Back from Getaway 9/25-10/2 Sailing.

[JB3]

Just a few quick notes from our experience last week--- some horrible, some excellent! : )

 

We're a married couple in our late 40s/early 50s. This was our 24th cruise overall, and our 4th on NCL. Our 8th, 11th, and 12th cruises were on the Sun, the Pearl, and the Dawn.

 

Overall we had a great cruise... always do! Each ship, cruise line, and sailing have their positives and negatives. These notes are just based on our experience. I'd love to hear some feedback about the embarkation and muster drill. (Hoping that these are not standard, and/or that these will improve!) Thanks ahead of time.

 

--Worst embarkation ever in 24 cruises! Sailed out of Miami. Normally you get to the pier, go through the line, register, are given your cruise card, and you go get on the ship. Simple! Not that day. We usually go much earlier, but didn't get there until about 12:30. There were lines, but they moved fast. Got our cruise cards, and off we were to board the ship. Nope! We were taken to a holding line... and then to a holding room. Everyone was given a number and told to wait until their number was called to then get in line to board. This was a complete mess. There was no direction at all. Nobody guiding people to explain what was going on. The numbers given had no rhyme nor reason. Some people got into the holding room, and sat down until they would hopefully hear their number called. That's what we did. We never heard any #s being called, so eventually just got in the line. Some people came into that room, and just got right in line, just to be turned away later if they didn't have the correct #. Finally we heard a number over the loud speaker, but it wasn't ours. Guests had no idea what to do... it was very confusing. If NCL wants to herd people onto the ship like this... they at least need to have people there giving instructions as to what's going on. But really.... NCL... if you're reading this... please get rid of the holding areas! Things go much smoother when people can just filter onto the ship after registration. We also were not given a map or any paper giving any instructions for once we were onboard either. On top of that... we walked down the deck to the casino to enter the ship-- and there was nobody at all there to greet the guests coming in. It was quite bizarre. We just looked at each other like... where are we, and where are we supposed to go? Later we found a map with 1st day instructions in the atrium by guest services. There were only 2 of those left there. I wish we'd known ahead of time that one of the smaller main dining rooms was open for lunch-- we would have done that. We’re silver Latitudes, and our friends are Platinum. They got there 2 hours before we did, and had the exact same experience. Also, we got through the first lines to registration easily enough, but once we were into the next holding line and especially getting on the ship, we were right with everyone else. The whole procedure was just bad, and made no sense.

 

--Worst muster drill ever in 24 cruises! What a cluster this was! It was as if the cruise staff had no control at all over the guests. It was the most unorganized and loud muster drill I've ever seen. Ours was in the atrium. People didn't listen, and didn't get quiet. If I'd never cruised before, I don't think I'd feel too safe and secure after that! Not sure I'd really understand what to do in case of an emergency. This was the first time that I can remember that we didn't hear from the captain on the bridge too before the completion of the muster drill.

 

-- Debarkation was fine though! They had good instruction on what to do and where to go. They had cruise staff guiding people. We decided to go the self-assist debarkation and carried our own luggage off. We only did this as we were afraid of how debarkation would be after experiencing the embarkation. We were off of the ship and into a cab on our way to the airport within about 15 or so minutes.

 

-- We love playing trivia and other sorts of games. They had trivia every morning and every afternoon except on the sea days it was only in the morning. We love the name that tune type of trivia too, but only made it to one of them since they tended to be at the same time we had dinner reservations. They’d have this mainly in the Sugarcane bar. It’s really too small of a place to have this in the evenings.

 

-- I did a painting class—it was really fun, and I felt worth the $35 fee.

 

-- Anytime you ever see them doing arts and crafts to do with card making or scrapbook making, etc... go... especially if you do scrapbooking etc. They give you little kits with all sorts of stickers etc. Wonderful!

 

-- We had the beverage and dining package that came with our cruise booking. I thought that I’d pre-paid for our regular gratuities, but when those were being billed to us daily, I asked about it. We’d actually pre-paid gratuity that was just based on the bev and dining package. I don’t have a problem doing that at all... but it wasn’t explained to me as such. We definitely want people to receive their tips... but we ended up essentially over-tipping. We’d give a buck or two every time we ordered drinks. My concern is always that the staff actually get their tips—which is why we now tip with cash to the bar servers and bartenders. I miss the days of being able to hand our cabin steward and waiters their cash tips also. I understand the theory of having to pre-pay the bev and dining package gratuity, but I’m not so sure it’s fair to the guests or to the staff to do it that way. I’d want to know that 100% of those tips actually go to the staff, and I’d also just rather tip on drinks that we have, not based on the overall package value.

