Had to finally book with NCL because Disney wanted me to sell my house... lol

[mevelandry]

About the prices... We were booked in march for a cruise. We originally paid 2300$ for it (Wonder departing from Miami, March) ...

Decided to switch to Dream departing from PC, November. Pretty much the same itinerary the exception of Key West replaced by a sea day: 1900$! (Got refunded 400$)

I feel like I have more bang for my buck (also I can't wait to see the new satellite falls that they will add during dry dock)...

 

[perdidobay]

Yes, we pre-booked our dinners - we booked the cruise only about a month out and were still able to get all the times we wanted. We had the free unlimited specialty dining. We paid extra for the Illusionarium dinner/magic show on the first night, followed by specialty dining at Teppanyaki (Japanese hibachi), Cagney's (steak house), Le Bistro (French), La Cucina (Italian), and Moderno (Brazilian steakhouse) on the following nights. On the last night, we ended up canceling our specialty reservation to try the Tropicana Room (one of the 3 MDRs). We walked in about 6:45 and were seated without a wait. I enjoyed all of my food and actually overall liked it better than DCL. Not sure if that is just being bored with DCL's menus after so many cruises or not, but all of my meals were very good. I also really liked not being locked into the early/late seating.

My husband did miss having the same wait staff every night due to his allergy. He doesn't like to discuss it much and didn't like having to bring it up every night, where on DCL with the same wait staff each evening, you don't have to go through that every night. I had noted on our reservation that he has Celiac and needed to be gluten free. We received an email prior to the cruise regarding it, then a letter in our stateroom regarding this and who to speak to onboard if he had any issues, etc. We also received calls the first few days on board from one of the maitre'ds making sure he was being taken care of, so that was nice. However, it was odd that the only time the allergy could be noted on the reservation was when we dined in the MDR's. In the specialty restaurants, we were told we would have to mention it when we checked in. We were given the option of reviewing the menus the prior evening and could place orders in advance for breakfast/lunch/dinner in the MDRs. For the specialty restaurants, he suggested we look at the menu ahead of time and if there wasn't something on the menu that DH could eat, to stop by earlier in the day of our reservation to let them know. They did not have gluten free chicken fingers, which my DH did enjoy for an afternoon snack on DCL. They did have gluten free pizza but he did not try it. Interestingly, the chicken fingers on the kids menu and at O'Sheehan's were the same chicken fingers that DCL has - that made by DS's day as they are his favorite. They also had chicken fingers at the buffet, but they were a different style. My DS14 loves his chicken fingers and fries, lol. He actually counted the number of different french fry options on board: curly, shoestring, waffle, wedges, regular cut, sweet potato, truffle fries at Cagneys. He tried a different one every day, lol.

We had a couple of breakfasts and a couple of lunches in the MDRs, and the others we ate in O'Sheehan's or the buffet. The best kept secret on the ship is the Cuban inspired Flamingo Grill which is one deck above the Garden Cafe buffet. We ate up there for breakfast several times but never made it to lunch there. It was never busy and they made eggs to order (you can also get this at the Garden Cafe, but the line was always long). They also had breakfast sandwiches, hash browns, yogurt, fruit, breads and yummy pastries - kinds which were not available downstairs. My youngest son needed waffles every morning, so he would get them from the Garden Cafe and meet us up at the Flamingo Cafe. It is all open air shaded seating and it was never busy. Loved it.

Thanks for your review. I' m looking forward to eating many different types of food and not being locked into early or late dining ( which for me equates to too late).
And another good review of Flamingo grill makes me really look forward to breakfast there.

 

[samily]

Thanks for your review. I' m looking forward to eating many different types of food and not being locked into early or late dining ( which for me equates to too late).
And another good review of Flamingo grill makes me really look forward to breakfast there.

Hope you have a great cruise!

 

[Scoobypop]

I know perditax and sweetpea are back from their trips now. I hope both of you check in and let us know how your experiences were with each of you trying new cruise lines. Would love to hear both your thoughts!

