Europe 2019: Final Wrap Up

Europe 2019

Final Wrap Up

I'm finally finishing up with this series from our fall trip to Northern Europe. After returning to Copenhagen on the Getaway we headed straight to the airport and flew back to Frankfurt for a day before heading home the next morning. 

Samantha is a great traveler - she always has been. She exceeded my expectations for this trip and probably earned herself a seat on the next adventure (her little brother I'm not quite there with yet). There were moments - she was four - but the good far outweighed the bad. Bringing her was a big part of this trip and impacted the planning a lot but it didn't diminish my enjoyment at all, and in some ways it probably enhanced it. She wasn't staying out until 2am (although I'm not sure Branelle would do that with me anymore either), but getting to see her excitement as we exposed her to new things made me happy.   

I think Nana had a good time as well. The same things I was doing with my daughter she was getting to do with hers. I think she enjoyed getting to travel with Nel and experience new places and things with both her and Samantha....and putting up with me was just a minor imposition. She hung in there too on some exhausting days, better than me sometimes.

I enjoyed the trip as well. I've been wanting to visit the Scandinavian countries for some time and I'm glad I did. It's definitely worth the trip. If someone was going to Europe for the first time I would probably recommend a Mediterranean destination like Italy or Spain, but if you've already done that you should try Northern Europe. It's not quite as pretty and it's more expensive, but still a great place to visit.

A final meal in Germany.

Some final thoughts on the NCL Getaway:

We enjoyed our cruise a lot, especially Samantha. As always, there are things that could be better (and worse) so here are my thoughts on the Getaway.

The Good

• The crew were outstanding. Everyone from the waiters to the Cruise Director were friendly and accommodating and I never had a bad experience with anyone.
• The ship itself is very nice. It's laid out well and clean and comfortable. It was a great place to be and as a floating hotel room I give it high marks.
• Embarkation and Debarkation were perfect and getting on and off the ship at port was a breeze as well. We only stood in one line the entire time and that was coming back from Berlin because everyone showed up at exactly the same time. We had NCL transfer us to the airport after the cruise and I thought that went really well also.
• Splash Academy was great. I've already covered it, but they did a great job and Samantha wants to go back. 

Some of the crew welcoming guests back to the ship in Sweden.

The Bad

• The photography setup on NCL is idiotic. I don't mind them taking pictures of me - they have a job to do and they're friendly so I pose whenever they ask. At the end of the cruise I would gladly pay an exorbitant amount for digital copies of all the pictures they took of me as I've done on Celebrity every time. NCL won't do that. They want to sell you packages and frames and whatever else but they won't just sell you your pictures. It's worse than that really - they come around at dinner (as they do on every cruise line) and take pictures but they don't keep them for you to view later, they come back while you're still eating trying to hard sell you printed copies with the threat that they're going to throw them away at the end of dinner. We bought zero pictures from NCL on the entire cruise out of principle. Photography has to be a huge moneymaker for cruise lines. Learn from Celebrity and give guests an option to go home with all their photos digitally...which costs you almost nothing. 

The So-So

• The food. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. The buffet was actually pretty good, but the dining rooms weren't any better than the buffet and we actually started to prefer the buffet just for the options. That shouldn't happen. We only tried one specialty restaurant and it was just okay as well. Perhaps others were better. I haven't been on a lot of cruises, but the food has been a highlight on others. It was a disappointment here.
• The cabin was alright. Most cruise cabins are alright. It was a little tight to be honest and our balcony was tiny. I guess we could step up to a suite if we want space. NCL does this thing where you can bid what you would pay for a nicer room and they let you know about a week out if you got it. I took a chance and booked a balcony cabin but bid (a lot) on a suite in the front of the ship but didn't get it.

So that's it. We had a great trip. I think everyone was ready to get home after three weeks abroad (we have a son so there was that). Samantha's ready to go again. 

Here's a bonus tip. If you need currency before a trip abroad, you can go on Wells Fargo's website (if you bank with them) and put in what you need and they'll mail it to you. I needed Euros, Rubles, and Danish Krona and they just sent it to the house in a FedEx envelope. If you come back with any you can just deposit it and it goes back into your account. Easy.

Another tip - talk to people. I'm not really a big fan of meeting new people. It's a mistake on my part to be private like that. When I'm forced to socialize I always enjoy getting to know people and learning about them. Cruise ships can be as social or private as you want I suppose. My wife is more social than I am (although she disagrees - she confuses my ability to be social with my desire to do so). She drags me out of my comfort zone on occasion. I'm glad she does. We met a lot of new folks on this cruise. Richard and Craig were on their honeymoon and Emily (who is going to be joining Branelle's running team for the Texas Independence Relay this year) and Kala are cousins who travel the world together frequently. I enjoyed hearing about their lives and getting to know them and others on the ship.  

So that's it. We sail off into the sunset until our next adventure. We travel a lot, and I was asked by some friends at dinner the other night where we were going next. We don't have any plans at the moment. Brooks is still too young (and too a lot of things really) for me to want to take him overseas. Samantha is good. We'll see what comes up and roll with it. It's good to have something planned on the horizon to look forward to, but it's also hard to plan life that far ahead. 

For now, Bon Voyage.