wilmingtech

100$ of OBC per room. We were almost 10 months out from final payment. We ended up canceling, not because the itinerary but life stuff had changed and it would have been challenging to make it work. Plus we figured the prices of these cruises will drop as all the Israel/Egypt cruises are now Greek isles. So if we want to jump on at a later date we might get a better deal.

The original cruise had no Canal transit. It was Athens > Haifa > Jerusalem (Overnight)> Alexandria (Overnight)> Ephesus>Athens But I totally understand the changes considering what is going on. I am a little surprised the decision is being made over a year out but it's probably easier to make port arrangements now than waiting until 6 months out. I'm assuming at this point all 2025 Israel cruises will be changed. I'm really just wondering if the pricing for this cruise will drop now that its a Greek Isle cruise.

JUST A PSA for anyone wanting to cruise to Israel. We are booked on the 11 day Israel/Egypt cruise in March of 2025 and just got notified that it was changed to a Greek Isle Cruise. https://www.celebritycruises.com/cruises?search=departurePort:ATH|startDate:2025-03-01~2025-03-31 Looks like this might end up being the way for all of 2025 at this point. New itinerary: Date Port of Call Arrive Depart Fri Athens (Piraeus), Greece 5:00 PM Sat Thessaloniki, Greece 10:30 AM Sun Thessaloniki, Greece 2:00 PM Mon Ephesus (Kusadasi), Turkey 9:00 AM 10:00 PM Tue At Sea Wed Limassol, Cyprus 8:00 AM 5:00 PM Thu At Sea Fri Rhodes, Greece 8:00 AM 5:00 PM Sat Heraklion (Iraklion), Crete 8:00 AM 5:00 PM Sun Athens (Piraeus), Greece 7:00 AM Mon Athens (Piraeus), Greece DEBARK

This couple is currently posting shorts daily while on the 10 day (What used to be Israel/Egypt) Greek cruise. https://www.youtube.com/@laurieGaryCruise/shorts

https://www.instagram.com/aderobertsdotcom/p/C2CXL4mo-ri/?ref=qO7TCpz5tIDjy&hl=af&img_index=1 https://www.instagram.com/aderobertsdotcom/reel/C27FbgpoI9q/ https://www.instagram.com/cruisecelebrity/reel/C2Su9RkNwB8/

@david_sobe we just got off the Escape. It was our first post pandemic cruise. Our last one was in the Haven on the Joy in December of 2019. Here is what my experience was - Alcohol Package - Same as you, we may have a couple drinks on a date night or a glass of wine at dinner but for us to hit the $300 in grats for the 2 of us it would have been 20-25 drinks. We may have had 6-8 drinks all week plus we brought wine on board so we didn't need the drink package. Our room cleaning fees were 25% of what we paid for this cruise. $560 for 4 of us for a week. The funny part is that I removed 360 of it and our room steward was awesome so he ended up with 300 in cash and we cashed tipped a bunch of others during the week as well so I think I would have made out better if we had just left the auto grats. 2 specialty dining is standard now. Our first NCL cruise it was a flat fee and specialty dining whenever you wanted it. My how it has changed. Internet was 5 hours for free. My wife didn't need it. I didn't use all of it because we had cell/internet in most ports. But it's a page to log in and I had to log in with my name birthrate and when my time was up I logged in with my wife's name/birthday. Once you log in I believe it tracks your Mac address so not sure if you can log in with the same account on 2 different devices. I have seen posts where you can use a travelrouter to log in and share that way but doesn't seem worth it for the 5 free hours. We booked 2 NCL cruises in the pdt 3 months (This Escape cruise and an Alaska cruise in August) We got 250 in OBC from our TA on the Escape cruise and 400 OBC on our Alaskan cruise. I think you need a new TA. We got our 3rd and 4th free with the special NCL was having when we booked. And Miami might not get all those ship but you have so many ports within a few hours drive. You can't complain 😀 It's much more limited options here in the PNW!

No problem @cat shepardI have learned so much from this site and all the other cruisers out there that I try to give back what I can to spread the love around. Cruising has people from all aspects of life and each one has things they like and don't like and I can respect that. I think it's good to get different views from different people and try to decide what will work best for you. Have a great time in February! It's really not a bad ship you just have to find where you fit in.

This web site is called "Cruise Critic" is it not ? 😁 This was our 4th cruise on NCL. We have now been on 4 different classes of their ships and we do love the service they have provided on all of our sailings with them. The food while not exquisite, was pretty good overall. We enjoyed most of it and the best thing about cruising is if we don't like it we get something else that we do like. It is fun to try new things and not feel bad about spending money on a plate of food that you are not going to eat or seeing a show and walking out, maybe because there are better things to do. And we love being on the ocean, exploring new places, great entertainment and throw in all the food you can eat all within a walk from your sleeping room, its our favorite type of vacation.

"OP needs to find a different line to cruise on - @zqvol Curios as to what part of the review makes you think we didn't like NCL? "or else a different type of holiday altogether - @zqvol And what part of the review all together lends itself to not liking cruising at all? And after reading the review what recommendations do you have? Thanks!

From Marine Traffic -

Epilogue - "The Spa" On Day 6 we ended up with an additional $200 of OBC from NCL for the cancellation of Great Stirrup Cay. With less than 48 hours to spend it, I told my wife and daughter to go get passes for the spa and they could have special time on the last day of the cruise. So that is what they did. Keep in mind that this is a story that was told to me and I was not there so I may not have all the details 100% correct. I got to see them at lunch and they were laughing and had so many stories to tell but really didn't want to say anything until dinner when we were all sitting down and they could give us the full experience of what they got to do in the spa. I was intrigued. The two of them had a great time using the heated loungers, going into the salt bath and using the sauna and steam rooms. Sadly the therapy pool was closed because of the waves we had on that last day. But the thing that really got them was how poor the conditions were in the spa and that the customer service from the NCL representatives in the spa was just awful. It was so bad they could only laugh about how poor it was. The first interaction with the ladies was when they got their that morning. We had come in the previous evening to buy passes for day 7 and were told that you could only buy them in the morning and it was on a first come, first served basis depending on how many people were in the spa that morning. They would typically only give out about 10 of the day passes. So the next morning my wife and daughter got to the gym at 7:45 and told the person behind the desk that they were there early so that they could buy a day pass. The NCL rep told them they would not be available until 8am. My wife said that was fine, they would just wait in the gym until 8. She said the person seemed agitated that they were waiting in the gym and after 5 minutes just said - "you can have your passes now". She said the NCL person made her feel like she was not part of the club and it was a privilege for my wife to get passes. So they were off to a great start. My wife decided that she just may be interpreting the person wrongly, so they did not let this bother them but rather they went into the spa and got set up on their heated lounges to read books and enjoy the views of the ocean off the front of the ship. After a while they decided to go an try out the salt bath. Reports are this did wonders for my daughters breathing and skin. They really enjoyed it. After that they went to use the Sauna. My wife had gone to the bathroom and my daughter had gone to open the Sauna and couldn't get the door to come unstuck. She noticed a crack along the wood and decided she would go use the restroom. My wife came back and unbeknownst to her as my daughter had not mentioned anything, my wife tugged at the door and it wouldn't open. She said she looked around the door and made sure the hinges were on the correct side and it wasn't supposed to slide and/or open in. So she gave it one more good tug and CRAAAAAACK the piece of wood that had already been split exploded into shrapnel and parts went flying everywhere. They went to get someone from the Spa to help and immediately they were made to feel like they had done something wrong and on purpose to damage the ship. After this they went into the steam room. My wife said that there were just little things all along the way that showed the ships age and that many things were not fixed or repaired. In the steam room alot of the tile pieces on the sitting area were chipped and sections of them had fallen off and not been replace. They then went into the Ice room and she said it was dangerously slippery on the floor in there. Ice had piled up and no one had bothered to scrape it off the floor. All you would need is a small shovel and clear the path to the seats but she said it was unlevel and slippery. She did say someone had put towels down on top of the ice to keep from slipping but it just showed that no one from NCL was paying attention. After lunch they went to the Gym to workout and of course they wanted to use the showers there in the spa because, why not? So they got thier workout in and headed over to the locker room and showers. My wife said she tried to open the shower door but it would not open. She tugged at it a little and then remembered what had happened earlier in the day. So she went to the desk again and asked for help. The NCL person seemed highly annoyed at this point that my wife was asking her to come help with the shower door. The person followed her in and tightly grabbed the door handle and looked at her and said "You have to grab the handle tight and pull hard". That's exactly what was going through my wife's head when she went to open the Sauna that morning. The NCL rep was able to open the door and went back to her post behind the spa desk. As soon as my wife started taking a shower she realized now why the door wouldn't open. There was no latch or magnet on the door. So everytime the ship tipped from one side to the other, the door would swing open and she would "eeek" and grab the door quickly shut. She said it looked like a person may have wedged the door shut with the rubber seal to keep it from constantly open and close throughout the day. So she finished her shower one handed. One hand for her and one hand for the ship (door). Lastly the area where the water and oranges were was just that. When we have used the spas on ships before they have always cut the fruit and had some other snacks as well as ice water and fruit slices. You know, just the little things that make it look like its worth the 80$ a day you are paying to use the facility. But none of that here. She said the water container was sitting on the counter half full (Assuming because of the motion of the ship) of warm water and a half dozen oranges unpeeled on a plate. My wife and daughter had a great time in the spa. They really enjoyed it but they said that the service here was unlike any of the service they got else where on the ship. The spa was poorly maintained and it just wasn't up to the level of what they expected a spa on an NCL ship to be. Really the biggest complaint was the service and it wasn't a single person. She said it seemed to be the attitude of all the employees at the spa. As if you were not there to get a treatment then we don't have time for you. Alright. If you made it this far, you have made it to the end, thanks for sticking it out. We have one more NCL trip planned in August on the much smaller (tiny) Sun out of Seattle on a 10 day cruise to Alaska. Really looking forward to that one and I think it will be quite different than most of the cruises (Including Norway) that we have done up to this point. After that we are on Celebrity in 2025 and possibly another winter cruise again next December.

