Getaway 10/18 Review

[bwhitfieldtate]

We had an awesome time on our Getaway cruise! A little bit about us, this was a trip to celebrate my 27th birthday (October 18th), my honeymoon (August 2nd wedding), and the upcoming adoption finalization of our 2 year old daughter. Like I said, I'm 27, my husband is 23, and our friend came along with us, she's 30. We were all first time cruisers. We had a mini suite, 10808, and our friend stayed in one of the studios.

 

 

Miami

 

We flew down to Miami on Friday morning and we were originally supposed to stay at the Embassy Suites near the airport. This turned out to be the most stressful part of the trip. I had told our travel agent that we wanted to be around a lot of stuff to do in Miami since it would be our first time there and I just trusted her on the reservation. We got to Miami around 1 p.m. and the shuttle took us to our hotel which was very close to the airport. The hotel itself was very nice but just across the street was a place called the "Pink Kitty" or something very close to that. And about 2 blocks away was a place advertising to have the "Largest selection of male stimulation toys in all of Miami". So needless to say, our first impression was not very positive. When we got into the hotel, we were told that check in was absolutely not allowed until 4 p.m. We were exhausted because we had been traveling since 4:30 a.m. but we went with it and asked if they could give us advice on places to go eat. The front desk gave us suggestions for 3 or 4 places and when we looked all of them up on our phones, none were closer than 30 minutes away. So I went outside, called a hotel in South Beach called the Cadillac Courtyard Marriott and made a reservation there, went inside and cancelled our current hotel reservation, paid a cab driver $40 and went to South Beach instead. The hotel there was wonderful. It was reasonably priced for Miami and was right on the beach. The room and the staff were awesome. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone.

 

 

 

[bwhitfieldtate]

Day 1

 

We took a cab from the hotel in South Beach and got to the Port of Miami around 11. We found boarding to be very easy. The lines to check in were very short. One thing that was weird, they gave us a medical form to fill out and told us to complete it before getting to the counter. The only problem, there were no pens for us to use! We eventually found one on a table and then shared it with one of the tons of other people searching for a pen. So, moral of the story, bring something to write with to the port. We were in Boarding Group 3 and we were on the ship before noon.

 

We started with lunch at O'Sheehans since it was not very busy and we did not want to fight the Garden Cafe crowds. From talking to others, it definitely seems like we made the right choice. After that we explored the ship for a while until our room was ready. Once we could go to our rooms, we headed down to check out the room and met our room steward, Rosita. She was absolutely awesome the entire trip!

 

After we got checked in we did some more exploring, made some last minute phone calls, and then relaxed and had a drink. We went to Spice H20 for the sail away party. After that we went back to the room, changed, and then went to Cagney's for my birthday dinner. We really enjoyed dinner at Cagney's. We ate on the waterfront and there was a nice breeze, we loved the concept of being able to eat outside and actually feel like we were on a ship in the ocean and not inside a building. The only complaint that we had for Cagney's is that service was incredibly slow. I don't blame it on the server because he had 6-7 tables that he was working at the time. It seems like, especially in the pay restaurants, there should be smaller waiter-table ratio. Oh well, we're on vacation so a 2 hour dinner was just fine!

 

 

 

 

[bwhitfieldtate]

Days 2 and 3

 

Days 2 and 3 consisted of a lot of nothing. We spent quite a bit of time exploring the ship and relaxing. We quickly found our favorite spot on the ship, Spice H20. I had considered doing the Vibe passes but I'm glad we did not even try. During the day, there were plenty of chairs there to lay on and get some sun. They had music playing but it was not very loud; I read my book up there every day with no problem. We liked the small, wading pool with the waterfalls. It was nice to go sit with your feet in every so often to help cool off. Also, we did not really encounter very many chair hogs, unlike around the pool.

 

We did go to the actual pool to watch the Mr. Sexy Legs contest. We had planned on going to all of these shows but after attending this one, we all agreed it would be our last. The pool is just way too small for such a large ship. People were constantly fighting for a place to sit and have their feet in the pool. Also, if it's going to be an adults only pool they either need to move it to the adults only area or enforce it better. Every few minutes you would be sitting there relaxing and a 10 year old kid would jump into the pool right next to you and fill your $10 drink up with pool water. Kind of frustrating. So that was our last experience with the pool on the ship.

