Live from the Escape - 3/12/2016

[asubaru]

Great review!!!

 

 

Ditto....thanks! Brings back fond memories :-)

[ScotianGold]

we were recently guests on the escape in the haven and I can't imagine taking valuable cruise time to post to cruise critic. save your wifi money, enjoy your time and post later. your experience will be the same after your cruise! nice thought, though.

 

 

Some peoples kids, kudos to CinAndTheCity! Great review!

[stsbj]

I think I'm missing something simple, where did the medical emergency patient depart? Maybe they skipped Nassau to get closer to Miami and a boat took them to Miami? Many stay on the ship in Nassau so bet many aren't too disappointed to just stay on ship w UBP [emoji4]

 

 

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No, you're not missing anything. I was on this sailing as well. We had 2 separate medical emergencies. One was in the afternoon Monday, and the Captain announced that we would be travelling at full speed to get to St Thomas as quickly as possible as a patient needed hospitalization. We arrived very early to St Thomas. No problem. The second medical emergency happened in the early hours of Thursday morning, after we sailed away from Tortola. On the map that was being shown on the TV, we made a sudden detour towards the closest island, Puerto Rico. Apparently the Peurto Rican coastguard and helicopter evacuated a critically ill patient sometime in the early hours of the morning. The captain came on and announced that due to this detour, we wouldn't be stilling in Nassau. I don't understand why this decision was made, as we still had 26 hours to get to Nassau! They literally slowed the ship down for the remainder of the cruise, and we were drifting along until we docked in Miami. A fellow CC passenger who is very familiar with sailing and has an app on his phone showing the speed that we were travelling, stated the on our way to St Thomas we were going 34 knots , and then slowed down to about 16-17 knots. We literally sailed through the Bahamas on Friday afternoon when we should've been docked. I am fully understanding of stopping for the safety of others, and medical reasons...absolutely! But this decision, I don't understand. My kids and whole family are very disappointed!

Edited March 20, 2016 by stsbj

[CinAndTheCity]

we were recently guests on the escape in the haven and I can't imagine taking valuable cruise time to post to cruise critic. save your wifi money, enjoy your time and post later. your experience will be the same after your cruise! nice thought, though.

 

 

relax....save your money on the wifi......enjoy your cruise mates/family.....life will be waiting for you when you disembark.

 

Well, I appreciate your opinion, but it's a little late considering I am already home in NY after this cruise! My boyfriend doesn't feel that I wasted too much valuable cruise time posting. A lot of the time I posted while waiting for something anyway.

 

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[Bball35]

Well, I appreciate your opinion, but it's a little late considering I am already home in NY after this cruise! My boyfriend doesn't feel that I wasted too much valuable cruise time posting. A lot of the time I posted while waiting for something anyway.

 

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So much fun to do a live review- we really enjoyed it!!! And it made us even more excited for our cruise on the 26th. Appreciate all the posts, pictures and info!!! Thank you!!! Thank you!!!!

[robotrich]

What was involved in winning the Beer Challenge??

[trmom2]

Thank you for the review and pictures. It was great.

[TenForward]

My very first post and I want to use it to thank you for your Live Review. DH and I don't sail until October but we just booked yesterday so we're very excited! We're first time cruisers and your pictures and comments are very much appreciated!

[CinAndTheCity]

Thanks everyone! I'm so glad everyone enjoyed reading this. :) I plan to respond to the questions people asked that I haven't answered yet and any others (as long as I know the answers). I can also post more photos. But right now I am dealing with post-cruise lightheadedness which I hope will go away soon. I had no problems on any of my previous cruises except for last year (3 nights on the Sky and a flight home). I felt lightheaded for over a week and I didn't think it was related to the cruise because I'd never had any issues before. Last year I wasn't working after the cruise so I mostly stayed home and rested until it went away. I'm hoping this time it goes away quickly and then I will post more.

 

Thanks again for all the nice comments!