 

-- Overall the food was fine, but not great. Same with the restaurant service. There were moments of excellence here and there with the food though.

 

--Tropicana main dining room. We didn’t know what to expect, and were surprised! We ate here on our first night, and it was quite a neat experience. That was the only night that we were there though. It was just too loud and too dark in there. I had to use the flashlight on my phone to be able to read the menu.The band did take a few breaks though, and we were able to talk then.

 

-- Savor and Taste. They are smaller main dining rooms, and are pretty much the same. As far as MDR food... I enjoyed the shrimp and pesto rigatoni dish that was on the every day menu, as well as the flounder Milanese. If I had that flounder the first night... I would have eaten it every single night. It was fantastic. My husband liked the prime rib that was on the menu one evening. One night there were conch fritters and fried mushrooms... both were awesome! I also had a salad one night that had a raspberry dressing with pecans and gorgonzola. I would have eaten that every day too if it had been available. A lot of the other food was just so-so. We enjoyed the breads though... always fresh and good. The dessert menus in the MDRs weren’t of much interest to us. Most nights my husband just got ice cream... and sometimes same with me. Other cruise lines, at least for us, do a lot better with the offerings on the menus.

 

-- Le Bistro. I really enjoyed their food a lot. They also have the best dessert menu in my opinion out of all of the dining rooms! (That was the only night that I couldn’t decide, and got 2 desserts!)

 

-- Cagney’s. This was probably the best meal all cruise overall that we had. Excellent food! It’s crazy how much better the food is there than in other places around the ship.

 

-- La Cucina. If I had it to do over again... I greatly would have preferred to eat in the main dining room. We ate here on our final night, and we were greeted with the waiter telling us very specifically that with our package we could order one appetizer, one entrée, and one dessert. I would have preferred to have 2 appetizers and 2 side dishes of different pastas to try. There was no mixing it up though with this waiter. I took a bite of my fish, and didn’t like it at all... and that’s ok. I ate the veggies that came with it. It was fine. The waiter didn’t question why the fish was left on the plate. They were not busy at the time we were there either. I only noticed this and mention this because normally when you don’t eat your entrée, the waiters make a fuss over it. We just didn’t enjoy the food here as we had at the other places. (We didn’t over-order at those either, but there were no instructions on what we could or couldn’t order at those.) I’ve seen people here on Cruise Critic talking about the inconsistencies between the specialty dining restaurants. I remember when NCL first began with freestyle and with the various specialty restaurants. Most of them were not pay at the time... now they seem to have mostly gone to ala carte prices rather than a standard $30 or whatever upcharge.

 

-- Garden Café. We hated how it’s laid out. Just long straight lines of buffet food... and people coming and going in and out of there, it’s very unorganized—when it was crowded in there, it was pretty awful and chaotic. Lots of people trying to get their food, and lots of people trying to leave. We tried to go at less busy times which worked better for us and our nerves! Overall the buffet food was good. Both breakfast and lunch. One evening we went up around dinner time, and saw they made crepes to order. Planned to go back sometime to get one, but never did. The pastas and pizzas were good—waffle fries really good too, and love that they have the pretzel rolls. Went one night late for a snack too, and they had some nice things. Once the time is up, they sure grab it all up—and the sad thing was when I saw the staff pick up and throw away 2 pizzas that had just come out of the oven. Such a waste. Hard to believe they can’t take some of that food down to the crew area.

 

--Irish Pub. We had lunch here twice, and breakfast twice. We thought the breakfast was great—and especially to be able to steer clear of the Garden Café! The lunch menu was ok-some items better than others. The times we went it was easy to get a seat.

 

---- The pastries in the Garden Café and in the Irish Pub are fantastic...during breakfast hours I love the little apple and cherry turnover things, and the chocolate croissants are so delicious. Always very fresh and very delightful.