 

We went to the Garden Cafe for breakfast and lunch both days. The food was nothing to write home about but we always found something we liked. I was nervous about the quality of the food on the ship after reading the message boards but I think the complaints were a little exaggerated. I'm not sure what people expect with food quality when it's being mass prepared for 4,000 passengers plus crew on a ship in the middle of the ocean! For dinner, we had Savor one night and Taste the other. I know I had the lasagna one night, which was pretty good, and I cannot remember what I had the next. I do remember that we had the Warm Chocolate Volcano for dessert both nights. I couldn't get enough of it!

 

Also, on Wednesday night, we went and saw Burn the Floor. We all thought that it was very well done. We were also treated to some pre-show entertainment by the people behind us who obviously did not like their poor friend Sylvia.

 

 

 

[bwhitfieldtate]

Day 4 - St Maarten

 

On Day 4 we waited until about 30 minutes after they announced that we could leave the ship and we went to the Garden Cafe for breakfast. After a quick breakfast we got off the ship and started looking for a taxi to take us to Orient Beach. The set up in St Maarten was very nice and it was easy to find where to go to take a taxi and the prices were posted so we knew exactly what to pay. Once there were enough people going to Orient Beach the taxi - or really van - packed all of us in and we were on our way. $7 per person each way.

 

Our driver dropped us off in front of Bikini Beach and we decided to stay there. It was $30 for the 3 of us to each get a lounger and one umbrella. It also came with wifi. It was nice to be able to set on the beach and face time with our daughter. After that we did some reading and relaxing. We thought the beach was very nice and we would definitely go again! The only bad thing about the beach was the number of people trying to get you to buy stuff. As long as you gave them a firm no and just continued to do what you were doing, they would move on. Also, just some advice, even though it was nice to use the ipad and talk to our daughter, we would probably not do it again. There are no lockers or anything on the beach so we could not go too far out into the ocean and we had to constantly watch our chairs. Also, everything there was priced in euros and a soda was $3; so we decided against eating lunch there.

 

After a few hours, we walked up from the beach and looked for one of the guys in an orange shirt. After a few minutes he had enough people to head back to port and we were on our way. Once we got back to port we looked around a few shops and then made our way back to the ship. We were ready to get something to eat!

 

We were exhausted after spending all day on the beach, and our northern, fall time, skin was bright red, so we had a relaxing evening. We had a drink up in Spice H20 and then we spent the evening on our balcony reading. We had an early bed time since St. Thomas was coming up next.

 

 

 

 

[murph1977]

Enjoying the review, looking forward to the rest. We sail on 11/22

[bwhitfieldtate]

St. Thomas

 

For St. Thomas we had booked an excursion through the ship, Castaway Girl Sail and Snorkel. Since we had to be in the Getaway Theater by 8:20, we did room service for breakfast. After a quick bowl of cereal and some yogurt, we were headed down to deck 7. Only Gabe and I were going on the excursion, we made plans to meet Ashlee by the ship at 11:30.

 

We were all gathered by 8:20 and we headed off the ship and down to the dock to find our boat to take us out to the cove. We waited and waited and waited in the hot sun for our boat to arrive. An hour after the scheduled start time of the excursion, we were finally on our way. The staff on the Castaway were great and they did an excellent job of doing a guided tour around the cove and of the sunken ship. Since we were an hour late at going, we stayed an hour later. The ride back they opened up the sail and we slowly made our way back to shore. They were definitely liberal with the rum! After about 4 glasses of rum punch each, and some pretzels, we finally made it back. We went shopping a little and eventually found Ashlee, who had given up on waiting for us. I'd definitely recommend the excursion but don't make plans to be back at a certain time!

 

We did some light shopping and then headed over to Senor Frogs for a drink and some appetizers. After having our drinks, taking advantage of the free wifi, and watching some people make a drunken mess of themselves, we headed back to the ship.

 

After a short nap, we went to dinner at O'Sheehan's which was followed by a few drinks in Spice H20. We finished the night with watching Legally Blonde. It's not necessarily my type of show but I think the cast did a great job. I probably would not go see it again but I don't regret spending the time on it.

 

 

 

 

 

[bwhitfieldtate]

Day 6 - Sea Day

 

I am one of those people who researches everything in detail and I love knowing how everything works. So it was a no brainer to me to spend the $80 and do the behind the scenes tour. While I felt like it was a little much just to see parts of the ship, I think it was one of my favorite things from the entire week. The tour was at 10:30 a.m.

