Our Getaway vacation... 2/11 - 2/18

[mgrieger]

We’re a couple in our early 40’s who love cruises, but whosedynamic has now changed from cruising as a couple to putting our vacations onhold to start a family and then waiting ‘til the kiddos were old enough totravel well and enjoy the vacation as well. We did a ‘trial’ 4-day Disneycruise a couple years ago, then alternated to a Cancun land vacation, and thisyear did the Getaway from Feb 11-18, Western Caribbean. Again, this was only our 2nd cruise as a family, as well as first cruisewith NCL (7th cruise overall, 5th cruise line). Our boysare currently 7 & 10.

 

In short, we loved the cruise. There were plenty of thingsfor all of us to enjoy (though many times, my wife and I would say – it wouldbe nice to spend a week as just a couple on the ship – we mostly do things as afamily, so lots we didn’t do). We had great weather, our sail week waspre-spring break for most so the ship wasn’t totally overrun with families andkids - a few hundred is great; closer to a thousand (like on our Disney) andthe kids areas/activities/pool/waterpark are just too crowded.

 

Recap of the week...

 

We arrived in to Miami pretty late the night beforeembarkation, staying at the InterContinental overlooking the port. A bit priceyfor the limited time we got to be there, considering we didn’t even have timeto venture out to check out the Bayside Marketplace nearby, one of the mainreasons to stay there. But, waking up to see the ships docked does add that bitof excitement when kicking off a cruise vacation.

 

We got to the cruise terminal about 10:30 for check-in - anhour later than the time I had chosen; deciding we didn’t want to hang out inthe terminal the extended wait for boarding. I don’t know if that was a gooddecision or not, as we were assigned boarding group 10, and there was a fairwait between each called group, so if we would have got there at 9:30 and gotin a higher group, it might have evened out – in which case we’d have ratherbeen on the ship earlier to explore. Of course, first thing our boys wanted wasto get in a pool (then try slides, then mini golf …).

 

Sea day was very nice. We did the ropes course in themorning, the waterpark in the afternoon. Since it was a sea day, the lines werea bit longer than we’d see later on, but still not bad at all. We did theCirque Dreams and Steam dinner/show in the evening and found it enjoyable. We’vegone to several such performances (heck, even the Circus has some similar acts)and our kids always love them. We parents also thought it was enjoyable.

 

Costa Maya day was the best day ever. We (and sometimes itfelt like ONLY we) went to the Lost Mayan Kingdom waterpark. AMAZING time.Single admission price for the slides (8 different body/tube slides from thetowering Mayan temple structure), lazy river, zip line circuits (2 differentcircuits of about 6 lines each), zip roller coaster, pool, and kid area withsmaller slides, etc. I like the adventurousthings more than the others, so we did split for a bit while the wife lounged,the kids did the kid area, and I did a trial run on all the slides. Again, goodfor us, not good for the business – there were virtually no lines/waits, so gotthrough everything quite quickly. We then got back together and all did the ziplines and several of the slides over and over – one of their slides is a tall,head first, mat race slide where 4 can go together. Great fun. Also got greatpricing – got one free admission at a booth by the pier, then when finishing upwe bought all our photos on a zip for $29 (we were given the 2-person price accordingto the board). Back on the ship, our evening was the Burn the Floor show.Pretty good show. Dancing was good. Drums/bongos/percussion were great. Kidsstill didn’t much care for it.

 

Harvest Caye was probably the low point. My initial plan wasto stay on the ship until a bit into the afternoon and do activities that mayhave been too busy to do on the Sea Day. Luckily, that really wasn’t the case,since my extensive pre-vacation research missed knowing that not everything wasavailable (ropes course, climbing wall) until after leaving port. So, we didget off the ship and head to the beach. The sand here was extremely coarse –sandcastle building didn’t go well, but the ocean was pleasant. A squall camethrough mid-afternoon and chased most people back to the ship – the temperaturedropped, wind kicked up, and rain came down for 20 minutes or so; even thoughit quickly recovered, most people – including us – we on board to stay. It alsohappened to be Valentine’s Day, so I’d booked dinner for 2 at Le Bistro. Thekids did Kid’s Club while we dined; it was the only of the pay restaurants wedid during the week. Dinner was simply fabulous! The best we’ve had in our 7cruises.

 

Roatan – another great day. I’d lined up a driver fromVictor Bodden to take us to Bodden’s Monkey Business and then West Bay Beach.The animal sanctuary was enjoyable – especially the white faced monkey’s. Wegot to go in to the cage as a group and the monkeys jumped around from personto person. I had thought the sloth’s would be the lightlight (and a great pic,holding one), but they were sleeping, so we were just able pet them, not holdthem. The remainder of our day was spent at West Bay – we chose Bananarama asour hang-out. It was fairly crowded, but not terrible. My wife lounged, thekids played on the beach and in the ocean, and I walked down to the end of thebeach (‘the wall’) for some snorkeling – excited to try out some new equipment(like a full-face mask). I had a great time – wonderful reef/coral. BTW – I lovedthe full-face mask as well. We also did parasailing here. It was fun – the kidsreally enjoyed it. Only small ding is that the parasailing was done more around the point of the island, soreally no beaches to look at. Retrospectively, I may have preferred parasailingin Cozumel. Back on board, we at ate or only MDR of the week – we stuck tobuffet – which was Tropicana room. The space was lovely, a singer was a nicetouch, thought that’s about it – we didn’tfind the food terribly good, and service was pretty slow.

