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Escape From Miami - Kinda, Sorta "Live From" - October 7-14, 2017


POA1
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At GLOW-Minus 2, It's crowded.

 

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I think this is what Nietzsche meant when he said, "And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you."

 

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Tyler has grown too powerful. We are compelled to MAKE SOME NOISE.

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Fantastic yet enjoyable waste of hours reading all 32 pages (so far)!

 

I wonder if city of origin makes a difference in tipping.

On Breakaway out of New York tipping is much more common and no need to be discreet. A dollar placed on the counter with your sailaway card and repeat visits to bartenders means great service and strong drinks.

I would have loved to see the biddies overhear me and start a discussion about how the staff support their families, away for months on less than minimum wage.

Oh n o look what you have done and it was all going so well.

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The GLOW Party is ADULTS ONLY. There is an early party for kids and teens. This begs the question: Why isn't there a version for the 65 and over crowd? Call it "After-GLOW." It's a natural market for the Pruna Colada.

 

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Lol! Very funny! My hubby and I—both well into our 60s, and the hubby closer to 70—loved the GLOW Party! And there were kids at ours on the Getaway in Jsnuary. Spice H2O is only adult area until 6pm, so we have plans to bring our grandchildren up there for a bit with glow sticks!

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Lol! Very funny! My hubby and I—both well into our 60s, and the hubby closer to 70—loved the GLOW Party! And there were kids at ours on the Getaway in Jsnuary. Spice H2O is only adult area until 6pm, so we have plans to bring our grandchildren up there for a bit with glow sticks!
I couldn't agree more. They made a big deal about the 11 o'clock GLOW Party being adults only. I'm not sure why. It's not like we were surrounded by "adult themes and situations." ;)

 

I did not even spot Spaulding until I was processing the pix. (In case anyone is reading this, I have no doubt that he's in his mid 20s.)

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If any of you have been to the GLOW Party, you've probably seen the introduction where Cruise Director stands facing the big screen and "manipulates" it to begin the party.

 

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If you've seen this and it makes even the least bit of sense to you, would you be so kind as to get in touch? We think that we can use this information to decode the real meaning behind the Brat Pack show - particularly the "Weird Science" part.

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Having loaded up on drinks, and armed to the teeth with high quality, American-made Glow Sticks, we headed up the GLOW Party. (It's always in CAPS. Is it an acronym? If not, can we have a contest to determine what G-L-O-W stands for?)

 

 

 

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At GLOW-Minus 10, people begin to file in.

 

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At GLOW-Minus-6, it's pretty packed. Is there a secret elevator bank I don't know about?

 

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Cruise Director Andre begins to psych up the crowd.

 

 

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This is absolutely not a cropped photo from before it got crowded, used to give the impression that we were moving around the party.

 

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GLOW= Get Lit On Water!

I am a day behind, so I didn't read if anyone else chimed in. :D

BTW..."Lit" is what all the cool kids are saying. Or so I've heard. Lol

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GLOW= Get Lit On Water!

I am a day behind, so I didn't read if anyone else chimed in. :D

BTW..."Lit" is what all the cool kids are saying. Or so I've heard. Lol

Excellent. I was thinking Get Loaded Or Wasted, but I like the water angle.
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I'm not saying that we stuck around the GLOW Party just long enough to document the fact that we were there. However, I won't deny it.

 

After hours (or a fraction thereof) we decided to hand off our glow sticks and head downstairs for some non-neon drinking. We reconvened at Tobacco Road for the rest of the night.

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Is there still a Chill Bar inside Margaritaville (Deck 17) where you can order cocktails without buying food? Or has this been replaced by the 5 O'Clock Somewhere Bar on Deck 8?

