Hopefully you’ve lost a few pounds before going on your cruise, you will be tempted everywhere on board to eat! There are plenty of complementary resturants and if you want to splurge for a meal there are specialty dining options also which mostly A la carte and 2 with just a cover charge. While some had better food than others, all the resturants we tried had exceptionally friendly service.

There are a bunch of different options on board. The Norwegian Getaway has most of the resturants that you would find of other NCL ships except for 2 to 3 resturants that are in the larger or newer ships.

Our first meal was complementary at American diner, a specialty restaurant that serves typical American diner food. The food was ok, I remember thinking to myself luckily we didn’t have to pay for this.

NCL typically runs a promotion where you get free unlimited open bar for 2 guests and 1 free specialty dining also for 2 guest, 2 free if it’s a 7+ days cruise. For A la carte resturants you get 1 of each: appetizer, soup or salad; entree and desert, there are some entrees that have a supplemental charge. Note that while these are free, the tips are automatically included in the total of your trip when you book. Also, you need to book reservations for these specialty dinning early. So as soon as you’re allowed to book reservations, I suggest you do. We messed up!!

We wanted to use our free specialty dinning at Cagneys steakhouse but unfortunately we couldn’t get the reservation for the day we wanted to go. We tried again by going to the resturant to see if there were any empty spots but again we struck out. This is how great the cruise workers are, the hostess from the resturant next door, moderno, overheard us and got us seated.

Moderno is a brazillian all you can eat steak house (think of Fogo de Chao). The waiter makes sure you get to taste every type of protein they have going around, by asking us mid meal if there was anything we missed or wanted again. Everything we ate was delicious! My kid that has several allergies got to enjoy mostly everything they offered! We had pao de queijo for starters, and for protein they had a few different types of steak. My favorite was the picanha, lamb, pork sausage, and chicken. They also have a buffet table which had cheese, veggies, cold salads, soups, and deli meats.

For a grab and go or multiple cuisine offering, we went to the garden cafe buffet. We came here whenever we needed multiple options. It’s great since they do have multiple things that are allergen free for the kids. Read the nightlight newsletter for the following day’s activities. We missed out on seafood night!

If you want something in the middle of the night or crack of dawn you can eat at O’Sheehan’s Bar & Grill, a 24 hour resturant. We had lunch here and everything we tried was great for being 24 hours, This place serves typical bar food. I wonder the quality at 3 in the morning.

The main dinning room which is where you benefit most with NCLs freestyle dinning is called the Tropicana room. The dinner menu changes nightly here, so be sure to go stop by even if it’s just to check out what’s new. I think we may have came at a bad night, our food was mediocre at best.

The last and best resturant we ate at was The haven resturant. We at breakfast, lunch and dinner here, it had the best food on board and even better service. We always asked for the same waiter, and Elmer even put on a few magic tricks for our boys. Everything we ate was delicious, you have to try the frito misto! The menu does stays the same every night.

If you have days where you don’t really feel like getting out of your cabin to eat or it’s the kid’s nap time. Then you, Order room service of course. You can order room service! If you are a guest in the haven then room service is complementary, unfortunately there is a $9.95 convenience fee if your not. We tied out Shanghai’s Noodle Bar for our room service lunch. The food was good, I’m sure it would be better if you eat at the resturant. The portions were small so you can try out multiple dishes.

When you get a craving for gelato and have some leftover budget, head down to dolce gelato. The gelato was good and they also had sorbet for our youngest. Remember that all the complementary resturants also offer ice cream and sorbet.

There were so many other resturants on board that we did not get a chance to try out. The resturants listed were the ones we ate at, there were so many other great choices that it can get overwhelming with the feeling you missed out. This just means you will have to go on move cruises!!! Happy exploring!!