 

Cozumel was the final stop. We grabbed a cab to ParadiseBeach. It was a great beach (or pool, for that matter – they claim the ‘largestpool in Cozumel’ as well). We bought wrist-bands for their inflatables park –included kayak and paddle board use. Again, enjoyed a great beach day! Onboard, we got the kids their buffet choices, then once they were finished, momand dad got to get some O’Sheehans. Both their buffalo wings and steak fajitaswere great. Our evening plan was Million Dollar Quartet, though the boys choseto go to kids club – probably a very wise choice. Now, we didn’t think it waspoor, but I don’t understand the glowing review I’ve seen; Maybe 40-somethingis still too young to fully appreciate. Late on, though it got too late for therest, I still went up to check out the start of the Glow Party that night.Looked like a good time.

 

Our final sea day was pretty laid back. We were all fairlyspent from all the activity and beach days, so we didn’t do much at thepool/waterpark area, but instead did ropes course one last time, got in a bitof the giant chess (we got a fair amount of this in during the week),shuffleboard, some atrium time to watch an animal towel folding session and akids movie while enjoying some O’Sheehan nachos and beers.

 

Disembarkation was pretty smooth. We chose a later time(9:30), as we were going to hang out in FL for one last day. The line was longto get off, but kept moving well, so we were off in probably 15 minutes fromour group call. We grabbed the rental car shuttle to MIA, rented an suv, andheaded out to Margaritaville resort, Hollywood Beach. What a fabulous placethat is! Although check-in wasn’t until 4, we did get our passes to the resortsamenities, and hung out at the pool and beach. Our kids loved this beach themost of all – reminded them of Cancun with the big waves continuously rollingin. They can’t get enough!

 

Other thoughts/comments:

• There’s been a lot said about the smokiness of the Deck6-7-8 area in proximity to the Casino. I’m not a fan of cigarette smoke, butdidn’t find it nearly as bad as I was expecting.
  
• UBP and associated service: I haven’t kept up on howcompeting cruise lines are trending with the drink packages, but I think I ratherpay for drinks and have plentiful staff making the rounds trying to entice meto order another. The lines to get a drink at the pool bars kept me away. Iwould have had a wait at most of the mid-deck bars as well, but luckily I don’tmind walking the extra 20 steps to the outside part on the Waterfront, wherethere were hardly waits.
  
• Large balcony mini-suite: I liked our Deck 8 forwardroom. It didn’t feel overcrowded with the 4 of us; plenty of storage space. Thelarge balcony was great. And, though we wore a path in the carpet walking upand down that long corridor from the room to the mid-ship stairs/elevators, itwas still very convenient access to where we wanted to be much of the time –all the good stuff on 6-7-8.
  
• Photo services: I’m a fan of ship photos; it’s nice toget family vacation portraits, as well as actually getting to be in a picturehere and there (I am always taking the vacation pictures). It was very easy toget pictures taken, hardly any waits ever; plus, the same backgrounds/locationsare available every day, so you can always get them. This is as opposed to aDisney cruise, where it seemed like everyone wanted every picture, and you gotto wait, and wait, and wait. My kids were not ok with that.
  
• As the vacation planner, I found a good tip in a recentCostco member magazine to get the kids a bit more in the loop as to what’splanned. I made an 8-page wide daily picture planner, a page for each day withpictures of what we’d be doing, as well as indicating any evening dining/showsplanned. I brought a pack of magnets to tack it to the wall, then also printeda smaller card-stock pic of our ship, used a few pieces of adhesive magnetstrip on the back, and that moved along from day to day. Also brought a fewmagnet clips to hold the dailies and kids club calendars. That went over well,and let everyone keep up on everything that had been planned.
  

[Keith1010]

Terrific trip report.

 

Thank you for taking the time to write this.

 

Keith

[BirdTravels]

Thanks so much for your review!

[mgrieger]

Apologies for the words running together though out my post. I copied/pasted from MS Word and many words got crammed together. I did a quick search on how to edit a post, but it seems that can only be done shortly after posting? dang it.

[thehenningscruise]

Great review, thanks for taking the time!

[stacystacy]

I enjoyed your review! Thanks! Can’t wait to sail on there in April. I liked the beginning about vacationing as a couple then having kids and then doing the family vacations... haha, the family vacations are fun but definitely less relaxing! ;)

 

The full face snorkel mask - which one is it??

 

 

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[mgrieger]

I chose the Ocean Reef Aria mask. Loved the field of vision, the ability to breath mouth and nose, and the lack of salt taste/build-up that I was used to with traditional snorkel. I can't really speak to how it might perform for snorkelers that like to dive down... I only attempted few times, and found there to be a lot more pressure, assuming due to the larger air space. But for more surface snorkeling, I was extremely happy.

[FlashbackAlternatives]

Thanks for posting. We'll be on the Getaway in May. We'll be in a large balcony mini-suite as well. Any noise issues?

 

Thanks again.

[DMH15]

Thanks for a fun read. It felt like I could just picture your family having fun.

 

 

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[mgrieger]

We'll be in a large balcony mini-suite as well. Any noise issues?

 

We were in Lg balcony mini #8118 - the only noise issue we encountered was the nighttime toilet flushing sounds coming from above. Probably inescapable unless up at the top. My 10 y.o. up in the pullman complained some, otherwise it was just mildly annoying.

[sunrise&set]

Thanks for your review! Thinking of changing our Epic cruise next February to the Getaway the same week you went this year. Will have 2 12 year old boys with us. My son picked Getaway over the Epic so need to make a decision. First time he'll be bringing a friend. :D