Review of Getaway Feb 18-26

[Laszlo]

26 minutes ago, bkrickles1 said:

You're 100% correct that the blame for bad behavior falls on the parents, but I strongly disagree with the statement (I know it's not yours) that the majority of American children are out of control.

I agree with you, it's not the majority of kids. My son is a teacher, loves he job. Most of his kids are great, well behaved and have the normal issues kids have in the 10th-12 grade. The problem kids have problem parents. They are somehow never around to take a phone call or return an email. If my son didn't have to spend time chasing down parents it would make his job easier. 

[Laszlo]

On 2/26/2023 at 4:53 PM, sailorusvi said:

So this was my first cruise in 25 years and husband first cruise ever.  While we knew it would be crowed due to school break, but it was way more crowed then we even imagined. 4800+ passengers!

 

Upgrading to the Haven was well worth it price. We were in Haven proper (deck 15), which was great because we didn't have to navigate the crowds to get up the bar/restaurant.  With the exception of the concierge, the staff was amazing.   Food was good.  The bar staff is great, plus they had all of DH's favorite bourbons.   

 

That said, the kid situation was out of control.  They estimated some 40 kids up there. Even the Haven staff appeared to be overwhelmed with all the kids. They took over the hot tubs and pool, snorkel gear and all.  They were running around upstairs in the "adult" area, including the smoking section in the front.    The concierge was telling people that kids were allowed up there now.  What the hell?  People were pissed! They (along with kids from other parts of the boat) were having cookie fights in the door way of the Deck 15 Haven entrance. Cookies EVERYWHERE.   Kids were blocking the stairways leading up to Deck 16 (which only had one side)  The concierge didn't seem to care.   I never saw a manager up there to be able to address our concerns.  Someone on here was making fun of us getting Vibe passes, yeah, well they came in handy this trip.

 

Breakfast we mostly ate in the Haven, but did go to the buffet once, which was decent.   When not at port lunches were mostly at the buffet.  Which is funny because DH typically hates buffets.  It was easy as our cabin was on deck 15. DH can't eat a lot at one sitting and having 3 sit down meals a day was too much for him.  We do a quick pop in for something small then leave.  A few hours later he would do another "drive-by" by grabbing something small again (or soft serve ice cream, boy did he like those).   We ate at O'Sheehan on the first day, which as only okay. The "spinach and artichoke" dip was a joke.  One piece of spinach and I'm still looking for the artichoke. Dinners were at Ocean Blue, Wasabi (3 times), Le Bistro and the Haven.   All our dinners were good.  Except for not having chocolate milk the 2nd day, we were able to get everything we wanted.  

 

Entertainment wise we lost money at the casino (never saw a casino payout so little before).  We saw Broadway Unplugged, Million Dollar Quartet (wasn't a fan) and went to Sid Norman's 3 times.  Rumours was my least favorite Sid's act,  but it was still entertaining. Last night before the show started the guy next to me got into a verbal fight with a guy behind him that resulted in him getting kicked out.  That was interesting. Wifey was pissed.     Sea days we hung out in Vibe, I got a great massage and was able to squeeze in about 5 minutes on the rope course before it started snowing. Disappointed I didn't do it earlier on the trip.

 

In PC we went to the beach.  GSP more of the same.  I would absolutely try to get a cabana, villa or at the very least an umbrella should we go again.  My skin needs a break from the sun. Since everything was sold out we went back after a few hours.   Some people were upset being re-routed to Miami instead of Bermuda.  Even more so because we all had to disembark to go through immigration and you couldn't get back on until the ship was cleared.  There was a video of people waiting to reboard booing the final 2 people who they had to go and find 🤣.  It sounds like they started the reboarding process sooner than they estimated.  Anyway, we were happy with the change.  We enjoyed our time in port. Went to South Beach, walked around and ate some great Cuban food.

 

Overall I had a good time, but DH said he wasn't a fan.  I think it was more because of the 1800 kids then anything else.   He liked the ports, food, Haven Bar, the hot tubs in Vibe and bought a couple Cruise Next certificates. So I think he liked it more than he is saying.  One thing is for sure, we will NEVER cruise during a school holiday again.

 

 

I guess I should feel lucky on our cruise in January on the Getaway we only had 5 teens, and they were all very respectful and nice kids