Review: We Escape-d 7 days to the E. Caribbean

[Sotermarler]

Questions about Casino : How separate is the "Smoking area" from the rest of the casino? Is it really a separate room?

 

 

 

Are the slot game choices better than the GA? I am hoping for more newer games, like they have in Vegas, like The Hangover, Walking Dead, Wizard of Oz, Monopoly, etc

 

 

There are no separations of smoking and non-smoking. Every machine said thank you for not smoking, but that didn't matter. The smoke is really bad.

 

I didn't see Hangover or Walking Dead but yes to W Oz.

[Sotermarler]

Really enjoying your review so far! 90 more days for us.

 

 

 

(Go Pats!! :D)

 

 

Hooray! Go Pats!!

[Golfin55]

What a review. Thank you for taking the time to share your experience. You mentioned that the drop slides were closed. We sail this Saturday. My son is looking forward to those slides. Hoping its operational next week.

[Loonbeam]

Overhead bin space. If the FAs arent paying attention people sitting in the back love to stick the kitchen sink up in FC, then people in FC have no space for their stuff...

 

That and to get away from the incessant boarding announcements.

 

Ok boarding the plane now. But first I have to digress again. If you have an assigned first class seat, why would you board first? Why not wait until everyone else boards then sit down? I just saw some one bump a first class passenger. Ok I'm off for now.

[Cruzinbabe06]

I've been on the Allure and the Getaway, which is similar to the escape i am thinking. Allure has better entertainment by far, but thats not to say NCL's entertainment is BAD just there are more shows on Royal and better quality. Even now with the upcharges, NCL is a much better value. For Jan 16th, I am paying 749.00 pp for an inside with the pick 2 perk, which i chose Bev and Dine. RCI on Oasis for Jan 16th, 798.00pp for an inside, no perks.

 

So yeah, picked the Escape :D

 

I hear ya!

 

Hubby has his heart set for Allure.

 

But, I have to veto him on this one.:D

[aubreyc1988]

I hear ya!

 

Hubby has his heart set for Allure.

 

But, I have to veto him on this one.:D

 

Definitely do it ONE day as it is an amazing ship and cruiseline!

[DeBlonde1]

Hi DeBonde1,

Anyway, the Vibe was $99 pp. So no increase as of yet. And sorry no Dalies, if it's not bullet points I'm not reading it.

 

Enjoy your cruise!

 

Thanks! I thought someone said they charge 18% gratuity on top of the $99 fee for this Vibe passes these days.... I am not sure if that is true or not. Thanks for the info! :)

[Sotermarler]

Overhead bin space. If the FAs arent paying attention people sitting in the back love to stick the kitchen sink up in FC, then people in FC have no space for their stuff...

 

That and to get away from the incessant boarding announcements.

 

 

Ah the dreaded carry on luggage. So basically first class has the same problem as steerage. Lol

[cecil89]

Fantastic review! Thank you for posting.

 

Was there smoking in vibe?

 

Thanks.

[Sotermarler]

Well I'm home again and ready to finish this up. I am sorry it went SO long but it was helping me deal with my PCD (post-cruise depression). I think it's a real thing!

 

First stop, St. Thomas! It's so cool to wake up, look out the slider and see the house-specked green hills against the aqua water passing by. It's such a soothing feeling that I can't really explain.

"Get up DH! Get up!!" ..."Why are the islands going anywhere? We are not even docked yet." Sigh, semantics.

So off the the buffet for breakfast. The elevator stops on a floor. And there is an elderly couple with a heavy foreign accent and the wife is talking to the husband very sternly and all I can make out from her is "DOWNSTAIRS!." Well the gentleman waddles on with his head down and turns to us and in his heavy accent says. "Well she gave the order! " Then DH says to me "see its universal!" Ha ha, you'd think he'd know that by now. This is a theme we would hear multiple times in the elevators throughout the trip. Lol

 

Ok Back to the port. There were 4 ships in port at St. T. There is lots of shopping waking distance from the port and tons of taxis to take you around. I just wanted to do a beach day. I understand Megan's Bay is great, but with 4 ships in port I feared it would be too crowded. Since I lived in Hawaii for 4 years I tend to be a beach snob. I can't stand trashy or overcrowded beaches. Last year on the GA our first ever cruise, we also went to St.T but had no idea what to to. So I pretty much asked everyone I saw what they were doing. We were afraid to venture far from the ship so we found this quiet gem. The Marriott at Morningstar beach.