Bits and Pieces - Here I will leave all the little things and notes that I missed throughout this review. Mostly because I couldn't go back and make edits. Also I'll wrap up with a summary of the week. Wi-Fi & Cell - Between my wife and I we had 300 minutes (5 hours) of free internet from the FAS package that came with our booking. I did not use any of it until the last 2 sea days. I've used NCL's FAS Wi-Fi before so I am familiar with how it works. 1. Airplane mode (Even if you are in port and connected to cellular) 2. Connect to the Wi-Fi. 3. Once you are connected to the Wi-Fi you can use the NCL App (You'll be on the ships inTRAnet) 4. To connect to the inTERnet you need to go to the "digitalseas.io" webpage and specifically "log into" the inTERnet. You can get to the digitalseas.io webpage by either clicking on connect to the internet in the app, or your phone or laptop should redirect to that page automagically to get you online. I found it easiest just to bookmark and go there to sign in and out of the internet. ProTip - If you do not log off the internet from the digitalseas.io page and wait for it to show you that you logged off, your timer just keeps running. So if you are sitting at the bar waiting for your wife to join you to go to the show and you are browsing and she comes up and says lets go and after the show you realize you did not log off, you just lost 2 hours of internet. Cruise Critic is "Free" on the inTRAnet but its so slow it's unusable. When you are on the internet itself it works fine for web pages and email but it's not fast at all. I think I often had less then 1mb download speeds and 2mb upload speeds as I checked each time that I logged in and it seemed to be consistent. The latency always seemed to be the issue with ~700-1000ms and the initial connection and download was delayed by up to 10 seconds at times. On all the Islands (EC - DR, St Thomas, Tortola) we had cellular data, calls and texting for free with T-Mobile. St. Thomas was definitely the best experience of the 3 as it is in the USVI. It was consistent coverage where we were at in DR but slow and Tortola was hit and miss depending on where we were on the Island. 3 out of the 7 days we were on the ship we were able to get caught up on email, send texts to family and friends and make calls if we had to without issues. NCL App - This works like an App from 2010. Its about that good. Like the ship design, its clunky and not well thought out. It does help with some things but I really challenge NCL here to use their own products or bring in a new outside company to help with this. It was like this pre-covid and I was hoping that post covid they would have spent some down time in their offices working on making it better but I am guessing that didn't happen. Rather than a revamp it feels like they just added more stuff to it. Things I did like were the ability to make reservations from the app right when I got on the ship, looking at our reservations daily and taking a quick look at the daily schedule and what was currently happening on the ship. It's not horrible but certainly could use some love. The TV - What is it with cruise ship TV's? How hard is it to get all of your 16:9 TV channels to be 16:9 and fill the full space of the 16:9 screen? When clicking through the channels some were full screen 16:9, many were pillar boxed and squished and others were strangely window boxed. I have no idea what they are doing on the technical side of things but again it feels like all the other NCL products where its a great idea but at some point it just gets missed and no one pays attention. The onboard TV menu to access the same things in the app was nice. Clunky on a TV screen but we were able to make our reservations for our tender (that never happened) without too much fiddling around. Room Power - There is a card in a slot as you come in the door. When that card is pushed down the power in the room (Including the outlets) is ON. When that card is pulled up the power (Including the outlets) is OFF. Pro Cruise Tip - This card also turns on and off the "At Home" indicator light on the outside of the room, letting the room steward know if you are there or no. So if you do not pull the card out, the steward may think you are in the room. You don't have to pull the card all the way out, just lift it up enough to get the lights to shut off. Its on a 1 minute timer as well so they will not go out right away. Stinky Dad - It s a small room and sometimes when dad has to go he can stink the whole place up. We found that when dad stinks it up, if you leave the bathroom door and the balcony door open at the same time and then slowly open the cabin door it will create a wind vortex and suck the stink right out to sea. Be careful though because the vortex is really strong and can take the door right out of your hands or make it almost impossible to open the cabin door. No cabin speaker - On other ships we have been on there has often been a speaker in the cabin you can turn on or off so that you can hear the announcements. We did not seem to have one on this ship and had to open the door to hear the announcements in the hallway when they made them. No Observation Lounge - There was no lounge anywhere on the ship that had panoramic views of the ocean. Not even in the Haven. We really missed this as it has always been one of our favorite places to be on all of the previous ships we have sailed. One of the places we did like to hang out for a drink while we were on the water was the District. This was probably one of our favorite venues to spend time in other than the waterfront. Best Bar & Bartender - Hidden in the upper decks of the forward port side of the ship are 2 hot tubs. There is also some seating as well and this is where you will find the entrance to The Vibe. We did not have access to The Vibe but there is a little bar right at the entrance and this is where we found to have the best drinks. If "Oliver" is there, tell him you have read all the reviews online and that they everyone is talking about "Oliver" as the best bartender in the NCL fleet. He really was a great bartender and everyone on our cruise that were sitting there agreed it was the best place to get a drink. Pro Cruise Tip - The stairs up to this area were often corded off because of the wind and waves but you could go up to 17 in the elevator (Only time we took it) and walk right out onto the deck and even though the signs said it was closed, the bar there at the Vibe was open and there were a handful of people sitting around drinking and using the hot tubs. Overall Wrap Up - It was really nice to be on a ship at sea again. We all had a wonderful time and as critical as I have been about the ship, I had no regrets and honestly the service from NCL was superb in the dining, bar and in our stateroom. We loved Tortola, St. Thomas seems to be a standard stop for any Eastern Caribbean port and we could take or leave the DR. We had a good bit of waves heading out and heading back which all seemed to be contributed by the big storm that came through the east coast the week after our cruise. It did not bother us at all, we enjoy the waves but I will say after the first sea day the number of people out and about for the remainder of the week were much less than on Vacation Day. The Escape was an odd bird. This sailing seemed to be alot more older, retired, drinking, local FL cruisers than what I have seen on our past cruises. There was a point at Choir of Man where they were ramping up the audience and people were getting into it and my daughter and I looked down the row and there was not one face under 65 in the entire row, not one of them were smiling or clapping or singing along. My son said that the NCL person who was running Entourage said there were only 170 teens the week we were on the ship compared to over 800 for the next week. Winners - Syd Normans house band, Moderno and The Choir of Man. Losers - The smokey Casino, The ships layout and lack of an observation lounge and Howl at the Moon. Would we sail the Escape again? Probably not. If you like drinking, gambling, smoking and eating then the Escape would probably be a great ship for you. The smoke and no observation lounge would keep us from booking on this ship again. PS - On the way home in the car my son pulled up some Fleetwood Mac on his spotify account. He put on the Rumors album to relive his night at Syd Norman's and stops about halfway through the album and says, "Dad, I think the Syd Norman's band sounded better than Fleetwood Mac"

