too. It was like snorkeling inside some billionaire's aquarium. And I didn't have my waterproof camera with me to get a single picture of it!!! Oh well. I enjoyed the snorkeling very much, and I won't soon forget that day.

 

There's another aspect of this particular shore excursion that I really appreciated, too. St. Thomas is part of the US Virgin Islands. It's a US territory. It's VERY American... in all the good ways. Every single crew member of the Virgin Breeze PowerCat was as American as apple pie. It was easy to understand their instructions, because it was like listening to your neighbor talk... no accent. And they were very relaxed and set a really nice tone for the whole day. Sometimes you get on these Caribbean snorkeling excursions and the crew are foreign and speak with a thick accent. Hard to understand! Or sometimes on snorkeling excursions the crew are wound really tight, and it creates some tension... like when they're yelling at people during snorkeling to stick together in a group. I really don't like snorkeling in a big group of people! The guy behind you is always bumping in to you, and the guy in front of you is always kicking you with his flippers! So I really liked that the snorkel guide on the Virgin Breeze was OK with us doing our own thing. All in all, it couldn't have been a better excursion.

 

When it was all over, and the catamaran was headed back to drop us off at our ship, I had a very special moment. As luck would have it, our path took us right past the next ship that we'll be sailing on later this year... the largest cruise ship in the world, Royal Caribbean's Allure Of The Seas. I got a real kick out of being able to take a good look at her, a few months before I'll have the chance to actually sail on her.

 

Allure Of The Seas

 

 

I couldn't resist the opportunity to shoot some video of her as we sailed by...

 

[YOUTUBE]_joP_kuwy_s[/YOUTUBE]

 

 

When we finally got back to the Havensight pier in Charlotte Amalie on St Thomas,

I snapped this photo of the Norwegian Getaway...

 

 

One thing to notice in this picture is that building up on the hillside in the upper right. There's a cable tramway that runs up the hill... and that building is what's at the top of the tramway. There's a restaurant and a gift shop and a spectacular view of the cruise ship and the bay. If you're ever in St Thomas and don't have anything better to do, take the tram ride. It's gorgeous.

[Spaniel Lover]

Nassau

 

Our final port of call was Nassau, in the Bahamas. This was another place we've been to many times, and it's always been fun. It was nice to do it with a different cruise line this time, as there were some options for shore excursions that we hadn't ever had before. We elected to go with the "Blue Lagoon Island Beach Day"... because I had seen pictures of the little water park they have on Blue Lagoon island, and I wanted to let my inner 10-year-old come out to play one last time this cruise.

 

That's me going down the big inflatable slide at Blue Lagoon

 

 

I got lucky and happened to have my camera rolling when this funny thing happened...

 

[YOUTUBE]MZzNXjEWD94[/YOUTUBE]

 

On the boat ride back to the ship, we passed by the world-famous Atlantis hotel...

 

 

On previous visits to Nassau, we've spent the day playing at the Atlantis water park. That's lots of fun, and I definitely recommend it if you have a full day in Nassau. For some reason, the Norwegian Getaway makes kind of a brief stop in Nassau, and I didn't think it was quite long enough to justify the cost of an Atlantis excursion this time.

 

 

 

Back at the pier in Nassau, our neighbors for the day are Carnival Victory and the Disney Dream

 

 

 

The Disney Dream has a cool waterslide feature known as the Aquaduck...

 

[YOUTUBE]tnOCVajeNo4[/YOUTUBE]

 

 



In my previous visits, I've seen plenty of other cruise ships in Nassau...

but I've never been docked next to a warship.

F310 is known as the Fridtjof Nansen. She is a frigate of the Royal Norwegian Navy.

I guess the Norwegians stick together!

[Spaniel Lover]

What Camera Do I Use?

 

Whenever I post these cruise reviews, I always get questions about what camera I used to take the photos. I actually bring two cameras with me on a cruise.

 

One is just a fairly inexpensive waterproof camera, so I can shoot pictures and videos while snorkeling. The one I use is an Olympus TG-830. However, that's a slightly older model now... and if you're in the market for one, you should get the new version which is the Olympus TG-850.

 

For everything except the underwater stuff, the camera I use is a Canon EOS-70D digital SLR camera. That's probably too much camera for most people... so if you're in the market for a very high quality digital SLR camera, the one I actually recommend for most people is the Canon Digital Rebel T5i. If you get one, make sure you get the T5i with the 135mm lens, not the cheap version with the 55mm lens.

[Spaniel Lover]

Downloads

 

If you're researching the idea of taking a cruise on the Norwegian Getaway,

here are a few documents you might want to download:

 

Freestyle Daily newsletters for the entire week (.pdf) (Warning: large 25 megabyte download!)

Norwegian Getaway Deck Plans (.pdf)

Overview of the schedule for the week (.pdf)

Freestyle Dining guide (.pdf)

 

Regarding the deck plans... if you have access to a color printer that can print on 11x17" paper, I recommend you print out these deck plans double-sided on 11x17" paper and bring them with you on your cruise. They are better than any deck plans they give you on the ship, and they will make it a lot easier to find things on the ship. Another option is to copy them over to your phone, tablet, or laptop... and then just use the zoom feature to look at details on the deck plans.

[Spaniel Lover]

Packing List & To-Do List

 

Here's my official packing list.

Perhaps this will help you think of things to pack for your cruise.

On a few of the unusual items, I'll provide a link to the exact version I recommend at Amazon.com

 

Passports

Airline boarding pass

Cruise boarding pass

Luggage tags

If driving, printed directions to the hotel & cruise terminal

Wallet (I actually forgot this on one cruise!)

