NCL has nailed it 1000% with this ship as far as my wife and I are concerned. A 10 out of 10. The ship itself, the crew, the food, and the entertainment are all first class/fantastic. Unquestionably the BEST cruise value for the money that we’ve ever experienced.

To put this rating in perspective, I’ve cruised 22 times previously since 1992 on Carnival (Ecstasy and Spirit), Celebrity (Mercury and Reflection), Costa (Mediterranea), Princess (Coral, Star, Sun, Diamond, and Grand), Royal Caribbean (Viking Serenade, Rhapsody, Radiance, and Allure), Holland America (Zuiderdam), and other Norwegian (Pride of America, Dawn, and Sun) ships on Alaska, Pacific Coast, Mexican Riviera, Panama Canal, Caribbean, Bermuda, and Trans-Atlantic cruises.

As an additional perspective, my wife and I had just cruised on Celebrity Reflection the week before our Getaway cruise (we literally dragged our luggage down the pier from one ship to the other), and we both agreed that Reflection failed to measure up to Getaway in any aspect (see my separate review on Reflection on CruiseCritic). Upon boarding Getaway, I was awestruck how two new/relatively same age ships could be so physically different with respect to facilities, décor, furnishings, features, and venues. From then on with each passing day, the differences between them in all categories (e.g., crew, dining, entertainment) continued to materialize dramatically. In the final analysis Getaway put Reflection to shame in every significant (to us) respect. Read more