I've recently returned back to my cold wintery home country of Sweden after my first cruise in the Caribbean. It was a fantastic experience; the Norwegian Getaway is a great modern ship! It would take too much time to describe all parts of the cruise so I'll focus on a few that are in my area of interest. The ship was fully booked on our cruise, but I didn’t find it to be crowded. At a few times we had to wait to get a table for lunch. There was some wait-time for the rope course and the water-slides, but that was all I can think of.

We had a family stateroom (10884) with Balcony on deck 10 aft. Lots of storage facilities and even thicker suit cases fit under the bed. The stateroom was close to the elevators which was good and provided “direct access” to the buffet restaurant at deck 15. Stateroom actually felt spacious with a nice firm double bed (at least 180 wide) and plenty of storage. Our 2 kids slept on the sofa which was “widened” using some pillows, towels and stuff next to the wall. The bed in the roof was not used because we were afraid the one sleeping up there could fall out despite a small “railing”. Bathroom and shower was large enough and had a lot of shelves for storage. Only cons were very low water pressure in the shower. A system with 3 small light above the stateroom door indicates “You are in i.e. keycard is in slot”, “Don’t disturb” and “Make up room”. Very nice interactive TV-system enables you to keep track of you onboard account, booking of excursions, shopping info etc. Limited number of TV channels, around 10-15(?) but quite a few movies on demand, some are free, some were $10. To stop small kids getting out on the balcony the door can be locked “at the top”.

*Casino. As previously mentioned, a smoking area, however, I wasn't too bothered unless the person next to you happened to smoke. Texas Hold’em is my area of interest here. During the cruise there were 3 tournaments arranged at “sea days” (starting at lunch). The start fee was $80-100, with unlimited re-buys during first 2 hours (I think) plus add-on. They had seating’s for 40 people. 3 winners I think. There was also one sit-and-go with a start fee of $250, max 10 people. There was only one cash game table open, it was no limit with small/big blinds at $2/$5. This table was often fully occupied. Often the same people playing every night. Pots got easily quite large. I think the rake was 10%, max $10. Read more