Escape Review - November 12-19

[money007penny]

Hey All,

 

Just back home from the Nov 12th sailing on the Escape to St Thomas, Tortola and Nassau. This was my first time on the Escape and the largest ship I've ever sailed on.

 

First the ports of call...

 

St Thomas - we went on the St John Beach Escape and Snorkel which takes you by ferry to St John and then taxi bus to Trunk Bay Beach. The beach is absolutely stunning and you can snorkel easily to a reef with underwater signs. We had about 3 hours at the beach which was a good amount of time before heading back to the ferry.

 

Tortola - Escape to Jost Van Dyke on the Rebel Yell. Along with everyone else I would highly recommend this tour. The Rebel Yell is a beautiful catamaran with a great captain & crew. We had 3 hours at White Bay as well, plenty of time to enjoy the beach, water and painkillers from the Soggy Dollar Bar.

 

Nassau - Balmoral Island Beach Break. This was just about a 20-30 minute boat ride to a private island for time on the beach. Pretty straightforward really. The beach wasn't as clean as I was hoping and it was pretty busy as there were 5 ships in port. The ferry back dropped us off the near the shops so we had to navigate the pushy sellers on the way back to the ship.

 

And now for the Escape...

 

The only specialty restaurant we went to was La Cucina, using my platinum certificate for dinner for 2 with wine. We went on the first day onboard and sat outside on the waterfront area which was really great. The food was amazing and good service too.

 

The rest of the time we mostly went to Taste, Savor and once at the Manhattan Room. The service was fantastic every time except for one breakfast day when they seemed quite frantic for some reason. We waited about 20-25 minutes for a waiter to take our order that day. They were extremely apologetic and they must have rushed our food because it arrived extremely quickly. I was impressed with most of the meals, though less so with desserts (bring back the milk chocolate hazelnut bar!) but was pleasantly surprised to see the cheese plate back on the menu :)

 

The waterfront area is amazing, and we basically didn't spend anytime on the pool deck because the seating at the waterfront is far superior!

 

Sugarcane Mojito bar - don't miss this! The spicy passion mojito was my fav.

Margaritaville - don't miss this either! Yum is a great bartender. Watch out for the super megatron yum special ;)

 

After Midnight - personally I loved this show, though I can understand why it may not appeal to everyone.

 

Brat Pack - I thought this was good, but I honestly haven't seen most of the films this show was referencing.

 

Showmen - honestly, skip this. The guy doing this show, Tezz, was one of the tap dancers in After Midnight and he was pretty spectacular then. However, his solo show was disappointing and I do not agree with him leaving vacation hero cards on the tables at the supper club with a note paper-clipped to it asking for the cards to be submitted.

 

My one complaint about the megaships is having to get a reservation for the shows. It sort of negates the whole freestyle thing because you have to go to dinner at a certain time to get to the show by a certain time. I understand it's a bit of a necessity but not for me.

 

Cabin - 12220, port side balcony. Great room and we had a wonderful room steward. Lots of nice platinum presents as well.

 

The ship is beautiful, especially the hull art by Guy Harvey who I absolutely love. It's an impressive vessel and I was pleasantly surprised to see lots of maintenance and cleaning crews around keeping it in tip-top shape.

 

Cruise Critic M&G - thanks to musicorn for organizing. We had a lovely chat with some great folks and enjoying speaking with the officers as well.

 

Cruise Director Tyler - I have no idea how he has that much energy but props to him for being so enthusiastic and fun. We chatted with him both at the M&G as well as the Latitudes party. I always enjoy the Newlywed Not-So Newlywed Game Show, and his assistant cruise director Andre did some amazing trivia events (Harry Potter!)

 

We did easy-walk off disembarkation and chose to get off around 8:20am. We were out by the pickup area by 8:30am. Highly recommend doing this if you can take off your own bags!

 

Overall this was a great cruise but for me personally I love the smaller ships so I'm very much looking forward to my cruise next month on the Pearl to the Panama Canal :)

 

Happy to answer any questions anyone may have!

[wizdiz]

Thanks I enjoyed your review.

[Clarea]

Very nice review, thanks.

[helpmecruise16]

Great review - thanks!

 

We are looking forward to JVD in Tortola, too!

 

In Nassau, have you ever done Melia? If so, how would you compare that to Balmoral? We are trying to decide between the two for our day in Nassau.

[money007penny]

Great review - thanks!

 

We are looking forward to JVD in Tortola, too!

 

In Nassau, have you ever done Melia? If so, how would you compare that to Balmoral? We are trying to decide between the two for our day in Nassau.

 

You're very welcome! JVD is so amazing, you'll love it!

 

Sorry, I haven't been to Melia though. It's been many years since I'd stopped in Nassau and the only thing I had really remembered was tons of shops and pink buildings. Balmoral does have really good facilities though (bar, restaurant, starbucks, lounge chairs etc.), they just need to go around picking up plastic cups a bit more often!