It's just a few miles east of port and $6 pp taxi ride. (Beware of traffic) There are chairs to rent for $10pp, umbrellas for $5, bathrooms and a very expensive hotel bar.. The beach is not crowded and clean. There are small waves at this beach so not good for snorkeling and the water is dark blue not the pretty aqua color. If you are looking for that type of Caribbean beach, this is not it. It's a great beach and reminds me a lot of the HI beaches for sand texture and color.

It was a bit overcast this little day so we put our sunscreen on and swam and vegged on the beach, awesome! However we didn't re-apply the sunscreen and were burned to a crisp. Bummer!

 

Port # 2 Tortola. From what I saw of Tortola I Loved it. It's still a sleepy island compares to the others. There are few houses and shopping is still being built at the pier. We had the escape to Jost Van Dyke excursion booked for Tortola. I was so excited because this one actually sold out a couple months prior to the cruise. Then one day it showed back up again and I booked it. Well the second day on the cruise I hear DH say.. "Oh no, your gonna be really upset" then he proceeded to tell me we got a letter stating the excursion was cancelled. Ok that was a bummer but hey whatever it wasn't meant to be. The letter said we could book any other excursion at a 10% discount. So we went down and they suggested we do the baths or the Catamaran sail and snorkel. Well, I really just wanted a beach day I've seen enough fish and not interested in snorkeling. Well we wake up the next day and we have another envelope that says congrats you were rebooked!

So our excursion was booked for 9 am. We head out to the end of the pier at 8:50 and asked to wait off by the side. We are passed by hoards of people heading to the water taxi to the baths. (There were 2 other tiny baby Aria ships in port, so cute. One was docked and the other was tendered.)

 

At 9:00 it proceeds to down pour and there is nowhere to hide. Oh well we were going to the beach either way.

About 9:15 the Rebel Yell Catamaran shows up. I guess they are in island time. There were probably 30 of us in that boat and its run by a friendly female captain and female deck hand. The deck hand runs around and hands out water and rum punch on the way back like a prancing deer. I however crawled on hands and knees while in motion to move out of the water spray. Oh yeah if you sit in the front or on the nets you WILL get wet.

 

The beach there has the whitest sand I have EVER seen and the water IS that beautiful Caribbean aqua blue. So beautiful! When you get there you have to get a drink from the home of the Painkiller. They were reasonably priced at $7 each. There were free chairs to sit in and some hammocks, but more people then I would have liked. There were a ton of ties up catamarans in the lagoon. I had heard this beach wasn't crowded and it wasn't but it wasn't exactly empty either.

(Pics on other camera sorry) We stayed about 2 and a half to 3 hours at the beach which was good because we were already burned to a crisp. When we boarded the cat to head back I noticed the other end of the beach was pristine with no people. I was wishing we took the initiative to walk down there a little. Either way this beach is a 10 people or not!

 

On the way back the Captain explained the initial cancellation. She said they booked up the 7:00 am tour and opened up a 9:00 am to Escape, but then cancelled it because they give priority to Aria as they pay $45 a head. NCL only pays $35 a head. She said Aria couldn't fill the tour so they opened it back up to NCL. The funny thing is I talked to a couple of the TAs on board who actually though they had something to do with the tour opening back up by complaining to the excursion desk.

 

Port #3 Nassau. I had planned on doing the Hilton beach day. (We did Blue Lagoon last year and loved it, but didn't want to spring for it again) Well since we were already burned I gave into DH and took a cab to the Atlantis Casino. We didn't dock until noon but I think we were pretty much at port by 10:00. That was annoying because it seemed like the minute we rocked it began raining. So we canned it over to Atlantis and proceeded to give them ridiculous amounts of money Ina very short period of time.

Ok I have to stop for a bit.

[Sotermarler]

Fantastic review! Thank you for posting.

 

 

 

Was there smoking in vibe?

 

 

 

Thanks.

 

 

Thanks, Yes there is smoking in the Vibe but I don't remember it being an issue.

