Family Review of the Escape 3-10 June

Hi everyone, after getting back from the cruise and having to recover from the shock of facing real life again, we finally got our thoughts together for this review. We were a family of four celebrating our son’s high school graduation. We were happy that our daughter could take some time off from college to join us. Great times were had by all.

This write up is a joint effort with all of us contributing to the effort, so if the writing styles change a bit, forgive us.

First day

The embarkation process at Miami was a bit long. We arrived at our designated loading time and found a line that stretched from one end of the terminal to the other. Once we got inside, we found ourselves in the Security line and THEN in the ticketing line. While the lines were very long, they did move at a reasonable pace. Overall, the process took more than an hour. We’ve never been on a very large ship, so we don’t know if this is typical or not. We weren’t too put out by the whole process.

Our first impression of the ship is that it didn’t fit what we thought a ship that size would look like. It was a much more relaxed feel with more earth tones and less glitz than other ships we’ve been on. Overall, the designers did a great job of breaking the ship up into manageable bites.

As we’ve done on our previous cruises, we went to have lunch in one of the dining rooms.

Lunch was very good. I had a blackened grouper sandwich, DW had shrimp Arrabata pasta, DS had fish and chips while DD enjoyed the shrimp Caesar salad.

The lunch menu in the restaurants, Taste and Savor, didn’t change. It was always the same menu. Breakfast had daily offerings, but the lunch menu didn’t change. After a few days, we would have enjoyed some variation in the lunch menu, but for the first meal, it was enjoyable.

After lunch we did the requisite checking into guest services to get our kids in the same room. After that we explored the ship some more, and proceeded to the front of the ship for the cast-away party in the rain. Fun times were had by all.

Our luggage was ready for us by the time we got back to the rooms to change / freshen up for dinner, so we were able to unpack and get that out of the way before we headed up for dinner.

We had our first dinner in the Manhattan Room. It was pretty crowded but we received good service and had a very enjoyable meal. One of the appetizers, smoked salmon tartare, quickly became a family favorite throughout the cruise. DH had the green curry. It was very nice with just a nice spice for the masses, (I prefer a more picante dish, but understand most don’t) and good crisp clean flavors. Wife had series of appetizers. Son had meatballs and daughter had duck confit pasta. We like to taste each other’s dishes and, at the end of the night, we all coveted the pasta. It was an excellent, if a tad rich, pasta.

After Dinner, we just walked around the ship some more, listening to some music before heading to bed.

1st (full) day at sea:

We actually ate breakfast and lunch at the buffet (which we have avoided on most of our previous cruises) both were very good meals. That morning, we did, morning trivia and celebrity head game (similar to cards on heads).

At noon the daughter joined us for the CC Meet up. It looks like everyone had a pretty good time. We had beer tastings and appetizers in District Brew House. This was the nicest meet and greet we’ve attended on our cruises. The food was great, it was lovely meeting so many senior officers and they really did a good job of welcoming us.

We all headed up to get some sun – Spice H20 was a good place to grab a lounge chair as well as the SunDeck on Deck 20. For the entire cruise, we didn’t really have many issues in getting a lounge chair – but we parents tend to avoid the crowds. DD had a bit of trouble finding a chair near the action on the pool deck. The staff did a pretty good job of tagging and removing stuff from people who grab the chair and then disappear for a few hours.

DS started to go up to the teen group today and we basically only saw him for dinner, days in port and a stray game or two from here on out. He was the oldest in the group – actually turning 18 on Friday. They kicked him out at midnight on Thursday which we thought was hysterical.

We did the Manhattan Room again for dinner. Excellent service with the servers Ramjeev & Danet. We would have asked for them the other times we went to the Manhattan Room (we ate the bulk of our meals there) but we tended to go earlier than he was available.

Dinner was: Shrimp burger, salmon, Sichuan chicken. We got an extra meal of Aloo Gobi which Ramjeev suggested. It ended up being the best entrée for all of us. After the meal, we saw the head chef and the head Maitre D’. We ended up telling them how great Ramjeev was as a server and we mentioned how good the Aloo Gobi was. We mentioned that on the Spirit they had done an Indian food tasting that we had attended on that cruise and we wondered if they did it at all on the Escape. (They still do in Europe, apparently, the cruises that have primarily US guests don’t like Indian food as much). Both gave us their cards and told us to contact them if we wanted to set up a tasting on the Escape.