Finality - The last day. We had no schedule to keep or place to be when we got off the ship. Our plans were to go meet some friends in Orlando after lunch when we disembarked and then spend 2 days with my wife's parents before we flew home on Monday night. We had put out all our bags the night before and we each had a backpack to carry off with us. We had our last breakfast meal and my wife told everyone to enjoy it because we wouldn't need to eat for the rest of the week once we got off the ship. I kind of felt the same. Pro Tip - On this specific itinerary (Eastern Caribbean) you put your clock behind for an extra hour of sleep before you get into port on the last day. I set my alarm for 7am and was up at 6am local time because I forgot about that before I went to sleep. No need to change the time on your alarm clock, just set it for one hour later than the time you want to get up at and enjoy the extra rest. Breakfast was good but I was done with food, especially the high sodium food for the week. I was looking forward to home cooked meals and salads again. We said good bye to a few of the crew we connected with and some of the people we had met that week. Usually I feel like the toddler who throws themselves on the ground and has a fit when it's time to disembark but on day 8 of this cruise I was ready to go. After breakfast we had gone out to the waterfront to sit for a little bit and just relax for one last moment until 9-930 or so for most of the lines to die down. Disembarkation went well. There are always lines when 5000 people get off a ship but the lines moved quickly and it was as expected. As we got off the gangway my wife said there was a sign as that directed people that were not priority to go to the right to get bags but the security guard that was there as we walked off the gangway was insistent that we all go to the left. When you get off the ship there are 2 places to pick up bags, one to the right side of the room when you get off the ship for high priority persons (Haven, Latitudes, suites, etc.) and then unseen to us, as we came down the ramp for priority, on the other side of the immigration area on the left side are the bags for the rest of us. This seemed to throw people off we were walking with as they got off the ship. We grabbed our bags and got to the waiting area for Avis to pick us up and again they were spectacular. We waited no more than 15-20 minutes and we were back in the rental car and on our way by 1030am.

We had 4 in our cabin. Mom Dad, 18yo D, 16yo S. It was tight. I haven't stayed in a mini suite but when we looked at upgrading we found that you won't get you more living space per se but will give you a larger bathroom and possibly a larger balcony. There may be exceptions to this that I am not aware of such as the odd placed room or non-haven suites. Will it work for 3? With the room we were in It really depends on the people in your party. There isn't any space for more than one person to walk back and forth to the bathroom from the beds without one person sitting while the other walks by. When someone is in the bathroom, everyone else will have to wait, with the larger sink in a mini suite it could possibly be shared with a husband/wife or siblings (people who comfortably live together)while getting ready. We used the balcony often (Especially me and my son) to get changed when the girls were in the bathroom getting ready. My daughter used the balcony to change a few times as well (Not while in port mind you). You cannot really sit at the desk to do any writing or laptop work while people are in the room with you. The seat was an ottoman and not comfortable. We left it on the balcony as a third seat out there. If anyone in your party needs their own "space" it wouldn't work out. But if you are well travelled and have tiny RV and tenting experience and being a little crowded doesn't bother you then it'll work just fine for 3 people. I'd have no issues with it but I am really easy going and can make just about anything work, especially on a cruise. For someone older and less agile or who likes their personal space it might be tight for 3 people.

The "Escape" Overall the Escape is like a patchwork quilt. Nothing in the design and layout of the ship seems to flow together. It's big. It's got lots of places to go and sit. Lot's of things to do. But other than the Casino flowing through the middle of the ship most things don't seem like they belong there. It feels very "compartmentalized". Starting from the 6th floor, this is where the guest services are, right on top of the atrium and internet services cafe. Behind the Atrium there is the Cafe. This space always seemed loud and crowded. There was never enough seating for all the events that were there and it just wasn't properly planned out to be used as a "Theater" space for the constant game shows and guest interactions that they have there. They bring in additional folding chairs but it just reminds me of a school cafeteria being used for the Christmas Play. The LED wall is interesting and works but many of the LED panels have been replaced on the main screen and the mismatched colors of the squares show that they have never taken the time to balance the colors on the panels after replacing them. Granted its harder to balance LED panels from different batches but the LED wall just looks horrid. In the middle of the ship is LeBistro, Teppanyaki and Headliners. There is only a single staircase from here up to the 7th floor and often during the evening it was closed for pictures. Again it always felt crowded in this space. As you walk towards the back you come to the Mixx Bar and Savor and Taste. This area actually looked nice and worked well. It's probably the best looking and most comfortable spot on the 6th floor. The Library and Card room are tucked away in the atrium somewhere and the supper club is also hidden up in the front as well. (It's actually under the Escape Theater). Moving up to 7 we have O'Sheehan's which takes up one half of the open space of the seventh floor and the Casino which takes up the other half. O'Sheehan's works just like an Irish pub would back on land. There is a pool table and darts net to the bar which was always full. You can sit around the wall that hovers over the Atrium below and watch all the fun take place. There is also a restaurant area with seating and an Ice Cream bar where you can get delicious Sunday's for a few dollars each. One thing we did try in O'Sheehans and may have been fun was bowling. It's like miniature bowling. Here is what was weird about it. It's 6.99 a person per game. So for 4 people to play a string its $28.00. Ok. We can do this. Once you pay the game starts on a timer. You have 20 seconds to bowl your first ball. Even before you pay for the second person the timer has already started. By the time we figured this out we had paid for 3 people. I told my son to start before the time ran out. He rolled his first ball. Then his second and then the balls were stuck and didn't come back. So we sat there for a good 3 minutes while our turns were ticking off and had no balls to bowl. So we called the number taped onto the lane and a few minutes later an NCL employee showed up. By the time he got there the balls had resolved and were working. He asked us if we wanted to start over and we said no, we just wanted our money back. So he refunded us the $21 we had spend so far. Just a heads up if you do want to bowl. It could be fun but be ready to go and have a few beers lines up because you wont be able to walk away once the bowling starts. The second half of the open space on the 7th floor is the Casino. It was smokey here the entire time. It also wafted up to the 8th floor as well. If you don't mind the smoke you'll have no issues but my daughter has allergies and smoke affects her breathing and honestly there wasn't a single day we walked through the ship and did not smell smoke. I will say having the Casino as a smoking area in the middle of the ship was a big let down for us. I know there are people this is wonderful for but that is just not us. The Manhattan dining room was great. We enjoyed our time there. The audio system needs some love and there are little things that I saw that were tacky but come from working in a night club. One was the neon tape on top of the monitors for the musicians. Something you would have in a night club so you don't trip over them but not something you would do in a classy restaurant. Also the cabling on the floor for the musicians in the Manhattan room was a mess. Nothing was neatly taped down or ran. All pet peeves of mine. Take the time to make it neat and make it sound good. Plugging it in until you hear a noise doesn't mean you have done your job. On the other side of the ship is the Escape Theater. And just like we saw on the Joy, the walls are all painted flat black with no treatments at all. Everything on the walls is flat black. The ceiling is too low to have proper lighting so they have installed rows of vertical pipe on the side walls to add more lighting into the theater. The sound system has 2 line arrays setup for an outdoor concert venue and whomever installed it definitely did not design it for the room. They just put in what they were familiar with to make it work. The only treatment at all is the square strips of colored fluorescent lighting across the ceiling which also looks cheap and flimsy. It really is awful. To give you an idea of what I mean, google "Royal Caribbean Theater", "Disney Cruise Ship Theater" and "Norwegian Escape theater" and without even knowing anything about production you will see what I mean. During each performance I sat in this theater for(Including Choir of Man) they had microphone issues and feedback. There was poorly focused lighting as well. I feel bad for the performers the most because it's really a lot harder to be on your game when the production level for the space you are working in is so low. Finally we get to Deck 8 of the 6-7-8 (So creative NCL!) This was probably our favorite deck because we enjoyed sitting out on the Waterfront. It was the most flowing of each of the 4 decks (6,7,8, 16) on the ship. Walking through past La Cucina, The Pour House and into the circular opening where the shops begin was a better design than the other 2 floors. Sadly we often smelled smoke from the Casino as we walked past the opening up on 8 as well. Walking towards the back you get into the Prime Meridian bar and Cagneys and Modernos. All nicely done. Then taking a walk along the outside of the ship is wonderful and there was always plenty of unused seating on our trip. If you get out here during the day while the restaurants are closed, bring some games or cards and sit out there with the family and enjoy the ocean. It really is wonderful. We also enjoyed the District and Food Republic on 8 although again, the design of the ship does not flow into these restaurants. They seem to be separated into their own space and you have to make it a point to visit them. As you get up to the Lido deck, this was the worst layout of any Lido deck I have ever been on. As you come out into the pool area you will notice the pool is closed off on each side by the hot tubs. And the chairs on the outside of these hot tubs face away from the pool. In front of the pool is the stage so no seating there and behind the pool is the bar so no chairs there either. This made the pool kind of "enclosed" So if you wanted to enjoy the pool you had to sit in it. It was really strange and again felt compartmentalized. Really if you wanted to enjoy the pool at all the best place was the bar downstairs or if you go to the upstairs bar, you get a good view from their as well. Moving to the kids pool this was weird as well. There were 3 sections here. One for the slides, one for the "Main Pool" and one for the kids area. This was strange. The middle area is called the "Main Pool" but there is no way to see it or see anyone in it including your kids unless you are standing there. It is cut off from all pool side seating. The slides are what they are and the kids area is great for kids but only faces a small section of seating that is separated by the walkway to the buffet. I did not even know this was there until my kids pointed it out toward the end of the cruise. I just thought it was the kids pool. But its 7' deep. No Seating at the Main Pool Speaking of the Buffet. It is the worst layout of any buffet on any ship I have been on. Don't ever tell someone you will meet them at the "Buffet" as there are 2 different entrances, starboard and port and you cannot get from one side to the other without either walking into the buffet around the bar and to the other side of the buffet which is probably the easiest. The second option is walking out of the buffet and up the stairs and over the other stairs that come down on the other side of the buffet. The third option is walking out past the kids pool and cutting through the walkway around the main pool, slides and kids area. It's really wonky. The buffet continues around in a single line all the way down one side and across the back and all the way down the other side. Its a big U shape. Plenty big and we always seemed to be able to find a seat even on the busiest days. But the interesting thing was that right in the middle of the buffet behind the counters where you would think they have kitchen and prep areas is the Aft staircase and elevators. So if you used the Aft stairs and elevators to go up to 16 to go to the pool or the sports area you had to wash your hands even if you were not going to eat in the buffet. It was a weird layout. And no outdoor seating. American Diner was wasted space on this cruise. Up on the 17th deck, for it's location it has potential to be one of the best places to hang out on the ship. I am certain it was when it was Margaritaville, but sadly no more. We rarely saw anyone using this space. They do have free breakfast here if the buffet is overcrowded and you want a quiet spot. Pro Cruise Tip - They have a water fountain here at American Diner like they do in the Buffet. When you are up in the Sports Deck and playing soccer or basketball and need to fill your water bottle don't go all the way back down to the buffet, just hit American Diner because sadly there is no water available where you would most likely think it would be on the sports deck. Speaking of the sports deck, this is where they have mini golf, bocce, ropes course and if you go up one more they have the basketball court where they have pickup basketball games and soccer games through the week. (Sorry but I did not see any pickleball as all on our cruise). It is up and out of the way and again just feels compartmentalized. We did play mini golf and had a great time playing Bocce (Although the green is wonky) but we all got to do the ropes course. Do know, for the girls especially, that you need to wear a T-Shirt with sleeves, have shorts that come to your knees and wear sneakers or shoes that cover your feet (No Sandals) This is because the harness will come down the back of your thighs and under your armpits. No one wants your leg or armpit sweat all over the harness so cover it up. We knew it was Shorts, T-Shirt and Sneakers but the girls shorts were too short so they had to go get leggings on. Of course I did not wait for them to come back. I went up on the ropes course by myself and it was pretty fun. The best way to do it is to NOT HOLD YOUR SAFETY ROPE! Try doing it with no hands! Its really easy doing each section while holding the safety rope but try your balance with your hands out and see how far you can get. When I went by myself, the zipline part that went out over the ocean was closed because of the wind. When my wife came back and went with my daughter, my wife gave the NCL employee working the ropes her best Karen stare down and he folded and said "For you maam, you can go on this zip line". So my daughter and wife both got to do that part and I did not get to do it. The ropes are great. I meant to go a second time but it did not work out for me. Overall there are many parts of the ship that seem discombobulated. Lots of areas on the ship that seem to have potential but overall they get lost in the poor design. Finally on the last episode - All the odd parts and pieces.

