NCL Escape November 11-18 Detailed Review/Trip Report

A couple questions:

1) I know brat pack isn’t kid friendly. Is After Midnight ok for younger audiences (10 year old)?

2) How early did you line up for self disembarkation? Any hints or tips regarding disembarkation.

Thanks!

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I am starting to think about our cruise now that it is less than 90 days away. We have never been on the Escape so your review has gotten me to really look forward to experiencing the Escape. We have had great experiences on NCL- and it is nice to hear so many positives. We will be trying our first inside on NCL and are happy to hear you enjoyed your cabin as well. Thank you!

Great review :)

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just off the Escape yesterday. We enjoyed both the Brat Pack and After Midnight show. Our kids were 13 to 16, I think they enjoyed the Brat Pack the best, but only you know what is acceptable for your kids, After Midnight was fine for the kids, but they didn't get into it the same way

Disembarkataion was quicker then anticipated. I believe the self disembarkation was to be between 8 and 830. by 8 am they were already calling groups. We picked a later time, so we could enjoy breakfast. I think we were suppose to be called at 930, but were called by 9 and were out and back at the parking lot by 10. It could not have been easier.

Enjoy your cruise.

A couple questions:

 

1) I know brat pack isn’t kid friendly. Is After Midnight ok for younger audiences (10 year old)?

 

2) How early did you line up for self disembarkation? Any hints or tips regarding disembarkation.

 

Thanks!

 

 

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Great review as always; I have been a member for several years, QUESTION: We will be going on an Escape Christmas cruise this year and would like to participate in the Escape room circus (I think that is what it is called). From my reading on the boards you can only sign up for it when on board the ship, would you know which days this event is offered and where do you sign up for it ? Guest services ? Haven concierge ?

THANK YOU in advance.

there is a box office by the entrance to the escape theater that you register at. We just did it on a Wednesday night at 10pm.. I'm not certain what other times it was offered. Space is limited to around 8 groups of 10 and it takes around an hour. The entire group had a great time. . No one in our session was able to "escape". Good luck with it

Great review as always; I have been a member for several years, QUESTION: We will be going on an Escape Christmas cruise this year and would like to participate in the Escape room circus (I think that is what it is called). From my reading on the boards you can only sign up for it when on board the ship, would you know which days this event is offered and where do you sign up for it ? Guest services ? Haven concierge ?

THANK YOU in advance.

Thank you, great info. We are in the Haven and from what I have seen the pool is inside and downstairs from the sun deck. Do you think Vibe would be a good thing to purchase? It sounds like the Haven should be.

I don't see a need for Vibe if you are in Haven.

I wouldn't bother with the race for Vibe tickets. Leave that for those who aren't in Haven.

Haven's sun deck is right in front of Vibe. You can see Vibe from it. Haven's sun deck is like a library it's so quiet. No loud music or belly flop competitions. Same comfy loungers with towels on the cushions. A separate hot tub. Haven does NOT have a bar on the sun deck. You'd have to walk down one level for the private bar.

Haven's pool area is one flight down from the sundeck indoors and outdoors when the skylight is opened up. And they actually open it. In here you will find waiters for drinks and special snacks. One day we saw a guy who's only job was to cut up fresh fruit for Haven guest fruit bowls.

And if you are in Haven, you won't be able to go back. It even has its own pleasant fragrance. I heard they put something in the vacuums to make it.

We would like to participate in the Escape room circus (I think that is what it is called). From my reading on the boards you can only sign up for it when on board the ship, would you know which days this event is offered and where do you sign up for it ? Guest services ? Haven concierge ?

You are correct, you can't sign up until onboard. It's called "Escape from the big top" and has a circus/magic theme.

We used the Haven concierge. I think any guest services would be able, but make Haven do it as they may have more clout (reserved space). We signed up on day 2 and got a spot on the last night of the cruise. So you should probably sign up as soon as possible.

They hold it at the Supper Club. It's not an "escape room" but a series of puzzles to solve and compete against other teams in a timed event. They teamed us up in groups of about 8. I enjoy puzzles, but man this thing was hard. Before it starts, get your team into sub-teams to solve the different puzzles.

In our session, the winners were either geniuses or have played before. Most of us left scratching our heads.

You are correct, you can't sign up until onboard. It's called "Escape from the big top" and has a circus/magic theme.

We used the Haven concierge. I think any guest services would be able, but make Haven do it as they may have more clout (reserved space). We signed up on day 2 and got a spot on the last night of the cruise. So you should probably sign up as soon as possible.

