Escape review February 25th to March 4th

[kpwhalen830]

Our group of 12 just returned home from our cruise on Escape. It was the first time for all of us to sail with NCL. I will mostly keep this review and opinions for myself and my wife. We have sailed with RCCL and Carnival once in the past. We did have one cruiser with us who is handicap from a stroke, she is in a wheel chair/motorized cart.

 

10 of us arrived in Fort Lauderdale on a direct JetBlue flight from Buffalo at 10:50 am on Friday the 24th. We booked a transport from the airport to our hotel in Miami, it was nice quick ride and there was plenty of room for all of us, our luggage and the motorized wheel chair. We stayed at the Hampton Inn & Suites Miami Brickell downtown. The hotel was very nice, a little expensive $270 for the night if I remember correctly. We ate lunch at the Batch Gastropub in the hotel, it was very good food but the service was slow. Later on in the evening we ate Coyo Taco around the corner. Coyo was very busy and very good. There is a lot going on around this hotel, fun place.

 

Saturday morning we used the hotel's shuttle to transport us to port for $8 per person. We arrived to port around 10:30. We had to wait in the waiting area for about 25 minutes and were on the ship a little before noon.

 

I find it a little boring to follow along with a play by play review of a cruise unless there are pictures to go along so I will save everyone here the boredom. If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask and I will try my best to answer.

 

Here are my thoughts on the ship, the food, the service, the ports of call and anything I feel like talking about.

 

Ship: I would give the ship 8 out of 10. For the most part the ship was very clean and the layout was nice.

We absolutely loved sitting outside at Cagney's for dinner and having drinks at It's five o clock somewhere on the waterfront.

The area around the casino smelled like a dirty old ashtray when we boarded the ship. The smell just turned into plain old smoke after the ship filled up. It didn't really bother me except for one day when it was extra heavy.

I didn't set foot in the pool during the entire week. It was almost always packed like a sardine can. It was also insanely loud on sea days, so loud I had a hard time ordering a drink when I was passing through one day.

We did the waterslides on the first day and the first sea day, they were fun.

Spice H2o.....We really liked this part of the ship. The water grotto was awesome! I wish other cruise lines would steal this idea. As mentioned in other reviews, Spice became more crowded as the week progressed.

 

Stateroom: We had balcony 14720, we enjoyed a stateroom slightly larger than what you get with RCCL. The room was dirty when we walked in, that was annoying. Dust on the shelving in the bathroom and the table/stool. The bathroom countertop had crusty stuff on it that I easily wiped off with a moist towel. The shower glass was not cleaned at all, smears of who knows what(boogers?) on the inside and out. Our room steward was a solid 5 out of 10, nothing special.

 

Service: Another 5 out of 10 for service, it was pretty lousy. Not many of the bar tenders or servers had a care in the world to do anything fast or accurate. We ate in the Manhattan room on the first and last night of the cruise, it was soooooo slow!! We waited 20 minutes for drinks after placing our order, it took even longer for the food to come and round 2 of drinks took another 2 minutes. It should not take 3 hours to get dinner on the MDR.

Of course there were a few stand outs but for 95% of them they just sucked. In my opinion you get a tip of you do your job well. These people must expect a tip to do their job well. What am I paying $13.50 per day for?

I really think they should re think the gratuity plan. One thing I liked on RCCL when ordering at the bars was the ability to leave an extra tip if I wanted.

 

Food: 6 out of 10. First off, I am a foodie, I eat at good restaurants. I know that the MDR food is comparable to eating at your local Applebees, I am fine with that and that is what I expect. My low score came from poor meals at Cagney's and La Cucina. We ate at Manhattan room, Cagneys, La Cucina, Taste, Le Bistro, Teppanyaki and back at Manhattan room. We also did lunch at Food republic on the first sea day and O'Sheehan's twice. Breakfast and all other lunches were at Garden Café.

Manhattan Room: Ate there 2 times, lousy both times. Had a Caribbean pork and duck breast, blah.

Food Republic: Best meal of the cruise! Everything here was great. We had the pork belly, fish tacos, lobster rolls and buffalo rock shrimp roll. Not a single complaint here, food was good, service was good and we had nice seats looking over the ocean.

Cagney's: I ordered the bone-in ribeye. It was cooked medium rare like I ordered but it just didn't have a sear or crust on the outside, it was bland and boring. My Cesar salad was watery and dull. I also ordered the pork belly appetizer, man it was a joke compared the pork belly from Food Republic. We sat outside which was great along with good service here, I just wish the food was better.