Later that night, we went up top to watch some of the NBA finals. We were disappointed to see that the bar on the pool deck was closed. With as many folks watching the games (both NBA finals and Stanley Cup were playing this week) you would think that NCL would have made arrangements other than put out a bunch of chairs. There was a bar one deck up, but the cigarette smoke emanating from it made us not want to get to near it.

Day three 2nd day at sea:

DW woke up early to try to catch the sunrise. DH joined her on the Waterfront – DW’s favorite place on the ship - (just missing the actual sunrise) at about 5:30 or so and caught the end of a lovely conversation between DW and another couple who had gotten up early to watch – coincidently from the same state we are. Lots of people from Cleveland, Ohio on this cruise. The ship actually puts out coffee and danishes/pastries for those who get up early in strategic places around the ship. Both sides of the Waterfront have them. It’s a lovely way to start the day.

We tried to go have breakfast around 6:00 or so, but the restaurants weren’t open yet. Since we didn’t want to go to the buffet, we went to O’Sheehan’s and ate breakfast there. Excellent meal, DW had the Full English and DH had the Corned Beef Hash.

We went up to Deck 20 and got a little sun, hopped into the hot tub and changed and were ready for trivia in the Atrium at 9:30. There are a good amount of games and activities going on during the day, so you really can just move along from one to another. We played the selfie scavenger hunt with DD which was a lot of fun.

Later in the day, DD joined us at the Mojito bar and shared the flight of Mojitos. The Mojito Bar is the place to go for Mojitos – they really do know what they are doing.

Because we had reservations for a show, we ate dinner early at the Manhattan Room with the kids. Food was good as usual and the jazz group was great. I’ll be honest, we can’t remember what we had to eat, which tell us it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad.

"After midnight" should not be missed! Extremely good production. The cast was as good as most traveling Broadway shows we’ve seen and much better than any of the Cruise ship shows we’ve been to. While The chairs were not the most comfortable (I'm spoiled with "rocking " theater chairs), we really liked the creativity used in addressing the ventilation and cooling of the theater. The theater is not a fancifully decorated venue, but a traditional "black box" theater that we really appreciated.

One small aside, you can’t buy playing cards anywhere on the ship. We tried the casino – normally you can purchase cards cheaply in the casino, but no such luck, the gift shops don’t have them either. We found this disappointing.

St Thomas

The morning of St Thomas, we had breakfast in Taste/Savor and had a great server, but we’re sorry that we didn’t write his name down. We do know he was from Jamaica and that he was planning on getting off the ship either for the first time, or the first time in a good while. We chatted about the trade off of dry land and fresh air versus the need for sleep. I hope it was worth it to him and that he had a good day.

All we had planned was to go to a beach that day. Having been to Megan’s Bay, we wanted to try someplace new. We ended up going to Sapphire Bay and had a thoroughly enjoyable day. Sapphire Bay has great sand, a gentle surf and amazing views of over a dozen Islands. We discovered Rum Punch there and that drink soon became DH’s theme drink for the cruise.

After hanging out for about four hours, we headed back to the Ship to get some lunch. Once we were fed, DS decided he just wanted to hang out on the Boat, so DH headed into town to stock up on Rum and Tequila. He had heard that the local K-Mart had the best prices, but found that they weren’t much different than at the local grocery store or some of the shops at the port. Each place had some good deals and some not-so-good. Overall though, compared to the USA, they were all fantastic deals. For him, walking up the Kmart and lugging 8 liters back to the boat wasn’t worth the $4.00 he saved.

While He was in town, DW and DD shopped in the port shopping area. They ended up meeting DH at the “Tap and Still”. This is a new Brew Pub in the shopping area of the port that has excellent Happy Hour Prices (Rum Punch!) They have also started brewing their own beer and make a pretty good lager. We had too many punches to do a full-on beer tasting and review. I hope they make it.

After the show, we joined the daughter for Sing it if you Know It Game Show in the Atrium. This ended up being a raucous and hilarious affair, great times were had by both teams although we all know the "Young and Attractive" team won the day!

Thanks for the review. We're on the Escape Saturday. Can't wait to hear more!

