This was our third cruise with NCL - our first was on a small Norwegian ship sailing to Alaska years ago, we took a cruise on the EPIC its maiden year, and now the Getaway. This was our first cruise with the kids - two girls (10) and a boy (8). We booked adjoining interior staterooms to save on the cost. We were pleasantly surprised by the interior staterooms. Not huge, certainly, but more spacious than expected with large (for a cruise) bathrooms and showers. Each room also had a bunk bed that folded down out of the ceiling, which made one room perfect for the kids and added a little excitement. There were plenty of places to store our stuff. The light switch system was odd - you insert your key card to enable power to the room. We quickly figured out that folding over a piece of paper and few times and sticking that in the card slot worked just as well and prevented key cards left behind. Of course you shouldn't spend a lot of time watching TV in your room, but with kids it's nice to unwind at the end of the day. Unfortunately, there were no child-friendly channels - just a few news stations and one movie channel. They did, however, have pay-per-view movies as an option, which we did one night when my wife didn't feel great and just wanted to cozy up in bed.

The interior staterooms open into an inner hall running down the center of the ship. Gives you a little bit of a sense of privacy, but would probably be better to have these open on the main halls on either side of the ship - that inner hall could have been extra room in the staterooms themselves.

Overall the Getaway is a nice ship, but after cruising on her, my wife and I both preferred the more open style of the Royal Caribbean ships. While a similar design to the EPIC, the Getaway somehow felt more cramped. It doesn't feel crowded per se, but there are no soaring foyers or big open spaces, it's all closed in and feels a little claustrophobic for a ship this size. Read more