 

[momof2n2]

I know perditax and sweetpea are back from their trips now. I hope both of you check in and let us know how your experiences were with each of you trying new cruise lines. Would love to hear both your thoughts!

@perditax has a thread in the report page! @sweetpee_1993 can you chime in on NCL?

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Yep. I'm baaaaaack! Loved the Getaway! It was sooooo much fun! The first at-sea day I was a bit wistful for my comfort zone but I soon got over that. We had a blast. We did the ropes course twice, the rock wall, putt-putt, and slides. We got a whole lot of mileage out of our free beverage package. Ate dinner at LeBistro twice, Cagneys once, the noodle bar once, Teppanyaki once, and the buffet once. Really enjoyed all the choices. I'm completely in love with Freestyle dining vs traditional assigned dining. Did not miss my servers getting to know me at all. Not at all. Our balcony room was perfectly comfy. All the service we received from check-in to disembarking was great. Everyone was helpful and super friendly.

We did a cabin crawl with the CC gang and saw a myriad of rooms. We ultimately decided we would rather book our adult sons in an inside room for our Escape cruise(s) in May. We are keeping our balcony room, too. In all fairness, we felt our 306 sq ft verandah room on the Wonder was a tight squeeze with our boys. They're just too big now and we like to not look at their messes.

Any specific questions, ask away.

And, no, we did not feel nickel & dimed although I understand why peoe say that. There's tons of things you can partake of that are an added charge but we never had anyone twisting our arms to part with our dollars either. Yeah, room service aside from continental breakfast is a $7.95 service fee. However, at any time of day you can easily go grab food from the buffet. Or OSheehans. OSheehans serves pub fare grub 24 hrs a day. There's never a real necessity to order room service because there are always other options. Additionally, if $7.95 is gonna break me I probly don't need to be cruising in the first place. LOL!

 

[Scoobypop]

Awesome sweetpee, glad to hear, thanks for the update. And thanks Momof2n2 for steering me to perditax's report. Just finally finished reading it. Loved hearing back from these two-even though we will be on the Magic in 13 days, I'm still SO excited for our Escape cruise in Spring. And yes, we also got our mileage out of the beverage package on NCL, lol. Honestly, it was one of the factors that gave NCL the edge over Royal for us. We bought the beverage package on Royal, but the fact that NCL is "including" it these days, it was such a nice bonus. Thanks again for sharing, glad to hear it was great!

 

[holula]

That sounds a lot like my experience on NCL Epic. I'm glad you enjoyed your cruise!

 

[perdidobay]

Thanks for your review of the Getaway Sweetpee! You have me excited for our cruise in one week. I feel the same way about freestyle dining after my Pearl cruise last month.
Did you have any drinks you'd highly recommend or entrees at any of the specialty dining venues.....We have the UDP and the UBP so we will be dining at all the specialty restaurants and making use of our beverage package.
Did you spend any time in the adult H20 area during the day, if so was it very crowded?
Also any show reviews? We don't have Burn the Floor or Legally Blond booked, not sure if we want to go to see them.
Sorry for so many questions.....,

 

[kaseyC]

Yep. I'm baaaaaack! Loved the Getaway! It was sooooo much fun! The first at-sea day I was a bit wistful for my comfort zone but I soon got over that. We had a blast. We did the ropes course twice, the rock wall, putt-putt, and slides. We got a whole lot of mileage out of our free beverage package. Ate dinner at LeBistro twice, Cagneys once, the noodle bar once, Teppanyaki once, and the buffet once. Really enjoyed all the choices. I'm completely in love with Freestyle dining vs traditional assigned dining. Did not miss my servers getting to know me at all. Not at all. Our balcony room was perfectly comfy. All the service we received from check-in to disembarking was great. Everyone was helpful and super friendly.