La Cucina: This was better than Cagney's but only because the others in our party had pretty good dishes. We also had a great server. I ordered the veal osso bucco, it was undercooked, A LOT! It was like beef jerky on a bone, great flavor but a shame that it was so undercooked. I am guessing it needed another 2 hours in the braise to get to the correct tenderness.

Taste: Not bad, probably number 3 out of the 7 dinners we had. I had the strip steak, it was seasoned and cooked better than my steak from Cagney's. Service here was not the best but better than the Manhattan room.

Le Bistro: One of the better steaks I have enjoyed in my lifetime, I got the filet. The steak was cooked perfectly, seasoned well and was really a nice cut. Unfortunately the Anna potatoes that came with the steak were so dried out they were inedible. The service here was top notch.

Teppanyaki: It was good, not mind blowing but good. I had the filet and shrimp, the shrimp were really good.

O'Sheehan's: Nothing good came from this place. The wings stink, tried them twice to make sure the first time wasn't a mistake. Maybe its because I am from Buffalo but oh my god they were bad. Tried the Rueben, it was bad. Chicken fajitas, bad. Nachos, boring. Fish and chips, soggy. The service was also very bad, long waits for a server.

Garden Café: It was surprisingly good. Both breakfast and lunch were good, nothing to complain about other than the burgers were always tough and overcooked. The Asian food for lunch was on point every singe day! It always seemed really crowded when we walked in, we just went right to the back and had the place to ourselves. It was completely mobbed three times, day one for lunch, Tortola for breakfast and lunch in Nassau.

 

WOW this is a lot longer than I was planning. Ports up next, all of them were great!

[MDFlyer]

Hey, thanks for posting! We were on the Escape a year ago and going again soon. Hope we can score Vibe passes again this year but if not will probably do like you and hang out at H20. I had heard that they took the lobster off the menus since we went last. Kind of a bummer. Had it at Cagneys and Teppeiaki (sp?).

 

We only have 4 cruises under our belt. All Norwegian. Got hooked by the freestyle concept as not interested in getting dressed up and sitting with strangers, at the same time, every night. Not much of a foodie, just glad to be on Vacation and have someone else do all the work. Ship is crowded but we always found quiet spots on the

Waterfront and the upper decks. Nice having the pool crowd and action, if you want.

 

Looking forward to seeing what you did on the islands. We are planning Coki beach again but may do Saphire beach instead. Did the speed boat "Ultimate Adventure" tour out of Tortola to Jost Van Dyke last time and doing it again this year. Did I mention I had such a great time that we are basically doing the same trip, again!

Hopefully wont be disappointed...

 

We will also be staying in the same staterooms very near to where to where yours was 14276 I think. Starboard Aft. I really liked this location as close to the stairs but one deck removed from the noise of the Buffet above. Loved sneaking up there early in the am. Grabbing a coffee and roll and coming back to the room and watching the sea go by from the balcony. Cant wait!

[oneplustwins]

Here are my thoughts on the ship, the food, the service, the ports of call and anything I feel like talking about.

Loving this review so far!!

[Mac4YYZ]

I was on Escape a few weeks ago and had a great trip. And I found the food to be quite good in the specialty restaurants. Especially when you consider all they have to cook with is induction cook tops. A few bucks in the right hands and the bartenders were always helpful. I would compare Cagney's favourably with The Keg here at home.

[detroitlions]

Sounds like no one had fun on this review:

Food stinks, Servers stink, housekeepers stink, too crowded.

I have never had it that bad even on Carnival.

Oh well everyone is different.

The only thing I have run into remotely like this on any of my NCL trips is maybe some of my dinners were very sloooooow.

The crowded pool area and cant get drinks in that area is easily avoided I just go where it is not packed and get drinks.

[kpwhalen830]

Ports:

St. Thomas: We took a cab ride to Coki Beach for $9 per person. It was probably around 25-30 minutes, a lot longer than I expected but worth the ride. You get dropped off at a building and are immediately pounced on by the chair/umbrella guy and one of the nasty drink wenches. $5 per chair, $10 for an umbrella. Your chair guy will then proceed to tell you that you must use him to get a cab back, not the case. Next time I go to Coki beach I will do my own thing, these people are scum bags. If they treated me with respect from the beginning I would gladly tip them but they are nasty. Our drink lady got mad at us because we ordered a bucket of beers from another drink lady wearing the same uniform. We only ordered from the other lady because we waited 20+ minutes for the first one but she never showed up. I work in sales and rely on repeat business to make a living, you don't get my hard earned money acting like this.

Back to the beach.....It was probably the clearest water I have ever been in, it was great. We stayed at the beach until about 1:30-2:00pm. We didn't get any food, just a few rounds of drinks from the mean drink lady. When you are ready to leave just walk up to where you were dropped off and there are taxi's waiting to take you back. On our ride back the driver went a different way that passed Magens bay, it was a nice ride.