Swimsuit

Flip-flops

Waterproof beach shoes

Sunglasses

Underwear & socks (incredibly, I actually forgot to bring socks on one cruise)

One dressy outfit

Shirts

Pants

Shorts

Sweatshirt

Deodorant

Q-tips

Hair brush

Nail clippers

Razor

Medications

Toothbrush & toothpaste

Sun block

Hand lotion

Travel-size Kleenex for the airplane

Lint remover

Lawry's seasoning salt

Laptop computer or tablet computer, including charger

Digital SLR Camera

Waterproof camera

Camera tripod, or selfie-stick

Binoculars

Wireless indoor/outdoor thermometer

6-outlet power strip

MP3 player

Noise-cancelling headphones

Cell phone & charger

Wrist watch

Clothes hangers

 

My pre-cruise to-do list:

Stop newspaper and mail delivery

Book shore excursions

Send an email to family members with my travel plans & itinerary

Turn off water to the house to prevent the chance of a pipe break

Turn down (or turn off) the water heater to save energy

Make sure garden sprinklers are on

Make sure house is locked and alarm system is active

 

On the last day at work:

Update voice mail message to indicate my return date

Update out-of-office email message, and turn it on

Make sure my temporary replacement has an updated desk guide

Put a sign at my desk indicating my return date

[Spaniel Lover]

And that's all I've got for you. Thanks for reading it! If you'd like to read reviews from some of the other cruises I've been on, with that same level of detail and including photos and videos like I did in this review... head on over to my web site at www.jimzim.net

[LadyShiva]

Thank you for an excellent trip report. I hope you have an equally wonderful time on the Allure--she's also a fabulous ship! :D

[my2grls98]

Thanks for the comments! Let's get back to the story. We're about half way through it...

 

Enjoying your review! Thanks so much! We sailed on her in April and are going to again in March 2015! But by reading your review, I've noticed that we missed quite a bit the first time around! Can't wait to experience the things we missed the first time! Thanks for the photos and videos!:)

[cruisemainiac]

Great review. We will be in the cabin right next to yours in Nov. It was informative to get the spa info, I'm sure we'll get good use out of it as well.

[tapcrazy]

Loved the photos and videos of your cruise on the Getaway! My husband and I board her Oct 18th, we are avid cruisers, although with other lines, NCL Epic has been our only other NCL outing. Your photos and descriptions are making me so excited, we lucked out and have booked a Haven Penthouse on 15. So excited! Thanks again!

[javierbjj]

Great review, that was super informative. Norwegian should give you a free cruise just for that report.

Disappointed to hear you didn't like JC Sanchez. I thought he was great on the Epic in Europe.

I look forward to read your next review on Allure of the seas.

[KJE Atlanta]

One of the best reviews ever. Outstanding job. Thanks!

[Daghis]

What a magnificent review! I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and looking at all the pictures and videos.

 

The timing is perfect as I'm in the homestretch until my cruise on Norwegian Getaway in just a few days, so I'll definitely be able to use your comments as a resource to help make my cruise even better.

[flcruiser3]

Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed review! Loved your pictures and video too!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

[funat55]

This had to be one of the most comprehensive, and enjoyable reviews I have ever read. Thank you so much for the time and effort you put into it. It brought back memories of my Getaway vacation this past April, also in a Haven Spa Suite.

[Dizzkitty]

Wow what a review! My husband and I just started researching this cruise today for our 5 year anniversary and I happened to be so lucky to come across your thread! Thank you for the very detailed review!

[megacruiser]

This review is beyond excellent - it is phenomenal! I loved the writing and the photos are exceptional. I will be re-reading it from time to time prior to my Getaway cruise in January; it will help greatly when I plan my week.

 

I know the work involved in writing such a comprehensive review, as well as the time involved in collating and editing photos. You have made it look effortless. I hope this review gets the recognition it deserves and is not overlooked because it was all submitted in such a short time frame.

 

Sincere thanks and I look forward to your future contributions.

 

Regards

megacruiser

[Cruiser Bruiser]

Well done! Thanks for taking the time to share your concise, beautiful review. Getaway certainly has become the darling of the Norwegian fleet. (She definitely seems to have exorcised all of the bad juju that haunted Breakaway, at least. But I think that's just the difference between one ship sailing from a cold port and the other sailing from beautiful Miami.)

 

Mr. Sanchez, your cruise director, seems to mostly receive negative reviews from those folks who post on CC. What happened to Julie Valeriote? Does anyone know? :confused: She is by far Norwegian's best cruise director and she was on Getaway initially.

[Balcony93]

Great review and photos.

 

Was the internet on the ship charged by the minutes online or usage (mB) ?

[teseo]

Mr. Sanchez, your cruise director, seems to mostly receive negative reviews from those folks who post on CC. What happened to Julie Valeriote? Does anyone know? :confused: She is by far Norwegian's best cruise director and she was on Getaway initially.

 

Julie is on the Breakaway and i agree with you she is the best ever, I have been on 8 NCL cruises and she is great, i will be back on the BA 2 more times in NOv and Feb and i hope she always will be there, i know the chances of that happen are small but i only can hope.

[kba1988]

Superb review!!! I know it must have been a lot of work organizing and re-organizing your thoughts and pictures, so thanks a whole bunch.

 

You may have mentioned this, but what's the "real deal" with the Lawry's Seasoned Salt? LOL!!! :D:D