This is a review of our sailing on the Norwegian Getaway in December 2024 over the New Year’s holiday.  The fact that it was a holiday sailing influenced our experience because the ship was crowded. More on that later. In this review, I want to detail the many positive features and good experiences first.

Ship Class: Breakaway

Size: 145,655 gross tons

Capacity: 3,963 

Maiden Voyage: 2014

DESIGN/layout

The ship is beautiful in many areas.  It has a grand staircase mid-ship which creates a beautiful focal point opening between decks 6-8. Many restaurants and bars are open to and oriented by this staircase.

A promenade deck that is open to the sea, the Waterfront on deck 8 is a favorite of many Norwegian cruisers, with access to great seating, views, and favorite bars all at the same time.  In warm weather, you can also enjoy oceanfront seating at some specialty dining. I enjoyed using it as a fresh-air deck to get my steps in most days! I did not play with the giant chess set, although I saw others enjoy that.

The ship has two elevator banks, forward and aft, and we had no issues using elevators at any time, even during a very busy cruise. 

TIP: You can get great information about deck plans at the cruisedeckplans website. Check it out before you make your final cabin selection, to make sure nothing crazy noisy (like a bar or late night venue) is below or above your cabin at night, and then use it to plan strategies to make the most of your time onboard.

Our cabin was located mid-ship, so we always had a short walk from the elevators or stairs back to the cabin, but the carpet helped us orient ourselves.  On many NCL ships, the carpet in the hallways outside your cabin has wee fish swimming forward, so you can know which way to walk!

Main dining room (included)

We were delighted with the menu choices and the quality of food in the main dining rooms. There are three main dining rooms: Taste and Savor are smaller, and the Manhattan Room is the large, aft-facing dining room with a grand ceiling. The menu, which changes daily, is identical in all of them. The menu is prominently posted, so you can look at it early in the day to make a plan. We tried the MDR for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  The service was consistently attentive, prompt, and pleasant. The food was excellent. I have not had consistently better food in the main dining room on any cruise line in at least five years. The menu changed daily, and there were a lot of choices, more than I have seen on premium cruise line menus.

Norwegian doesn’t allow for reservations for couples in the main dining room; they evidently only reserve for large groups.  This did not present a problem at all. Only one time we were given a pager to let us know when the table was ready, but the wait was less than ten minutes.  Although we generally prefer having a set dining time and the same waitstaff each night, we felt well served by NCL’s model.  

The appetizer portions are moderate.  Once I did order two appetizers, and it was perfect.  The main course portions are generous without being excessive. They do an exceptional job with any kind of breaded cutlet, and the food was always delivered steaming hot.  I really do not know how they pull it off!

Specialty dining

NCL usually includes some specialty dining with its packages. Otherwise, you can pay to upgrade if you want. We had three nights in our package and chose Le Bistro, Cagney’s, and Ocean Blue.  Each was memorable, with outstanding food, perfectly executed and presented.  The service at Le Bistro and Ocean Blue was stellar, contributing to a wonderful experience.  The lamb shank and lamp chop combo at Le Bistro were perfect. The seared scallops on pork belly at Ocean Blue were a taste sensation, and the Wedge Salad at Cagney’s was a crunchy delight.  The prime rib and the rib eye with green peppercorn sauce at Cagney’s were both perfectly cooked to order. Note that reservations for these restaurants can be made well ahead (usually this opens up as soon as you have made final payment).  If you cannot find a time slot online, you can make reservations as soon as you board (when we were on, that was done at Headliners on deck 6).

Buffet/Garden Cafe:  The buffet is well-organized, easy to navigate and provides a wide variety of choices. I noticed small trays of food being frequently replenished, keeping the food offerings fresh. Seating was available, if not plentiful. The breakfast items are varied and include an omelette station. We enjoyed the “tea time snacks” served in the afternoons after returning from an excursion in need of reinforcements before a late dinner. We did not use the buffet in the evenings, so I cannot speak to that. The bar offerings in the buffet area are limited to beer and wine, although there are bars in the pool area that are not far away.

entertainment

This was unexpectedly good, and we had some high expectations going in, due to a previous cruise on the Norwegian Bliss. We love live music and stage performance, and the shows in the theater as well as in smaller venues were just brilliant.  Million Dollar Quartet, the Broadway show, was showing on two separate nights in the theater. Note that reservations are required for this show, and those open up three weeks ahead of the sailing date.  The cast also performs a separate show, Broadway Unplugged, telling the story of Broadway musicals with reconceived versions of very familiar Broadway songs, and it blew me away. Whoever made those arrangements is a musical genius. 

