CamaCama's Family Vacation on the Escape 11/21/2015 (Detailed PICTURE Review!!!!!!)

[batas]

Great review and pictures!

 

Looking forward to hear about your cabin location pros and cons. My husband and I are booked in cabin 9280 (next to yours) and we were worried in smoke or noise from the downstairs waterfront ( Cagney's waterfront)

 

So exited to be on the ship in a few days..9 to be exact...but who is counting..lol!

 

Thank you.

[MrsT3030]

Great review. Looking forward to hearing more. We are sailing in Jan and our daughter will be a few weeks shy of 3 so looking forward to hearing your experiences.

[CamaCama]

Splash Academy tour and sign up for both girls (Seals 6-9yo and Guppies 6mo-3yo) was in the same area, we didn't have to go over to Guppies down the hall separately which was nice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CamaCama]

 

 

 

 

 

Sienna's wristband, orange was for Seals... these things are not made to last especially for kids who love the water!

 

 

One more shot of the hallway as we were leaving. Took maybe 30 minutes to sign them up, look around, etc. Very easy.

 

 

[CamaCama]

Then it was on to our rooms!!! Like I said earlier, we originally had inside rooms but just under two weeks before we were able to upsell to balconies (connecting!!) so we were excited to see them. We sailed in inside rooms last year on RCI Liberty so this would be a nice change. We actually got A LOT of use out of the balcony esp since we had 3 rooms in a row and they opened the dividers for us (pics coming of that)!!

 

9294 and 9296 were connecting.

 

 

 

Doors open OUT... this was a nice surprise.

 

 

Both 9294 and 9296 had beds by the closet and couch by the balcony... my in-laws room 9292 had bed by the balcony (which I prefer but no big deal). The bed was VERY comfortable... we all agreed on that!

 

 

 

 

[CamaCama]

Continuing room tour (this is 9294) but 9296 was obviously identical.

 

 

 

The other side of the closet had shelving and the safe.

 

 

Nice use of space

 

 

This was awesome, we could charge our phones right next to the bed without taking up the plugs at the counter.

 

 

Thermostat, we kept it in the middle where you see the green light, dropped it one colder at night but temp was great in the room.

 

 

[CamaCama]

Balcony which we thought was a great size. I think it's small compared to other ships but it was a nice bonus for us.

 

 

Right below us is Deck 8 aft which is the waterfront. Some of the restaurants and bars have outdoor seating and we were right above Cagney's... you can see here in the deck plans.

 

Deck 8

 

Deck 9

 

We never heard anything inside the room at all. Outside sometimes we'd hear silverware dropping and people talking a little but that's about it. We aren't the type to need quiet, even our girls can sleep through anything, so none of that bothered us. We did have a big white roof right below our room so we didn't have a direct view down to the ocean but the view was awesome and we didn't mind it. Some people might, so something to keep in mind if you have a deck 9 aft side-view balcony.

 

 

 

Then Mila went from this................

 

 

[CamaCama]

................... to this in a matter of minutes!

 

 

And we got to have this (got 2 bottles of red from my TA).

 

 

This is my in-laws room 9292 (bed by balcony), it's actually a 4-person room (ours were 3-person) so it had the pull down bed above the couch. It connected to 9290 which was actually vacant and when we asked our room steward if we could open it for extra space he said no. Hahaha and just to be clear we were NOT expecting him to say yes but just had to ask.

 

 

[CamaCama]

Thank you for the time and effort you're putting into this.

 

I am booked for May and I wonder how it will compare with the Breakaway. Unfortunately, most of the groups I follow are reporting a somewhat mix/negative experiences. Hoping to hear some positive things about the vessel.

 

Like you I am booked in an interior room, this is my first since my first cruise :eek:. Looking forward to read about that as well :)

 

There was a lot of negativity floating around, people complaining about tons of stuff, some I would never dream of complaining about. Lots of seasoned cruisers saying they would never sail on this ship again, heard some cursing at the buffet, "I hate this f***-in ship" to be exact (not sure what that was about), etc. I honestly think it's what you make of it. YES we thought the atrium smelled like smoke and it was a horrible design with the open casino and YES we thought the pool area was way too small and didn't have a big enough area to dance/host contests... but we didn't let these things ruin our cruise and we still had an amazing week!!!! Lots more detail to come...