[ncklhaus]

Thanks everyone! I'm so glad everyone enjoyed reading this. :) I plan to respond to the questions people asked that I haven't answered yet and any others (as long as I know the answers). I can also post more photos. But right now I am dealing with post-cruise lightheadedness which I hope will go away soon. I had no problems on any of my previous cruises except for last year (3 nights on the Sky and a flight home). I felt lightheaded for over a week and I didn't think it was related to the cruise because I'd never had any issues before. Last year I wasn't working after the cruise so I mostly stayed home and rested until it went away. I'm hoping this time it goes away quickly and then I will post more.

 

Thanks again for all the nice comments!

 

 

Thank you for posting while on your cruise. We all enjoyed it very much.

I also get what you are feeling after every cruise. I have also had it on our Honeymoon after a 3 hour flight. I started feeling it after landing and then using an elevator. I saw a doctor for it once we got home and he said it had to do with the inner ear. Try taking a decongestant like Sudafed, it helped a bit with me, maybe it will help you.

[Dan_K]

Thank you for taking the time to post. Sounds like you had a great time.

[14cruise]

what time does the hot tubs close at night

[blackwing]

Thanks Cin for your live review! I enjoyed reading through it. We depart this Saturday and we are SOOOOOOOO EXCIIIIITTTTEEEDDDD!!!!!!!

[youngestof9]

The Manhattan Room feels like being at a wedding. It was a lot of fun.

 

 

They have dance classes in the atrium and people probably dance there during the live music. That's all I saw personally, but there may be other venues for couples to dance.

 

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I see my friends in this picture! LOL

[CinAndTheCity]

what time does the hot tubs close at night

 

According to the Freestyle Dailies, the hot tubs on deck 16 are open until midnight and the hot tubs on the other decks are open until 10 PM.

[heckp]

We didn't do a tour. We walked to the Speedy's ferry and it's $38 (cash) per person round-trip for the ferry and taxi-bus. Then it's $3 pp to get into the Baths.

 

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Thank you for the review, we will be sailing Escape May 7th and thinking about going to do the Baths on our own too. I'm very worried though about getting back on time. Any advice on how to do it on our own? Thanks again

[billfish]

Hearing great things about MSC line. New ship looks awesome!

 

Almost ended up on that ship. We are on the ESCAPE on 5/21. Loving the Review

[hockeysoccerfam]

No, you're not missing anything. I was on this sailing as well. We had 2 separate medical emergencies. One was in the afternoon Monday, and the Captain announced that we would be travelling at full speed to get to St Thomas as quickly as possible as a patient needed hospitalization. We arrived very early to St Thomas. No problem. The second medical emergency happened in the early hours of Thursday morning, after we sailed away from Tortola. On the map that was being shown on the TV, we made a sudden detour towards the closest island, Puerto Rico. Apparently the Peurto Rican coastguard and helicopter evacuated a critically ill patient sometime in the early hours of the morning. The captain came on and announced that due to this detour, we wouldn't be stilling in Nassau. I don't understand why this decision was made, as we still had 26 hours to get to Nassau! They literally slowed the ship down for the remainder of the cruise, and we were drifting along until we docked in Miami. A fellow CC passenger who is very familiar with sailing and has an app on his phone showing the speed that we were travelling, stated the on our way to St Thomas we were going 34 knots , and then slowed down to about 16-17 knots. We literally sailed through the Bahamas on Friday afternoon when we should've been docked. I am fully understanding of stopping for the safety of others, and medical reasons...absolutely! But this decision, I don't understand. My kids and whole family are very disappointed!

 

The ship absolutely could've made Nassau no problems but they don't want to go at 35 + knots because of fuel consumption ($$) and if we make the port late then excursions can't go out (loss of more$$). Obviously the 4500 + passengers would have appreciated even 4-5 hours in Nassau but NCL would have spent more money in fuel, lost money in cancelled excursions so why not crawl back to Miami at 10-15 knots and have everyone stuck on a sea day and spend more money shopping, losing at the casino or drink away at the bar. Its all economics! If you want to show NCL they can't get away with this then express your frustrations to corporate and don't sail with them again... But nothing will happen. NCL will continue with its competitive cruise industry but still make $$. Nothing will change because not enough will take action and NCL will still sell out. What a responsible and caring industry would do would be to offer us passengers a significant credit of at least $500 on future cruises.

