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Everything.. ESCAPE (live 29 Oct 2015!)

FreestyleNovice

By FreestyleNovice,
in Norwegian Cruise Line

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gddeluca

gddeluca

Posted
Posted

OK, I'm finally home and have some time to post my impressions of the Escape and the TA crossing.

 

First the ship is very nice, but on a TA crossing, especially one where the first six days are cool and dreary, it soon becomes painfully obvious that it's built for warm weather Caribbean cruising. With the upper decks and the Waterfront on 8 basically unavailable, you now have a shipload of passengers all scrambling for what turns out to be fairly minimal internal seating.

 

Want to snuggle up in a quiet corner with a book? Good luck! There's seating for 10-12 in the Mixx bar outside Taste and Savor, there's seating in the Skyline bar, but then you have Casino noise and sales pitches, and lastly there's seating in the Atrium area. And that's basically it -- for 4000 passengers.

 

The Atrium is the ships all purpose, does everything area, since it has a ginormous video screen. It's used for dance and exercise classes, movies, a mess of game shows and trivia games etc. It's busy, busy, busy all day.

 

And as for trivia (which I play) it became a frustrating zoo every day as people circled like vultures looking for chairs. Having to arrive an hour early for an activity and spend that searching for chairs and grunting and heaving them around (they're heavy) sure takes the edge off the enjoyment.

 

And still we ended up with people sitting on tables, on the floor etc. Really 'triffic.

 

Other venues:

 

Tobacco Road - basically unusable if you're not a smoker as the main outdoor smoking area is on the Waterfront outside and the bar and corridors nearby reek of tobacco smoke.

 

5 O'Clock Somewhere Bar. - One of the most unappealing designs I've ever seen. It looks like some industrial cafeteria, arborite tables, metal and plastic hard chairs. And it also is near the outside smoking area. We never once ever stayed, it seemed totally cold and uninviting.

 

La Cucina - We ate there twice and thoroughly enjoyed it both times. It felt warm and cosy and the food was excellent.

 

Cagneys - Another winner. Good ambience, good food.

 

Moderno - Like Cagneys, another nice choice. Food it good, but I'm afraid I'm not a fan of this style of eating. Not their fault, they do it well.

 

Taste / Savor - Two peas in a pod. They're identical. Food was pretty good, not exceptional. Service was slow, particularly so at breakfast.

 

Manhattan Room - Overall a fine main dining room, service was the best of the free restaurants. Unfortunately, our one dinner there was basically ruined since they seem to want this to be some kind of supper club. There was a jazz band playing throughout dinner so loudly you could not converse with your partner, let alone other table mates. And a tap-dancer performed as well. Really? A tap-dancer? During dinner? C'mon NCL that's getting a bit ridiculous.

 

O'Sheehans - Should stick to being just a bar. We tried several meals there and were disappointed in all of them. The basic problem with them all? The food was simply not hot. My wife had the hot turkey sandwich one night and the plate it was served on was warmer than the food. If you like tepid french fries, lukewarm hot dogs, and burgers on dried out buns then this is your place.

 

Garden Cafe - Exactly as you'd picture a ship's buffet. No trays, so this means multiple trips between table and buffet to get your drinks and food. And since I use a cane, this is particularly a nuisance. And the old problem of temperature. The plates are not warmed, so you put your hot food on a cold plate, traipse to your table, go back for a drink, back to the table, and enjoy your tepid food.

 

Le Bistro - Nice place, nice food, a bit slow (perhaps). Get the chocolate fondue for dessert.

 

Headliners Comedy club - We went twice, should have gone more. Enjoyed it fully each time.

 

TA itself - I can't believe NCL could have so badly messed up[ their initial beer/liquor/wine inventories. I was constantly running into bars not having the liquors needed to mix drinks, even the featured drinks for that particular bar. My wife preferred the Italian Prosecco, it spent an on-again / off-again time at each bar. By the last couple days, you could not get any sparkling champagne at all, from any country. Then the Sauvignon Blanc disappeared.

 

Pretty pathetic when you have the UBP and can't even get a glass of white wine that you like.

