Sisters Trip Report! Norwegian Escape April 29 - May 6 2017

[nutocruzing]

May 1 - Day 3

Jess and I were up early this morning and out of the room before 8. This morning we ate in Savor. My sister had made an order the morning before for breakfast this morning at the recommendation of the waiter from the morning before. She ordered a melon plate and french toast with a side of bacon. I had the fruit salad and the Croque Madame. We both found our meals to be very yummy.

Note: When those with special dietary requirements pre-order food you can eat in any of the Main Dining Rooms, it doesn't have to be the same room you pre-ordered food in.

As soon as we were done eating we headed up to Vibe. As soon as we got up on Deck 19 we knew that the weather did not look promising and before we could even get to the gate for Vibe it started to downpour - hard! We took refuge in the bar by Vibe on deck 19 for a few minutes until the worst of the rain passed. We then spent about an hour up there trying out the hot tub (which we had to ourselves - big surprise at 9 am on a rainy day, I know) and relaxing on the loungers. We then decided to head back to our room after realizing that the weather was too poor to do the ropes course.

I decided to get changed to go to the fitness centre (it would be my only trip there this cruise) and Jess and I made plans to meet at O'Sheehan's overlooking the atrium so we could eat lunch while watching lectures and game shows. I arrived back at O'Sheehan's before my sister and happened to spot my mom and aunt down on deck 6 below. Here's a picture I took of the atrium before the Floating Hotel lecture/ presentation. It was definitely packed.

 

I'm going to go on a tangent again. I'd read lots of complaints before I left about the atrium as a venue. Yes, it gets busy, but you really can find seating as long as you show up even 10 minutes early (which I really don't think is that much to ask). A lot of people seemed to think that the game shows and lectures should be done in the theatre instead (and sometimes they were held there). I think people underestimate how much preparation is required for the full scale productions done on these ships. You need to have lighting and sets prepared as well as sound adjustments for the shows plus any rehearsals that might need to go on. You can't just have one lecture and then 5 minutes later put on a full Broadway production in the same venue! Apparently "the other lines do it" but I have no personal experience with that and if the alternative options are to not have the extra game shows and lectures or to not have multiple showings of the broadway style shows... I'll just take the game shows in the atrium thanks. Point is, it really isn't as bad as most people make it sound and you can always catch the taped versions of the shows (celebrity dance off, newlywed etc) on the Norwegian channels on your stateroom tv later in the week.

After the Floating Hotel presentation (which was kind of like a mini version of a behind the scenes tour), we moved down to the seats that my mom and aunt had for the Who Wants to be a Bazillionarie show. It was entertaining enough, nothing particularly special and certainly not on the scale of Deal or No Deal, Celebrity Dance Off or Battle of the Sexes.

Coincidentally, the guy who was up there in this photo was also in the Newlywed Not So Newlywed show and the Battle of the Sexes. Apparently he enjoyed the spot light haha.

Another tip for those of you who haven't been on NCL's newer ships yet:

Here are a couple pictures showing you how to orient yourself when you're on the ship. I have another video I might post later showing how long it takes to walk from one end of the ship to the other - it's almost 4 minutes long! It's a big ship, and it's definitely pretty easy to get disoriented. You've probably read that you can look at the carpet on the stateroom decks and check the direction the fish are swimming (the swim toward the bow). These signs which are located in the elevator/ staircase lobbies are also colour coded for easy orientation: turquoise for starboard and yellow for port. They also let you know if you're in the Aft, Mid or Forward lobbies. It will be of more use than you might expect!

[nutocruzing]

After the shows were over, we tried to go outside again but it was still raining. We caught up with my mom and aunt who were having lunch at the Garden Cafe.

Note: The Garden Cafe was definitely not my favourite food wise. Some of the food was really good - most of it was just ok and certainly not on par with the more formal dining options on the ship - I recommend you eat at the MDRs or specialty restaurants as much as possible.

Apparently my mom and aunt eventually made it to the Vibe and were able to get a bit of time outside without rain, but Jess and I just headed back to the room as the grey weather and the early morning had us in the mood for a nap. I will say that the seas were much calmer this day than our first sea day - I believe I had read on Day 2 that there were 15 ft waves? Maybe it was 11. Either way it was hardly "calm" and the wind was very bad for much of that day. Even though it rained consistently on the second sea day, it was hardly "stormy". I think we were actually moving with the clouds that were raining and I suspect that if we had been on an island and had only stayed still the showers would have blown over in no time.