 

--MDR for lunch. We had lunch in one of the smaller MDRs for lunch on the last sea day. There was hardly anyone in there. The food was just barely ok. We figured we would have had a better lunch in the Garden Café.

 

--Our favorite bar was Sugarcane. Great drinks, and the bartenders/servers were excellent and very fun! They did all sorts of tricks that amused us a lot.

 

--Loved the name that tune music trivia in there also, but had to miss most of them due to dinner reservations. That bar is too small really to do the music trivia. Wish they’d do that in the Atrium.

 

--We love playing trivia and other such games on the cruises. General trivia, tri-bond trivia, etc. They only had morning trivia on the sea days, but more on port days. We went as often as we were able. Fun! Brenda was the most fun cruise director staff member to run the trivia! She was such a sweetheart-- we miss her already.

 

--Love the décor of the Sunset bar too—it’s Key West themed.

 

--Outside of Fat Cats is a photo taking machine that’s free to use and you can snap photos of yourself and email them or post them online. We thought that was pretty cool.

 

--Howl at the Moon was really fun! We went a few nights to that. It got a bit repetitive, but that was probably due to the audience really. They had a guest drummer who was actually a cruise guest on his honeymoon who sat in with them a few times, and he was amazing.

 

--Loved the comedy also in Headliners. We saw Jay Stevens and Scott Henry. Both hilarious!

 

-- Million Dollar Quartet was fantastic! Loved every minute of it. Love having a full length Broadway musical to see onboard!

 

--The Theater--- It really needs a railing to go up and down the aisles! My gosh... there’s nothing to hold on to going up and down those steps,

and I saw LOTS of people really having a hard time on them, and several nearly falling.

 

-- The Atrium. We spent quite a bit of time here in the mornings... trivia followed by whatever other games or things were going on for a few hours. The drinks were hit and miss from the bar... sometimes fantastic, and sometimes not so good. We went to the talk with the captain and the chief engineer. They were funny, and it was a question and answer, and we learned a lot. We enjoyed the chat with the magicians from the Ilusionarium too. (Anyone know their names from our sailing?) I would have liked to have gone to the Ilusionarium dinner... sounds like it would be fun. We met a couple on the ship who said they’ve done it before, and loved it. I’ve read reviews online though that were not as favorable. I think we’d try it though. We enjoyed time with the cruise staff that we saw. Brenda from the Philippines especially was awesome and fun! Silas seemed nice as well... didn’t get a chance to talk to him personally, but would have liked to. I know he’s from the USA... anyone know which state?

 

-- 70s and 80s parties outside at Spice H20—fun! That area is nice too, and we liked that it was adults only during the day. We didn't spend much time there, but would the next time for sure.

 

-- Other Entertainment. Really enjoyed some of the game show type things they did on the ship. The celebrity dance competition was hilarious... same with the lip sync battle. There were a few others that were not so good... the Jeopardy type game show was painful to watch as it moved too slow, and the Newlywed game show was sort of the same—but usually we love that one. The Groove band on the ship was awesome!!! Very entertaining, and just fantastic. A lot of this type of thing is in the Atrium which gets pretty packed up. I wish there was even more seating in there because of that. There’s often a lot of standing room only. They'd play movies sometimes in the Atrium. I wish they'd play those same movies sometime during the cruise in the cabins as well.

 

-- Didn’t do—We never used the casino or played bingo. We walked through all of the shops, but ended up not buying anything. The sales people in the jewelry store were on us like glue—one after the other just almost harassing us. We were interested in possibly buying watches, but just had to get out of there. We didn’t use the pool, and didn’t spend any time at the pool other than to walk through a few times. The pool seemed very small. They have big waterslides taking up a lot of area. Didn’t go in the Bliss club, but would have liked to... same with Fat Cats for music. Margaritaville is nothing like an actual Margaritaville. I’ve seen debates about that on Cruise Critic. There are a few neat looking arcade areas on the ship. We didn’t use any of the sport-type stuff either. Thought about playing mini-golf, but didn’t find the time for it. We missed the Burn the Floor show, but only heard good things about it.

