NCL Escape 12/23/17 semi live Christmas cruise

Here are pics of Coming into Miami port and many cruise ships at their terminals.

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I’m up early, so I take a last jacuzzi tub before breakfast, enjoying our espresso coffee maker.

Then up to Haven to take pics before people arrive:

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I got my review started. Here is the link as requested! https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2581330

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Thanks for the great review, I loved it!

Thanks for the great review, I loved it!

Hi

I’m not quite done, but took a breather from review to get back to work, laundry, water and tend to the garden etc.

OK, on to our Miami City tour, shopping and transfer to airport excursion.

So we put our bags out in the hall of our cabin with special black tags for the tour the night before disembarkation.

Met our group in the Theatre. We walked off, got our bags, pretty long line to get to customs, but it was moving through Disneyland type rope maze, so it was a smooth operation.

Got on our bus, met bus driver and tour guide. Asked if anybody needed to use restroom, I did and an elderly lady did. If you can avoid using this restroom outside the terminal it would be better, but when you gotta go... it is a trailer type restroom.

Anyway back on bus, we had a very pleasant tour of Miami. Just views from bus, no getting off and on. So we saw: downtown with the museums, Miami Beach with architecture details, Star Island and another island with all of the expensive homes and yachts, a tour of coconut grove and finally Coral Gables and then we dropped off half of the group who had mid afternoon flights at the airport. We stayed on and they took us to a high end mall to shop.

We do not like to shop so we found a nice restaurant called Grand Lux café. I was hoping to continue with my review there, but alas I had poor internet connection there too. But it was very pleasant with good food and drinks.

I only took pics of our Escape ship from the road and a picture of the biltmore hotel.

And one of Haven breakfast menu too.

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This is the end of the cruise part of the review.

I’ll give my thoughts on this ship and cruise.

• IT WAS THE BEST CRUISE EXPERIENCE EVER!

• The crew were fantastic

•Entertainment was top notch, we didn’t even get to experience a lot of it.

•The passengers love to party and have fun! I love NCL for this reason.

• The food was excellent

•Our cabin was the best! Room steward, Emile was awesome, our butler Jefferson was great.

• The tours were great, all but Costa Maya beach getaway, I would recommend.

• We were absolutely spoiled in Haven. So much so we are starting to think it’s true: once you go Haven, it’s hard to go back. (It does create a caste system, which I don’t like though).

•The Spa was fantastic and worth the extra money for a spa pass.

•Easy embarkation and disembarkation

Then they dropped us off at airport with plenty of time to wait for our flight.

We had a 5:30 flight on American Airlines. It was a miserable flight because we changed our seats a few months ago due to change in plans to add Las Vegas into our itinerary, we got seats next to the bathrooms in the middle of the plane. I had never seen this configuration for a plane design before.

Anyway, as I said I didn’t get much sleep the night before. The seats were really small and we were crammed in like sardines.

But what made matters worse was the girl next to me was really antsy. She told me her whole life story, (It was interesting though). (She is a world class horse show jumper athlete and will try to make the Olympic team representing USA in next summer games). (It’s a whole different world of horses, training, competitions, and she had to grow up with tutors and fit school in when she could).

Anyway I just wanted to sleep.

We arrive in Las Vegas. We got a great suite facing the strip at Planet Hollywood.

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For those that want to end here, you can.

I’ll continue with New Years Eve weekend in Las Vegas.

Our suite has strip view and a view from the bathtub! Unbelievable!

That night we stay up to gamble, listen to the free lounge act and drink! Ha ha I went to bed around midnight. Mike had good luck that night.

Next day we slept in. I went to CVS to get party supplies and stuff. I brought 2 slices of the biggest pizza I’ve ever seen to our room and we hung out watching the Charger/ Raider game. Then continued to watch it in Casino:

We picked up our tickets for Britney Spears at Box office.

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I noticed in one of your pics of the outside Haven area that it appears to have a roof over it? We have been on the Getaway before and there is no covering - in fact on the second floor up it was a really nice sun deck just for Haven guests. Is there something like that on the Escape? I loved that area on the Getaway and want to adjust my expectations if necesssary before my upcoming Escape cruse. Thanks!

Yes there is a very nice sun deck in the Haven. Deck 19, on the bow. We sat in the jacuzzi up there on the first day at sea. It was nice. It’s just like the vibe area but no bar, because the bar is downstairs inside. It is very nice up there. We chose to read and sit in the courtyard area on deck 18. There is a retractable roof there. We are not sun worshipers anymore and prefer the shade nowadays. I did not get pics of sundeck.

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Ok to continue:

Getting ready for New Year’s Eve:

At Britney Spears concert:

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Britney:

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We decided to see the fireworks from our suite since we had a room with a view.

Happy New Year!

Mike giving me the bird

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Next day we went to celebrity chef Giada restaurant for brunch at the Cromwell.

Really good food at a table by the window above the strip.

White sangria for me, not sure the name of Mike’s drink:

Polenta waffle for me:

Lobster hash for Mike:

Then we went on high roller observation wheel. No pics sorry. It’s a fun thing to do if you are in Las Vegas. Especially the orb with the unlimited bar. 30 minutes, all you can drink while you watch the city of Las Vegas go by.

We hung out in the room the rest of the day.

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Next day Jan. 2nd was our flight home. Ahhh...vacation is winding down :-(

We went to Gordon Ramsey Burgers for lunch.

I had a hells fire burger:

Mike had backyard bbq burger:

We went to the airport really early. I’m glad we did because Las Vegas airport security line is really long.

We sat at the airport and I continued working on this review.

We had a great holiday cruise and a fun New Year’s Eve celebration weekend.

I’d like to thank you for reading along.

Happy Cruising!

Next cruise will be on Bliss on May 10, Panama Canal. We will be in a regular spa balcony, but we are considering upgrading to a Haven if one becomes available.

Joyce and Mike

Bye bye

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Yes there is a very nice sun deck in the Haven. Deck 19, on the bow. We sat in the jacuzzi up there on the first day at sea. It was nice. It’s just like the vibe area but no bar, because the bar is downstairs inside. It is very nice up there. We chose to read and sit in the courtyard area on deck 18. There is a retractable roof there. We are not sun worshipers anymore and prefer the shade nowadays. I did not get pics of sundeck.

 

 

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Thanks so much for your response. Sounds very similar to the Getaway except for the retractable roof. And glad to hear there is a place to get some shade as well. Your review has me pumped up for our upcoming cruise!