Norwegian Getaway Cruise Reviews - Reviews

The best part of this ship, it's hard to say there's so many great things. The shows in the theater where excellent and I loved the food there's so much to choose from. And there's so many things to do on the ship for kids or adults no one is ever going to get bored. But even though there's so much to do and so many people aboard it never seemed to crowed and was always very clean everywhere you go from the buffet to pools to bathrooms it always seemed like someone had just been in cleaning right before you great job! I would recommend this ship and these ports to anyone younger or older. Great Job Norweigan!!

Thanks for a GREAT vacation!!

This was our first cruise and we went as a family.  It was a memorable experience for all of us and we are already talking about taking another cruise!  The ship was beautiful and had so many activities for all of us to enjoy.  We loved the Deal or No Deal and Dancing with the Stars games.  The Piano sing along was so much fun! The food was awesome!  It covered everyone's taste for food.  There was so much variety of food to choose from!!!  The ports we stopped at were so beautiful.  This cruise was the best family vacation for us!!

Everything from boarding to disembarkment  was great. The food the service and staff were excellent . Roatan was more of a tourist market than I expected. I would not recommend the restaurants that you have to pay for, not because they are not good but the free restaurants were great service and food .

The Getaway is an ok ship.  The decor is unexciting (lots of brown).  Except for Le Bistro, the food is boring even at the specialty restaurants.  Le Bistro had good food and service.  

The staff seemed bored.  The itinerary (Honduras, Belize, Mexico) should have been interesting but you spend so little time in port you don't get a feel for the countries.  I'm not sure why you have to sail so early the the next port is so close.  Harvest Caye is a Disneyland version of Belize.

The Million Dollar Quartet show was one of the best I've seen on a cruise.

The embarkation was 1 1/2 hours standing in a hot, stinky line.  The cruise terminal disembarkation process was confusing.  The rental car shuttle was so impossible we gave up.

NCL Getaway is a fantastic ship with plenty to do, great food choices, first class entertainment, and an exciting itinerary. And the service staff were top notch and always professional and friendly. Just like Pitbull sings- do whatever you want whenever you want and have a good time. We traveled with teenagers and they loved the ropes course, climbing wall and water slides. The NCL private island Harvest Caye was gorgeous and again lots to do. They had a superman zip line that we all enjoyed. The beach was huge, beautiful sand, water and plenty of lounge chairs. Having a large pool with a swim up bar was another highlight. The other stolons were great too with lots of options of things to do if beach and shopping isn't your thing. We would have liked nothing more than to have stayed on the ship and do it all again!

Overall I thought the cruise was very nice. I prefer Royal and Celebrity for now. The Haven was not as peaceful as I thought it would be because of many young children (some screaming at dinner).

The pros: able to get a table in the Haven dining room w/o reservations, free pay-for-view movies, food throughout the ship was good, disembarkation at every port with Haven (off in 5 minutes), slides were fun, all of the shows were very good, aft suite was excellent 9316 has a huge balcony.

The cons: too many children in the Haven, Haven restaurant is very loud, weak mixed drinks, poor wine selection, running track extremely wet every morning and it needs etiquette rules for the walkers, children in hot tubs everywhere, public pool area is tiny (not that I used it), gym is also too small for size of the ship, smoking everywhere (hard to escape), no luggage valet service and no custom line for suite guest.

Excellent experience on this Norwegian liner again!!! Food Staff, beverages service ports, and entertainment were way beyond our expectations. Amazing how they keep 4000 passengers from falling all over each other, but they do, and do it well.

HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend this ship and itinerery !!!!!!

This was my first cruise so I didn't know what to expect.   Really large boat & really smooth.   We were putting stuff away in our cabin & didn't realize the boat had left Miami.   Went to the buffet & Miami was 10 miles off in the distance.   Now we had great weather for the entire cruise so I don't know how it is when a storm rolls in.   Food, entertainment, night life, & the numerous bars were all really good.   Prepare for crowds, if you don't like crowded places this might not be for you.   4000 guests & 1500 crew, that's a lot of people even for a big boat like this.   And if you drink alcohol, for gods sake get the ultimate beverage package unless you don't mind spending $8.50 and up for a domestic beer and who knows what for a mixed drink.   All said, we had a great time and will do it again.

No I will never cruise via NCL ever again.  Service was poor, rooms not cleaned for 4 days, rooms were not available for 4 hours when boarding, waited 2.5 hours in line to exit the ship, cruise cards only worked for drinks 1 day, internet access worked for 1 minute, ship smelling of weed twice on our floor, not enough resources to assist with guest, food was terrible I got sick several times, people were treated differently because they were paying cash for tips, no one really knew what the processes were if you asked 5 people you get 5 different answers, my luggage for both pieces, handles were broken and I requested for them to fix them and they did nothing.  I am requesting a full refund for this cruise for both of my rooms.  Just a terrible experience and it was something I paid for all 6 people to take this cruise and had been looking forward to it for about 6 months for it to turn out to be so bad. 

The cruise experience was outstanding... from the boarding to process to disembarking it was almost flawless.   Food was above average for the most part, especially specialty restaurants... buffet was ok, I thought there may be more choices, but plenty of decent food.  Taste and Savor free restaurants were very good if you wanted to wait and be served.  Food was top notch.  Entertainment was top notch.... "burn the Floor" and "million Dollar Quartet" were phenomenal, goose-bump inducing.   The Wine show was very good as well.   Illusionarium was only weak spot I felt.   Show dragged a bit and food was not great that night for the dinner.  "howl at the Moon" and Comedy shows were very good and fun as well.. Staff was exceptional, unfailingly polite and helpful.   Cruise Director Silas outstanding, you felt as though you knew him personally by end of the week....  will recommend and will do again ourselves as well.   Ports were OK....  Loved Roatan....  Harvest Caye is a little overrated.... small, crowded, and expensive!... should have done something off the island.   Costa Maya and Cozumel were just ok.  Enjoyed being on boat more so than ports.

