We went on a a week cruise on the Getaway from 12/17/17 to 12/24/17. It was 899 per person for a minisuite, so that was very cheap.

A few of the negatives: there were 4800 passengers on the ship so it was very crowded and there were often long lines. The service was frankly quite awful. Once, in the dining room, we waited 25 minutes after receiving the dessert menu and no one had come back to take our order, so we finally just grabbed a random waiter and told him what we wanted. NCL bills itself on "freestyle cruising", but in practice you have to make reservations for shows, restaurants, etc, so it still ends up pretty regimented. There were shore excursions available to book on the cruise ship that were not available to book through the website pre cruise, which I found maddening. We already pre booked shore excursions, including with third party vendors who we could not cancel. I don't understand why they don't make all excursions book able before hand to help guests plan. You have to pay for everything on their private island, which is kind of tacky. Also, it's a 45 minute ride to the mainland on a ferry that cost 39 dollars, unless you do their shore excursions. So if you want to actually see believe, you have schlep.

Now, the positives: There was always something to do, with a wide range of activities. The food was better than we expected, not gourmet by any standard, but certainly more than edible. It was a pleasure to not have to dress up for formal nights, and you could wear basically whatever you wanted, except pants required for men at Ocean Blue and Le bistro after 5 pm. There were no tenders at any of the ports including their private island harvest caye in Belize. Read more