[Sotermarler]

Ok back to Nassau. We spent maybe an hour and a half at the Atlantis Casino. No one was winning so we cabbed it back to the port for a VERY scary can ride.

The driver told us drinking and driving IS allowed in Nassau and that was evident.

Again tons of shopping here and 3 boats in port. It was pouring and we were soaked so we walked around some shops and headed back to the ship. I was so happy that we decided not to book Blue Lagoon because it was a miserable day. Everyone hates Nassau since they have a high crime rate and apparently rains a lot. (Rained last year too). I don't understand why we keep going there if everyone hates it so much.

 

So that's it I just want to give you a few final thoughts and my favorite things and disappointments.

 

We cruise because we love the ocean and the peace and serenity if offers. So We loved the District as It was always quiet (except on game day) with comfy chairs, ocean views and an awesome piano singer.

I also love the waterfront for the comfy couches, serene music and ocean views.

Of course we loved the Vibe for the exclusive bar and hot tub.

The UBP was Awesome, bar waits were NEVER long except maybe the pool area. I'm not sure what all the hub bub about the lines with UBP was about.

The food is better than last year. My favorite thing was to get those little spätzle looking waffles from the buffet with strawberry syrup and the whip cream for breakfast.

Waking up early to catch the sunrises. Don't miss them, check your daily for times.

Being out on the ocean and meeting people.

 

The were a few disappointments too.

#1 rain!

Smoke in the casino is as bad as reported.

An inattentive room steward.( I mean what is this? Snake head? your not even trying anymore)

Racer slides closed.

Million dollar quartet canceled.

Time in ports shortened.

 

That's it I give this cruise 4 out of 5 stars. It would have been 5 out of 5 if the few things I listed as disappointments were fixed.

I hope everyone enjoys their cruise and remember it is what you make of it!

 

I will just leave you with this pic. Thanks for listening!

The end!

[phrogpilot73]

A couple of quick things (my takeaways from the Escape):

 

1. There were only 800 of us with the TA group, and the name of our conference (not agency) was Connect. We did board before everyone (except Haven guests) - but we weren't competing for your Vibe passes. We had to quickly eat lunch and make it to our general session in the theater.

 

2. The Gelato was awesome. We went there several times, I'm pretty sure we spent more money on Gelato then on booze.

 

3. The wine bar is amazing as well. They have iPads, and you can take a personality quiz and it recommends wine for you. It worked pretty well, I liked the glass that it suggested for me.

 

4. Food Republic was (I thought) the best food venue on the ship. We really like sushi and Asian food, so we may have been biased. I agree about the crab rolls being just OK. I had the bulgogi tacos, the pork belly ramen, and the butter crab roll (which is the single best thing on the menu). My wife had the Pad Thai. We also had some rolls, but I don't remember what they were.

 

5. Le Bistro's menu has changed from the last time I went. I wasn't super thrilled with it.

 

6. There were 7 different large groups on board, that combined with the Freestyle Choice promo is what made the specialty dining so busy. We could only get reservations at 9:15 for Le Bistro. We were up until 11:00PM that night.

 

7. Frank Del Rio was not on board, but Andy Stuart was. He embarked in St. Thomas and left in Nassau. Guy Harvey was there the whole time.

 

8. The Spa is the best one I've been in so far. The snow room is actually quite nice - I found myself bouncing between the sauna, steam room, and snow room fairly regularly.

 

Overall, it was a pretty good cruise - the food in the main dining room seems to have improved significantly, but the service the first two nights was very slow. I'm blaming that on it being a new ship.

 

Our conference next year is on the Carnival Vista (last year was the Regal Princess), since I've never sailed Carnival - I'm curious to see what it's like. There have been a lot of changes by Norwegian over the last several months (which confuses me at times, and makes it hard to explain to my clients), so I'm holding my judgement about the changes being good or bad until they stop making changes.

