kpwhalen830

Sounds like no one had fun on this review:

Food stinks, Servers stink, housekeepers stink, too crowded.

I have never had it that bad even on Carnival.

Oh well everyone is different.

The only thing I have run into remotely like this on any of my NCL trips is maybe some of my dinners were very sloooooow.

The crowded pool area and cant get drinks in that area is easily avoided I just go where it is not packed and get drinks.

I have had bad food and crowded buffets on Carnival.

We completely avoided the pool, stayed in Spice H2o the entire time. It was a bit hard to get drinks there but we made friends(AKA tipped about $20 per day) a server and then were taken care of. Fernando from Columbia, he works 11am to 5 or 6pm. He was one of the few friendly servers we encountered.

Ports:

St. Thomas: We took a cab ride to Coki Beach for $9 per person. It was probably around 25-30 minutes, a lot longer than I expected but worth the ride. You get dropped off at a building and are immediately pounced on by the chair/umbrella guy and one of the nasty drink wenches. $5 per chair, $10 for an umbrella. Your chair guy will then proceed to tell you that you must use him to get a cab back, not the case. Next time I go to Coki beach I will do my own thing, these people are scum bags. If they treated me with respect from the beginning I would gladly tip them but they are nasty. Our drink lady got mad at us because we ordered a bucket of beers from another drink lady wearing the same uniform. We only ordered from the other lady because we waited 20+ minutes for the first one but she never showed up. I work in sales and rely on repeat business to make a living, you don't get my hard earned money acting like this.

Back to the beach.....It was probably the clearest water I have ever been in, it was great. We stayed at the beach until about 1:30-2:00pm. We didn't get any food, just a few rounds of drinks from the mean drink lady. When you are ready to leave just walk up to where you were dropped off and there are taxi's waiting to take you back. On our ride back the driver went a different way that passed Magens bay, it was a nice ride.

Next up is Cane Garden Bay/Beach...

They serve a snack mix at most bars for free. District Brew House has snacks from The Food Republic but you have to pay for them. Lobster Rolls, Sliders, Kimchi wings and Bacon wrapped dates.

Our group of 12 just returned home from our cruise on Escape. It was the first time for all of us to sail with NCL. I will mostly keep this review and opinions for myself and my wife. We have sailed with RCCL and Carnival once in the past. We did have one cruiser with us who is handicap from a stroke, she is in a wheel chair/motorized cart.

10 of us arrived in Fort Lauderdale on a direct JetBlue flight from Buffalo at 10:50 am on Friday the 24th. We booked a transport from the airport to our hotel in Miami, it was nice quick ride and there was plenty of room for all of us, our luggage and the motorized wheel chair. We stayed at the Hampton Inn & Suites Miami Brickell downtown. The hotel was very nice, a little expensive $270 for the night if I remember correctly. We ate lunch at the Batch Gastropub in the hotel, it was very good food but the service was slow. Later on in the evening we ate Coyo Taco around the corner. Coyo was very busy and very good. There is a lot going on around this hotel, fun place.

Saturday morning we used the hotel's shuttle to transport us to port for $8 per person. We arrived to port around 10:30. We had to wait in the waiting area for about 25 minutes and were on the ship a little before noon.

I find it a little boring to follow along with a play by play review of a cruise unless there are pictures to go along so I will save everyone here the boredom. If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask and I will try my best to answer.

Here are my thoughts on the ship, the food, the service, the ports of call and anything I feel like talking about.

Ship: I would give the ship 8 out of 10. For the most part the ship was very clean and the layout was nice.

We absolutely loved sitting outside at Cagney's for dinner and having drinks at It's five o clock somewhere on the waterfront.

The area around the casino smelled like a dirty old ashtray when we boarded the ship. The smell just turned into plain old smoke after the ship filled up. It didn't really bother me except for one day when it was extra heavy.

I didn't set foot in the pool during the entire week. It was almost always packed like a sardine can. It was also insanely loud on sea days, so loud I had a hard time ordering a drink when I was passing through one day.

We did the waterslides on the first day and the first sea day, they were fun.

Spice H2o.....We really liked this part of the ship. The water grotto was awesome! I wish other cruise lines would steal this idea. As mentioned in other reviews, Spice became more crowded as the week progressed.