By the time I had recovered from my nap it was nearly time to get ready for dinner, so I readied myself and then went to meet up with the rest of my family who were having drinks at Tobacco Road. I traded off with my mom and aunt who went back to the room to get ready themselves. We ate in the Manhattan Room again this night. I had the spring roll and a salad for appetizers (yes, I asked for two!) and the Carbonara for my main.

Note: Yes, dinner service in the Manhattan Room is slow. I don't consider this to be a bad thing. Service is great, it isn't slow because they're inattentive, it's simply a proper three course meal! Just do bear in mind when you're planning that it could take between an hour and a half and two hours from start to finish. You can always skip appetizers or dessert if you want to ensure you get to a show on time.

We had planned to have a somewhat early dinner so that we could get to Headliners in time to get decent seats for Howl at the Moon. We made it to Headliners for about 8:15 (show started at 8:30) and this was not really early enough to get a proper seat. We did manage to get some bar seats at the very back of the room, but people were very inconsiderate and would constantly come and stand in front of you so it wasn't the best view. I would definitely recommend trying to get there a full half an hour before the show starts. My mom and aunt had no idea what this show was about. I tried to explain it was kind of like a karaoke sing along but they didn't understand how they would know the words. "You ... just will!" I told them. Sure enough, they did. Drew, Colleen and Ronda (I think those were their names) were great and a good time was had by all. Speaking of knowing the words though, one of the requests was for Oh What a Night and no one (performers or audience) seemed to know any words other than "Oh What a Night" ,"Late December back in 63" and "Oh I". It was quite hilarious really especially given that the show had been on the ship just a few weeks before.

 

Our enjoyment of the show was somewhat impacted by a very drunk couple standing in front of us. By about an hour in, the wife was so drunk she broke two glasses (spilling her drink everywhere) within 5 minutes. This was not only a distraction it was an outright safety hazard and I really wish security would have asked this woman to leave... on a related note, they really should be serving drinks in plastic cups in this venue.

Around 10:30 we left and decided to head up to the Waterfront to wander around and check out the seating. I never noticed the alleged new waterfront chair hogs, but I admittedly spent most of my day light hours at Vibe. We then went back to the room to pack all of our snorkel and beach gear for tomorrow, keeping our fingers crossed that the weather would cooperate with us...

Up Next: Day 4 - St. Thomas

[Two Wheels Only]

Here are the links to the water slide videos for now:

 

 

 

Wrap the part after "v="

 

Yours would look like...

[yuotube]MhobqxiCBoU[/yuotube] and

 

 

[yuotube]gKchjMCmH4A[/yuotube] - make sure to spell youtube correctly

 

MhobqxiCBoU

gKchjMCmH4A

[nutocruzing]

Wrap the part after "v="

 

Yours would look like...

[yuotube]MhobqxiCBoU[/yuotube] and

 

 

[yuotube]gKchjMCmH4A[/yuotube] - make sure to spell youtube correctly

 

MhobqxiCBoU

gKchjMCmH4A

 

Thanks!!

[kattlinx13]

Following. Great trip review so far. :)

 

 

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[QueenOfZoom]

Hey, found us in your pic! :D

 

[nutocruzing]

Day 4 - May 2, St. Thomas

We all woke up around 7 this morning and opened the curtains to our balcony to see what was outside. We actually saw the pilot boat approaching us, so we got up in perfect time to watch us pull into port. Here are a couple pictures but they don't do it justice.

 

 

It was really interesting to see the different plant life on the different islands - some are so arid while others are much more lush. Lots of cacti on the first few islands but St. Thomas had much more greenery going on. It was also interesting to watch the ship turn on the spot so that we were facing back out toward the Ocean while in port.

Since we had already packed the night before, we got ready as quickly as four women could and headed off to Taste (or Savor, who can tell?) for breakfast - on an unrelated note I'm pretty sure this was the only time mom and my aunt made it to an MDR for breakfast.

Ok, so another tangent. My sister had mentioned back at our hotel in Miami that she had ran into the family of a girl I used to teach dance when I was in high school. We haven't lived in the same province in years, and it's been 10 years since I graduated from high school so you can imagine it's been a long time since we'd seen each other. Jess assumed they must be going on a cruise. When we arrived in port and we saw that there were two Carnival ships and the MSC Davina in addition to the Escape, we figured there was no chance we would run into them. Well, on our way to breakfast this morning my sister stopped us on the stairs and whispered that she saw them! Right there on deck 8 of the same ship! With almost 5000 people on it! It's a very small world. Mom called out to them and they didn't recognize us right away but eventually they did and we spent a few minutes catching up before heading our separate ways as they had a busy day ahead of them.