"The Entertainment" As we all know by now, my profession is in production. I work in the layout, design, installation and operation of Audio Visual and Computer services for large corporate events. Because of this I often have a very critical eye and ear when it comes to the setup of production in the entertainment venues on a ship. This includes everything from the layout of the audio system, use of lighting and video in the entertainment space, the flow of people into and out of the venue and sightlines from the audience. Keep this in mind as we review the entertainment and venues on the Escape. In this particular episode I will talk about the entertainment itself and whether or not it was, well.. entertaining. I'll focus on the nuts and bolts a little later as I get into the last installment when I talk about what you all came here to read, the ship itself. We took the time this week to watch 4 different Entertainment shows on the Escape. We also got to see the live music in the Manhattan Club and hear some of the live music in and around the ship including the atrium and the pool deck. I'll take them in order as we saw them - The first show was the magic show with French Canadian Magician Titou. Honestly it wasn't much. Not much new as far as magic goes and having English as a second language did not help his jokes at all. If I remember I think he kind of waited for a response after the delivery which always makes it worse. Some of the jokes were slow to pick up. If you miss his show you are not missing much. Any kids younger than 8 will have a hard time paying attention and younger than 14 them may understand some of what's going on but the setup for the tricks just wasn't that great. This was in the main theater and as always with NCL I am constantly let down by the production level and AV setup in their main theaters. More on that later. The second show we saw was "Rumors" by Escape's house band in Syd Normans. I am not a huge Fleetwood Mac fan but my wife has always been a fan and it was a must see show for my daughter. If you are a fan of Fleetwood Mac this show by this band was fantastic. They did the entire album in order as it would play on an LP even mentioning when the album was ready to be turned over. In between songs each one of the performers would take turns and give some history of what was happening with the band and relationships between the band members and where they recorded the songs and the nuances of the band members when recording. We got into the venue about 45 minutes before it started and were able to get bar chairs at the tall rounds in the back. By the time the show started it was a packed house standing room only. If this is a must see for you I suggest getting a couple of drinks and get there an hour early. Be ready to entertain your group with good conversation and they do have a bar right there if you need a refill. The vocalists in the Syd Norman's house band were not just singers, they were performers. I would bet money that each of them had a theatrical stage background. The vocals and harmonies between the 4 performers were dialed in and in addition to singing they sold each of the parts they were playing. We saw this over 2 more performances in Syd Normans when they did 80's covers (Prom Night) and also another performance which I believe was called Rock the House. The sound system in this room was dialed in. This is what I enjoyed most about it. Whoever designed the speaker system did a great job. They had delay speakers perfectly set up so that no matter where you stood in the room the sound was solid. @Stealthdog mentioned in his review that the sound was too loud but I strongly disagree for the type of performance this was. It was just loud enough to drown out any individual singing in the crowd but not so loud that the sound was distorted and speakers blown out. Here is a short recording I took on my phone and you can tell in the recording the phones microphone is getting pushed a little bit but honestly for a phone mic at a live concert this recording sounds really good and shows some of the talent with the vocalist and audio engineer. Last and certainly not least, the band was phenomenal. Their guitarist covered almost all parts by himself without a 2nd guitar. Some of the guitar parts were covered by the Keyboardist but overall these guys were stellar. The base player was solid and carried the band and keeping everything tightly knit together. And the drummer sounded great. His drum set was tuned (Which sadly was the only tuned drum set I heard on the ship) and he played it like a studio musician keeping all the parts as they were recorded and not going off on his own. Hands down this was probably the best live band I have heard on any cruise ship I have been on and they deserve a bigger venue. We did go back to see the band perform two more times through the week. Each time we were late (Got there after it started) and we literally had to squeeze through the crowd to find an open spot to stand (Usually over by the house left side by the sound booth door there was an empty spot). We enjoyed every performance this band had and would go see them again as well. The next live performance we got to see was "Choir of Man". We had no idea what this was going to be right up until the time we sat down to watch it. I had a bit of a time convincing my wife that she should come sit with me for a theatrical performance of 9 guys drinking in a bar while they hand the audience free beers. Her first comment when I told her about it was "Are they that good that they have to get the audience drunk before they even start the show?". During our meet and mingle she got a lot of good feedback about the show from some of the other girls and decided she would come and at least sit through the first couple songs. You see, my wife can't stand going to musical theater. Its not her thing. Not that we haven't been too some great performances over the years that she has enjoyed but if given a choice to sit in a dark theater to listen to someone sing through a play or go sit with some friends with a glass of wine while watching the ocean go by and knit a sweater, let me just say we never get cold in the winter. My wife doesn't drink beer. The performance started right at 7pm and it was 6:40 and our dinner was running behind. We talked about what we should do so we wouldn't loose our reserved seating. Do we just bail on our server and head over or do we wait for our food with a good chance we won't get seating and will miss the show? My wife had chosen on this night to just have salads and some shrimp and while we were all waiting for our main course she happened to be finished with hers for the night. So she volunteered to head down to the theater and save our seats. She also loves me so much that she said she would go up and get a beer for me if we happened to get back after they stopped serving beer. Our food hit the table 10 minutes later and we were on it like a pack of wolves on a rabbit in the middle of winter. We got to the theater at 6:55 and Wifey had our seats and a beer for me when we walked in. I was also able to get my own second beer before the performance started. I will say the performance was stellar. These guys really just love what they do. They all have buy-in to the performance and I think each one of them is well connected to the characters they play. They are well rehearsed and have worked hard to come up with 9 distinct harmonious voices that will touch each person in the audience in some way shape or form. The true heart of these performers really brings the show to life. The choreography is great. We hooted and hollered, we laughed and we cried. My wife stayed for the entire performance and it was a standing ovation from the audience at the end of the show. I think I would go back and see it again. I think my wife, whilst she enjoyed it, would say that she has already seen it and would choose to do something else. But the cast for the "Choir of Man" on the Escape is excellent. Some other mentions around the ship - The bands that we heard in the Atrium and by the pool (Blue Travelers) were standard top 40's bands. I think the best thing I heard from them was a Bob Marley tribute on one of the nights in the atrium. The keyboardist was very talented, singers were very lacking and just couldn't find themselves in the music selections they were singing. The drummer and base player were on there own and the drums were out of tub=ne when we heard them. They were just there to fill the gap. We loved the couple who played in the Manhattan Room for the one night we saw them. My regret is only seeing them perform for that one night and not getting to see them again. I do not know what they were called but they both sang, he was on keys and she played saxophone and the guiros and it was stellar. We also spent an hour or two at Howl at the Moon. I have been to quite a few of these dueling piano performances and alot of the energy really depends on the audience. And this audience was quite a mix. The requested songs they had to play were from Pit Bull to Ben Folds, Mariah Carey to Billy Joel and even played a requested Medley of American Patriotic songs. They really struggled to get the energy going. They also had an out of tune drum set that filled in the empty space when the energy was lacking. All 3 were talented pianists and made it work with what they were given but none of them could sing very well and though they rotated and took breaks they often seemed tired. It didn't help that they were in the Comedy Club and the audio system in there was the worst of any location on the ship. It works for hearing the piano and singing along to the songs but the acoustics in this room are hollow and flat and with more than half of the seats empty and people constantly getting up and leaving and coming in, it was probably the worst dueling pianos I have seen. Up next I will talk about our overall experience on the ship and try to wrap this up.