[CinAndTheCity]

...Obviously the 4500 + passengers would have appreciated even 4-5 hours in Nassau...

 

Honestly, I'm not actually sure that's true. A lot of people I talked to didn't mind skipping Nassau. And if you were scheduled for an excursion that they would've had to cancel due to not having enough time, then what would you do there? There is some stuff to do on your own, but not that much. I guess it would've been good to go for 4-5 hours and anyone who wanted could've just stayed on the ship, but I'm just not sure that too many people were too upset. I also think that many of the people who were stuck on the ship for an extra day and had to "drink away at the bar" weren't paying for their drinks anyway.

Edited March 31, 2016 by CinAndTheCity

[billfish]

The ship absolutely could've made Nassau no problems but they don't want to go at 35 + knots because of fuel consumption ($$) and if we make the port late then excursions can't go out (loss of more$$). Obviously the 4500 + passengers would have appreciated even 4-5 hours in Nassau but NCL would have spent more money in fuel, lost money in cancelled excursions so why not crawl back to Miami at 10-15 knots and have everyone stuck on a sea day and spend more money shopping, losing at the casino or drink away at the bar. Its all economics! If you want to show NCL they can't get away with this then express your frustrations to corporate and don't sail with them again... But nothing will happen. NCL will continue with its competitive cruise industry but still make $$. Nothing will change because not enough will take action and NCL will still sell out. What a responsible and caring industry would do would be to offer us passengers a significant credit of at least $500 on future cruises.

Really they could have increased the speed to 35 knots ?????? The ship is simply not capable to reach that speed

[Da Rooster]

Good question... I just counted from the list, there are 24 taps and 54 bottles and cans so that's 78 total. The all-time leader somehow has 84. We are not trying to compete with that.

 

 

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so proud to see I'm still on the All Time list... having spent way too much time at the District and in talking with the bartenders Robert & Edward, the #1 guy was on the 10 day inaugural transatlantic cruise with more beer selections available they no longer stock, plus he had more time to drink (put an asterisk next to that record)... for those that asked, the challenge is to have different beers at the Brewhouse only so other bars do not count and repeats don't count either, so while the Milk Stout is truly excellent, you need to mix it up

[2new2cruisin2]

Just read through this entire post. Now I need to look at Escape sailings! Great live review thank you Cin!

[robotrich]

Thanks for the info on Brewhouse. I expect I'll be spending some good quality time there and looking forwarding to trying the brews. Quick question - is there a list of available brews?

[CinAndTheCity]

Thanks for the info on Brewhouse. I expect I'll be spending some good quality time there and looking forwarding to trying the brews. Quick question - is there a list of available brews?

 

We "borrowed" a copy of the menus and scanned them. I will post them tonight. Also, TheDougOut posted pictures of the menus in his live thread.

 

so proud to see I'm still on the All Time list... having spent way too much time at the District and in talking with the bartenders Robert & Edward, the #1 guy was on the 10 day inaugural transatlantic cruise with more beer selections available they no longer stock, plus he had more time to drink (put an asterisk next to that record)... for those that asked, the challenge is to have different beers at the Brewhouse only so other bars do not count and repeats don't count either, so while the Milk Stout is truly excellent, you need to mix it up

 

Thanks for explaining the contest and letting us know about the guy who was #1 on the all time list. If you plan to be competitive in the contest, Chair recommends making a list of the beers and keeping it on your phone and checking them off as you drink them. Also, make sure you sign up on the first day. Our friend could've been on the leaderboard for our cruise, but it was too late for him to sign up.

[CinAndTheCity]

Well, the pdf file of the District Brewhouse menus is too big to post here so I uploaded it to Dropbox. Here's the link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/byhpgueka6thv1g/2016-03-12-District%20Brew%20House%20Menu.pdf?dl=0