 

Oh and we originally had interior rooms, but got an upsell less than 2 weeks before and got balconies this time.

[CamaCama]

Great review so far! Can't wait to see the rest.

 

Thanks!

 

Enjoying your review. Thank you for posting one. Do you have a copy of the MDR children's menu to include?

 

Yes, I do!!

 

Thanks so much for sharing this with all of us. You make me feel like I'm almost there. My husband tires of my excitement, so it's nice to share with others. We sail in February.

 

Kim

 

You're welcome! Feb will be here before you know it.

 

Loving the review so far. Thanks for sharing.

 

Thanks!

[MrsT3030]

I'm sure this will come later in your review but I am curious to know if you found the Guppies room to be suitable for a 2.5 year old or if it seemed more suitable for babies? My daughter will be days off of her 3rd birthday on our cruise and I am wondering if Guppies will be ok for her in terms of keeping her interested.

[CamaCama]

Thanks for the great review, looking forward to the rest.

 

 

Loving your review!

 

Thanks for taking the time to post.

 

More! More!:D

 

You're welcome... more to come!

 

Those are the sweetest little girls! Your photos really capture their vacation excitement, so nice.

 

Aww thanks... 2.5 is a rough age, she was happy most of the time but is very stubborn at this age and some things were a fight. We had to pick our battles. hahaa

[CamaCama]

Great review and pictures!

 

Looking forward to hear about your cabin location pros and cons. My husband and I are booked in cabin 9280 (next to yours) and we were worried in smoke or noise from the downstairs waterfront ( Cagney's waterfront)

 

So exited to be on the ship in a few days..9 to be exact...but who is counting..lol!

 

Thank you.

 

Ahh 9 days so exciting!!! I just posted about the noise... not really an issue at all. No smoke smell at all. It's a GREAT location!!!

[CamaCama]

Great review. Looking forward to hearing more. We are sailing in Jan and our daughter will be a few weeks shy of 3 so looking forward to hearing your experiences.

 

I'm sure this will come later in your review but I am curious to know if you found the Guppies room to be suitable for a 2.5 year old or if it seemed more suitable for babies? My daughter will be days off of her 3rd birthday on our cruise and I am wondering if Guppies will be ok for her in terms of keeping her interested.

 

Yes I will be posting more about our experience with Guppies but IMO it's more for the under 2 crowd. It's a small area and although they do activities it seemed more to be sitting and playing with toys. Which my 2.5yo doesn't do for too long. More to come...

[hj1madison]

Oh do keep going! Can't wait to hear about the balcony dividers being opened. Like you, we are 3 in row, with 2 connecting, down on deck 8. So appreciate your effort on this one! Thank you.

[MrsT3030]

Yes I will be posting more about our experience with Guppies but IMO it's more for the under 2 crowd. It's a small area and although they do activities it seemed more to be sitting and playing with toys. Which my 2.5yo doesn't do for too long. More to come...

 

 

I will look forward to hearing more then! Great review :)

[dolita22]

Thanks for your review and pictures! We were on the 3-day from Miami in mid-November and are sailing with friends on a 7-day in January. The 3-day was definitely a party cruise, so we're interested to see how it compares to the 7-day.

 

Even though we've already sailed on the Escape, I'm looking forward to more of your review! Anticipation for January and all that. :)

[gambee]

There was a lot of negativity floating around, people complaining about tons of stuff, some I would never dream of complaining about. Lots of seasoned cruisers saying they would never sail on this ship again, heard some cursing at the buffet, "I hate this f***-in ship" to be exact (not sure what that was about), etc. I honestly think it's what you make of it. YES we thought the atrium smelled like smoke and it was a horrible design with the open casino and YES we thought the pool area was way too small and didn't have a big enough area to dance/host contests... but we didn't let these things ruin our cruise and we still had an amazing week!!!! Lots more detail to come...

