Feedback on the inaugural (1 day) cruise on Nowegian Escape. 28 Oct 2015

[pdw26]

The room (standard balcony, aft).

+ use of switches and lights to show when room occupied, do not disturb, make up the room,

+ bathroom, good size, well laid out, plenty of room for toiletries, glass shower door,

+ interactive TV, especially liked it showed you what you had booked, and allowed you to make bookings,

+ tea and coffee making facilities in room,

+ balcony door handle designed to lock the door in any position, so you could leave the door ajar and listen to the ocean,

- room and balcony were small. Looked round other rooms on ship the rooms for restricted mobility guests were much more spacious,

- dark furniture added to the effect of making the room feel small,

- wardrobe small,

- bed in wrong position next to wardrobe making access difficult. Looked round other rooms with the bed next to the window, much better design,

- only earl grey tea and no milk, no coffee supplied in the room – so tea and coffee machine not too useful (perhaps steward overlooked restocking, perhaps don’t stock for 1 day cruise),

- last customer’s bill on iTV system on changeover day,

- lack of info in the room (perhaps NCL thought it was all on iTV), eg TV channel list, room service, disembarkation times, details (these were not on the daily sheet, again may have been a 1 day issue).

 

 

Dining

+ evening meal in Savor (one of the three MDRs), food and service excellent, as one of the smaller MDRs atmosphere was more intimate. Had muster in Manhatten (large MDR) impressive design and live music whilst dining,

+ booking system for MDRs,

- very long queues for MDRs at end of early theatre performance (not much NCL can do about this),

- buffet, plastic plates and no trays. So if you wanted soup, a roll and a drink you may need to make three trips to the buffet, food was cold at lunchtime (burger and chips for me, curry for DW), some good points ice cream station, pancake station.

 

 

Staff

+ doing their job well,

- clueless if it wasn’t their job (may improve with time) – eg came out of room for muster and two staff outside, I assume to check rooms were empty. I asked them which way the stairs were – they pointed in the wrong direction. Asked on way out of dinner what time restaurant opened for breakfast, you would have thought I had asked for directions to Mars, eventually got an answer, but surely not a difficult question,

- overall didn’t feel staff were as cheery or welcoming as staff on other lines. Some may prefer this thinking over cheeriness comes over as a little false.

 

 

Ship

+ fish in the carpet design pointing to front of ship so you knew which direction you were going,

+ interactive screens to show you what was going on and let you book activities, also screens showing how busy the dining rooms were,

+ the theatre was well designed with plenty of leg room, good sight to the stage and good sound, the show (million dollar quartet) was very good, the stage looked a little small for a larger song and dance type show and it didn’t look as if it would be easy to change scenery if needed.

- not easy to navigate, easily got to the right floor, but finding venues on that floor wasn’t easy,

- as in room use of dark wood panelling made ship feel enclosed,

- for such a large ship only having two lift shafts meant getting around was sometimes restricted, there were 8 lifts per shaft which was good but they seemed to take forever to come and were sometimes full so you had to wait for 2nd or 3rd lift.

- muster drill was not polished (why not? NCL knows this will happen every cruise), eg announcement to be quiet as instructions to follow (made several times), but no instructions followed then long gap to next announcement, tannoy not working properly (intermittent loud then quiet), seemed very drawn out, could be much slicker,

- lot of vibration from propellers (in reverse or bow thrusters) at 4.30am, not sure why this was done as we docked at 6.30am. Perhaps had a practice docking or manoeuvred to pick up pilot. Navigator be aware use of bow thrusters will wake up whole aft of ship and plan a bit better.

 

 

Overall

Impression was that a lot of design decisions had been taken to benefit NCL or the staff rather than the customer. I have no issue in general with that as cruise lines have to make profit or go out of business and staff work hard so why not improve their job. But I felt there were too many compromises and they were a little too obvious rather than subtle and discreet.

Good party ship for young people/ families (also caters well for singles), not the ship for you if you want a more pampered/ sedate style cruise (unless you can afford Haven).

[champagne lover]

Enjoyed reading your review, well laid out. Liked a lot of your plusses but can anyone answer - do balcony cabins normally have teabags and coffee supplied?

Love the idea of "fish" in the carpet so you know which direction you are going, so often you end up going the wrong way!

We are very excited about our cruise, 11 days to go now, but getting concerned at lack of storage in cabins.

[pdw26]

We are very excited about our cruise, 11 days to go now, but getting concerned at lack of storage in cabins.

 

 

Yes, there is not much storage in a standard balcony cabin (stateroom). Wardrobe was not large and difficult to get to with the bed right up against it. You could only stand lengthways between bed and wardrobe not sideways (if that makes sense). In theory you could push two cases under the bed one from each side, but in practice you would only be able to push a case from one side as you could not get a case between bed and wardrobe (or between bed and balcony door if laid out other way). There were other drawers in the dresser/ desk so if you don't have too much that needs hanging then it may be OK.

[Sauer-kraut]

- buffet, plastic plates and no trays. So if you wanted soup, a roll and a drink you may need to make three trips to the buffet, food was cold at lunchtime (burger and chips for me, curry for DW), some good points ice cream station, pancake station.

 

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There have been no trays for donkey's years on any Norwegian ship as well as on Carnival. It used to be if you wanted a tray, order room service and then keep the tray for personal use in the buffet :D Now with the upcharge I doubt many people do that.