@big al I am sorry about your cabin being noisy. I wonder if your cabin had the same issue as ours with the plastic piece on the end of the curtain rail. It was annoyingly loud and creaky until I fixed it. If I cannot sleep because of noise inside the cabin, I will spend all my sleep time trying to eliminate what I can. I am also in agreement with you on the movement of this ship. As I sat out on our balcony I wondered if this ships beam was too narrow for it's height or if it has stabilizers that are too small for it's size. I absolutely noticed that this ship rocked back in forth more than any other cruise ship I had been on and in much bigger seas than what the Escape was in on our cruise. I know this ship had an issue of listing in the past and also wonder if the damage from the grounding in 2022 had affected the stabilizers. I'll talk a little bit about the entertainment in my next installment. Jack was a little over the top. My kids didn't care for him much because he was like the "perfect" game show host and did his job almost a little too well. Like it was all scripted and not enough organic material and we just didn't connect with him. No fault to him though. Quite honestly he does his job very well. And I can see why so many people like him, looks and all. I'm surprised about Moderno! That was one of our favorite meals of the week! We stuck to the filet mignon and the top sirloin. We tried a few of the others but those were the winners. Sausage was gross, lamb was a little too gamey, chicken with bacon was chicken with...well, um bacon. So we kept asking for the top sirloin and filet to come back. The salad bar in Moderno was good for a cruise ship. My wife liked the shrimp and I think that was most of her uptake. Service was great. We sat outside as the sun set on Tortola and it was absolutely perfect weather. Everyone else sat indoors because of the wind but the outdoor seating at Moderno was on the leeward side and didn't affect us at all. Sunset from Modernos - Great meeting you at the District. Great hangout place and a better selection of beers this time around although the IPAs are limited and there were no porters or stouts other than Guinness. I agree with you about the ship. For it's size we all agreed it was a poor layout and not well thought out when it was designed. Thanks for all you have shared both on board and off!

Sometime between booking this cruise and getting to Tortola my daughter added "Drinking a Pina Colada on the Beach in Tortola" to her bucket list. So that became our mantra for the day. Finding the perfect beach chair, ordering a Pina Colada and relaxing in the sand with the Caribbean Blue in front of us and all the cares of the world behind us. In order to accomplish this goal we had to first find the beach and then find the bar and then find the chair and put it all together. Out of the 3 stops on this cruise, the Itinerary for Tortola is the toughest as we get in at 6am and leave by 2pm. All Aboard is 1:30. In order to make the most time of our day, we have to be up at 5:30 in the morning, get ready, go get breakfast and then meet our guy with the rental car. About two weeks out from the cruise I connected with Kendell who runs "Advanced Auto Rentals" right there in Road Town. After a phone call and an email we were all set to go. Kendell drove the car right to the port and made it as easy as could be wrapping up the payment and rental right there in the parking lot before we headed out for the day to find the best beach to have a pina colada in Tortola. The first thing to note right off the bat, Kendell tells me, "We drive on the left side and the car is left hand drive, no worries you will figure this out man". I have driven in London and Australia before so how hard could it be in Tortola? So we all pile into the car with our beach gear and towels, I thank Kendell for the excellent service and for making it so easy for us and we jump into the car and we are off. Right off the bat, Wifey is reminding me to get over to the left side of the road. Hey...I got this alright? Kendell invited us to drive through town and visit a few places but we had other plans. We were going to go straight over the top of Tortola to head right into Brewers Bay. I had read that it was a quiet beach and that Nicole's Beach Bar was right there on the beach and had great Pina Coladas. This was going to be quick, easy and fun. Through town we go. Left Side! Left Side! We get to the base of the mountain and the road narrows. Up it goes, steep, steep , steep. Some of these roads must be on a 25-30% grade. Maybe more in some parts. I quickly learn its best to honk the horn before you go around the corner. We zig zag across the face of this mountain and find ourselves behind a big truck that is giving it all it can to make it over this hill. The two cars between me and the truck have already sped up and overtaken it. I'm not doing that. We will just go slow and enjoy the view. Up over the top to some amazing views of the Island. Everyone's cameras are out taking pictures. As we go down the other side we come face to face with a "SafarI" This is an open air pickup truck with covered bench style seating across the bed. The truck is so big I cannot get around so I have to stop and back up the steep hill until a I get a corner where I have to pull off to the side and let the Safari through. Then drive back down the hill to some of the most amazing views of Brewers Bay. It is absolutely gorgeous. We get into the beach and park the car. As we get out I quickly realize a few things. First, it is 7:30 in the morning. Why would I think that a beach bar on a Caribbean island would be open at 7:30 in the morning? Second, it's high tide. There really is not much of a beach here. The water is all the way up to the trees and rock wall. We have to time the waves so we can get past the wall without getting completely soaked. Third, my wife and I notice there is quite a bit of hmmm... lets call it "couples trash" left along the tree line at this beach. It was pretty gross. So after about 30 minutes of walking up and down Brewers Bay we decide that this Beach is "too hard". We know that Garden Cane Beach is right on the other side of the cliff that jut's out into Brewers Bay. So back into the car we go. Off to find the next beach. Up over the next of zig zagging roads as we leave Brewers Bay. Let me just say that the corners are so tight and steep that some of the wheels are spinning off the ground as we go around them. Up to the top of the hill where there is a little bar with a beautiful overlook but it's too touristy and it's not a beach. So we drive past the overlook bar and head down into Cane Garden Beach. I notice some waves breaking off the point to my right so we drive out in that direction and go past a gas station and find an old run down mini golf place. We park there and walk along the rocks while we watch the waves peel around the corner. Its a pretty view from their of the rest of the bay. After about 10 minutes we head into Cane Garden Beach. Looking back into Cane Garden Beach As we get into Cane Garden we see that it is more of a town then Brewers Bay. They have a collection of shops and restaurants. Chairs line the beach to the left and to the right. Americanized beach shops with expensive trinkets, towels, bags and all kinds of touristy things. We park in the lot and walk around the shops for a few minutes. There are chairs and seats everywhere. We quickly notice a lady following us telling us all the things they have for us. My wife feels like they want us to just buy something or sit down so they can charge us for a chair. We feel kind of trapped like we are not allowed to just walk around. Even the bathrooms cost money to use. No where to go, beach chairs all along the way.... So we all pile back into the car. Cane Garden Beach was "too soft". As we pull out I forget that we are in Tortola and my wife quickly reminds me "Left honey... to the left" as the car in front of me flashes his lights and honks. I quickly swerve back to the left. We continue on through Can Garden, past the elementary schools and a local memorial and park where they are having a community program for the seniors. We drive through the other end of the town and the road quickly turns to dirt. It gets steep, goes up a dirt hill. We have lost cell signal at this point and have to breakout google maps to make sure we are headed in the right direction. We are attempting to drive around the west end of the island and I am not sure if the road that google maps says is there, even exists. So we continue on up the hills down the hills on the muddy dirt roads, grateful the car is all wheel drive. We finally come to a split in the road and we turn toward the water and right as we round the corner we see cars parked and a sign that says "Smugglers Beach". We park and get out of the car. This beach has 2 bars. A couple of chairs here and there and lots of beach to walk along and explore. The water is beautiful and the waves are perfect. This beach is "Just Right". So we unload and head down to the waterfront. We buy 2 pina coladas for my wife and I to share with my daughter. We find a beach chair to sit in and relax. Mission accomplished. My daughter had a few sips of her pina colada, checked off the box on her bucket list and then headed into the ocean to swim with her brother while my wife and I walked up and down along the beach. We could have stayed at this beach all day but a cruise ship waits for no man. After about 90 minutes at the beach we had to pack it up and head back toward the ship. We wanted to be back by 12:30 - 12:45 to get the car back and again we were unfamiliar with the roads and google maps said we were 40 minutes away from the port so we took that into account as well. It was an uneventful yet pretty drive back to the ship. We dropped off the car for Kendell and headed back onto the ship. The girls went straight onto the ship as my son and I had to use the bathroom and were not sure we could make the walk to the ship without a pit stop. As we went though the gate he pointed out to me that the all aboard sign at the port entrance indicated that we didn't have to be back until 4:30pm. I thought that must be wrong. Its probably for the Mein Schiff and someone put it in the wrong place. When we went to get dinged back into the ship, we asked the security officer and he said that it was true. We did not have to be back onto the ship until 4:30pm. At this point I am going a little crazy. I have gone through this schedule no less than 5 times. I checked the Freestyle that AM and it said 1:30pm all aboard. I know I heard CD Jack say 1:30pm over the loudspeaker before we walked off the ship? What is happening? We could have spent another 3 hours at the beach? We rushed back here to find out we could have drove the car around the island for another 3 hours? I wasn't a happy camper. Not at all. 15 minutes after we boarded CD Jack comes on the loudspeaker and tells us that Great Stirrup Cay has been canceled so the captain made the decision to stay 3 hours later in Tortola. Over the next day or two in conversations with other cruisers, we all had the same story. What a difference it would have made for all of us if they had made executive decision before we got off the ship to stay in Tortola late. And it is not like this came on all of a sudden as even our captain on the Castaway Girl had mentioned that we were lucky to have come when we did as the wind and waves over the next few days was supposed to get worse. One side note, the Mein Schiff had parked next to us after we pulled into port this am. Mein Schiff is German for "My Ship". And German it was. All of this lines ships are named "Mein Schiff 1", "Mein Schiff 2" and so on. Am I surprised at this German feat of creativity? Not at all. What I was surprised about was the collection of bicycles at Smugglers beach that all had "Mein Schiff" written on them. Surely they did not ride their bikes from the same port I just drove my car from, up those 25 percent grades and roads barely wide enough for 2 cars because the sides of the roads are crumbling apart? Why yes they did. Of course those Germans did.

