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LIVE from the Escape...

xitappers2bx

By xitappers2bx,
in Norwegian Cruise Line

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xitappers2bx

xitappers2bx

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Hello world! I wasn’tgoing to do a live review, but it’s 7am on the first day, and everyone is stillsleeping, so why not. When we werewaiting for this cruise, it seemed like there were a good number of peoplewanting a live review of the Escape.

 

So here we are.

 

Who are we? There arefour of us on this little Escape of ours (I’m a writer, but I promise, no morepuns…). In one room is myself, a soon tobe mid-30 something and my 13 year old daughter. We have a lot of cruises under our belt, butthis is only our second on NCL. Lastsummer we cruised the Epic out of Rome, (and there’s a half-finished review outthere to prove it) and became totally hooked on NCL. My parents are early 60-somethings with evenmore cruises under their collective belts, and this is their first NCL. My sister had triplets earlier this year, sothis is a nice getaway for my parents who have been helping them out. More about them later, I’m sure.

 

Oh. It’s also goingto be my birthday tomorrow (Tuesday, May 1). So there’s that.

 

How did we get here?

 

By bus, I’m not even kidding.

 

Seriously. We werecoming from Philly, and there was a bit of a stress about how/when we’d get toNew York. Usually my daughter (who, fromnow on I will refer to as the Bug) and I will take the train to cruise out ofNew York, but my parents aren’t into that. Coming from Philly it’s pretty easy, but I’m totally not a morningperson, so we found a great group of folks staying at the Doubletree in FortLee, who also happened to charter a bus. Parking was $50, the room was $159, and being on the “executive floor”got all four of us free breakfast. ForNYC that was nothing but a steal.

 

Getting to the terminal wasn’t all that bad, I get waycarsick, and the bus rise was fine. Oncehere, I was blown away by how much better everything was than the last time wewere here. I don’t know if it’s becauseit’s NCL and not CCL, but everything felt much smoother, and that was withoutVIP boarding that we get with CCL (on that line, we cruise in suites and that’sone of the very few perks). We didn’tget there until a bit after 11, but we weren’t in any rush to rush into a lineto rush into another line to rush into waiting (and complaining with everyoneelse about waiting). The lines werelong, but never stopped moving, and even though my parents and I were indifferent staterooms we were able to stick together so that was great.

 

The whole security + check in process + boarding (we wereable to get right on) took less than an hour.

 

And then just like that, we were on board.

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xitappers2bx

xitappers2bx

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Unlike on the other ships, when you board you don’t enterinto the massive multi-story atriums that are decked out in gaudy mirrors andglass elevators. I do wish there wasanother bank of elevators in the center of the ship, but this seems to be thewhole breakaway design (and the Epic) where it’s just the elevators forward andaft.

 

We made our way up to the buffet for some lunch, and we metan absolutely fabulous woman traveling by herself, she joined us for lunch andI do hope we run into her again. Thefood was outstanding, I did not take pictures of the first meal, but the beefshort ribs were absolutely to die for, and my food snob of a teenager thoughtthey were delicious, and the mashed potatoes were even better than rememberedon the Epic.

 

There were multiple announcements that the rooms were notquite yet ready, but would be at 1:30; that didn’t stop people from trying toget to their rooms though.

 

Alright… so the room. We originally booked connecting balcony rooms, but at 90 days out theprice dropped, so we moved to the mini suite, and I glad that we did. The price was negligible, but the additionalspace and storage make what could be an otherwise cramped room feelbigger. I think the fact we have a doorthat opens helps to increase the roominess feel. I was really on the fence about bidding for aHaven suite, but the fact that we would be separate from my parents, and thefact that a bid would be the equivalent of another cruise, helped to make thatdecision for us. Maybe one day, but thiswasn’t that day.

 

I will post photos later, either when we are in Bermuda orwhen we get home, to go along with all of this. I’m a writer, not a photographer, but I did take some cool photos andvideo while pulling out of NYC.

 

Back to the room. At1:35 the announcement was made that the rooms were open, so it was time tocheck them out. We (the Bug and I) arein an M2, and my parents are connected to us in an M3. The only difference that I can tell is thatmy bed is by the balcony, and theirs is by the bathroom. We each had a bottle of champagne waiting forus, thanks to our amazing travel agent, to celebrate my birthday and my dadsbirthday (later in May), so that was a great surprise.

 

Comparing the stateroom to others, it doesn’t have the sameopen feel as the Epic’s mini suite, but I like the feeling of more privacy andthe elimination of the curtain splitting the “bathroom” from the roompart. I really did love the Epic though,and thought the bathtub was a lot wider. Our doors are right next to each other, unlike the Epic, you don’t walkin the center of the room, so it feels a little narrow is the closed offbathroom, but now 18 hours later, I do like the room a lot.

 

Storage. I wasinitially really concerned. On the Epicwe had more storage than we knew what to do with! By the time we boarded that ship we hadalready spent a month living in Paris and we each had a huge suitcase, plus shehad a normal carry on size bag, and I had my favorite travel purchase of alltime, a King Kong bag. Turns out, onceour luggage came, there was more than enough storage, and it looks like for myparents, there was also more than enough storage. (The Bug’s clothes are small enough they aremostly fitting in the shelves under the TV. I will be sure to add photos later).

 

The only bummer of this whole thing is that the balconydivider doesn’t open. But we have a doorinside the stateroom that does, so if we all want to sit out on the balconytogether, we can bring our own chairs easily enough.

 

On a side note… I had reassured someone once that ourluggage never came late. While myluggage was waiting for me after the muster drill, it took until dinnertime formy parents to receive theirs. So sorrymom and dad!