We have been on many RCCL cruises in the past.  We decided to try something different and went with NCL.  As a result my perspective is from experience with RCCL.  

I would have to give RCCL the advantage on entertainment.  While NCL wasn't bad, we had gotten used to Mamma Mia, Hairspray, etc.  It also seemed like there were fewer bar bands on NCL.  

Dining was a good experience.  We had the dining package so could go to specialty restaurants.  We did Moderno (Brazilian), La Cacina (Italian), Teppanyaki, and Cagneys.  We found the food very good, and the wait staff was better in those restaurants.  We also did each of the main dining rooms.  Tropicana was our favorite with the band during dinner.  The wait staff was a little more hit or miss.  Our Savor waiter was slow and frustrating.  The drawback of flexible dining is you don't have the ability to meet people like we did with traditional dining on RCCL.  We've met new friends on RCCL when we meet with the same people each night.  Kind of miss that.  

The activities like pool, mini-golf, etc were on par with our RCCL experiences.  The only real issue is deck chairs.  They were usually always taken but nobody ever seemed to sit in them.  There needs to be an answer there.  

Getting on the ship was consistent with our expectation.  We always do walk off on departure with our bags.  NCL had long lines, but they moved reasonably fast.  While it was simple on RCCL, it was tolerable on NCL.  

We liked experiencing some new ports with NCL.  Honduras we did the eco-walk (booked outside of NCL).  We did Kohunlich Mayan ruins at Costa Maya and a jeep tour (booked outside of NCL) in Cozumel.  That is an observation, NCL charges about 50% higher than street price for excursions.  RCCL doesn't seem to do that.  We've always booked excursions with RCCL, but with NCL we feel forced to book externally.  

Our statemoom (large balcony) was nice.  The balcony had 2 chaise lounges, a bistro table and 2 chairs.  It was nice having that room, especially since the pool chairs were always taken.  The shower was bigger than we've had on RCCL.  We never met our stateroom attendant, but he did a good job.  I'm not sure if that's a NCL difference or just this person, but we're so used to RCCL where our stateroom attendant made an effort to get to know us.  

Good overall cruise. But disembarkation took 2 hours 15 minutes! Outrageous!

Not sure I will take NCL again! They need to improve check in and check out process. This was the worst experience of any cruise I have taken.

Holland America is so much smoother.

My balcony view was awesome and room service was great, dinning was great, entertainment wonderful and the pool area great.

I didn't like the long lines at customs, in and out. They need more customs officers!  

We understood when we booked on Norwegian that we were not going to receive the type of service we were accustomed.   The ship was large, clean, and the food was good. Staff and officers were excellent and professional.  We enjoyed the Prime Meridian bar; the Wine tasting, and the live entertainment in main dining room was excellent. The French and Italian Specialty restaurants were very good.  The quality of the free entertainment was excellent.  The beverage package had a good quality assortment. The mini suite room had a large bathroom with double sinks and large shower; however, the balcony could barely fit two chairs and a tiny table.  The negatives were the many extra charges on ship; charge for room service; paying for entertainment; charges for lobster; steaks; certain appetizers etc. Our biggest complaint was that cigarette smoke from the casino lingered on the 6,7,8 floors including outside seating on the starboard 8th deck.  Harvest Cay was beautiful, overpriced; minimal shade, not enough lounge chairs and the food and beverage package did not apply.  We had fun the weather was 85 and no snow in sight!

This was the absolute best for relaxation, sight seeing and just enjoying everything a cruise can offer.  We loved the dueling pianos!! The ports were all awesome we did severally excursions: best of roatan island, mangrove and estuaries tour, Mayan ruins and snorkeling!

We were disappointed with the fact that you did not serve lobster in the "free" restaurants.  We've been on many cruises and this is the first time lobster wasn't served.  We are going on a Norwegian cruise in August.   The entertainment was just mediocre except for The Million Dollar Quartet.

The Getaway is a beautiful ship. Clean and modern. Only drawbacks can't get a beach chair (people save them) and the casino is claustrophobic and smoky. And the wifi is expensive. The food was great and we loved the variety of dining options. Not a bad meal all week. Freestyle dining is the best. We picked this cruise for the ports and enjoyed each of them. Only disappointment was we skipped Harvest Cay due to an "obstruction" in the port area so we got an extra day at sea.   Not a big deal but would still like to go there.  And my favorite part of this trip was the staff -every single one of them -  they were the hardest working, friendliest group of people we have encountered on a ship. From the bartenders waitstaff cleaning everyone was conscientious and friendly. Great job.  

Our 33rd Cruise,very slow boarding and leaving the cruise.WE went on the cruise to visit NCL's new resort in Belieze,the Ship missed the port because of trouble in the harbor.The Captian didn't know why..We kept asking for a sharing table at dinner and didn't get one.All in all one of the worst weve taken.

NCL has made a ton of money promoting their beverage package and lacks the additional crew staff to serve their patrons at the bars. It is an average 15-20 minute wait. Also, they are making material misrepresentations to their patrons regarding their tip policy that rewards their staff and alleged stopover in Belize. 

We had a great time. The ship was so easy to get around. Easy to find everything. ( a  little disappointed in the service charge for room service. )

We had two adjoining balconies. We opened the doors in between, so we could all sit together. We were not suppose to ( For safety reasons ) Other cruises allow this. It makes it so nice to be able to sit on the balcony with our traveling companions.