In the last episode I mentioned Captain Mike. A few weeks before we left on our trip I realized that NCL had a Sail & Snorkel trip on a big catamaran for about $150 less than what it would be all in with Captain Mike. We typically wouldn't do a ship excursion for reasons previously mentioned but the savings were there so I went back and started doing a little research on both options. Captain Mike's trip was on a sailboat. From the videos it looked like there were about 6-8 seats under the shaded stern pulpit area and the remainder of the passengers sat up along the deck between the stanchions. I also saw that Captain Mike's trip only visited the turtle bay side of Buck Island and not the sunken ship and rocky jetty on the backside of the island. And finally the one thing that made me decide to switch last minute was the size of the catamaran on the NCL excursion. Even with a packed ship there would be room to get up and walk around, find some shade and stand up and see the views around the ship. So I sent Captain Mike an email and while he typically doesn't offer refunds this close out to the trip, he said that he did have a waiting list and was able to fill our spots so there would be no cost to us to cancel. So we canceled with Captain Mike and booked our first ever excursion with the cruise ship. On the day of the excursion we got off the ship and went to find our meeting area. It was right out and to the left of the ship as we walked off. We had planned on finding the meetup location and then walking around the shopping area for about 30-45 minutes and hustle back to meet up with the group at the appointed time. Right before we were to head over to the shops the rains started pouring down. So we found a dry spot under an NCL tent and waited for the rain to pass. 30 minute later we were standing in the line with the rest of the excursionists ready with our tickets to be herded off like cattle to the catamaran. That really was the worst part of it. Once we were on the boat we had a great time. There were about 60 people all together and it never felt crowded. The crew of the Castaway Girl did a great job of deploying all the gear and getting us over to Buck Island. The wind was blowing at us as head on as we headed out across the bay. The waves were a good 6-8 feet as Castaway Girl bounced a bit on our way out to Buck Island. Once we got over to the eastern/leeward side of the island the crew pulled into the little bay with about 4 or 5 other boats who were already there. We had already been given our snorkeling gear which came with a set of fins and once the anchor was down we were free to jump off the boat and go explore with the group or on our own. We listened to some of the instruction from crew who told us where the sunken ship was, where the outer boundaries were and what not to touch (Fire Coral). After that we were off. All of us have experience snorkeling so there was no reason to peddle around with the group. After taking a quick look at the sunken ship and seeing the ray buried in the sand and handfuls of tropical fish and sand dollars, we headed over toward the rocky shoal to go explore and see what we could find. There were quite a few fish, big and small and one larger (Barracuda?) that was about 3-4 feet long and hiding in the crevice of the cavernous rocky face. After about 20-30 minutes of exploring we decided we needed a break and headed back to the ship just as they were calling the group as a whole to come back aboard. Once we were all back up on deck they sailed over to where the sea turtle bay was. Once again we geared up, got our instructions and we were off to find turtles. This side of the bay was a sandy bottom with a kelp bed that the sea turtles liked to eat. Within 30 yards of the boat there we saw a large sea turtle having a kelp salad for lunch on the bottom of the sea. T he water was surprisingly clear for the amount of wind and waves we had on the way over. My daughter and I did not spend any time at the large sea turtle as we knew the group was right behind us and they would all stop there to watch. Instead we pushed on toward the outer boundary and happened upon 2 more turtles. One medium sized turtle with 2 plecostomus stuck on its back. A little further on we saw a much smaller turtle that was near the boundary of where we should be. At this point we turned back along the beach and circled back in the shallows to the ship. As we came around the back of the hip in the shallows we did not see much so we came around to the other side of the ship and back into the deep. Right as we came around the front of the ship that giant turtle we initially saw was surfacing from right below us. It was close enough that we could have reached out to touch him. But we just stopped and floated still on the surface of the water as he passed under us and surfaced on our other side. It was quite amazing and I only wish I had brought a camera to capture those moments. Shortly after that we were done and headed back to the ship. We all got back on safely and soon after the rum punch was served up for the quick sail back to the harbor. The crew of the Castaway Girl did a great job and we really had a good time. We walked back through the shops and got to the ship about an hour before all aboard. This was definitely the best day of the cruise. Headed out past the Escape - A full boat headed out to Buck Island - Plenty of room to move around - The end of the day - Next up - Satisfying the Bucket List