We did a cabin crawl with the CC gang and saw a myriad of rooms. We ultimately decided we would rather book our adult sons in an inside room for our Escape cruise(s) in May. We are keeping our balcony room, too. In all fairness, we felt our 306 sq ft verandah room on the Wonder was a tight squeeze with our boys. They're just too big now and we like to not look at their messes.

Any specific questions, ask away.

And, no, we did not feel nickel & dimed although I understand why peoe say that. There's tons of things you can partake of that are an added charge but we never had anyone twisting our arms to part with our dollars either. Yeah, room service aside from continental breakfast is a $7.95 service fee. However, at any time of day you can easily go grab food from the buffet. Or OSheehans. OSheehans serves pub fare grub 24 hrs a day. There's never a real necessity to order room service because there are always other options. Additionally, if $7.95 is gonna break me I probly don't need to be cruising in the first place. LOL!

So glad to hear you had a wonderful time, it's a beautiful ship. We are less than a month from bringing the Escape home!!

 

[5forDis]

We really want to cruise Alaska....and even witH opening day prices & the 10% discount Fromm booking onboard, it was too high. We are a family of 5 & looked at family suite with verandah, without verandah, two rooms...it was $10,000+ without flights or excursions..

Our kids are older (they'll be 16, 14, 11) in the summer. Any suggestions on a different cruise line for Alaska? My middle child has food allergies and we've been really pleased how DCL handles it. Not sure what other cruise lines are good with food allergies. We don't drink soda/pop & little alcohol so paying for drinks is not a big deal to me.

 

[Club Disney Chandler]

We really want to cruise Alaska....and even witH opening day prices & the 10% discount Fromm booking onboard, it was too high. We are a family of 5 & looked at family suite with verandah, without verandah, two rooms...it was $10,000+ without flights or excursions..

Our kids are older (they'll be 16, 14, 11) in the summer. Any suggestions on a different cruise line for Alaska? My middle child has food allergies and we've been really pleased how DCL handles it. Not sure what other cruise lines are good with food allergies. We don't drink soda/pop & little alcohol so paying for drinks is not a big deal to me.

I would suggest going to the dark side and reading reviews on Cruise Critic. We're not doing Alaska until 2018 but I've been checking out other cruise kin reviews. Celebrity is definitely a possibility for us as our kids will be 16 and 18 at the time.

With Alaska being so port intensive none of us are concerned about programs on the ship to keep us entertained. Just my $.02

 

[GatorMomInNC]

We really want to cruise Alaska....and even witH opening day prices & the 10% discount Fromm booking onboard, it was too high. We are a family of 5 & looked at family suite with verandah, without verandah, two rooms...it was $10,000+ without flights or excursions..

Our kids are older (they'll be 16, 14, 11) in the summer. Any suggestions on a different cruise line for Alaska? My middle child has food allergies and we've been really pleased how DCL handles it. Not sure what other cruise lines are good with food allergies. We don't drink soda/pop & little alcohol so paying for drinks is not a big deal to me.

We just did an 11 night cruise to Alaska on Celebrity and it was a great cruise. We stayed in a family room on the Celebrity Silstice. These are 575 sq ft rooms that sleep 5, although on is an upper berth and one is a mattress on the couch. Significantly less expensive than DCL. I did a comparison thread on here titled DCL vs X if you want to check it out.

 

[darwinsrule]

Our girls are already asking when we can go back on Getaway (turns out twice is not enough). With what we already have booked or planned it will be a few years unfortunately although a Western on Getaway would be pretty cool given the itinerary.

For all of those on the Fantasy doing the Tortola stop, do the Baths excursion. We had an awesome morning and it was one of the highlights of the trip.

We booked NCL Jewel to Alaska next August under a KSF (okay 3rd and 4th sail free) that NCL offered on some of the Alaska cruises last February. $3,800 for 4 with a $200 obc. Couldn't pass it up especially when DCL wanted $8,000 for basically the same itinerary. Would love to do Solstice, but we really want to invest the $$$ in excursions instead.