 

Oh and we originally had interior rooms, but got an upsell less than 2 weeks before and got balconies this time.

 

Sorry about the interior room comment, I was feeling under the weather yesterday and must of misread it. Those balcony rooms look really nice, and the balcony actually looks larger than the ones in Breakaway. My guess is that NCL decided to increase the size after all the complaining. But you're right, they are still small when compared to say Oasis. I hope I get to upgrade to a balcony, but I bought at such a low price that I am not sure that it will dip any lower than that. But one can hope, right?

 

The pool area is definitely tinny for that ship, I noticed that long time ago. It was actually small on Breakaway, so I can only imagine how it feels on this ship. Hopefully there is some room for mom and I in the free Jacuzzis, because I have no intention in paving extra for Vibe/Spa.

 

I was not aware of the smoke issue, I thought they had enclosed the smoking section fully.

 

Once again thank you, you're doing a fantastic job :)

[tartan cruiser]

I agree, enjoying your review. We cruise with the grandkids often too so enjoying the kids' experiences too. Did you notice if they had hard (scoop) ice cream in the buffet or only the soft serve kind? Also did they have made to order dessert crepes in the evening in the buffet also? I remember enjoying these a few years ago on Epic but with all the cuts was wondering if they were included on Escape. Thanks

[CamaCama]

Finishing up with the room pictures...

 

The bathroom was awesome!! So much space, so much storage, huge shower (for a ship), glass door, great water pressure. Just loved everything about it. Except I guess whoever thought putting the bathroom light on the outside of the bathroom didn't have young kids... it went pitch black a few times on me.. and my mom and Len. haha

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm pretty picky when it comes to soap and body wash but I loved the body wash they had in the shower dispenser.

 

 

[CamaCama]

Garbage was inside the cabinet under the sink and we also always had extra towels on those shelves in there, which we realized the 2nd to last day! But our room steward (Mike) was AMAZING so we never had to ask him for anything, we always had extra fresh towels out on the shelves or hanging.

 

 

 

That's it for the bathroom... I wanted to post this last picture of 9292 (my in-laws room) since it shows the bathroom door on the left and the connecting door on the right. I could have sworn I took one of our 2 connecting rooms 9294 and 9296 when it was open but I can't seem to find it right now, if I come across it i'll post it.

 

 

[CamaCama]

Hallway looking aft from the door of 9292

 

 

Looking forward from 9292

See that door on the right, that was a crew door that they used often. It would slam sometimes and be propped open a lot so I wanted to point that out. Again, didn't bother us and it actually worked out great for them to quickly take away poop diapers. lol

 

 

 

Notice the carpet has the little fishies swimming towards the front of the ship... very helpful the first few days.

 

 

[CamaCama]

A few more of the balcony... 3 connecting balconies to be exact!!

 

 

 

The door between 9292 and 9294 had a magnet so when it was opened by Mike (room steward) it stayed nicely opened the whole week attached to the divider, didn't move an inch, no issues.

 

 

BUT the door between 9294 and 9296 had a big pole in the way. Mike opened it but it just had a small latch (you can see it in the top right corner of the picture below) that kept it open. We noticed the first nice when we came home from dinner that the latch slipped out and the door was swinging and banging like crazy! Mike said he would open it during the day and close it at night for us but we ended up telling him the 3rd day that it wasn't necessary to keep opening it since those 2 rooms connect inside.

 

 

They also had nice drainage and were always clean.

 

 

Ok so that's it for the room/balcony tour. Next up muster and then sailaway and dinner...

 

[Zena2005]

Love your detailed review, can't wait to see the rest.

 

I'm glad you pointed out the carpet serves as directional way-finding. In the past the carpet did serve as way finding but only for port and starboard sides, not an actual direction.

[CamaCama]

And before I continue... Day 1 Freestyle Daily