 

--The Waterfront--- this area was a really nice and comfortable place to sit out and look out at the water and read, relax, have a few drinks. (I’ve seen people write about a lobster roll that you can get at the outside Ocean something place for $10... we walked by one day, and 2 officers were having these for lunch. I planned to get one, but never found the time again... it looked awesome though. )

 

-- Our cabin—we had a mini-suite. The only reason we booked that was because we liked the room location, and not a lot was left to choose from since we only decided to book the cruise a few months beforehand. The balcony was very small, but the bathroom was awesome! Biggest bathroom we’ve ever had on any cruise. The shower was awesome too—and a double sink was nice as well.

 

-- Housekeeping- Our cabin steward was great... but we felt bad for her. We felt bad for all of the ones we passed in the hallways. The last time we sailed with NCL we felt the same... that they are so overworked and are given way too many cabins to handle. I can only hope they are given the tips based on the amount of cabins they have to do every day. I haven’t felt the same about this on any other line besides NCL. We tipped her extra on top of our regular gratuity. I personally miss the days of handing out cash tips at the end of the cruise.

 

-- We were given the Ultimate Beverage and Dining Package when we booked this cruise. It seemed like a good deal although I thought that I’d already pre-paid our gratuities. I went to question that at guest services because we saw the daily gratuities going onto our account via the tv screen. Figured out with guest services that it was the beverage and dining package that we pre-paid for those gratuities. I’ve seen there’s been some debate about this on the boards. 100% we want the staff to get their gratuities. We ended up really over-tipping though as we’d give a buck or two per drink and/or drink order. I don’t mind this either, because they work their @S$es off. We are just not huge drinkers though. Seems like it would be better if they’d somehow make it so that you just pay gratuity based on what you drink. I don’t love that the specialty dining rooms have moved to now be ala carte pricing. I suppose NCL is trying various things to see what will work or not. I know that tipping is always an issue for people and always controversial and if you ask 10 people their opinions, you’ll get 20 different ones! ha

 

-- We’re silver Latitudes members, and we got chocolates in our room every night. To me this isn’t much of a perk, and I’d rather they just do away with it as other cruise lines have. I suppose I’d like it if the chocolates were sealed. These are Andes Mints type of chocolates, and I always feel that people maybe didn’t eat theirs, and they end up back on the housekeeping carts and re-put out. I’d just prefer to have something completely sealed. We also got one bar of soap and one lotion in our bathroom. Otherwise, it was soap, shampoo, and shower gel in dispensers on the wall. The hairdryer at the vanity was powerful.

 

-- We locked ourselves out of our safe one day, called... and there was a guy there within about 2 minutes to fix it. One day there was a dead bird outside of our balcony, and we let guest services know, and by the time we were back in the room it was gone. (Sadly, had hit the side of the ship or a window or something.)

 

-- We didn’t really have any smoke issues on the ship, and we’re sensitive to that. We smelled smoke on our balcony once briefly, and had a cigarette butt on our balcony once. I wish people would follow the rules! I liked that the smokers were contained to a sectioned off area by the pool. We could smell cigarette smoke under the casino in the centrum also, but not horribly.

 

--I like having the interactive stuff on the tv... the daily events, onboard account, menus, etc. I downloaded the NCL app... but it didn’t work very well. Maybe a few days into the cruise it started working. I have a Droid, but the first day I heard lots of iPhone people saying it wasn’t working on that at all. Unless you plan to use the app for communication while onboard, it doesn’t do anything else really than the stuff you can look up on the tv. Having a map of the ship on there would be nice though!

 

--Attire—The clothes that we saw people wearing were probably the most casual of any I’ve seen on cruises before. Even in the main dining rooms I saw a lot of people wearing shorts. This was the first cruise ever that we didn’t take any “formal” clothes. I think there was at least one formal night... but we only saw one couple dressed up in any way “formally”. I’m guessing there were others, but that’s all we noticed. This was the first time ever that my husband wore shorts to dinner-just the first night-dressy type shorts and a golf shirt. The rest of the time he wore nice pants, golf shirts, and dress shoes. It was odd to see so many people so casual during the dinner hours.

 

--Storage—There weren’t as many drawers and cubby spaces as I prefer, but it was fine. We never use up all of our space anyway. There are big drawers under the couch though. I don’t even know how we discovered that... it’s not obvious to look at it. The vanity seat is also storage, but it was heavy and awkward—I’d prefer they just put a chair there.

