Glorious weather and a fun group we were cruising with saved the experience. After 4 cruises on Disney and 3 on Royal Caribbean, this was our first on Norwegian. The ship itself is fine. There are some nice features that I like. I would love to combine features from all 3 cruise lines to come up with the perfect ship! The biggest problem, and I don't know if it is throughout NCL or unique to this ship, was the awful service. First, in the main dining rooms, dinner took almost 3 hours. That's ridiculous. Pretty much ruined everyone's evenings. Food quality was fine at least. They should get you in and out in 90 minutes.

The biggest issue was our stateroom steward. Worst, by far, of any cruise we have taken. All previous cruises, within a few minutes of entering the room once available on embarkation day there was a knock on the door from the steward who introduced him/her self, explained some things, asked about any preferences/concerns we may have had, etc. This steward never did that. We hardly ever saw him in the hallway - maybe twice? Previous stewards, every time I left or came back to the room, it seemed they were around. Worst of all, he never put the room back together each morning. Never put the extra bed back into the ceiling, or put the other bed back into the sofa. Just made the beds and left them out all day. Also, never replaced any of the bathroom amenities. To make matters worse, seemed our complaints were not taken seriously and were just an annoyance to the deck supervisor. Staff overall was not friendly, lacking personality, and in some cases downright rude. Every other cruise we were on, staff would always yield to guests when passing each other in the hallways, on the pool deck, at the buffet, etc. Not only yield to them, but also usually greet them, and many times ask if there is anything they need. Not on this ship. I saw one staff member essentially mow one person down with a large bin of used towels on the pool deck. I saw a staff member sternly tell a guest to "MOVE" at the buffet as they tried to get by with a rack of (plastic) glasses and silverware. Shocking behavior really.

The kids clubs...the fact they close from 12-2ppm and then again from 5-7pm, is annoying. Kind of forces families into a defined schedule - not my idea of "freestyle". Also, one night when they were re-opening at 7pm, there were several kids lining up already to go in a few minutes before. The staff was just standing around chatting with each other and checking the time on the tablet they use at the entrance to check the kids in every minute or so, refusing to let anyone in even a second earlier than 7pm. Just bad form and illustrative of how the staff will not go out of their or slightly above the minimum to improve the guest experience. We may try NCL again, but definitely not the Getaway. We would want to see if this type of service is limited to the Getaway or is the norm fleet-wide.