[easyboy]

Thank you for your feedback.

 

 

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[cruisegal40]

Do you remember which night the Not so Newlywed show was? What venue do they hold it in?

 

Glad you had a good cruise.

[Cruising...our happy place]

Thank you for the helpful review. I totally agree about Tyler -- he is one of the best CDs! Happy Thanksgiving.

 

 

 

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[TonyFred]

I guess Scott moved right after our Oct 29th Escape cruise. I found him to be great CD. He and Andre had a lot of chemistry. I normally dont even pay that much attention to the CD but those 2 really stood out to me. They were great at the 70s and 80s party up on H2O.

[cincicruisers]

Thanks for sharing your review with us.

[SNJCruisers]

Do you remember which night the Not so Newlywed show was? What venue do they hold it in?

 

Glad you had a good cruise.

Below is a link to the Escape dailies from the first week of October. I believe the venue was the Atrium lobby area. The location as well as the night can be verified by perusing the link.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2417101

[money007penny]

Do you remember which night the Not so Newlywed show was? What venue do they hold it in?

 

Glad you had a good cruise.

 

It took place in the atrium, so definitely get there early to grab seats. The atrium gets a bit crazy with the game shows and trivia which is great fun, but not much space!

 

I can't quite remember which day it was, must have been either St. Thomas or Tortola evening around 8:30pm.

[money007penny]

I guess Scott moved right after our Oct 29th Escape cruise. I found him to be great CD. He and Andre had a lot of chemistry. I normally dont even pay that much attention to the CD but those 2 really stood out to me. They were great at the 70s and 80s party up on H2O.

 

Andre was a lot of fun! He and Tyler seemed to have great chemistry as well, and I enjoyed the Tyler & Andre show on one of the TV channels every day. Tyler has only been with NCL for about a year I believe, and was with Celebrity before that.

[Mac4YYZ]

Do you recall which night or nights they offered prime rib? It was very good on Getaway. Thanks.

 

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[SNJCruisers]

Do you recall which night or nights they offered prime rib? It was very good on Getaway. Thanks.

 

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I know it's on day one.... I believe it's another night later in the week as well. Peruse the link I posted in post#11 to verify which other day

 

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[Mac4YYZ]

Thank You! Two other items please. Do you recall the promotion for Cruise Next certificates? Last NCL cruise I took they offered a buy one get one. On the dailies I see they have upped that to buy four and get two of them free. Did they have an embarkation day promo on dining packages?

[money007penny]

Thank You! Two other items please. Do you recall the promotion for Cruise Next certificates? Last NCL cruise I took they offered a buy one get one. On the dailies I see they have upped that to buy four and get two of them free. Did they have an embarkation day promo on dining packages?

 

The CruiseNext certificates are still the same as they have been for about the past year or so...

 

$250 deposit, $100 back in onboard credit

$500 deposit, $250 back in onboard credit.

$1000 deposit, $500 back in onboard credit.

 

I didn't see a promo for dining packages, but I wasn't looking so there might have been something.

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.

[cruisetimeforme]

Thanks for your review. We sailed on the Escape last June and Tyler was the CD at that time. He really was good on the drums at Howl at the Moon too. We hope to see him again in March.

 

Very interesting comments regarding the Supper club performer. Why one performance should be worthy of a WOW card would be beyond me.

[cruisegal40]

Thanks for supplying the dailies. Much appreciated.

[Openbar82]

Thanks for the review! I've heard nothing but good things about the Jost Van Dyke on the Rebel Yell. I'm very much looking forward to this on our cruise next year. I am sad to see that Nassau still has those countless pushy sellers, what a shame because after my past experiences I have no desire to leave the ship on that particular port.

[money007penny]

Very interesting comments regarding the Supper club performer. Why one performance should be worthy of a WOW card would be beyond me.

 

Totally agree. Very disappointing. I walked out after a couple songs.

 

One thing I neglected to mention about this guy Tezz was that he was also a judge for the Celebrity Dance game (aka Dancing with the Stars). He was quite rude to the contestants, claiming to just "tell it like it is". The judging should have all been in good fun, not mean spirited. Quite frankly, he didn't live up to his own hype anyway.

[disneywackerdh]

I've read older reviews that mention the smoke from the casino gets all over the atrium, even into restaurants like Le Bistro. But I've also read that Norwegian had plans to make a walled off area with separate ventilation for a small "smoking" casino. Has that happened? What is the smoke like in the casino and the atrium? I'm booked for February but I am worried I'll hate it because of the smoking issue...

[disneywackerdh]

Rebel Yell is the best! I did the Jost Van Dyke excursion on the Getaway 2 years ago and am already booked to do it again on the Escape in February...

[dshefter]

Thanks for your review. We sail on the Escape next November.