 

-- Service--- Overall service was good—sometimes just ok, sometimes really excellent. I saw people cleaning around the ship quite often, and also the staff in general overall were very friendly. Our cabin steward was wonderful... I think I mentioned that earlier. Overworked, all of them, but wonderful. The bar service was pretty good... it was usually pretty easy to get a drink, although often it was the bartenders who would go out into the rooms to take orders. I’d say they could use some more bar waiters. Service in the dining rooms was ok... sometimes better than others. There was only one time we were moved to report to the manager how great our waiter and assistant waiter were. We filled out the comment card that evening too. I really miss the days of having our assigned early and late seating. We still choose that sometimes on other lines. The service just can’t hardly be beat when you have the same waiters for the entire cruise.

 

-- Public Bathrooms—In general they seemed to do a good job at keeping these clean. The one outside of the guest services area one day the paper towel thing wasn’t working... they were immediately on it and concerned about it. I liked seeing that! There were also lots of hand sanitizer things around, and they’d spray you as you entered the ship anytime, and also before entering the Garden Café. I liked seeing the sinks outside of the Garden Café too.

 

-- Pet Peeve (ha)—At least one that I can think of at the moment..... the elevator floors were often very wet! We kept guessing it was because people would get out of the pool and not dry off. Then twice... we saw people get into the elevator dripping wet! Why on earth would you not dry off first!?

 

-- Ports—We didn’t get off of the ship except for in Cozumel where we just walked around for an hour or so. We hadn’t been to Cozumel in years, and hate what they’ve done to the area when you get off of the ship—having to walk through that entire shop area to get out into town—similar to what was done in Nassau several years ago as well. We love to be on what feels like an empty ship on port days unless it’s a new or more interesting port to us.

 

That’s all that I can think of! Hope this made sense, and hope it’s not too repetitive. Just throwing it out for those of you who like to read about the cruises, and especially anyone who’s headed out on the Getaway soon. It’s been several cruises since I’ve written a review. It’s just my experience and my opinion. I love Cruise Critic!

 

One question... we have not yet received a NCL survey about our cruise via email. Do they still send these out? Hoping so. : )

Edited October 6, 2016 by JB3

[Clarea]

Excellent, informative report, thank-you!

[KarimaJ]

Great review thanks! We leave in a few weeks :)

[rocklinmom]

Great review, thanks for all of the details! :)

[Suzieanna]

Thank you for taking the time to write this interesting and informative review. It's always nice to hear what's hot (and not) on a ship. I think your observations match quite well with what I have read from others and there is nothing that stands out as being a concern, which is always good to read!

 

 

 

Except of course - embarkation and muster! But even that, now I know what to expect, it will be easier!

[kelleyfarms]

This was a great review. It was nice to read such a thorough, informative review of your cruise from start to finish. Really helps us look forward to our back to back cruises on the Getaway in January.

 

John

[CouponMom]

Great review, thanks! We are new to NCL and going on Getaway in late January. Hoping they make improvements to the boarding process by then...

[Painy]

We're holidaying on the Getaway next July, our first cruise.

Your review is very useful, thank you.:)

[cocostabs]

Great review. Very informative. Going on her in March.

 

 

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[tawaik]

We sailed 10/2-10/9

 

Muster was not painful until it was time to leave and get on the elevator. That area was packed like sardines with people not walking with the flow of the traffic. Thats cruising for ya..

 

I have to agree with you in reference to Cozumel. NCL docked on the other side of the port which requires you to walk a bit of distance just to get to the taxi stand. Carnival docks on the other side of the port and the distance seemed better to me. However, regardless of which side the ship docks in Cozumel, you almost always have to bee line through the shops to get to where you may want to go.

 

 

Sea days always present more people bustling around the ship to find things to do. Most eating places seem more crowded. I liked the flow of the buffet although I only ate there twice. We were in the Haven and wanted to get out to be among more cruisers and boy where we! I did not have a problem getting a drink at the pool bar or any bar. I guess I can own that up to timing and that the Haven has a bar for Suite guest only. This was a splurge for us since I normally book balcony cabins.

 

Overall, I had a fantastic time and made the best of everything. BTW, some of our perks we booked with was not in the system correct. It took 2 days for them to get it right and in the mean time we just continued to enjoy our "missing amenities" and got credited back for everything we used from drink and dining package. We were patient and paid off.

