A little Rough Weather...

 First a bit of 'housekeeping'.  Starting tomorrow, you can look forward to a daily blog for the next seven days.  During that time I will be taking part in Travel Agent Awareness Week.  My final blog on the Norwegian Getaway will be on November 14.  

The Room:

Boys really appreciated the selection on the tv.  One channel had nothing but movies.  Some old, some new, and some new releases.  There did not seem to be a schedule giving you the options, you just turned it on and got what was playing.  Made it hard to plan ahead!  The same for one channel called "your favorite shows".  It was regular broadcast shows...some comedy, some drama, and even some kids shows.  Again, no rhyme or reason!  But there was almost ALWAYS something on they liked!

  

Beds were not comfortable.  And this surprised me!  The ship was only a year old... hard to believe they already felt like they were a million years old.  Hard as a rock!

Category – we had a family mini suite.  ‘family’ because it was near to the kids clubs.  Mini Suite meant it had a larger bathroom.  The actual cabin was small.  In size comparison, about the same size as the Carnival and smaller than the Disney family cabins.  Balcony was very small (again same size as Carnival)  The three of us could stand on the balcony, but if more than one wanted to sit, you had to play a game of musical chairs.

The bathroom was GREAT!  Spacious and the shower was to die for! Nice and hot, lots of water pressure.  The body jets was a nice touch!  Large sink.  Two people could easily be in there at the same time.  

Extra Special Guest - We had the added pleasure of having hurricane Joaquin join us on our cruise.  At Tortola on Wednesday we found out we would not be visiting Nassau on Friday in order to avoid the storm.

Seas were very rough from late Wednesday night until early Saturday morning.  On Thursday and Friday it was windy enough that the deck 8 deck was closed.  On Thursday I saw water coming in the doors at deck 8, not from rain but from the spray from wind and waves.

Looked more like a glass lake than an ocean

From the Atrium. Thursday morning

From the Atrium Thursday Morning

Also from the Atrium Thursday Morning

On Thursday, our waitress at Tropicana Room had some problems pouring water in our glasses.  It was really interesting to watch the ballroom dancers from Burn the Floor dancing on the floor.  Only a couple of times was I able to see a misstep due to the movement of the ship.  First class.  I was having trouble simply walking and they were dancing!  (lifting and spinning….)

It was all handled so matter of factly, it was as if it was a normal almost every day occurrence. (I was later to find out that was not the case!) There was no sense of concern by any passengers or crew.  

I have always heard that a cruise ship was the best place to be in a hurricane.  And I seriously believe it.  Even though it was cloudy and the spray from the seas made it impossible to be on the balconies, the pools were never closed!  It never rained more than a few minutes of sprinkles!  The way the ship is designed, the wind and rough seas never actually make it to the pool area.  It is completely blocked from the winds.  However, they did close the rock climbing wall and the ropes course.

Our cruise ship captain was a veteran and knew what he was doing.  He was warned about the storm, and its possible path and was given a course that would keep us out of harm's way.  He did not feel that was good enough, so he picked up the speed a bit so we would be even farther from the storm that it was thought we needed to be.  His decision turned out to be the right one as the storm quickly turned to a Category 3.  

I've been told that some of my pictures of the rough seas could be a bit scarey...but I think they make the point of how safe we really were.  The storm was raging all around us, but we were perfectly safe.  Although I will admit the seas were rough enough that normal life was affected.  You could feel the bed moving in ways it wasn't supposed to.  

Rough Seas

On port days the ship was deserted.  On sea days there was no room to walk on deck.  Since we ended up with 5 sea days, the ship felt more crowded.  We choose to stay on board during our Tortola day, giving us a bit of the deserted ship to ourselves. 

The pool situation is one of the worst.  There is a play and splash pool for the little ones, and a ‘general pool’ that has two sections…one 3 foot and one 5 foot (approx.)  there is a wall between these two areas so a small child cannot accidentally go into the deeper end.

There is an adult only pool, where all the action is.  The only lifeguards I saw were at this pool.  There are also two hot tubs.  This area was always packed to overflowing.  No swimming could be done, but you could stand in the water!

Four water slides kept the adventure seekers busy…there seemed to be a minimal wait for each.  (although they all seemed to stay busy!)  The ropes course was intriguing, with never a wait, but always a lot of people there.

My crew was spoiled by Disney.  They were used to having several movies playing throughout the day.  They found only a few family friendly movies during the whole cruise…including one we saw on the Disney a year ago, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ in 3D.  They found the 3D glasses to be lacking.  So scratched that it was hard to view the movie.  They tried to exchange them, but they all were the same way.

It takes more than old movies (like Annie) and scratched 3D glasses to impress my crew.

Speaking of less than stellar.  The mini golf was in terrible shape.  For the ship to be only a year old, I was saddened to see the shape it was in.  While it has a cute theme, Pirates, the paint on the foam was peeling so terribly it looked like it was years and years old.  Peeling paint, broken areas, squishy floors, and nothing to keep the balls in the area made it one of the worst mini golf areas my guys had ever played.  They were terribly unimpressed.

Buffet selection.  Not impressed.  You could count on the same selection from breakfast to breakfast and lunch to lunch.  While the quality of the food was good and there was plenty of it, just felt like old cafeteria food after a few days.

Complimentary restaurants had pretty good food.  There was a selection of classics that were available each night with a few new things thrown in.  There was one Chef’s choice each night and every night I tried it was superb!  There is a problem with the way the foods were named… a Striploin could be roast beef, a steak, or prime rib.  Sometimes the fancy name was not as easy to discern.

Gluten Free- one mess up.  Since there was 7 nights having one mess up is pretty good!  One night, the waitress taking my order the previous night was not sure if the one I chose could be made GF, so I chose a second entree in case it couldn’t…and at dinner the next night I had BOTH entrees!  LOL!  Since the amount of food was overwhelming with just one entree, there was no way I could eat them both!  I hated wasting food like that.

On last day I discovered there was a bowling alley on board!  Had we known that, I know where my crew would have stayed!

Over all I would not hesitate to sail on the Getaway again!

My guys at St Thomas!