Upcoming Cruise: Norwegian Getaway
People always ask me “So when is your next cruise?”. While my answer is usually “Not soon enough!”, it is always a relief when I can actually answer with “Soon!”. Donia and I are excited that soon (not soon enough!), we’ll be embarking on a cruise onboard Norwegian Getaway. This will be my 29th cruise, Donia’s 20th cruise, and our 19th cruise together. At the end of this trip, I will have spent 199 nights onboard a cruise ship. I’m steadily making progress towards my goal of spending over 365 nights onboard a cruise ship so I can say I’ve cruised for a whole year of my life!
Norwegian Cruise Lines
While the vast majority of my cruises have been with Royal Caribbean, Getaway will be my third time with Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL). My first was onboard Norwegian Pearl in October/November 2009, sailing with my parents to celebrate my mother’s birthday that year. My second – and Donia’s first – cruise with NCL was in 2016 onboard Norwegian Escape, traveling with Donia’s parents and a couple of our friends.
Getaway
Because we liked so much about Escape, we chose Getaway partly because she’s the near-identical little sister ship to Escape. While Escape is a little bigger and has some extra bells & whistles, Getaway’s overall layout and deck plans are almost exactly the same as Escape’s. It will be nice to already know our way around the ship as soon as we get onboard, and it will be fun throughout the cruise recognizing the similarities – and differences – between Escape and Getaway.
Ship Stats
Maiden Voyage: February 8, 2014
Length: 1,068 feet
Width (max): 170 feet
Height: 179 feet
Decks: 18
Passengers: 3,963
Crew: 1,646
Getaway’s Itinerary
The other big reason we chose this cruise on Getaway is the itinerary. After having done so many cruises, it has become increasingly difficult for us to find a cruise that will get us to a port in the Caribbean that we haven’t visited before. With our upcoming cruise on Getaway, we’re lucky to be visiting not one, but two, ports that will be new to us. Even better is that one of those ports – Harvest Caye, Belize – is actually a new port itself, having opened in November 2016 as Norwegian’s newest private island.
Itinerary
Day 1 – Embarkation – Miami, Florida
Day 2 – At Sea
Day 3 – Roatan, Honduras
Day 4 – Harvest Caye, Belize
Day 5 – Costa Maya, Mexico
Day 6 – Cozumel, Mexico
Day 7 – At Sea
Day 8 – Disembarkation – Miami, Florida
It’s also a great itinerary because it gets us back to some of our favorite places that we’ve been to before. Donia and I both agree that Miami is our favorite overall port of embarkation. Going down the channel past incredible scenery and then overlooking South Beach while sailing out to sea with the Miami skyline as a backdrop makes for an incredible sailaway experience. Plus we’re staying an extra day and night in Miami after the cruise so we can spend a little more time exploring the city before we return home.
Our days in port at Costa Maya and Cozumel in Mexico will let us return to some of our favorite beach clubs in the Caribbean, Maya Chan and Nachi Cocom. With two days at sea, we’ll have lots of time to explore the ship and all it has to offer. We’ll be able to sit back, relax, and enjoy the tranquility of being surrounded by brilliant blue water as far as the eye can see. And we will eat. Oh yes, we will eat. We may eat so much and so often that even the Hobbits would be impressed with how many meals we can fit into a day and week onboard.
-Matt