 

Wi-Fi - This was the most pathetic Wi-Fi I have experienced on any ship since the very first ships started offering it. Escape is brand new, state of the art, somebody's head should roll. On average it would take about 4-5 minutes to logon and a further 4-5 minutes to log off (of which about 3 minutes were charged against your time. Whoopee, they granted me 15 free minutes, that covers about 2 days out of 10 since I signed on maybe 4-5 times a day. On the last day, when everyone wants to print boarding passes, Wi-Fi was down about 10 hours. When it came back, it took me 45 minutes to logon to my airline and perform check in, something that normally takes maybe 5 minutes.

 

Public address system - Almost totally useless. If you're in a bar or lounge, the local music, movie sound track, etc. is left on while the announcement is made. Ridiculous, and moreover a safety concern. What if these were critical announcements?

 

Disembarcation - I'd give the ship a total failing grade on this one. No signage on board on where to go other than to go to Deck 7. I think they totally underestimated how many people would take the DIY walk off approach and as a result, the timing for all the other color codes were completely missed. Again, the shoddy Public Address system didn't help, we'd hear an announcement, then all look at each other and say "Did you get any of that?"

 

Luggage on shore was sorted OK, but there were NO signs to help locate your particular color. We searched the whole room for ours, and finally was told to go down a corridor and turn left where we found another big room full of bags, also with no signage to help out.

 

US Customs and Immigration didn't help. At one point the line snaking off the ship was halted, they were overloaded with people in the terminal. The wait, standing in line, was about half an hour before it restarted. After interminable shuffling through lines we get to the wickets, only half of which are staffed. Surely somebody told them there were 4000 people coming through. If this isn't improved, I'm willing to bet NCL will never get a repeat passenger on Escape. After all, this is the home port, not some other-world terminal not prepared for ships this size.

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sweetpee_1993

sweetpee_1993

Posted
Posted

It popped up long enough for the christening but you couldn't even see it. They raised up FDR & Pitbull on these weird little platforms, did a half-a-countdown, then I guess something happened on the screen behind them but the shaky visuals and pixelated screen, you couldn't really see it. I don't think FDR could see either. He asked a few times "Did it break?" Very odd. Not very well produced or executed. It was a great amount of hype for a really sad attempt at a ceremony.

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Cruisercl

Cruisercl

Posted
Posted (edited)

I also was on the TA...it is a beautiful ship. Here are a couple of comments of my experiences etc. Mostly a great cruise!!!

 

Overall things went well....we were in an aft balcony cabin 9324. The closet was very close to the bed so it was difficult to get to it. We were woken up several nights with loud music and bass sound but weren't sure where they were coming from. This happened anywhere from 12 MN to 2 am.

If you want an aft cabin I would recommend a higher deck. Our room Steward was AWESOME!!!

 

The bar and restaurant service was slow; not because the staff/crew were not working hard. There was not enough people working to accommodate the guests requests......poor customer service NCL. For example - Dinner in several specialty restaurants took 3 hours. One bartender at the Mixx bar so people waiting for dinner at Taste or Savor could not get a drink; people wanted to spend money but they weren't allowed. Not all of us had the drink package.

 

The running out of wine and no coffee for the coffee makers in the cabins, both things I happen to like, was really disappointing; this isn't NCL's first TA with a new ship. Again people wanted to spend money but couldn't buy what they wanted.

 

The solo lounge does not have a bar like on the 'away' ships. The solo gatherings I went to were not well organized an the solo cruise person did not appeared interested in the job. He actually showed up at one with Power Point slides.

 

If you would like to iron - call housekeeping and they will bring an iron and board to your cabin. I did it and I had them in 5 minutes.

 

The disembarkation was what I expected; not much different than other cruise experiences.

 

Had a really good time but the jury is still out whether I will re-book with NCL - too much uncertainty on what product you actually get after you book.

 

Safe cruising all!!

Edited by Cruisercl
typos
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Jeff&Pam

Jeff&Pam

Posted
Posted
I noticed Sunday morning in the video of the Escape coming into the port. It was completely dark from maybe deck 8 to 15 or 16. I would have thought someone would have left a light. Now I know why they didn't. I guess if you're on your balcony at night, you need to keep your curtains open to be able to see out there. Unless, of course, the moon is as bright as we like it to be when we're cruising.

 

I like to read on the balcony at night. It is one of my favorite things to do...really? No lights? Sigh. It is super relaxing, and atmospheric to sit on the balcony and read a mystery, with only the sounds of the ship moving in the darkness...

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sweetpee_1993

sweetpee_1993

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Posted
I like to read on the balcony at night. It is one of my favorite things to do...really? No lights? Sigh. It is super relaxing, and atmospheric to sit on the balcony and read a mystery, with only the sounds of the ship moving in the darkness...