Of course all of those plans depend upon me surviving the Taylor Swift concert tonight with my daughters

 

[momof2n2]

Our girls are already asking when we can go back on Getaway (turns out twice is not enough). With what we already have booked or planned it will be a few years unfortunately although a Western on Getaway would be pretty cool given the itinerary.

For all of those on the Fantasy doing the Tortola stop, do the Baths excursion. We had an awesome morning and it was one of the highlights of the trip.

We booked NCL Jewel to Alaska next August under a KSF (okay 3rd and 4th sail free) that NCL offered on some of the Alaska cruises last February. $3,800 for 4 with a $200 obc. Couldn't pass it up especially when DCL wanted $8,000 for basically the same itinerary. Would love to do Solstice, but we really want to invest the $$$ in excursions instead.

Of course all of those plans depend upon me surviving the Taylor Swift concert tonight with my daughters

That's an awesome deal for Alaska!!

 

[smitty11k]

Thanks for your review of the Getaway Sweetpee! You have me excited for our cruise in one week. I feel the same way about freestyle dining after my Pearl cruise last month.
Did you have any drinks you'd highly recommend or entrees at any of the specialty dining venues.....We have the UDP and the UBP so we will be dining at all the specialty restaurants and making use of our beverage package.
Did you spend any time in the adult H20 area during the day, if so was it very crowded?
Also any show reviews? We don't have Burn the Floor or Legally Blond booked, not sure if we want to go to see them.
Sorry for so many questions.....,

 

[smitty11k]

We too had to leave Disney due to prices. We booked the RC Freedom because when I looked at the Getaway it showed that the top deck was Free Style, aka as one of the kids in my class called it "The Naked Deck." Is this true? It actually was a better deal but thats just not something I want to spend a week looking at.

 

[MickeyMeCrazy]

We are avid NCL cruisers and are trying out Disney for the first time next week!

I'm hoping Disney doesn't spoil us too much, because it was definitely a "splurge" and we are perfectly content with NCL - especially their newer ships. We were on the Breakaway in May and absolutely loved it - our 4 year old did too!

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Thanks for your review of the Getaway Sweetpee! You have me excited for our cruise in one week. I feel the same way about freestyle dining after my Pearl cruise last month.
Did you have any drinks you'd highly recommend or entrees at any of the specialty dining venues.....We have the UDP and the UBP so we will be dining at all the specialty restaurants and making use of our beverage package.
Did you spend any time in the adult H20 area during the day, if so was it very crowded?
Also any show reviews? We don't have Burn the Floor or Legally Blond booked, not sure if we want to go to see them.
Sorry for so many questions.....,

Drinks! Our favorite spot was Sugarcanes on the Waterfront! If Candize is bartending, best onboard! My faaaavorite libation all cruise was the Jalapeño Cucumber Mojito. I looooove cucumber & love a little bite. That was my perfect cocktail. I loved all the mojitos, tho. They strain them! Also, I'm not a big frozen beverage girl (waters down the drink) but the Miami Vice was tight. I enjoyed several. For a good sipper, one of our new friends got us started on Tennessee Honey. I don't care much for bourbon on rocks but the Tennessee Honey (made by Jack Daniels) is smooth & tad sweet. On rocks it goes down easy. And, another pal got the hubby started on Kahlua & Cream. Basically just Kahlua with half & half. Holy wow is it tasty!

At LeBistro I fell in love with the 4 cones appetizer. I know it sounds weird but trust me. They're interesting & quite tasty. I asked our server what was the acceptable way to eat them. She said pick it up, tear off the paper, and crunch away. It was delicious! We both had the filet (beef). Excellent. Hubby had the duck the first night which he enjoyed. He says the filet was better, tho. For dessert I had a glass of the ice wine which is absolutely lovely. Perfect finish for me.