One of the things we truly enjoy as a family is the adventure. We love to travel and see new places and even more we love to meet, spend time with and share with people. As the planner my goal is to collect as much information as I can about the locations that we are visiting and try to create a fun way for us to see and explore something extraordinary. I am all about the experience and from what I have learned in life is that you must try new things. In trying those new experiences you'll more often than not (I'd say about 80% of the time) come away with nothing. That's where the research comes in. Trying to find someone who has done it before and got the nothing enough times that they know where and how to find the something. Learning from Big Al about the Monte Christo is a good example of this. He had the experience of over 40 cruises and trying all the nothings on the menu before and knew exactly where the something was and when it was going to be there. I will say that the timing of this cruise with my work schedule left me with very little hours to plan for this cruise. If you happen to be booked on the 7 day Eastern Caribbean cruise on the Escape, your itinerary will include a stop for the day at Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic, a jaunt over to St. Thomas for an afternoon and a skip over to Tortola for an early morning adventure. On this particular adventure, both the DR and Tortola would be new to us. On our previous adventures we had been to St. Thomas and got off the beaten path and spent a day in Honeymoon Beach. It was a bit of work getting there and back but the time at the beach itself was great. On a previous cruise we have also gone in with another small group and split the cost of getting a private charter to sail and snorkel. We knew this was something we really enjoyed and wanted to do again but we had to decide which Island would work best for this. After looking at our options in each location and reaching out to a dozen or so outfits in the different Islands, I decided that St. Thomas would be the best place to get on a boat and go snorkel. I had posted in our Roll Call on Cruise Critic and another FBocial media website and was unable to find someone willing to spit a charter with us. Captain Mike of the Fury was one of the few who got back to me with reasonable costs. It was also on a sailboat that had a smaller number of max passengers compared to some of the others. So I held a reservation with him and continued looking at options for other excursions in Puerto Plata and Tortola. In Puerto Plata I was initially interested in the cable car going up to the Isabel de Torres National Park. Some things that kept us away from here were the reviews stating about the long lines and waits for the Cable Car. There were 3 ships scheduled to be in port that day and we were the last ship scheduled to dock. That would put us in the back of any lines waiting to get up to the top of the mountains. I also looked at possibly hiking up the mountain which is doable but maybe not so much on a cruise stop. It was a good amount of vertical elevation for a short hike but had no clearly marked path going up and not a whole lot on All Trails about it. So that quickly faded away. In the end I decided we would hit Puerto Plata on foot and explore the local streets of this city of old. That left Tortola to explore and I decided the best way for all of us to see Tortola on the whole was to rent a car on our own. In Puerto Plata, one of the things I was most interested in was the local market. Not a touristy market but rather the market where the locals go to buy, sell and trade food, home items, crafts and the like. We have been to many local markets world wide and love to see and explore local cultures in these trading places. (One of my favorite markets of all time is the Chatuchak Market in Thailand, if you have never been, put it on your bucket list) I was unable to find a whole lot of information online about it excepting a few pictures online, I put the Mercado Municipal de Puerto Plata on the list of things to see. The other 2 areas on my list were the local shopping store "Sirena" and then the touristy "Umbrella Street" and finally the Fort de San Felipe. So let me just come right out and say that we were about 90% miss on this Puerto Plata adventure. As we came off the ship we were hit by a thick hot steamy vaporous wall of humidity. It was hot. After you walk down the pier you are herded through Taino Bay. This is a great place for tourist of all ages. Nothing about this appealed to us. If the pool on the ship was not big enough for you, Taino bay has a bigger pool with 3 ships worth of passengers and a lazy river with a limited amount of floaties to go around. If you are the only ship in town that day or you want to sit at a bar and buy stuff from Americanized touristy shops, this is your place. Its nice, clean and expensive. I will say that with the oppressive heat the pool and lazy river were very attractive. We quickly walked through Taino Bay and were immediately confronted with aggressive transportation costermongers. We fended them off for the first quarter mile and then we were free to walk into the city. They had police officers along the way who would stop traffic and get you across the busiest streets. We hoofed it through the touristy area and then up the hill to where the market would be. As we got close to the market we noticed a stench. We walked up the stairs to the parking lot where the opening of the market was and we saw there was a busted sewer line with raw sewage spewing out. It was gross. We held our breaths and quickly walked into the market. We all instantly had a feeling that we were in a place we should not be. Most of the market was farmers selling vegetables that looked like they had seen better days. I would say that there were more than a few shady characters and the smell from the sewer permeated the thick humid heat. We quickly walked through and then out of the market and felt like we were being stared at the entire way. As we came out of the Market we headed down the hill to the Malecon to walk along the main road that lines the beach. It was a much nicer walk out of the market and down to the Malecon. Once we hit the Malecon we headed right up the Sirena. This store was like an American Walmart. It was quite expensive though. We got the chance to talk to a couple from the UK who had lived there for 11 years and we met another expat there as well. They told us it was more expensive here in the DR than back home in the UK and we saw that as well with prices of things in the store. At this point it was jut after noon and we all got some water and Gatorade to rehydrate as well as some snacks to keep us going. Usually we would try some of the local fare but after going through the market there was not much that appealed to us. The last thing any of us wanted was to spend the next 5 days on the ship with TD. After Sirena we headed to Umbrella street which was a nice change of pace. We enjoyed the decor and the cars. People were friendly and helpful and we took some more pictures and then headed to the final stop, the Fort San Felipe. By the time we got to the entrance to the fort we were all pretty exhausted from the heat of the day. We ventured in far enough to make use of the bathrooms and then headed back to the ship. Hindsight I would have gone to the fort first to explore, then headed over to umbrella street for a drink and a snack and then back to Taino bay to quickly jump into the pool before heading back to the ship. We burned about 3 hours going to the Market and Sirena that we could have done without. We made it to December on the Malecon. Know that in the winter in the DR it is very rainy. If you make plans in January, February or March it could be very wet and the mountain will most likely be covered in a "Plata" silver plate, aka "cloud" You can pay some dollars to get a ride around the block in one of these fancy old fashioned cars - Umbrella Street - Not Sirena but rather the Dominican Wallmart - The fort from our balcony - Next Stop St. Thomas.

Pictures of Food, Round 2. Because it's mostly what we do on a cruise.... Here is an example of food that is multi-purposed on a ship. Sold as a "Smoked Lobster Ravioli" it's cheese raviolis in the lobster bisque with a dollup of steamed spinach and diced tomatoes on top. We saw both the ravioli later in the week as a star on it's own in the MDR as well as the buffet and the lobster bisque also showed up by itself in both places as well. I believe the lobster bisque is also available as a menu item in the Haven and I am pretty sure that the raviolis were available when we were up there as well. I am certain that the Haven food is prepared slightly different than in the MDR and Buffet. Another item that we had both in the MDR and then again at Bayamo was the Clam Chowder. Slightly different presentation in both restaurants but the flavor and texture of the soup was the same. I was raised in New England and we all know a good chowder and NCL does it pretty good in both Bayamo and the MDR. I believe Bayamo had pieces of clam and potatoes added with a topping of oyster crackers and the chowder in the MDR was presented as below with a sprinkle of bacon and parsley. My wife and kids love shrimp and smoked salmon. If you are a fan of shrimp cocktail, when you first get on the ship head to the buffet, they had huge bowls of large fresh shrimp cocktail. My wife and kids each grabbed a bowl with 4-6 shrimp and some cocktail sauce and we brought them down to Taste with us and they ate that as an appetizer on day 1 while waiting for our lunch. In the morning, the bagel and lox was a common sighting at our table when we had breakfast in Taste and Savor. In the next episode we will take a break from the ship and the food and go on some excursions.