 

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There is a bar in Margaritaville, but I don't know what its name is. It's just inside the entrance, past the first set of high tops.
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Great trip report and I appreciate all the details and pics! Just wondering about the MDR. Is the food not to your liking or is it just bad? Seems like more and more people are paying extra for so many meals. I want to try a couple on my future Escape cruise but the other couple going will not spend a dime on food not included. None of us have been on a NCL cruise before so i just dont know what to expect for the dining room food.

 

 

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Great trip report and I appreciate all the details and pics! Just wondering about the MDR. Is the food not to your liking or is it just bad? Seems like more and more people are paying extra for so many meals. I want to try a couple on my future Escape cruise but the other couple going will not spend a dime on food not included. None of us have been on a NCL cruise before so i just dont know what to expect for the dining room food.

 

We only ate in the MDR one night, so I can't really give anything that would approach a good overall criticism. In addition, we weren't in one of the regular MDR rooms. The service was very good, but the food didn't really deliver. Again, that's just one meal on one night, so there isn't enough data to make a real judgement.

 

The reason for so many specialty dining meals was that DBIL & DSIL had 5 or 6 meal credits based on their perks and Platinum dining credit(s).

 

The scans of the menu copies from the MDR are here:

 

 

https://www.evernote.com/pub/skypadfll/escapemdrmenus-october2017

 

 

When the page comes up, click on the View Notebook button to see the Notebook. (If you are an Evernote user, you add the notebook to your Evernote "stack," but that's not necessary.)

 

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When my father-in-law doesn't like something, he says, "It's different." We were getting a lot of "It's differents" after our meals on the Escape. Bear in mind that he's 80 and his two favorite cruise lines are Oceania and Holland America. Both lines target a different demographic. By miles.

 

(What's with the overuse of the word "different?" Would it kill you to crack open a thesaurus? - Ed.)

 

So Huskerchick and I decided to treat him to Pincho Tapas for lunch on Friday. I figured that if we handled the ordering, he could just sort of sit back, relax, and enjoy the meal.

 

The two Jose Garces restaurants share a Spanish wine list which has some excellent choices, all UBP eligible. I ordered a white and a red for my wife and a me. When asked if he wanted something to drink, my DFIL said, "Water. It's too early to drink." Aside from the question of tact, it was noon. You could have easily had a Bloody Mary hours before. (We did not.)

 

My hopes for this meal being a good experience began to dim.

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Great trip report and I appreciate all the details and pics! Just wondering about the MDR. Is the food not to your liking or is it just bad? Seems like more and more people are paying extra for so many meals. I want to try a couple on my future Escape cruise but the other couple going will not spend a dime on food not included. None of us have been on a NCL cruise before so i just dont know what to expect for the dining room food.

 

 

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I would say it all depends on your frame of reference. If you are from a small town, I think the MDR food on NCL will rate as great compared to the dining options you usually have. If you are from a medium-sized city, it will have hits and misses. But if you are from NYC or London and are used to eating in the newest, hottest restaurants, you will think it isn't very good at all.

 

I grew up in a small town (that I still visit a few times/year) and I currently live in a medium-sized city, so I think the NCL MDR food is pretty good. No, it does not compare to a really nice restaurant where you pay $50pp before drinks and dessert, but why would you expect that it would? It is food made for hundreds of diners at a time in an industrial kitchen and it is included with your cruise fare.

 

If you have reasonable expectations and order thoughtfully, you will do just fine with the included-only options on your cruise. I haven't tried the specialty dining options yet, so I can't compare the two.

 

I will also note that the size of the ship matters. On the Jade, all of the food was fabulous, even at the buffet. On the Getaway, the MDR food was pretty good, but the buffet and O'Sheehans were definitely lower in quality.

 

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I would say it all depends on your frame of reference. If you are from a small town, I think the MDR food on NCL will rate as great compared to the dining options you usually have. If you are from a medium-sized city, it will have hits and misses. But if you are from NYC or London and are used to eating in the newest, hottest restaurants, you will think it isn't very good at all.