 

We started the tour in the Illusionarium where we had a slide show presentation on the history of NCL, very interesting! Then we had a behind the scenes tour of the Illusionarium and Wine Lovers the Musical. After that we walked across the ship and got to see the galley where preparations for lunch were underway. We then went to the environmental area and learned about how stuff on the ship is disposed of, i.e. what happens to left over food, cardboard boxes, glass, where the ships water comes from, and, of course, what happens when the toilet is flushed. The tour finished up with a tour of the Bridge. I still cannot get over how such a small joystick can control such a massive object (and yes, the individual next to me explained that she, as a lady, completely understands how that is possible.):D

 

After the tour, we had lunch in the Garden Cafe and then, of course, did some reading and took a short nap. Gabe and I had reservations for the Illusionarium that evening. So, here's the thing, if you look at it as paying $30 for dinner that includes a show, you will be disappointed. But! if you look at it as paying $30 for a show that includes a dinner, I think you'll be happy. It's not that the food was bad, it was just not worth $30. I did read on here before that your only options were the steak and shrimp or a vegetarian option. We were offered the steak and shrimp, a vegetarian option, salmon, or a chicken breast. Since I have a shell fish allergy, I picked the chicken breast. Probably one of my least favorite meals on the entire trip but I wouldn't classify it was "bad". We definitely enjoyed the show though and the story line. Well worth the money.

 

Following dinner at the Illusionarium, we met Ashlee and some new friends at Spice H20 and watched Pacific Rim. After the movie, we had some drinks and stuck around for the Glow Party. This was easily our most memorable evenings on the ship. We drank, danced, and hung out with our new friends from 10 p.m. until 4 a.m. If you're on a tight budget, or parents like us who are unable to stay up late every night of the week, this is the night to spend the money and to rest up for.

 

After greeting our room steward, who was headed to work as we were headed to the room, we passed out in our cabin and tried to get a few hours of sleep before arriving in Nassau.

 

 

 

Definitely need one of these at home... Before

 

 

After

 

 

[bwhitfieldtate]

Illusionarium

 

 

 

[bwhitfieldtate]

Day 7 - Nassau

 

Well day 7 was a little rough for us... After about 3 hours of sleep, we woke up in Nassau to our first rainy day. The rain and clouds cleared up a little bit for us as we were coming into port. We did not have any excursions book but the ladies in the cabin next to us had tickets through the ship for Atlantis and they told me that the ship cancelled the excursion. We got up, had some breakfast, and then got off of the ship. We walked into town and did a little bit of shopping. We also created quite the drama as two vendors argued over who had the better sodas to buy from, with one vendor absolutely insisting that we would be buying a flat soda from the other guy. In the end, we picked the one that had bottled soda because we did not want to carry a can around.

 

After just a little bit of shopping, it started to pour down rain. We quickly finished what we were doing and rushed back to the ship. It pretty much continued to rain for the remainder of our time in Nassau and the ship filled up pretty quickly with people returning. We had lunch in O'Sheehan's and attempted to avoid the rain. We started packing our stuff and getting everything together. Once we left port, we went downstairs and did some shopping and picked up a few last minute gifts and picked out which pictures we wanted to buy.

 

We went up to Spice H20 for the final dance party but because of the strong wind and the intermittent rain, it was moved to Bliss. We hung out down there for a few hours and around 1:30 a.m., we told all of our new friends good bye and gave the obligatory "we'll stay in touch" "find me on Facebook" .

 

We turned on the TV and saw that we were very close to Miami, so we hurried to bed to get a few hours of sleep before a long day of flights.

 

 

 

[bwhitfieldtate]

Miami

 

Well, we were finally back in Miami and our trip was over. We did the easy walk off and headed out of our room at 8:15. We were off the ship, through customs, in a cab, and to the airport by 9:15. It was incredibly easy.

 

A few random things:

 

• 
  We were going to do the NCL Transfers from the port to the airport but on our trip to South Beach the week before we saw a sign in the cab that said all trips from the port to the airport and from the airport to the port were $24, all fees included. We decided on this and we were glad we did. We walked right out of the port, found a directional sign on where to go if we wanted a taxi, walked down a roped off section, and there was a cab waiting for us. No lines, no waiting. Well worth the $30 (after tip).

 

• 
  I did the soda package. I saw several boards on here on whether or not one person in a cabin can get the soda package. The answer is yes you can. I specifically mentioned the fact that I was not the only person in the cabin and they told me that it did not matter.