TORTOLA

On the fourth day, we landed in Tortola. That morning, we had a great breakfast (baked bean egg casserole, Salmon eggs benedict and pound cake French toast). Kennard Moses was the waiter, he and his assistant did a great job

DD steered us toward Garden Cove Bay and it was the perfect choice. It was a great mix of activity, calmness, picturesque views and availability to food and drink. A wonderful find and a great choice by the kids. We were the only ship in port again, so that really helped with the crowds. One thing to note is that many of the on-beach vendors don’t take credit cards. Always bring some cash with you.

We thought is was interesting that two islands so close together can be so very different. Tortola appeared to be much less cluttered and, frankly, a good bit cleaner. We really had a great time there.

We didn’t look around town much, but our cab drivers gave us a nice narrative as we went to the beach and back. That was a nice touch that we didn’t get on St Thomas.

Once back on board, we settled in for a great shrimp pasta for dinner. DH had the Steak Diane and was surprised at the quality of the sirloin. Once again, we went up to watch some of the sad ending to the NBA Finals,

THIRD DAY AT SEA:

We (minus the kids) started off our third day at sea with another early rise to catch an amazing sunrise. We really enjoy this relaxing time of the day. After sunrise and a quick dip in the hot tub, we stopped down for breakfast. DW had the dill pancakes and salmon. While it was a nice breakfast, we really couldn’t taste the dill much. In fact, it tasted like a regular sweet pancake recipe with some green food coloring.

After that, we ended up getting coffee in the Atrium and waited for the Trivia game. Before trivia, the youth activity group had a toddler play time. As grandparents, we truly enjoyed watching the young ones and their parents ramble around.

The previous night, we found that we were invited to a 12:30 special event in The District. It was a really nice get together of cruisers and the ships officers. We honestly had no idea why we were invited, but we enjoyed talking to some of the officers and were able to mention to the staff some of the names of the staff who really stood out on our vacation so far. We were especially happy to talk about our room steward (Dewa) from Indonesia who truly stood out and was exceptionally kind and gentle.

That night, the whole family went to see the Brat Pack show. We agree with most reviews, in that if you grew up during that time you were most likely to enjoy it much more than if you were younger. They did a good job of pulling in the different movies with very few moments feeling forced.

That evening our son, who turned 18 the next day, came home to find his room all decorated with an awesome birthday cake, balloons, confetti and a banner. His Aunt was kind enough to set this up for him. He was touched and very appreciative.

NASSAU:

After our normal breakfast and trivia routine, we walked of the boat around noon and walked down to Jakaroo beach to hang out for a couple of hours. While this beach was not the best beach for mom and dad, it was a great time for the kids. Being our son’s 18th birthday party, we had a ceremonial “buying his first legal beer”.

The “Tiki Hut’ bar had a good emcee that was pulling folks into a bunch of different games and providing a nice job of entertaining the crowd. We really weren’t expecting much going into the day, so our expectations were met, if not exceeded a little bit.

There is a barbeque place on the beach near the Tiki Hut. We bought a great lunch there – unfortunately, it didn’t agree with any of us. It made Saturday’s long drive, very uncomfortable. Montezuma had his revenge on us in Nassau.

We stopped and had lunch on our way back to the ship and looked around the straw market a bit. DW had been there many years ago and found that it has really changed from craft market where folks actually made their wares, to souvenir shops selling premade imported items that may, or may not, had been modified with some ribbon.

One of the best parts of the day was actually coming back to the ship. On the pier, we had to walk between lines of officers and staff dancing and clapping while encouraging tired vacationer to join them. It was a really nice experience.

We ended up with a Birthday Dinner at the La Cucina. We sat outside and enjoyed a nice dinner, something happened with the order and our entrees came out before our side dishes and appetizers. We didn’t make a fuss about it and the staff made sure that they made it up to us before we would even have a chance to say anything to anybody. Often excellent service is not having everything perfect, but how you handle things when they go badly. We received excellent service under that definition.

The Son, joined by some friend from the teen group,(he was kicked out the day before at midnight) had the time of his life at the GLOW party. This was his first experience with an event like that and he had a blast.

Disembarkation:

We did the self-disembarkation and the walk off started at 7:30 instead of 8:00. While the actual route of the walk off was long and winding, the line itself was not very long and moved at a nice speed. Customs was a breeze and soon we were on our way home talking about how much fun we had and when we can do it again.