 

Next up is Cane Garden Bay/Beach...

[kpwhalen830]

Sounds like no one had fun on this review:

Food stinks, Servers stink, housekeepers stink, too crowded.

I have never had it that bad even on Carnival.

Oh well everyone is different.

The only thing I have run into remotely like this on any of my NCL trips is maybe some of my dinners were very sloooooow.

The crowded pool area and cant get drinks in that area is easily avoided I just go where it is not packed and get drinks.

 

I have had bad food and crowded buffets on Carnival.

 

We completely avoided the pool, stayed in Spice H2o the entire time. It was a bit hard to get drinks there but we made friends(AKA tipped about $20 per day) a server and then were taken care of. Fernando from Columbia, he works 11am to 5 or 6pm. He was one of the few friendly servers we encountered.

[kpwhalen830]

Tortola: We went to Cane Garden Bay/Beach, $8 per person for the cab ride. You go up and down some really steep hills on this ride, I enjoyed it. The cab driver talked over a loud speaker the entire ride telling us about the island and other tidbits of information, it was a nice ride. The locals here are a lot more friendly than the St. Thomas people. $5 chairs, $10 umbrellas, $15 buckets of beer. $5 less than St. Thomas and no attitude (y):cool: Mixed drinks were also less money and lacked the bad attitude :cool:. I think we got to the beach around 8:30 and left at 1:00pm(cab driver recommendation).

The beach was almost as nice as Coki, the water just a shade darker and not as clear. I would take this beach over Coki due to the friendly help and locals.

Next Up Nassau and the British Colonial Hilton

[easyboy]

Enjoying your review. Following.

[kpwhalen830]

Nassau: We were going to treat Nassau as a sea day or briefly get off for some Conch fritters but after reading Gambee's review we decided to look into the British Colonial Hilton. It's about a 15-20 minute walk through the shopping area from the ship. $60 per person gets you in with a $40 per person credit towards food and drinks at the poolside bar and restaurant. You get assigned a server, find a place to sit, get a towel and enjoy the day. All 12 from our group came along for this so we parked ourselves by the pool. The servers and staff are very nice, friendly and fun. Food and drink prices are really high but that is why you have the $40 right? $18.75 for a chicken sandwich with fries! :o The food was all grilled right next to the bar. I wasn't going to buy any but it smelled so good! The beach was nice, white sand, blue water, you can see the ships, it was great.

We all agreed that we would go back here again!

[clskinsfan]

Thanks for the review. I am taking my first NCL trip on Escape this fall after many cruises on RCI and CCL. I hope I enjoy it more than your group seems to have. Bad service and Bad food make for a bad trip in my book as well.

[kpwhalen830]

Thanks for the review. I am taking my first NCL trip on Escape this fall after many cruises on RCI and CCL. I hope I enjoy it more than your group seems to have. Bad service and Bad food make for a bad trip in my book as well.

 

You will have a great time. It wasn't a bad trip, it just didn't meet my expectations. I was really looking forward to cruising on the Escape with NCL and it just fell short. Maybe it was a bad week, maybe this how they are all the time, I don't know. The food was better than my last cruise on RCCL Adventure, but I was expecting more based on reviews I have read.

I will probably give NCL another shot in the future. Right now we are looking into RCCL Oasis class again, we really enjoyed the Allure. Allure's food was average but the service and ship were great.

[CP3o]

Thanks for the review, a shame some of the specialty dining restaurants are going downhill. Maybe cutbacks b/c of promo offerings.

 

 

Do people complain about the loud music to NCL while on the ship? I read this often in reviews and seems like something they would be willing to change; doesn't cost them anything. Seems unlikely there will be corresponding complaints some can't hear music if it's turned down a couple notches.

 

 

"It was also insanely loud on sea days, so loud I had a hard time ordering a drink when I was passing through one day. "

[kpwhalen830]

Thanks for the review, a shame some of the specialty dining restaurants are going downhill. Maybe cutbacks b/c of promo offerings.

 

 

Do people complain about the loud music to NCL while on the ship? I read this often in reviews and seems like something they would be willing to change; doesn't cost them anything. Seems unlikely there will be corresponding complaints some can't hear music if it's turned down a couple notches.

 

 

"It was also insanely loud on sea days, so loud I had a hard time ordering a drink when I was passing through one day. "

 

I have read about a lot of complaints about the noise. The loud music is not for me but I don't have a problem with it as long as there is somewhere else to go like Spice H2o. On one of the sea days it was so loud it sounded like there was normal volume music playing in Spice.