At breakfast, I think mom had salmon on a bagel, Jess had her french toast again, and my aunt and I got express breakfasts. We ran back to the room and sunscreened up before heading down to deck 4 to disembark.

 

We walked across Havensight, following the signs to the taxis. We've all been to St. Thomas before so we knew what we wanted to do. We'd heard that Coki Beach had some of the best snorkeling so we planned to head there for the morning for some swim, snorkel and sun, and then around high noon head downtown for some shopping and lunch at our favourite St. Thomas restaurant The Green House. We were eventually crammed on to one of their safari style taxi buses and we set off on our ride across the island. If you haven't been to the Virgin Islands before be prepared - the roads are very steep and have very tight corners. I honestly don't recommend renting your own vehicles, though we have done it before. Also, seriously keep all limbs inside the vehicle at all times; there is not much in the way of shoulders on these roads and they're quite narrow so the buses come quite close to each other.

 

 

Upon arrival at the beach the sky was looking pretty grey and it truthfully wasn't very warm either. We decided to make the most of the weather which was much, much better than the previous day. We set up our towels on the beach. Mom and my aunt opted for chairs which they paid $5 for. After a while in the sun, Jess and I decided to try out the snorkeling. It was soooo good! The minute you put your mask in the water there are fish everywhere! And so many different fish. I would post a video but I give entirely too much garbled commentary through my snorkel as I try to call the attention of my sister over to whatever new neat fish I just found and it's really not that flattering.

Here's the beach shortly after we got there:

 

And here's a picture about an hour or so after we got there:

 

It was even busier by the time we left, but it wasn't so crowded as to be un-enjoyable. As you can tell from these photos, the sun came out for us! It ended up being a beautiful day. We all got a little bit too much sun. And the group of teenage boys from our ship that grabbed a spot on the beach just behind us got a little too much to drink. We ended up sharing a taxi back downtown with two men very nearly on the brink of emptying their stomachs. Luckily they managed to hold it together at least until we made it downtown and off the taxi, and those who weren't drunk were actually quite friendly and entertaining.

[nutocruzing]

Here's a pic of the ship (and the Carnival Glory) in port on our drive back to Charlotte Amalie.

 

We were dropped off near the 99 steps, not quite where I expected to be dropped off "downtown" but in their defence, the main streets were insanely busy so it was probably for the best. Here's a picture of one of the local stores near the Green House. We've stopped in here a few times, it's really interesting kind of a combo of a museum, a jewelry store and a souvenir store. They have items that have been recovered from ship wrecks around the world. I highly recommend stopping in here for a different shopping experience!

 

We eventually made it to the Green House and it was busy but not packed. Mom and Jess got the jerk chicken wings, I got the bang bang shrimp wrap and my aunt got the jerk chicken salad. It's not cheap here, but not insanely expensive. They have very good happy hour deals, so if you're on a cruise that stays later than 6 (not that I can think of any) or on a land trip to St. Thomas, then you should definitely go after 4:30! We had a few margaritas and caiphirinha's here to celebrate my sister getting some good news about school.

Here's my lunch:

 

We walked back to the ship. It is definitely a walkable distance to downtown from the port. I took a few pictures along this walk (be careful though, no pictures in the yacht club!)

 

I really loved the colours in this shot, despite the fact that it isn't very interesting subject matter. You can really tell the sun was shining. Oh and I thought I would include the taxi prices as the price had gone up slightly from the last numbers I had seen in the course of my research:

Unfortunately, shortly after we got back on board it started to rain again. Luckily it was a short-lived shower. Jess and I went up to do the ropes course while we were still in port. They had shut it down for a bit while a shower passed over but they soon opened it up again and this time the whole run was open. I am very afraid of heights, but like to face my fears as much as possible. I simply couldn't muster the courage to go out on the plank while we were in port - for some reason the fact that there are nearby objects to give your height context makes it so much worse for me then when you're at sea. I did do the zipline that went over the edge of the ship though and enjoyed that a lot. There was one little girl on the ropes course with us who was way to young to be doing it. According to my sister (who is quite a bit shorter than I), there were some parts of the course where even she at about 5'4 had trouble so she imagined that the much shorter children must struggle with some of the sections. This particular child was NOT happy, and for some reason, rather than turning around and going back her parents forced her to keep going. It was sad to watch, and it caused huge backlogs as the child would stand frozen and just scream while the parents more or less pushed her along.