 

Alright… so the muster drill you’d think with the recentevents on that Southwest flight (living near Philly this was a huge deal andplayed heavily on our “news”) people would take it more seriously. I was surprised at how many times they had totell people it was time to get to their stations. I like how they had it broken down andorganized, different than on the Epic, when we boarded halfway into the cruise(Barcelona was where the vast majority had boarded) and we were all just in thetheater, although I liked getting to meet all the exec-level folks on the Epicand we didn’t get that there.

 

After muster we went up to the rear of the ship, and enjoyeda kid-filled adults-only area. Weordered the obligatory sail away drinks, a virgin pina collada for my mom, abbb for my dad (and it was DELISH), and I ordered the mojito (also delicious, but, I did have a little drink envy forthe bbb).

 

Unlike far too many other people, we do not have the drinkpackage. We aren’t huge drinkers, andnone of us could drink enough to actually make it worth it, and we don’t reallydrink enough to offset the cost of the additional gratuities, so we will pay aswe go for drinks.

 

For anyone on the Escape… as the sober person, I doapologize for the fellow Eagles fans who got a little too happy last night andwere screaming the fight song. See, wewon this really huge football game about three months ago, and it still feelsunreal… so on their behalf, I do apologize. Their kids also apologized a few times.

 

It felt like the ship was getting out of NYC pretty quickly;having cruised a fairly good deal out of NYC it felt like we were movingquickly down the river. I’ve been tryingto enjoy the sail under the Verrazano Bridge for years, and we are usually atdinner when it happens, so I miss it. Yesterday, I am happy to report, I did not miss it. I have video that at some point I’ll try andpost.

 

The weather up here in the northeast has been anything butspring like until very recently, and yesterday it was chilly, a bit too breezy,and I’m still wearing my down vest, which sucks. Today the weather is a lot nicer. Sunny and warm.

 

Dinner… we unpacked while my parents rested a bit beforedinnertime. Then around 6:30 we headedto Taste, which is right across from Savor. Taste only had two tops available, so they called Savor, and they hadlarger tables available, and we headed over there. I loved the design of this dining room, itwas smaller and more intimate, and I enjoyed it a lot more than the largerdining room like on the Epic and every other cruise ship on the planet.

 

Dinner itself was very good. I don’t have any photos of theappetizers, but my daughter and the French onion soup, my parents split thecrab wontons and the Caesar salad, and I had the French onion soup and thecream of cauliflower soup, and everything was outstanding. For dinner, also not photographs, but mydaughter ordered the New York Strip, which came out perfectly medium rare, andit was great with the peppercorn on top; my dad and I each had the steakmedallions, which I thought the sauce on top was stellar, and my mom orderedthe ribs, and she said they were great. There are photographs of dessert to look forward to; my daughter had thewarm melting cake, my dad the strawberry shortcake, and I had the honey crèmebrûlée, which I could not have eaten any faster. Dinner was great, and while the service wasslow, I really enjoy not being rushed through meals like I feel doing timeddining on the other lines.

 

After dinner we wandered around a bit, and then headed tobed.

 

 

And that was day one.

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Sweeney75

Sweeney75

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Thanks for the live report, heading out on the Escape in 13 days so I will be following intently. When you get to photographing would you mind snapping a daily schedule or 2, if not no biggie. Again thanks.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

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xitappers2bx

xitappers2bx

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Thanks for the live report, heading out on the Escape in 13 days so I will be following intently. When you get to photographing would you mind snapping a daily schedule or 2, if not no biggie. Again thanks.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

 

I'll post photos of them when we get to Bermuda. I have international data, so once there lots of Internet access at no charge :)

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xitappers2bx

xitappers2bx

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doing this voyage in 20 days....coming from South Jersey so looking forward to hearing about your trip!

 

I grew up in South Jersey (Voorhees!) but now living on the PA side. Lots of Phillies and Eagles fans! Hoping the Sixers game will be on too.

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mkmaj

mkmaj

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Thanks so much for the live review! We leave in a few weeks and I've been waiting for reviews :)

 

If you get the chance, could you please see if Bermuda transportation passes are available on the ship? I've read mixed reports about them being available at shore excursions.

 

Sent from my SM-N900V using Forums mobile app

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HowardK

HowardK

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I grew up in South Jersey (Voorhees!) but now living on the PA side. Lots of Phillies and Eagles fans! Hoping the Sixers game will be on too.

 

Go Phils! Going on the ship in 3 weeks- I hope there is somehow a Phils game on one night! Lucked out a few times with a Phils game in '10 (likely because it was ESPN vs. the Yanks) and a Thursday night Eagles game - (people didn't get us singing Fly Eagles Fly!)

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Teesa1021

Teesa1021

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looking forward to your review. I am on in August. If you can post the dinning room menus that would be awesome and on what nights they are. I am getting a dinning package for 4 nights but would like to book them on nights were the dinning room isn't appealing.

 

 

 

Thank you. Have a great time.

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Hev1128

Hev1128

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I grew up in South Jersey (Voorhees!) but now living on the PA side. Lots of Phillies and Eagles fans! Hoping the Sixers game will be on too.

 

Medford here! Good luck finding philly sports!

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Falckon

Falckon

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Can you post as many bar menus as possible? I am trying to find out if certain drinks are under the $15.00 UBP limit. In particular, woodford reserve and gentleman jack bourbon/whiskey, painkiller, and bacardi mojitos.

 

Check out this review by BirdTravels, https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2624246

 

She photographed almost every menu and drink list on the Escape. It was a great review.

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