Cattle transportation with almost everything for an additional fee

Norwegian Getaway Cruise Review to Caribbean

oletzel

Contributor Level: Purser

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 28

Overall rating:

3 out of 5

Verified Review

Miami, USA to Miami, USA

Sail date: December 18, 2016

Ship: Norwegian Getaway

Cabin type: Balcony

Cabin number: 13290

Traveled as: Family (older children)

Reviewed: 7 years ago

Review summary

It begins with an enormous wait time (2 hours in our case) despite of arriving at the defined check-in time.

Ship is new (built in 2014 by Meyer Warf, Germany), and has nice amenities like water slides, wall climbing. Sunbeds are available everywhere (unless you _require_ one in a specific place, e.g. by the pool).

Food is very good, service is excellent. Lots of specialty restaurants for every taste.

Nice gym but now showers there, so you would need to go back to your stateroom.

Shows have to be booked well in advance and all of them are for a fee.

SPA area is ridiculously expensive ($70 per day or $250 for the whole cruise).

Be sure to get free packages before the cruise (e.g. 250 minutes of Internet, $50 of shore excursion payback, free open bar, etc.

Dispute the "service charge" if you fell like it.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

5 out of 5

Onboard Activities

3 out of 5

Entertainment

1 out of 5

Everything is for a fee and has to be prebooked.

Service and Staff

5 out of 5

Ship Quality

3 out of 5

Cabin / Stateroom

3 out of 5

Not ideally configured. The couch (and 4th bed) should have been in the second part of the room (by the window) and the main beds in the front. The main closet should have been turned around facing the entrance to the bathroom and extended further to the opposite wall giving at least 50cm more hanger room. Minibar? Why? Giving away even more scarce storage space?

Ship tip

Freestyle cruising is OK, but for dinner flip flops and tanks should be banned.

Thumbs up

Ports of call

Miami, Florida

3 out of 5

Great Stirrup Cay (Cruise Line Private Island), Bahamas

1 out of 5

The Great Stirrup Cays were a complete desaster. The Bahamas are supposedly one of the most beautiful places in the Caribbean. The part of the island that you brought us to was so ugly and inconvenient in comparison to other places. First thing we saw upon arrival to the place: containers. The beach was completely artificial (carved out somehow), facing the wrong side and having a much too steep incline. For a perfect beach and tanning experience the beach needs to face south and be very flat. Access to the water needs to be unobstructed. Here we had a rough ground and underwater stones, steep decline and the beach facing north.

Thumbs Up 0

Ocho Rios, Jamaica

2 out of 5

We took a cab to 7 miles beach and spent the day there. The fee was just $5 per person.

Thumbs Up 0

George Town, Grand Cayman

2 out of 5

What we missed was a more detailed description of the tours. E.g. for the Dunn's River Falls we learnt only from the tour ticket thy water shoes were a must. Because we didn't bring any on the cruise we were puzzled what to do. It turned out they could be rented for $7 at the end of the pier or bought for $10 on site. Couldn't this information be given in advance?

Thumbs Up 0

Cozumel, Mexico

2 out of 5

Scuba Diving experience in Cozumel: for me, equipment includes EVERYTHING for the dive. It turned out that wet suits had to be _rented_ for an additional charge. So I had to spent an extra $24, which were not planned.

Thumbs Up 0

2 Comments

glomarrone 7 years ago

I have not sailed on this ship but i do like the mega ship for all the options offered. Yes, it is a pain to make all the advance reservations but once done, you can enjoy yourself on board.

Thumbs Up 0

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cmaguire 7 years ago

We took this same cruise & the information about the entertainment is inaccurate. While it is true that you had to make reservations for some of the shows in the theater or the comedy club, reservations were easily made the day before or the same day, & all the shows in the theater were FREE! There were charges for some of the special entertainment, but the main theater shows, the comedy club, & all the entertainment throughout the ship at several different venues were all free, & we had absolutely no trouble making reservations at the screens throughout the ship.

I totally agree with the embarkation process being long & disorganized, however, & this was the main negative we experienced on this cruise.

Thumbs Up 0

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