When we were done, my mom and aunt did the Aqua Racer while we watched their stuff. They had a good time and even did it again later in the week. They did however complain that they didn't receive adequate instruction from those supervising the slide. My sister and I rolled our eyes at this a bit as we had found it to be fairly intuitive ourselves, but given other recent reports about problems with children on this slide, I thought I would mention that instruction doesn't seem to have improved. We all then went up to Vibe to watch the sail away (I mostly just fell asleep cause that's what always happened to be up there - so relaxing!).

[Bsens07]

I too was on this cruise and it was my first with NCL. Hands down, I would sail again if I knew for sure "Chocolate Cowboy" would be on that same sailing. He provided me more entertainment and laughs than I could handle....and did a good job getting me tipsy on sandbars!

[dcipjr]

Excellent review! Lots of great pictures, brings back a lot of good memories from our time on the Escape.

 

I completely agree with what you said about After Midnight. There wasn't a story, per se—maybe that turned people off?—but the performers were incredibly talented, and we really enjoyed it.

 

Keep up the good work!

[QueenOfZoom]

I too was on this cruise and it was my first with NCL. Hands down, I would sail again if I knew for sure "Chocolate Cowboy" would be on that same sailing. He provided me more entertainment and laughs than I could handle....and did a good job getting me tipsy on sandbars!

 

I heard a lot of great things about him! There was a fantastic bartender In that same bar location on Getaway. It's a smoking bar on that ship so usually crowded but so much fun!

[pajazz28]

Great review cant wait to read the rest.

[Cruiser Who Knows Nothing]

Great review. You have a knack for this. :)

 

 

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[Sand and Seas]

Thanks! What did you miss about Tobacco Road? Was it the drink? You MUST try it next time if so!

 

Yes! I love to try the unique specialty drinks at different bars and restaurants. I've tried searching for the Tobacco Road bar menu but have been unsuccessful so far. I can recommend the Red Light District at the Brewhouse. It's very refreshing too:D

[nutocruzing]

Hey, found us in your pic! :D

 

Too funny! Such a small world!

[nutocruzing]

A quick thanks to everyone for their kind feedback! Now to finish off Day 4!

 

We all headed back to our room after watching sail away and showered to try to rid ourselves of as much sand as possible after a day at the beach. We had a pretty late dinner tonight at the Manhattan Room. On this night I had the onion soup (not bad) and the chicken parm (quite good). I believe my sister had GF chicken parm and my mom had the risotto and beef stir fry while. Can't remember what my aunt had.

 

 

 

 

After dinner my mom and aunt retired for the evening while my sister and I headed off to grab some drinks and catch some of the Celebrity Dance Off. I will admit that this was quite a busy event and as we were late getting there, it was hard to find even standing room where you could really see anything. We didn't stay for very long as it was after 10 at this point and we had an early morning.

Note: I could have sworn there was a time change on this itinerary and I'm pretty sure the Virgin Islands are on Atlantic and not Eastern time... I guess they don't have day light savings or something? At any rate, there was no time change which was really a blessing as it was already going to be hard to get up in time to make it off the ship when it first docked.

Up Next: Tortola (or as the autocorrect on my phone likes to refer to it, Tortilla)

[LSKC]

Cant wait to hear about Tortola.

[MsAllie]

Love your review !!!:hearteyes:

 

Dailies ?:D

[nutocruzing]

A quick inset here as I realized I forgot the dailies for the last two days. Unfortunately I somehow managed to lose the daily for day 5, but here are day 3 and 4:

 

 

Back to day 5.

May 3 - Day 5 Tortola

Our alarms went off shortly after 6 am. The ship was to dock around 7 in Tortola. Our plan for today was a unique one, so I'm unfortunately not going to be able to give a ton of advice on what you might do on your trip. My father used to be a university professor, and one of his former grad students was from Virgin Gorda in the BVI. We've visited her in the Caribbean before. Shortly after we had booked out trip we were in touch with her to let her know we would be coming and to see whether she might be free to meet up. Our plans were kind of in the air for the day depending on her availability. My back up plan was to head to Cane Garden Beach.

We slowly got ourselves together in the room. We weren't planning on lugging towels or snorkel gear around with us today unless she wasn't able to meet. I headed out to the balcony to check out our view while everyone else was still groggily rousing themselves.

 

Thankfully it looked like it was going to be another sunny day! I watched us as we came into port for a bit before we headed up to the buffet for breakfast (the MDRs weren't going to open until 7:30). While we munched our breakfast selections, mom texted our friend Sandy to make arrangements to meet. She told us she would meet us at one of the stores in the port market area called Locally Yours around 9 am. Early wake up for nothing! Somehow we still managed to be running a bit late, but we did meet her shortly after 9 at the arranged location. She explained that a friend of hers owned the store and that they sold local organic fare. More on Locally Yours later.