 

I grew up in a small town (that I still visit a few times/year) and I currently live in a medium-sized city, so I think the NCL MDR food is pretty good. No, it does not compare to a really nice restaurant where you pay $50pp before drinks and dessert, but why would you expect that it would? It is food made for hundreds of diners at a time in an industrial kitchen and it is included with your cruise fare.

 

If you have reasonable expectations and order thoughtfully, you will do just fine with the included-only options on your cruise. I haven't tried the specialty dining options yet, so I can't compare the two.

 

I will also note that the size of the ship matters. On the Jade, all of the food was fabulous, even at the buffet. On the Getaway, the MDR food was pretty good, but the buffet and O'Sheehans were definitely lower in quality.

 

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I disagree---The food in the buffet and at O'Sheèhan's on the Getaway, was the best I've ever had at sea! I am disappointed that we have to pay an up charge to get lobster in the MDR, but I still like NCL better than RCCL and Carnival. The only Specialty we tried was Moderno, and we LOVED it! You need to be a big meat lover to go there, though! Fabulous!

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We started lunch with both the Cheese and Meat Mixto, or chef's selections.

 

 

  • Cheeses: Queso De Cabra, Manchego, Idiazabal, and Mahon ($11.00)
  • Meats: Chorizo Pamplona, Iberico Jamon, Jamon Serrano, Chorizo Blanco ($11.00)

Because we were easing DFIL into the whole tapas concept, we decided to start on the meats & cheeses before ordering any additional items.

 

 

The cheese tray is served with a sliced green apple and the spiced caramel dipping sauce I mentioned last time. The meats are served with mustard and gherkins. Both trays have several slices of what looked to be French baguette on them.

 

When the trays were delivered to the table, my father-in-law asked us, "What's the concept here?" (Bear in mind that this is a man who ate some seriously ripe kimchee from a buried clay pot on an Asia cruise, but these crazy "unsandwiched meats and cheeses" required an explanation.) He opted to make little open-faced sandwiches and went no where near the goat cheese. We fibbed and told him the other cheeses were like Parmesan and cheddar and he seemed fine with it. I figured it was safest not to mention that two of the cheeses were sheep's milk.

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Edited by POA1
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I disagree---The food in the buffet and at O'Sheèhan's on the Getaway, was the best I've ever had at sea! I am disappointed that we have to pay an up charge to get lobster in the MDR, but I still like NCL better than RCCL and Carnival. The only Specialty we tried was Moderno, and we LOVED it! You need to be a big meat lover to go there, though! Fabulous!

 

You no longer have to be disappointed about the upcharge for lobster. It's gone from the menu.

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After we started on the meats and cheeses, DW ordered the rest of the progression:

 

 

 

  • Crab Montadito: Blue Crab Salad, Avocado, Tomato Fresca ($4.00)
  • Datiles con Almendras: Bacon Wrapped Dates, Marcona Almonds, La Peral Crema ($2.00)
  • Pork Belly Montadito: Green Apple, Cider Glaze ($3.00)
  • Patatas Bravas: Fried Potatoes, Paprika Aioli ($3.00)
  • Scallops: Hand Dived Atlantic Scallops, Parsley, Olive Oil ($5.00)
  • Brochettes a la Plancha: Grilled Waygu Beef Skewers, Rnger6ng Potato ($7.00)

It was all excellent once again, although my father-in-law wouldn't try the pork belly. (We didn't try to overcome his objection. ;) ) I thought that we'd be ordering seconds of something, but that was not to be. DFIL really seemed to like the crab, the dates, the scallops, and the beef skewers. His ultimate verdict: "It was different."

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Awesome, we need more bars on the upper decks for our combined pub/cabin crawl in December!

 

When you are choosing your bars, try to account for the crowds. Some of the bars, like the ones by the pool or at SpiceH2O can be a little tough on a sea day, particularly if your group is a decent size. You might be able to cover more ground if you can agree what the drink will be at each bar and it's something the bar can make up as a batch.

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