At Cagneys we both had the prime which I thought was good but not great. Wish I'd gone with the filet. You MUST try the truffle fries! They're killer! Everyone goes crazy for the Oreo cheesecake dessert. I liked it but it wasn't up to the hype for me personally.

I wouldn't recommend anything from Carlos. I had my cake that I decorated. The cake part was dry & pretty tasteless. I had to try a cupcake, too. It was not moist, little flavor, and whipped topping vs buttercream. Yuck!

We didn't go to Spice H2O. We walked back there 1 morning and it wasn't crowded then but I don't feel confident recommending anything there. I'm clueless.

Shows. We went to Burn the Floor. The dancing was crazy athletic. Impressive. But, there wasn't a plot. It was basically about an hour of really wow Latin dance numbers. I enjoyed watching but I can see how kids or anyone not impressed by that sort of thing would feel meh about it. We ditched Legally Blonde reservations to relax with our newfound gaggle of friends. More fun. I wish we'd gone to the comedy club. Just never got to it. The 11:00 shows sell out first so if you're going to reserve anything, grab those then cancel later.

We did pay to use the messaging feature on the app. Unlike DCL (<--theirs has never worked for me) it actually worked. Reliably! It was $7.99 per device. We hooked up just my iPhone. Swapped contacts with our new friends the first day and we all used the app for the duration. It was crazy wonderful!

Ask all the questions you want!

 

[TXDCLfan]

Drinks! Our favorite spot was Sugarcanes on the Waterfront! If Candize is bartending, best onboard! My faaaavorite libation all cruise was the Jalapeño Cucumber Mojito. I looooove cucumber & love a little bite. That was my perfect cocktail. I loved all the mojitos, tho. They strain them! Also, I'm not a big frozen beverage girl (waters down the drink) but the Miami Vice was tight. I enjoyed several. For a good sipper, one of our new friends got us started on Tennessee Honey. I don't care much for bourbon on rocks but the Tennessee Honey (made by Jack Daniels) is smooth & tad sweet. On rocks it goes down easy. And, another pal got the hubby started on Kahlua & Cream. Basically just Kahlua with half & half. Holy wow is it tasty!

At LeBistro I fell in love with the 4 cones appetizer. I know it sounds weird but trust me. They're interesting & quite tasty. I asked our server what was the acceptable way to eat them. She said pick it up, tear off the paper, and crunch away. It was delicious! We both had the filet (beef). Excellent. Hubby had the duck the first night which he enjoyed. He says the filet was better, tho. For dessert I had a glass of the ice wine which is absolutely lovely. Perfect finish for me.

At Cagneys we both had the prime which I thought was good but not great. Wish I'd gone with the filet. You MUST try the truffle fries! They're killer! Everyone goes crazy for the Oreo cheesecake dessert. I liked it but it wasn't up to the hype for me personally.

I wouldn't recommend anything from Carlos. I had my cake that I decorated. The cake part was dry & pretty tasteless. I had to try a cupcake, too. It was not moist, little flavor, and whipped topping vs buttercream. Yuck!

We didn't go to Spice H2O. We walked back there 1 morning and it wasn't crowded then but I don't feel confident recommending anything there. I'm clueless.

Shows. We went to Burn the Floor. The dancing was crazy athletic. Impressive. But, there wasn't a plot. It was basically about an hour of really wow Latin dance numbers. I enjoyed watching but I can see how kids or anyone not impressed by that sort of thing would feel meh about it. We ditched Legally Blonde reservations to relax with our newfound gaggle of friends. More fun. I wish we'd gone to the comedy club. Just never got to it. The 11:00 shows sell out first so if you're going to reserve anything, grab those then cancel later.

We did pay to use the messaging feature on the app. Unlike DCL (<--theirs has never worked for me) it actually worked. Reliably! It was $7.99 per device. We hooked up just my iPhone. Swapped contacts with our new friends the first day and we all used the app for the duration. It was crazy wonderful!

Ask all the questions you want!

They sure are good hope to see
you guys on another cruise.