Norwegian Getaway Review
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OK - It's been a bunch of years since my last cruise and that was down the west coast of Mexico on a much much smaller ship. So I decided to try something different this time and picked the Getaway out of Miami on a 7 day cruise to St. Thomas, Tortola and Nassau. I was a bit apprehensive about a cruise ship with the capacity to carry 5,000 passengers. I am pleased to say the only time I really noticed the other 4,999 passengers was when we were all trying to get on or get off the ship. Otherwise - no problem.
My stateroom was on the 10th (of 16 total) deck port side forward. It was about 230 sq ft with a very nice balcony that I used quite a bit. I like being at sea and the balcony was shaded. And when we were at sea there was enough of a breeze to make being on the balcony reading - quite pleasant. The bathroom was extremely well designed and clearly there was an insta-hot for my room as the water was hot immediately after I turned it on. The bed was great and a couple of times I left the sliding door to the balcony open to get the fresh air and the quiet sounds of the sea. It was wonderful.
This is a new ship and everything looks great and pretty much works great. I also signed up for the Ultimate Dining Package ("UDP") which I thought was priced attractively at $119. If I can only pass along one key piece of information to you - it is that if you purchase the UDP what you really have done is pre-pay the entrance fee to use the "specialty" restaurants (of which there were about 10) on the ship. Purchasing the UDP DOES NOT GUARANTEE YOU ACCESS TO THE SPECIALTY RESTAURANTS. So if you wait too long to make reservations at the specialty restaurants you will be AT BEST either dining at 9:30pm - or in the cafeteria because you could not get in. Luckily a friend advised me to get to the ship early on Day #1 (I got on the ship about 11am) and head directly to one of the specialty restaurants (I hit Le Bistro on deck #6) and make reservations for the ENTIRE WEEK. As a result I was dining at between 6:30pm and 7:15pm the entire week. I considered myself very lucky. PS: I also found out that NCL limits the online reservations for the specialty restaurants made before the ship sailed to 50% of the available seats.