Other venues hosted amazing entertainment: Howl at the Moon Dueling Pianos was a rocking-fun singalong, with musical requests and dedications taken so you can either love on or embarrass a loved one. Syd Norman’s Pour House provides several different concerts throughout the week, focused on 70s, 80s and 90s hits. The performers are ridiculously talented, and you won’t forget the experience. The small space allows for the performers to interact with the audience, creating a memorable experience. 

Tip/Need to know: Syd Norman’s is a small venue with limited seating. The doors open 30 minutes prior to the show, but the line will form before then. I suggest planning your evening around getting into this place! Once you are in, you can place an order at the bar and relax while waiting for the show.  

We did miss the “lounge” style entertainment that’s more prevalent on Celebrity or Princess, where many of the bar settings have a rotating variety of live music on offer. It seemed that type of entertainment was sparse, and started late (after 8 pm) when it was present, making it less likely you could enjoy a pre-dinner cocktail with live music.

Bars/lounges

I think NCL aims more to provide a lively bar scene than a relaxed lounge environment, although there are some places where you can certainly be comfortable.  We very much enjoyed the classy atmosphere of the Prime Meridian Bar, (deck 8 aft) where the staff were very knowledgeable and friendly.  The SugarCane Mojito Bar and Syd Norman’s both have very popular locations that spill out onto the Waterfront, so you can enjoy the sun or shade if you want. 

The Skyy Vodka Bar is a special experience which you must reserve, and there is a $15 pp charge which includes two drinks.  You’ll get a poncho and gloves to wear, and you will need them as the bar is kept at 17 degrees F.  The chair and bench made of ice, and the smaller sculptures are very fun, but the space is very small.  I think this was worth doing once for sure. If you want to stay more than ten minutes, dress appropriately as the poncho and gloves won’t cover your legs or sandals!

cabin

This was a spontaneous “bonus” vacation for us, and so we opted for an interior cabin.  We have had a good experience with interior cabins before on both Princess and Celebrity.  This interior cabin was NOT well-designed. The storage and closet were about half of what I have had on a Princess interior cabin, and awkward to reach. The storage issue was a constant annoyance. There is no chair, so nowhere to sit other than the bed. The bathroom was adequate, though.  Everything was kept very clean. Our stateroom attendant was lovely, and attentive to a couple of small requests.  

The balcony cabins that we saw looked lovely, with adequate space. This was our second NCL cruise, and we had a balcony room before, and we’ll for sure book a balcony next time we cruise on NCL.

Shore Excursions and Ports of Call

Our itinerary called at four ports: Costa Maya, Harvest Caye, Roatán, and Cozumel. We had a package (no longer available, boo!!) that gave us both discounted shore excursions, so it made sense to book through NCL. The website had very limited offerings (four per port?), but we made our choices and booked ahead. Then, when we boarded, we noticed a time change made to a Jan 1 excursion, and we knew we were not up for a 7 am excursion after New Year’s Eve. About that time, going to cancel or change that, we visited the Shore Excursions desk on board. Lo and behold, there were many pages there with dozens of excursions (and great variety) to choose from. I have never experienced this before. Usually, if an excursion is available, it can be booked on the cruise line website. If I had known this, I would have waited to select my excursions immediately on boarding.

Costa Maya

Costa Maya was our first port. It’s quite developed, with a pool area that you can enjoy.

On a previous cruise, we had done a tour of Mayan ruins through The Native Choice, which I highly recommend. Fabulous! This time, we booked a Mayan wellness retreat. It was located right at the port, and by far the very part of the session (and frankly, the only part I would want to repeat) was the hammock massage. Wow!!! The photo of the promo shows that in action – it was great!