Stateroom: We had balcony 14720, we enjoyed a stateroom slightly larger than what you get with RCCL. The room was dirty when we walked in, that was annoying. Dust on the shelving in the bathroom and the table/stool. The bathroom countertop had crusty stuff on it that I easily wiped off with a moist towel. The shower glass was not cleaned at all, smears of who knows what(boogers?) on the inside and out. Our room steward was a solid 5 out of 10, nothing special.

Service: Another 5 out of 10 for service, it was pretty lousy. Not many of the bar tenders or servers had a care in the world to do anything fast or accurate. We ate in the Manhattan room on the first and last night of the cruise, it was soooooo slow!! We waited 20 minutes for drinks after placing our order, it took even longer for the food to come and round 2 of drinks took another 2 minutes. It should not take 3 hours to get dinner on the MDR.

Of course there were a few stand outs but for 95% of them they just sucked. In my opinion you get a tip of you do your job well. These people must expect a tip to do their job well. What am I paying $13.50 per day for?

I really think they should re think the gratuity plan. One thing I liked on RCCL when ordering at the bars was the ability to leave an extra tip if I wanted.

Food: 6 out of 10. First off, I am a foodie, I eat at good restaurants. I know that the MDR food is comparable to eating at your local Applebees, I am fine with that and that is what I expect. My low score came from poor meals at Cagney's and La Cucina. We ate at Manhattan room, Cagneys, La Cucina, Taste, Le Bistro, Teppanyaki and back at Manhattan room. We also did lunch at Food republic on the first sea day and O'Sheehan's twice. Breakfast and all other lunches were at Garden Café.

Manhattan Room: Ate there 2 times, lousy both times. Had a Caribbean pork and duck breast, blah.

Food Republic: Best meal of the cruise! Everything here was great. We had the pork belly, fish tacos, lobster rolls and buffalo rock shrimp roll. Not a single complaint here, food was good, service was good and we had nice seats looking over the ocean.

Cagney's: I ordered the bone-in ribeye. It was cooked medium rare like I ordered but it just didn't have a sear or crust on the outside, it was bland and boring. My Cesar salad was watery and dull. I also ordered the pork belly appetizer, man it was a joke compared the pork belly from Food Republic. We sat outside which was great along with good service here, I just wish the food was better.

La Cucina: This was better than Cagney's but only because the others in our party had pretty good dishes. We also had a great server. I ordered the veal osso bucco, it was undercooked, A LOT! It was like beef jerky on a bone, great flavor but a shame that it was so undercooked. I am guessing it needed another 2 hours in the braise to get to the correct tenderness.

Taste: Not bad, probably number 3 out of the 7 dinners we had. I had the strip steak, it was seasoned and cooked better than my steak from Cagney's. Service here was not the best but better than the Manhattan room.

Le Bistro: One of the better steaks I have enjoyed in my lifetime, I got the filet. The steak was cooked perfectly, seasoned well and was really a nice cut. Unfortunately the Anna potatoes that came with the steak were so dried out they were inedible. The service here was top notch.

Teppanyaki: It was good, not mind blowing but good. I had the filet and shrimp, the shrimp were really good.

O'Sheehan's: Nothing good came from this place. The wings stink, tried them twice to make sure the first time wasn't a mistake. Maybe its because I am from Buffalo but oh my god they were bad. Tried the Rueben, it was bad. Chicken fajitas, bad. Nachos, boring. Fish and chips, soggy. The service was also very bad, long waits for a server.

Garden Café: It was surprisingly good. Both breakfast and lunch were good, nothing to complain about other than the burgers were always tough and overcooked. The Asian food for lunch was on point every singe day! It always seemed really crowded when we walked in, we just went right to the back and had the place to ourselves. It was completely mobbed three times, day one for lunch, Tortola for breakfast and lunch in Nassau.

WOW this is a lot longer than I was planning. Ports up next, all of them were great!

The authentic what to enjoy a beef on weck is with fresh prepared horseradish and nothing else. I had one today at one of the best places in Buffalo.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef_on_weck

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Wine list at Cellars was on iPads. It was a huge list and very cool to play around with. They gave us the same iPad at Cagney's for wine.

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First, enjoy your cruise and thank you for offering.

,,, La Cucina. Enjoy! Any pictures of the current menu would be great! ,,,

Latest menu from LaCucina, LeBistro & Cagney would be nice, if you get the chance & have time ... not sure if the ones posted & shared on Beyondships2 site are most recent or current ... as those tend to be used fleetwide across NCL, and, one of the CC regular on the GEM recently tried to take pictures and was told "no" (scratching heads :rolleyes: ) We aren't sailing until this May but surely wouldn't mind getting a preview ahead of any changes lately; and, will do the same & share what we see afterward & post them.