 

Glad to hear that we weren't the only ones with a bad (no other way to put it) room steward. We came back after our morning general session to drop our stuff off before we headed to lunch. The room still wasn't made up. When we went back at 1:30 (to grab our stuff before heading to our afternoon sessions) our room STILL wasn't made up. This happened twice during our cruise. Smoking in the casino was also very noticeable. They are planning on retrofitting the casino to have an enclosed smoking section - but there's not timeline on that yet. The ventilation in the cigar bar (I enjoy smoking local Miami cigars on my cruise) wasn't working either. I still like the Norwegian product, but there were definitely some "glitches" that would also make me rate this a 4 star cruise.

Edited November 23, 2015 by phrogpilot73

[Ctrinh225]

Thank you so much for the "fun" review. My sister gave me sideways glances when I was snort laughing out loud. I'll be on the Escape in March and I too only been on the Getaway to compare to with NCL ( 4 RCCL). Just a one question about the excursions.

** two people in my group can't swim (they were cats in another life) Did the Rebel Yell drop u far from the beach or right up? Plenty of shade? Served food anywhere? Any other info not written down in ur review. Thanks in advance for answer. I'm happy you enjoyed your cruise!

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Let yet?]

Sotermarler did they tell you why the Million Dollar Quartet was canceled, was it for the whole trip.

Sure hope they will be playing on the Nov 28th sailing.

Thanks for all the pictures and reviews

Karen

[HarpHarp]

Sotermarler did they tell you why the Million Dollar Quartet was canceled, was it for the whole trip.

Sure hope they will be playing on the Nov 28th sailing.

Thanks for all the pictures and reviews

Karen

 

We were fortunate to see the show on Monday. Sorry to hear about the illness of the cast member.

[hpecorari]

We were fortunate to see the show on Monday. Sorry to hear about the illness of the cast member.

 

If I am remembering correctly when I looked at the seven day dailies I saw a show Listed as Tenors of Rock however that is not something that I can book online and it's not showing up. There's also a singer Braxton supper club show that is listed on the dailies but is not available to book online

 

Harriet

[Sotermarler]

A couple of quick things (my takeaways from the Escape):

 

1. There were only 800 of us with the TA group, and the name of our conference (not agency) was Connect. We did board before everyone (except Haven guests) - but we weren't competing for your Vibe passes. We had to quickly eat lunch and make it to our general session in the theater.

 

2. The Gelato was awesome. We went there several times, I'm pretty sure we spent more money on Gelato then on booze.

 

3. The wine bar is amazing as well. They have iPads, and you can take a personality quiz and it recommends wine for you. It worked pretty well, I liked the glass that it suggested for me.

 

4. Food Republic was (I thought) the best food venue on the ship. We really like sushi and Asian food, so we may have been biased. I agree about the crab rolls being just OK. I had the bulgogi tacos, the pork belly ramen, and the butter crab roll (which is the single best thing on the menu). My wife had the Pad Thai. We also had some rolls, but I don't remember what they were.

 

5. Le Bistro's menu has changed from the last time I went. I wasn't super thrilled with it.

 

6. There were 7 different large groups on board, that combined with the Freestyle Choice promo is what made the specialty dining so busy. We could only get reservations at 9:15 for Le Bistro. We were up until 11:00PM that night.

 

7. Frank Del Rio was not on board, but Andy Stuart was. He embarked in St. Thomas and left in Nassau. Guy Harvey was there the whole time.

 

8. The Spa is the best one I've been in so far. The snow room is actually quite nice - I found myself bouncing between the sauna, steam room, and snow room fairly regularly.

 

Overall, it was a pretty good cruise - the food in the main dining room seems to have improved significantly, but the service the first two nights was very slow. I'm blaming that on it being a new ship.

 

Our conference next year is on the Carnival Vista (last year was the Regal Princess), since I've never sailed Carnival - I'm curious to see what it's like. There have been a lot of changes by Norwegian over the last several months (which confuses me at times, and makes it hard to explain to my clients), so I'm holding my judgement about the changes being good or bad until they stop making changes.

 

Glad to hear that we weren't the only ones with a bad (no other way to put it) room steward. We came back after our morning general session to drop our stuff off before we headed to lunch. The room still wasn't made up. When we went back at 1:30 (to grab our stuff before heading to our afternoon sessions) our room STILL wasn't made up. This happened twice during our cruise. Smoking in the casino was also very noticeable. They are planning on retrofitting the casino to have an enclosed smoking section - but there's not timeline on that yet. The ventilation in the cigar bar (I enjoy smoking local Miami cigars on my cruise) wasn't working either. I still like the Norwegian product, but there were definitely some "glitches" that would also make me rate this a 4 star cruise.