Harvest caye (Belize)

Harvest Caye is a private island that has a lovely pool area. Cabanas are available for rent, but we opted for the free lounge chairs. The weather was very stormy, with lightning and so we canceled our plans to kayak in the lagoon. The shore excursion desk was canceling any excursion, with no questions asked, due to the weather. They were great to work with on this. In any event, in between storms, we had an hour to enjoy the pool. When the lifeguard starting blowing the whistle to get everyone out of the water, we took that as our cue to hustle back to the ship, and we almost made it back without getting drenched. Ah well, we were already wet from the pool!

I was especially enchanted by the lush, tropical flora on the island. The brilliant colors were a stark contrast to the moody skies.

Roatan (Honduras)

Our next stop was also an island, off the coast of Honduras. We chose an excursion with three main activities: a guided tour through and eco-adventure park, visit to the West End shopping area where we toured a local non-profit (where I found some gorgeous earrings for my sister) and a local chocolate factory. Finally, we ended at a beach club where the loungers were included, and we enjoyed live music and shared a light lunch. The eco-adventure park was the main draw for us, and our enthusiastic local guide identified no less than 30 different plants and trees for us. The suspension bridges kept us from getting too relaxed, but they weren’t scary. It did have a zipline overhead of us (not part of our tour) which unfortunately meant that we didn’t see birds. Boo! The birds were part of the description of the tour, and so that wasn’t accurate. All in all, though, a good day.

COZUMEL

The final port was Cozumel, where we chose an excursion to Chankanaab Beach Park, with snorkeling as the main activity for our group. Dolphins were another big draw there. We knew that we would have access to the eco-park there as well, and that was in fact a highlight. The water was very choppy, interfering with our snorkeling, but it was still beautiful while it lasted. The park was delightful, and filled with reproductions of Mayan statues. We had time for a guacamole tasting, shrimp tacos, and margaritas. Since we had already seen the shopping area of Cozumel on an earlier trip, we were glad to get out and see nature there. An iguana decided to greet/threaten us on a walkway, so we did feel like we were seeing nature!

Pool deck and Activities

By now, you can gather that we found a lot to appreciate on the cruise. The pool deck, though, presented some challenges to our enjoyment. We had come to the warm Caribbean from the cold Pacific Northwest, and were hoping to enjoy at least a little pool time, a deck lounger, and maybe a hot tub. However, a few issues got in the way. The design of the pool deck (instead of being open and expansive) is divided up into small spaces. That doesn’t create a feeling of spaciousness on what is essentially an open deck. The other issue may relate to the overall allocation of resources and space on the ship. This may not be an issue with normal numbers on the ship. Our cruise, however, was well over double-occupancy (we heard several times at least 600 over the double-occupancy number). Thus, the pool decks were very crowded, but also boisterous. One day, people started a cannonball contest and when a security officer told them to stop diving into the (shallow) pool, some of them booed him. That doesn’t feel like a safe or relaxing environment to me.  The next day I noticed enhanced security – again, none of this created an environment that I could relax in.  

Ship design, and choices about how to make use of public spaces, seem to play a role here. The ship doesn’t have capacity to provide engaging activities for the number of passengers it takes on (during the day, especially, with most bars not opening before 5 p.m.) which may force people to “create their own fun” on the overcrowded pool deck.

We tried the adult-only sun deck Spice H20 but it was always crowded, too, and after waiting to see if a hot tub would be available, we left.  It looks on the deck plans as though it has a small pool, but is is a VERY shallow pool that really only four people can lounge in at once.  This time, we did not purchase the Vibe Beach Club which is a private area on Deck 17 and I imagine that would provide a better experience.

The design and capacity issues that we think cause congestion seem to be alleviated on the Breakaway Plus class ships. We have been on the Norwegian Bliss to Alaska and it was busy but we always found space to sit on the pool deck. There is a great article here explaining Norwegian’s ship classes.

Would I cruise again on the Norwegian Getaway? Yes, but I would select an itinerary where the pool deck might be less necessary, and not again on a holiday. I could see enjoying the ship in a cool climate. The food and the entertainment are great, outstanding, even. We had a fabulous cruise!

Have you been on the Getaway? What are your thoughts?