 

Also, the MDR Luncheon menu along with the ones for O'Sheehan's ... breakfast only, all day and possibly a late night one.

 

Also, if you have ship's paid (or Free At Seas) WiFi satellite internet, how is it working out ... slow but usable, slow and frequently disconnect, or, reasonably stable & reliable except during peak period, etc.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

 

The menus are all identical to beyondships2 with the exception of lobster being 100% off the menus. Not even an option for an up charge.

Never set foot in the MDR for lunch so I can't comment on the menu. O'Sheehan's had breakfast to 11am(I think). Lunch started at noon.

 

We had the middle wiFi and it was great! We were able to FaceTime with our kids back home with no issues except for Friday morning it was basically not working for an hour.

 

I'm going to put together a review in the next few days. Lots of pros and cons.

 

 

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Is Jovo back as Hotel Director? Is Tyler still Cruise Director?? Do you have plans yet for Tortola?

Yes Tyler and Jovo were both on board.

We are doing Cane Garden beach in Tortolla.

I will try to get the Margaritaville menu and the wine list tonight.

Heading up for sail away now.

Coki beach was fantastic today.

I will get a pic of the wine list from cellars later tonight.

Doug, the late night entertainment is ok at DBH. I was hoping for a more lively crowd but it's not bad.

InSpice We tipped Fernando $5 2 times on Sunday and did the same yesterday.

The food La Cucina last night was 5 out of 10. Service was 8 out of 10.

Going to Coki beach today in St. Thomas.

Walking into La Cucina now....

We are in 14720. Room was a bit dirty and our steward isn't the best. Still better than being at home.

The ship is rocking a lot but that doesn't bother me.

Ropes course was closed today from wind, I am not sure about the lines.

We did water slides yesterday, they were fun.

Doug I'm wishing beau was here this week, I was really looking forward to him after your review.

I am bored waiting on my wife so I will post some observations.

The pool deck area has people packed in there like sardines and it is a touch too loud for me. We have spent the past 2 days in spice which has been awesome! A little crowded but you have room. The wait for drinks at the bar can be long, really long. We tipped one of the waiters well yesterday and now he is bringing us drinks when he sees that we need one. Fernando from Columbia, Awesome!

We are at Cagney's last night, sat outside. It was great.

sailing on Escape this week. Any requests? I will do my best to get back on and answer requests.

First time on NCL. Service is not as good as RCCL but better than Carnival. Food is better than any other cruise I have been on. Food republic was awesome! Had pork belly, shrimp sushi, fish tacos and lobster rolls.

Atmosphere is great! Very energetic and fun. Party ship for sure.

FYI I'm 35 and my wife is 30. Cruising with a group of 12.

On the RCCL Explorer 2 years ago in St. Thomas they had the entire pier lined with pallets full of beer and booze that was being loaded onto the ship. No other provisions, just booze, beer anw wine.

Have you personally used that one? If so how was it?

Anyone use them? We are in Tortolla this March and want to take a private trip to Jost van Dyke.

I have not been on a NCL cruise but will be going on my first this upcoming May. I have been on Allure along with a few other RCCL cruises and one Carnival cruise.

Based on what you are getting for rooms, packages, ect. I would do Escape. I also think your meals and dining will be better on Escape, Allure and all of RCCL is pretty lousy.

Thank you!

Is there the ability to have your room steward open up the divider between balconies?

Thanks for review.

 

Was the Curacao snorkeling from a boat or near a beach?

 

Where did you go on Palm Beach in Aruba?

The snorkeling was from a boat, went to two spots.

in Aruba the taxi dropped us off at the Radison and we walked through there to the beach.

I didn't go to the ice show so unfortuantly I can't answer the ticket questions.

Beer selection was ok at some bars. I am a big Sierra Nevada Pale ale drinker. Some bars had it and some did not.

My brother in law's $14 frozen drinks included the 18% gratuity.

Flowrider

Was the ship crowded? Were the ports crowded? We also sail Sunday.

The ship never felt crowded and it was sold out.

St. Thomas was crowded but 5 ships were in port that day. We shared St. Kitts with the Legend and were alone for the last 2 stops.