So many notes and so little time. haha. As previously mentioned, I've got a background in food services and project management. With this experience, one of the things that fascinates me about Cruising in particular is the mind blowing amount of logistics and coordination it takes to feed 5000 people for a week out at sea. From the laws and regulations for shipping and keeping food to storing it and then getting it to each kitchen to prepare and cook to recipe and then served to each passenger the jobs of the people you never see behind the curtain is a massive undertaking and takes a well coordinated effort to make it all happen. There is a great article here https://jshippingandtrade.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41072-017-0024-8 That was written in 2017 and tackles the questions of the procurement and logistics of getting food onboard in a safe and consistent manner. It may be more interesting to the ex-navy and ex-mariners / seafearers we have on Cruise Critic rather than the common cruiser as it gets into a bit of technical detail but it does give you a great idea of all the many things that need to be taken into account when feeding crew and passengers at sea. With all this said, when it comes to food on the ship, less is more. By this I mean that alot of the same food you find in the Garden Cafe Buffet is going to be pulled from the same exact stock of food that is used in the specialty restaurants, Haven restaurant, Main Dining Room. It is a large catering operation and most of the differences in the food will be in the preparation and presentation. If you have never cruised before, keep that in mind as you journey through the different dining areas on the ship. Anyhow, here are some more food items to share with you all. Again this is not at all an extensive food write up. I just wanted to point out some of the food highlights and mentionables on this trip. Vacation Day in the Buffet they serve Prime Rib! Everyone excepting my wife was excited about this. To be honest it was poorly seasoned if at all. Cooked to a perfect medium rare though, the texture and quality of the meat were worth the calories. But it definitely begs for at least some salt and pepper. I got a thin slice as this was first dinner and I did not want to spoil second dinner in the Manhattan Room. RIBS - ALL DAY LONG. There were ribs on a few of the menus and in the buffet. Asian ribs, BBQ ribs. They were all good and seemed to be the same exact cuts of ribs in each instance but all were delicious. Crispy Crab and Cream Cheese Wontons - These get a mention. They were not as good as what you might get in a Boston area hole in the wall Chinese Food restaurant (If you know, you know) but they were yummy and we all enjoyed them. The Elusive "Monte Christo". A huge thank you to @big al as he put us onto this amazing little treat after meeting him in the M&M on day 2. He told us that day 2 was the only day to get the Monte Christo in the Taste & Savor restaurants at lunch time. I had seen previous attempts years ago at this sandwich on another cruise line and from what I remember it was more of a grilled ham, turkey and cheese sandwich but @big al promised me this sandwich was legit and he was absolutely correct. It was delicious. Its not as good as the one that Bennigan's by MCO used to serve (RIP) but with the side of raspberry jam it's pretty close and boy was it tasty. Im typing this while we are boarding our flight back to the PNW. More to come in a few. I should have a few hours on this flight to knock out the rest of this review. One more quick thing to note before I forget. There is a large amount of sodium in cruise food. On this last cruise, by day three my wife noticed swelling in her hands and feet from the food we were eating. She typically eats a Keto diet and stays healthy but had to change some of her diet and the swelling slowly came down through the week but it's hard to get away from it. If your doctor has asked you to go to a low sodium diet, let your servers know as it is hard to get away from the high amount of sodium on cruise ship food.

Oh My ... SO. FAR. AWAY 🙂 🤪

Thanks for the information, I don't know why we never thought of this. All the service on our sailing was really top notch. other than the crowds, we sometimes forgot we were not in the Haven as the service was so good, with one exception that I will call out at the end of the review.

On our first night we had reservations at 8:30pm in the Manhattan dining room. This allowed us to have second lunch when we boarded, a proper English "Tea" at 4pm and first dinner in the buffet at 6pm. They have this same dining room on the Joy as well but being in the Haven on our last cruise we ate most of our dinners up there and never had a dinner in the Manhattan dining room. This time around the Manhattan dining room was really a treat for us. We absolutely enjoyed the dinners that we were able to share there. The service in the Manhattan dining room was fantastic. The food was good, sometimes great and sometimes not so great but there was never a bad meal. Our servers throughout the week were delightful. I had only wished we could have had the same server through the week as was our experience on RCI but I can see the benefit of mixing up the servers as well. Through conversations we did connect with some servers who would always come by and say hello to us when they saw us in the dining room. There was only one night during the week where our server was extremely busy and service was very slow but overall no complaints as we were in no rush. One thing we learned in the MDR is that the service is timed like clockwork. As we watched the servers work, we noticed that once you sit down, order drinks, appetizers and dinner, the clock starts. If at any time you change something after the clock starts, everything seems to stop and slow down. Its as if it throws the servers timing off. We noticed this on one night where my daughter really enjoyed the "Baked Brie Salad" it was delicious. And after the appetizers were delivered my daughter had asked if she could order another. The server was more than happy to put that order in but all of our dinners were on pause and we noticed the second Baked Brie Salad did not come out until the next round of appetizers came out for the other tables the server was waiting on. Then we noticed when the next round of dinners came out, our dinners came with them. Just something to keep in mind when changing up or adding additional items with your dinner. One of the things we enjoyed most about this space was the live music during dinner. We did see the same musician 4 out of the 5 nights who repeated many of the same songs throughout the week. His guitar playing was superb but his singing not so much. The other musician couple that we saw in the Manhattan dining room were incredibly talented and had a great selection of songs but we only saw them once. It may have been our timing on when we had our specialty dining planned but we were hoping to see more of a variety of musicians for our dinners. Having live music during dinner was fantastic though. Moving onto the Garden Cafe Buffet - The buffet was good. It did it's job and kept us fed when we couldn't sit down for a quiet breakfast or have a lunch in Savor or Taste. It's your standard cruise variety catered food and I cannot think of anything from their for our regular meals that really stands out. As is typical the Indian food seemed to mostly be the better choice in flavor for items on the buffet. They would change up one section of the buffet daily to different items such as american asian/oriental food or BBQ. Salad, Burgers, Hot Dogs and Indian Food were a staple as was the soft serve and hard scooped ice cream in the dessert area. Here are some of the notes I took on the Buffet - 1. The Garden Cafe has a hard close at 9:30pm every night. I was unaware of this and thought it was interesting that it closed so early. The first reason was that there were a lot of people, many drinks in who could only now go to O'Sheehans to get food and water (yes, they lock the doors to the buffet) When we walked by OSheehans after leaving the buffet thinking we could grab an ice cream or snack it was completely full, line of no less than 20 people at the host/hostess stand and it didn't look like anyone was going anywhere any time soon. 2. With the early closure of the Garden Cafe and American Diner (Only places with Water Dispenser besides the water fountain in the Gym) there was nowhere to fill up on water anywhere on the ship (Please let me know if I missed a location) after 9:30 without going to a bar and waiting in line to ask for water or if you could get a seat at O'Sheehans. This was the most difficult on the 1st night when O'Sheehans was packed. 3. On Vacation Day they put out white chocolate and dark chocolate bark along with peanut brittle on the dessert area. I noticed this at first dinner on the first night and planned on coming back after 2nd dinner in the Manhattan Room to score some for dessert. I was unaware that the Garden Cafe closed at 9:30 and was also disappointed when we came back the next day and found that Day 1 is the only day the Dark and White Chocolate bark makes an appearance in the buffet. 4. Nightly Crepes - We made it a point to come back to the buffet before 9pm to get crepes. We got to know our crepe maker as the "Best Crepe Maker" on the ship. It was such a fun time with him each night that we tipped him at the end of the week. We enjoyed the nightly crepes as we played cards in the buffet and loaded up on water for the next day before it closed. Some food hacks here, get your crepe and then go get a scoop of hard ice cream from the other side and put the home made caramel sauce on top or the butterscotch/chocolate sauce on top of your crepe sunday, top with whipped cream and you are good to go. 5. Hiking Snacks - I know there are sticklers out there who will want to roast me for this as you are not allowed to bring food off the ship. But we always bring ziplock baggies and load up with walnuts, almonds, raisins, m&ms and gummy bears for our hiking excursions when we leave the ship. Being diabetic there have been times where this has been super helpful on our excursions and in some ports (Such as DR or when you go straight to a sailboat excursion) it can be difficult to easily find food to carry along on your hikes. Absolutely NO FRUIT and do not bring premade food such as sandwiches or cooked food but find that nuts, raisins and M&Ms work just fine. Also - take only what you will eat and don't ever feed the animals, birds or drop or leave any food along the way. 6. Food Allergies - My daughter has some food allergies. Nothing serious that would cause an immediate serious reaction but enough that she will breakout or have other minor allergic effects. We found that the servers take food allergies very seriously. If we mentioned any allergies they would go out of their way to make sure that food was safe to eat. They also allow you to see the next day's menu and you can plan your breakfast lunch and dinner with pre-cooked meals that are safe to eat. We did find that not all servers/cooks know the exact recipe for each dish so it's good to ask questions. We often found that the servers did not know the food ingredients and had to go ask. At one point the cook did not know eggs were in the mayonnaise, so we had to ask if there was mayonnaise in the food or if the bread was made with eggs rather than just relying on the cooks/servers to determine what was safe. If you have food allergies you now the drill. They did have a dedicated person in the MDR who specialized in the special orders (Not sure they were an allergist) who would come check in with us each night and were very helpful. 7. No Half & Half or Heavy Cream on the ship. At least nothing available to the passengers. We knew this going in and bought a Pint of heavy cream for my wife to carry onto the ship with her. Bringing it onto the ship in a sealed container was not a problem and she was able to have cream in her coffee each morning. We were quite surprised though that even at Starbucks where the "cream" is out on the counter for you to add in your coffee that it wasn't half & half but rather 2% milk. They do have real whip cream at the crepe station though and if you take sugar in your coffee then adding this whipped cream to your coffee may fit the bill.