Sandy had a plan for us for the day. Apparently, and conveniently, she was babysitting her niece on Tortola for the week and had ferried her truck across from Virgin Gorda so she offered us an island tour! Our first stop was to find a shopping centre to try to purchase sunscreen as we had already gone through almost 2 full bottles!

Note: Sun screen is very expensive in the Caribbean. I once saw a small bottle for sale for over $20! I'm sure venturing in land from the port helps with this though there are potential other costs associated with that trip you have to offset. We did manage to find some (fairly) cheap sunscreen (about $8) but it was not the quality we were used to (very chalky, left lines, did not rub in to skin - though I have heard you aren't really supposed to use sunscreen like moisturizer) but to its credit we did not get burnt for the rest of the trip! My sister, who has very sensitive skin, did have a very bad reaction to it though, so keep that in mind.

We were driven around the downtown of Road Town and heard lots of personal history (my grandmother grew up in that house) as well as lots of environmental information (her career). We learned a lot about the environmental and economic impacts of the cruise industry and it was really interesting to get a local perspective. She drove us literally all around the island(s) including to Beef Island (where the airport is), Cane Garden Bay, Frenchman's Cay, and Nurse's Cay (?). Here are a few pictures including some murals painted on retaining walls depicting local history.

 

This picture shows a historical build - you can see the coral they used in place of bricks.

I believe the following picture was of one of the original churches that had been somewhat restored.

 

Murals up next.

[nutocruzing]

 

[nutocruzing]

[MacCruising2018]

More please! ;)

[tropical83]

Thanks for posting your review! I'll be on the Escape in 79 days with the same itinerary!

[nutocruzing]

Around noon Sandy recommended we stop at the Pusser's in Frenchman's Cay for drinks on the basis that it would be much less busy than the one downtown. There was a delightful little yacht club of sorts located here. Unfortunately, the power was out (apparently not an uncommon occurrence). Drink and food selection was limited due to their dependency on a generator. I had a Painkiller (of course), I think mostly everyone else had Rum Punch. We also grabbed some food. Mom and Nan split a lobster roll, Jess had jerk chicken and I had a pineapple jerk chicken quesadilla. It was all very good (especially the painkiller!)

 

 

Here's a couple more pics from around the island:

You can see how close the other virgin islands are. You can actually see St. John (I believe she said) in the far left hand edge of this pic.

After finishing our trip around the island, Sandy dropped us off back at port. We returned to Locally Yours where we were introduced to the owner of the shop. Sandy bought us all the best popsicles (ice lollies) I have ever had. I think most of us had pina colada flavour. Here's mine.

 

Here's the ad for the store - definitely check it out! They had all kinds of liqueurs, spice blends (be careful about those ones for customs reasons), juices and other snacks and it was all local and organic. You can't miss it as it's very shortly after you get off the ship.

Note: I forgot to mention this earlier, but the bathrooms at this port are incredible and absolutely immaculate. They really made an impression on me. I think the facilities are quite new and they really look it.

 

After finishing our lollies and saying our goodbyes we headed back to the ship making it only shortly before all aboard.

Up next: sail away, Pincho and For the Record

[nutocruzing]

We headed up to Vibe to watch sail away. I think this was one of the first times that I really felt like Vibe was worth it. The weather was beautiful and there was hardly any wind at all. We really made good use of the Vibe on this afternoon (and it was one of the reasons we felt it was worth purchasing with an effective three and a half sea days since the all aboard in Tortola is so early! I got another painkiller up at the Vibe (not as good as Pusser's!) I tanned for a bit before falling asleep again - it was my MO up there!

 

Jess trying to avoid sun without using sunscreen (keep in mind it was also well after high noon at this point):

We had reservations tonight for For the Record. We knew we wanted to have an early dinner, and we also knew that we wanted to try out the tapas restaurant as some point so we decided this would be the night! We headed back to our room around 4:30 to get ready for dinner. We had some concerns about whether they would be able to accommodate my sister's diet, especially without any advanced notice. This was no concern at all! They made sure to lay out the bread separate from the cheese plate, but almost everything else could be done without gluten - even the calamari weren't breaded! It was so nice to have the ability to share among all four of us!

 

 

Here is my drink, another gin cocktail, I think it was called the Bee Charmer or something like that - very strong!