Other notes:

Perspective photography studio: Do not get this confused with the regular photographers taking photos in the different common areas, this is very well equipped professional photography studio with prices to match. We weren’t really prepared for the hour-long session, but were stunned at the quality of the shots. They did an excellent job.

The Cruise Director and staff did an excellent job of bringing high energy and a bit of silliness without being campy or overdone. There were some times during morning trivia that we could tell the staff would have been better off in bed, but we appreciated their efforts. We had a great time as a family joining in on many of the shows/contests in the Atrium. Our favorites were; Sing it if you know it, with DH surprising the family be joining in with the singing; Family Insanity, with our circling the Atrium as if we won the lottery; and DD joining the “Battle of the Sexes” and DH hiding in a conference room because she needed his pants!

The Atrium: it is obviously a very popular place and is a very good venue, but there are some significant seating issues to take care of. Some random suggestions to the NCL person reading this (yes, we know you do!) 1-have someone come around periodically and re-adjusted the chairs, 2-replace the bulky square chairs with smaller more moveable chairs,3- move the piano when it's not in use in order to free up lots of room, 4- Announce to the audience to move chairs forward to fill in gaps when the place is full, 5-when projecting trivia or other games on the big screen, have them also projected on the nearby televisions (when crowded, only a small portion of the audience can see more than half the screen) By the third day, you had to be in the Atrium by 5:30 to get a seat for a 8 or 9pm show. With the previous in mind, they are obviously doing the entertainment right if the events are that popular.

Review cards. Please don’t hesitate to fill out review cards if you receive what you would consider extra service. Anyone who has worked in the service industry will tell you that feeling appreciated goes a long way. Additionally, telling their bosses helps them with advancement and better staffing placements. Twice we received chocolates or chocolate covered strawberries the next day after turning in cards. We aren’t sure if there was a correlation, but it seemed like it.

Drinks: We found the beer and wine selection to be very good. The District Brew House had an excellent selection of different beers, with everything from a Saison to a Double IPA. We did notice many folks had the Drink Package and were doing their best to get their money’s worth. (The “Waterfront” area would find itself full of folks sleeping off their early day exploits.) There were even a few times when overly drunk people interrupted activities. NCL might want to consider lowering the price of the drink packages, you need to drink at least 8- drinks a day to make purchasing it worth your while. While I understand a comfortably lubed guest is probably a happy guest, the crew, and those of us who weren’t drinking 8 drinks a day, did have to put up with the occasional drunken fool.

Teen Group: DS had a very good time. He found himself a compatible group of kids to hang out with and had very good things to say about the staff. We had fun teasing him about getting kicked out of the group Thursday at Midnight because he turned 19 on Friday.

The crowds: This was a great ship full of people. With just two or three exceptions, we found everyone to be friendly, talkative, patient and in good spirits.

I loved your positive review, especially the compliments about the great service you and your family received! We cruise NCL with our young adult teens and they do such a great job with entertainment that we can all enjoy together. I had my girls write comment cards to share their excellent experiences with staff and they had chocolate covered strawberries delivered to their room too. What a nice reinforcement for doing the right thing! Nice work NCL! Btw, too funny on your youngest teen getting the boot. First time I'd heard that!! Thank you for your review. Much enjoyed.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you for taking the time to post your review.:)

We enjoyed the Escape so much, we booked it again for this November.:D

Very well written reivew, thanks for taking the time.:)

I was on the same cruise as a solo cruiser..had a great time!

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Great review!. As a fellow Clevelander, we sail Escape in February every year to get rid of those winter doldrums!. Love the ship, and found your comments and positive attitude refreshing. Thanks for a quality review!. And, you know now you didn't miss much with the NBA Finals!. Oh well, Go Cavs!

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Thank you for your review!

I enjoyed your review.

Keith

St Thomas .

Tap and Still

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Lovely Tortola.

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Sunrise, Nassau, Sunset

Nassau

Nassau

Birthday and Sunset

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Really enjoyed your review. We're taking this cruise in December. It will be our first NCL cruise after a couple on Royal Caribbean. Can't wait!

Really enjoyed your review. We're taking this cruise in December. It will be our first NCL cruise after a couple on Royal Caribbean. Can't wait!

Cool! We'll be looking forward towards your review and comparison.

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Thank you for taking the time to share your story and your pictures!!

Enjoyed your review. We are travelling with 2 16 yr old boys in March and it looks like they will enjoy themselves!