 

They hold it at the Supper Club. It's not an "escape room" but a series of puzzles to solve and compete against other teams in a timed event. They teamed us up in groups of about 8. I enjoy puzzles, but man this thing was hard. Before it starts, get your team into sub-teams to solve the different puzzles.

 

In our session, the winners were either geniuses or have played before. Most of us left scratching

 

our heads.

we did Escape the big top on Epic last month

2 members of our roll call booked places and after the meet and greet e decided to make up a team of 8 but was now fully booked

However we turned up on standby and were able to get in

Our team won[NCL Bingo t shirt and free bingo card for last game of cruise]

We were told not to reveal the secrets as presumably is same on all ships

no chance of that-after they explained how the clues played out I still had no clue how we actually did it!

It was a very fun activity to do though with a group of newly met friends

You are correct, you can't sign up until onboard. It's called "Escape from the big top" and has a circus/magic theme.

We used the Haven concierge. I think any guest services would be able, but make Haven do it as they may have more clout (reserved space). We signed up on day 2 and got a spot on the last night of the cruise. So you should probably sign up as soon as possible.

 

They hold it at the Supper Club. It's not an "escape room" but a series of puzzles to solve and compete against other teams in a timed event. They teamed us up in groups of about 8. I enjoy puzzles, but man this thing was hard. Before it starts, get your team into sub-teams to solve the different puzzles.

 

In our session, the winners were either geniuses or have played before. Most of us left scratching our heads.

Thanks everyone keep the info coming

Great review

 

 

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You probably didn't mean to do this, but it's considered bad practice to quote a very long post, just to add a one line reply. :)

I'd like to note that I contacted NCL concierge prior to the sailing & was told that since we weren't in just 1 venue for the pub crawl, there wasn't any assistance that they could offer :-( Also, maybe you were in Cagney's on a different night than us but the 2 of us both felt that we've gotten better steaks at Outback for a better price :-)

One clarification regarding the Pub Crawl:

The individual that coordinated the event did contact the NCL Concierge a week before the cruise but was told that since we were not limiting the crawl to one venue there wasn't any assistance they could offer. So it sounds like you are own your own for a Pub Crawl.

Thanks Tony for the clarification and setting up the Pub Crawl!

Thanks for posting a great review! We'll be on the Escape in 13 days and your review was full of great info. :D

Jim

Thank you for the wonderful review. I will be on the Escape in February.

TIP for others:

We need to stay in touch for work etc. via Internet so we bought the unlimited plan. NCL gives you ONE login that is shared. So if someone else wants to use it, you have to bump the other person off.

I used my HooToo Tripmate portable router. It worked great. It has a battery to power it while walking around the ship and can also charge your devices.

The Internet on Escape was not fast (like Royal Carribean) but fast enough. We made phone calls (turn on WiFi calling on iPhone), received phone calls and called each other on the ship over WiFi.

We were able to share 2 iPhones, and iPad and a laptop simultaneously over the same login.

Walking around the ship it sometimes would lose connection (probably from handing off to other hotspots) butresetting the router (one button) reconnected it.

https://www.amazon.com/HooToo-Wireless-10400mAh-External-Streaming/dp/B074LHG47K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511879596&sr=8-1

Onboard Credit:

We had a large onboard credit plus all the other perks. So we didn't spend much of it.

All the machines in the casino will allow you to draw money off your cabin for a 3% fee. So we took the cash less the fee rather than lose it it at the end of the cruise.

Disappointed to hear the pizza was bad. I thought it was terrible on the Getaway, but then I liked it on the Jewel Alaska cruise. So strange that it would be different.

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We were on the November 18th sailing and Tyler was by far one of the best CD's we've ever had. He joined the Howl at the Moon guys all four nights they performed and when Tyler does his performance of "I Want It That Way", you better watch out! You are in a for a real show then!!!

TIP for others:

 

We need to stay in touch for work etc. via Internet so we bought the unlimited plan. NCL gives you ONE login that is shared. So if someone else wants to use it, you have to bump the other person off.

 

I used my HooToo Tripmate portable router. It worked great. It has a battery to power it while walking around the ship and can also charge your devices.

 

The Internet on Escape was not fast (like Royal Carribean) but fast enough. We made phone calls (turn on WiFi calling on iPhone), received phone calls and called each other on the ship over WiFi.

We were able to share 2 iPhones, and iPad and a laptop simultaneously over the same login.

Walking around the ship it sometimes would lose connection (probably from handing off to other hotspots) butresetting the router (one button) reconnected it.

Question: How did you enter your ships wireless credentials into the HooToo device in order to bridge the wireless network to multiple devices?

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Hoping that Dave gets promoted to CD as we felt he was more interactive than Tyler. Saw him several times around the ship and he was always upbeat and joining in the party :-)