 

Christmas is coming! Maybe get one of those mini clamp-on book lights. Could make it even spookier.... :)

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happy cruzin

happy cruzin

Posted
Posted

Sounds like Margaritaville is changing on the first 7 day voyage - to having a cover charge!! [emoji15]

 

IF this turns out to be true - that it quite disappointing since its been advertised as "include" from the very beginning. [emoji20]. Will be following this to see what happens....

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2278539

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FreestyleNovice

FreestyleNovice

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  • Author
Posted
Sounds like Margaritaville is changing on the first 7 day voyage - to having a cover charge!! [emoji15]

 

IF this turns out to be true - that it quite disappointing since its been advertised as "include" from the very beginning. [emoji20]. Will be following this to see what happens....

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2278539

 

I might pay a small fee for MV but not sure about the some 12ish incl 18% USD for a lunch for two which could be kinda the same for free at the Garden Café below.

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FreestyleNovice

FreestyleNovice

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I'd like to see the NON-Haven Deck 19(?) forward facing exterior deck area.

 

2zsodg7.jpg

All the way fwd, looking towards the Haven sundeck partition.

 

No hammocks like BA, just beds, windscreen, a shower around the corner and of course the large sideways hot tub (big plus). There is also a water mist feature back, next to the entrance to Vibe (and bar).

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big al

big al

Posted
Posted
Nice. I would love to see a picture of that.

 

You can see it- go to PortFever.com & click on "Nassau" ( at the top), and in 4-5 seconds , you will see all the ships docked at that pier...you can also see many others ( just look at the top for what ports are available) and click...I'm on there almost daily, especially now that it's "the season"...on Sat & Sun, you can see 4-8 cruise ships leave out of Miami, Port Everglades, Port Canaveral, Tampa, etc...they start around 4 pm & go till 6 or 7 PM...great site..BTW, below the screen of the ships, you will find a sort of Google map with colored dots, some are blue- put your cursor on the shape, and you will see what ship is there...midweek you will see many ships on the St. Maarten, Nassau, Aruba, & Key West cams...any questions , let me know..this site is the 3rd best option to being on a cruise ( 1st best, ON the cruise, 2nd best, watching the ships leave in Miami, Port Everglades, etc..3rd best, PORT FEVER..)...I will be watching Thursday....

 

Big Al

 

P.S. Put your speakers on, you sometimes will hear talking between the ships & harbor patrol...also put screen on FULL screen ( at the bottom left of the picture)- much better..

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henndawg

henndawg

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Posted

November 25 Escape and Spirit in Tortola, November 27 Escape and Anthem in Nassau, December 8 Escape+Spirit and Gem in St Thomas, Another really cool one is December 30 Escape and QM2 in Tortola. There ya go...thats all I got for now.

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FreestyleNovice

FreestyleNovice

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What would be the best deck for sailaway? I want to be in the front of the ship when we start moving. We sail tomorrow!

 

Deck 19 fwd, all the way up. Get your drinks at the Vibe bar (public part) and best views are standing on the sideways hot tub, forward port side. You will see SoBe from there. Enjoy your sailing!

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momckb

momckb

Posted
Posted
Sounds like Margaritaville is changing on the first 7 day voyage - to having a cover charge!! [emoji15]

 

IF this turns out to be true - that it quite disappointing since its been advertised as "include" from the very beginning. [emoji20]. Will be following this to see what happens....

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2278539

 

Cross-posting my response from above thread:

 

As others have said, we really don't know if this is true. But...I will be on the Nov. 14th sailing and, when I booked, it was listed as "Complimentary." I just checked again, and it is listed as" Complimentary." In any world-- charging a cover charge is not "complimentary" I have been looking forward to going there and, will do so on my long awaited cruise this Saturday. If they try to charge a cover, I will pleasantly discuss my concerns. If they insist, I will go and dine (afterall, we all know that the poor schmucks working there aren't at fault) then, I plan to dispute the charge once home. Is this a lot of effort over $10 (for 2)...absolutely! Will I do it...absolutely!! It is the principle. It would be a bait and switch and, we shouldn't just accept it. Just as with the food takeout issue....we do have a voice and need to use it.

 

For what it is worth...that is my opinion.....but, let's just hope it is a false rumor.

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