[cruisetimeforme]

Sailed Getaway 9-18 to 10-2

 

Enjoyed reading your review. Boarding was very similar for us on the first week. Total mess, and what a madhouse. Standing room only when we arrived around 11am. The following week it took a long time before those of us on the back to back were escorted down to customs and led thru the terminal to reboard. Not sure why it took so long, but did seem unorganized all around. The terminal area did look crazy and people looked frantic. One woman ran over and demanded to know why we were allowed to get onboard first. Even the Haven passengers were giving us the evil eye. We sailed Haven the second week, so were the first ones in the room. Everyone came flying into the Haven area, it was kind of funny to see how anxious everyone was.

 

We didn't have very good experiences in Cagney's on our first week. Ate there three times during the week. Only once did they cook our steaks properly. Service wasn't the best either, just on our second visit. We've had some of our worst servers in Cagney's. You'd think they'd have experienced servers in their specialty restaurants on NCL but I've come to not expect that to be the case. Think we're done with them for the next few sailings. Enjoyed our Platinum dinner experience in La Cucina, but not especially the meal. More for outdoor dining. Le Bistro seems hit or miss for us also. Ordered the same identical menu items once each week and totally different second time around.

 

Wish we'd known about the guest drummer performing in Howl at the Moon. The other two performers we'd seen multiple times the first week. Way too much country songs for our taste, but hey, that's what the crowd wanted! Enjoyed some great night there the first week though.

[cruisetimeforme]

Have to add Frank Townsend to your list of comedians. We'd seen him before on the Escape before he went home and he had just returned when we set sail on our first week. All three of them were really great!

[easyboy]

Great review. Thanks.

[packfanmn]

Thanks for the detailed review!

 

Embarkation sounded awful! You said you got to the port at 12:30, what time did you actually get onto the ship?

Edited October 13, 2016 by packfanmn

[karenpstok]

was on the getaway on sept 18-25 and it was the worst embarking situation i have seen in 5 cruises on the getaway and escape. We boarded much later than my previous cruises and i was in group two. Once onboard though i had a great time. I have always done the muster drill in the theater until this cruise. I was in the casino and i have to say it is a terrible area to have it. When they were doing the lifevest demonstration, most people could not even see, and really couldn't hear much. In the theater it seems much more organized. Loved the comedians and the glow party and some of the shows in the atrium at night. Going on the escape in two weeks so i hope getting on the ship this time will be better than the getaway this last time.

[JB3]

was on the getaway on sept 18-25 and it was the worst embarking situation i have seen in 5 cruises on the getaway and escape. We boarded much later than my previous cruises and i was in group two. Once onboard though i had a great time. I have always done the muster drill in the theater until this cruise. I was in the casino and i have to say it is a terrible area to have it. When they were doing the lifevest demonstration, most people could not even see, and really couldn't hear much. In the theater it seems much more organized. Loved the comedians and the glow party and some of the shows in the atrium at night. Going on the escape in two weeks so i hope getting on the ship this time will be better than the getaway this last time.

 

Hi! We're considering the Escape in the next year. Please report back and let me know how embarkation is? Also, did you get a survey emailed to you? We didn't. Thanks!

[karenpstok]

Hi! We're considering the Escape in the next year. Please report back and let me know how embarkation is? Also, did you get a survey emailed to you? We didn't. Thanks!

Hi. I sure will. I did get a survey a few days after the cruise. You should do the escape, it's great!!

[cincicruisers]

Thanks for sharing your review with us.

[Huntingdon1701]

Thanks for the review. I'm on the Getaway in May and gleaning all the information I can about her - this was very helpful.

[Mrs. Squirrel]

Thank you for your review. We are on Getaway for Thanksgiving. I pre-purchased my spa pass, so now won't have to stress about getting on the ship to get one before they sell out. Otherwise, your and others' embarkation reports would stress me out!

 

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[SixBitsKyle]

Great review!

 

Can you clarify a bit more on the tipping situation when on the Bev Package? The gratuities you pre pay is for what exactly? What are you billing billed daily on the cruise for?

 

Thank you.

Edited October 18, 2016 by SixBitsKyle

[riclop]

THANKS for the report.