 

All good points, thanks for the additions and corrections.

[Sotermarler]

Thank you so much for the "fun" review. My sister gave me sideways glances when I was snort laughing out loud. I'll be on the Escape in March and I too only been on the Getaway to compare to with NCL ( 4 RCCL). Just a one question about the excursions.

** two people in my group can't swim (they were cats in another life) Did the Rebel Yell drop u far from the beach or right up? Plenty of shade? Served food anywhere? Any other info not written down in ur review. Thanks in advance for answer. I'm happy you enjoyed your cruise!

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Hello Ctrinh,

 

The Rebell Yell dropped us in less than knee deep water. They pulled up as far as they could. There were Catamarans anchored all around with no rhyme or reason. I think as long as it's not rough and they can get close to the beach they will. I would think they would be fine. We had a girl with a baby with her and she was fine. They can sit up where the captain sits so they don't have to worry about bouncing around the Cat.

There is a restaurant there but the Captain warned us to order right away because it takes an hour to get the food.

 

Yes there was plenty of shade up on the top part of the beach.

[Sotermarler]

If I am remembering correctly when I looked at the seven day dailies I saw a show Listed as Tenors of Rock however that is not something that I can book online and it's not showing up. There's also a singer Braxton supper club show that is listed on the dailies but is not available to book online

 

Harriet

Hi Harriet,

 

I think Tenors of Rock was a last minute replacement for the Million Dollar Quartet. I heard about the Braxton show, but I am not sure what that was all about.

[Cruzinbabe06]

Definitely do it ONE day as it is an amazing ship and cruiseline!

 

 

Ok! ThanKS

 

We will!:p

[Cruzinbabe06]

Thanks for coming back and giving us your feedback.

 

I have it narrowed down to the Escape. I prefer the itinerary over the Getaway. Even though it's costing us more money.

 

I'll be booking a balcony cabin and definitely want Vibe passes.

 

Hopefully, the plan is to book early December.

 

Thanks again everyone.:)

[packercruising]

Besides Carl Perkins, who were the other members of the Million Dollar Quartet?

[runnersmate]

Besides Carl Perkins, who were the other members of the Million Dollar Quartet?

 

Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash were the other three.

Tenors of Rock were on the Transatlantic for two shows and did two shows on this cruise.

For the Record was excellent if you like the 80s music and relate to Ferris Buellers Day Off, St Elmo's Fire and Sicteen Candles - yes that "Brat Pack" as folks were thinking it was Sinatra and crew-$35 for the dinner and show.

[Sonoran_cruiser]

I was also "one of the 800". A few other things:

 

- For a ship with 4200 passengers, it was surprisingly easy to get into and out of the main dining room (we did MDR's on 4 nights). I never waited more than a few minutes to get seated in the MDR.

 

- They have live music (big band type) in the largest dining room, Manhattan. The music is too loud, and needs to be toned down a bit to be enjoyable as background dining music.

 

- Elevators - there are only two banks of 8 elevators each. At times it can be very hard to get an elevator that isn't full (ie, disembarkation day). I used stairs quite often.... and felt like I was doing a stairstepper at my local gym (ie, 6 to 8 decks at a time).

 

- Air conditioning. It works too well on this ship. My "group of 800" spent a few hours at a time in the Escape theater, and almost froze on a few occasions. At time is was equally too cool in the Garden Cafe/Buffet.

 

- Yes, the smoke is bothersome in the Casino. And I found the penny slots to be incredibly tight. PS - this is my first NCL cruise, and was surprised to find that the Casino charges a "$3 per $100" service charge to charge money to your room account. I've never encountered this on Carnival or Princess.

 

Recommends:

- If sailing on the Escape, research and book your dining options AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Being as I was on the first 7 day cruise, all specialty dining was fully booked by day 3 of the cruise.

 

- Same "early booking"recommend goes for entertainment.

 

All in all, I was very impressed by this first exposure to NCL. I will definitely consider NCL as a candidate for future cruises. Just wish Escape had more itinerary selections to choose from.