 

• 
  For the final night, we had dinner in the MDR. We went downstairs as we had every other night and walked up to Savor where we were told that there would be no more availability for the rest of the night because of reservations and that we would have to go to the Tropicana Room. Tropicana would have been fine but we were in dress shorts and, while we had nice shirts on, they did not have a collar (hey, we were enjoying one last chance to dress like it's warm!) so we walked over to Taste and were told that there would be a 15 min wait. After about 10 min we had a table. We saw them turning quite a few people away because they were full due to reservations. The problem, in just where we were sitting, out of the 17 tables that I counted, 6 of them set empty the entire time. NCL needs to rethink the reservations at the MDRs. Maybe just 1 of the 3 should allow reservations or something like that because all they were doing with their current set up is upsetting a lot of people and leaving a lot of empty tables.

 

• 
  As I mentioned earlier, I thought about getting the Vibe passes. I'm very glad that we did not spend the money on it and that we just spent the time in Spice H20. If you are looking for a more relaxing area to spend those sunny sea days, it's the place to go. If you take my advice and go to Spice, keep an eye out for the bar server Gusti.... he had us just call him "Goose". He was awesome. Every time we would walk up there, he would greet us with 2 waters and a pepsi! We were definitely sad to leave him at the end of the week!
  

 

We absolutely enjoyed our first cruise and we are already looking into our next one!

 

If you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer them.

[PathfinderEss]

Very nice review, thanks, glad you had such a good time and congratulations.

[SliceOfLife]

Great review! We were on the same cruise and you were two cabins away from mine. I was in 10804.

 

I'll be posting a review and pictures soon.

[david_sobe]

Great review! I thought about the behind the scenes tour but $80 is lots of money for the tour. But apparently you think it is worth it. Can you explain why?

THANKS

[McDebbie]

Nice review. We were on the same cruise with you also and must have seen you in Spice H20 as we spent a lot of time there. Loved the water feature. And yes, the pool was just ridiculous!

[lilly_and_hunter]

Thanks for writing this!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[bwhitfieldtate]

A few more pictures!

 

The Waterfall at Spice H20

 

 

Ashlee's Studio

 

 

Hanging Out in Spice H20

 

 

At the Glow Party

 

[bwhitfieldtate]

Nice review. We were on the same cruise with you also and must have seen you in Spice H20 as we spent a lot of time there. Loved the water feature. And yes, the pool was just ridiculous!

 

Yes, I was very surprised. A pool in Spice H20 would have been nice... But at the same time, I'm kind of glad there is not one there... I think it would have made Spice during the day much less relaxing and more of a party zone. It was nice to have that at night but I absolutely loved being able to lay up there during the day and just relax with the sun and my book.

Edited October 28, 2014 by bwhitfieldtate

[bwhitfieldtate]

Great review! I thought about the behind the scenes tour but $80 is lots of money for the tour. But apparently you think it is worth it. Can you explain why?

THANKS

 

I would say that to me it was worth it; especially since I have not been on a cruise before. I'm really intrigued by learning how things work and learning facts that no one else would know. So I think it kind of depends on whether that sort of stuff interests you because I'd definitely tell my husband and our friend not to spend their money on it, they would find it a complete waste of time.

 

If you are into stuff like that, I think you would like it. I will say that they gave a very in depth tour. It was very informative and they did a great job about answering any questions that we had. I was kind of concerned they would just do a quick, superficial tour and pocket the $80. I definitely don't think they did that. It is listed as a 2 hour tour but ours was closer to 3 hours. You also get a nice little portfolio book with a picture of you in the galley wearing a chef's hat and holding this huge whisk. It also has a picture of the itinerary and a picture of the captain; just something kind of nice to have.

 

Now that I've been, I probably won't go on our next cruise but it's something that in 10 years or so when technology has changed a lot, I'd definitely give it another try.

 

Hope that helps!

[bwhitfieldtate]

Great review! We were on the same cruise and you were two cabins away from mine. I was in 10804.

 

I'll be posting a review and pictures soon.

 

Can't wait to see your review! I hope you guys enjoyed the trip as much as we did!

[L-in-CLT]

We were also treated to some pre-show entertainment by the people behind us who obviously did not like their poor friend Sylvia.

 

 

 

This cracked me UP! Great review :)

[mickanddoe]

In St Maraten was there a golf cart to take you to the taxi.. my wife is handicap and has difficult walking.. some ports have those people movers.. thanks.

[bwhitfieldtate]

In St Maraten was there a golf cart to take you to the taxi.. my wife is handicap and has difficult walking.. some ports have those people movers.. thanks.

 

I know I remember seeing golf carts at one of the ports but I honestly cannot remember if it was St Maarten or St Thomas! I'm sorry!

[Susie51]

Thank you for your review and pics.