Escape Review with a 15-Month-Old

[thatjoeguy]

Several weeks ago, my DH (36) and I (35) took our 15-month-old on his first cruise! We were on the January 13th Escape sailing. I've been cruising with family since I was a kid, and DH and I have been cruising together for the past 10 years. This was cruise #7 on NCL for both of us, and our second time on the Escape. We were joined on this trip by a couple of our friends with their 5 and 7-year-old kids, as well as two other single friends. We were in a (non family) mini-suite on the 10th floor. The kiddo has been taking showers since he's been a few months old, so we didn't need a tub for him, and DH is 6'7, so can't stand upright in the tub-showers on NCL.

 

Food and Drink:

We booked our cruise with the free UBP and KSF. Since the friends we cruised with all had the included 3-night SDP, we booked that before the cruise (saving $12 each) as well. We ended up at La Cucina one night with the whole group of 9 and at Cagney's twice, once with the whole group and once with just the three of us. We never had reservations; since we were eating with kids, we just went to eat between 5:30 and 6:30 and were always easily and quickly seated. We remembered La Cucina being just OK on our last cruise, but we really enjoyed it on this cruise. Cagney's was our favorite last cruise, and we really enjoyed both trips this time as well. We also ate at Food Republic one night (spoiler alert, not covered by the SDP, but the drinks are included with the UBP) and it was again our best meal of the cruise.

I never ended up at any of the regular 3 restaurants for dinner (sick kid, see later posts) and instead just ate some quick meals at the buffet. We had one meal each in Taste and Savor (lunch the first full day, breakfast the day of disembarkation). In both cases the food was good, but service was slow. DH and friends said the same for the dinners they ate in the main rooms. Breakfast was usually either at the buffet or brought back to the room from the buffet. New (to us) this trip - servers would come around with drinks and pastries at the buffet, which was nice.

We ate a few lunches at O'Sheeans with the whole group, and several late night snacks with the party group. Service there was always good.

We spent a few nights at the wine bar. Compared to our last trip on the Escape in early '16, the choices by the glass had been drastically reduced from over 100 to about 30, which was disappointing. Overall, the bar service was really quick and friendly everywhere except the O'Sheeans bar. The mango meltdowns were frequent and delicious.

 

Entertainment:

After dinner, DH and I switched off staying in the room at night with the kiddo while the other went out. We saw After Midnight on our previous Escape trip, so didn't need to go again. Several of us did go see For the Record. In my opinion, the move to the theater improved the show. Our group was at Howl at the Moon each of the four nights they played - two of the three players were really fantastic. We went to the Norwegian Night Out party for an hour or two up in Spice, which was a lot of fun. Late (very late) night dancing at Skyline was also a blast. Several of us went to the LGBT meet-up, also held in the Skyline bar. It was very poorly attended.

 

Guppies:

We used the guppies nursery several times. The guppies nursery has 3 different types of activities for the 6 month to 2 year olds: open play in the nursery, hosted events elsewhere on the ship, and drop off sessions. We tried them all. The open play gives you and the kiddo access to the nursery toys. The hosted events are for parent(s) and kid(s); DH and the kiddo did a bubble machine session in the atrium. The drop off sessions are like a normal short term day care. We originally booked the drop off session for two nights on the trip, but the kiddo got sick for the first, so we only ended up using it once. The sessions are $20 for a two hour block, starting (in our cruise) on the odd hours. You can book two sessions in a row - we ended up doing 7-11 on the last night to go to Food Republic, pack, and hit up the dueling pianos. They give you a walkie talkie style pager when you drop off the kids. Ours was over tired when we dropped him off, so I ended up getting a call from them about 10 minutes in, but he was calm by the time I made it down to the nursery, so all was good. The staff was really great. We're planning to use them more next cruise.

Each day in the Guppies is themed, which I hadn't known in advance. I have the weekly schedule that I'll get uploaded in a later post.

 

Future posts - getting to and from the ship, ports, internet, and cruising with a kid! Any questions, please let me know!

[gymbomb]

Following, considering Escape with the baby next year! You'll probably cover this later on, but did you have room for a pack n play in your mini suite?

[Keith1010]

You are off to a great start and I am following this.

Keith

[estrawder3]

We are taking our then 20 month old on the escape in September. Thank you for the information on the guppies.

[patsnation18]

taking a toddler on Escape next year, looking forward to your review

[Brooklyn1119]

Sailing the escape with an 18 month April 29th so I am following for all the tips & tricks

[jdvmd]

Excellent review thus far! Thanks!

[Clarea]

Excellent start!

[TrpngBilly]

We've been cruising with our kids at least annually since our oldest, who is now 8, was only 18-months old. NCL always provided a pack & play at no additional cost so we never needed to pack one. We just made arrangements for it when we made our reservation. And we were always pleased with the condition it was in. It was always clean so it was a relief not needing to pack one. Of course, we always pack disinfectant wipes whenever we travel; Happy Happy Washy Washy.

 

Now our kids are 8 & 6 so we let them take turns sleeping in the pullman bed.

[gymbomb]

We've been cruising with our kids at least annually since our oldest, who is now 8, was only 18-months old. NCL always provided a pack & play at no additional cost so we never needed to pack one. We just made arrangements for it when we made our reservation. And we were always pleased with the condition it was in. It was always clean so it was a relief not needing to pack one. Of course, we always pack disinfectant wipes whenever we travel; Happy Happy Washy Washy.

 

 

 

Now our kids are 8 & 6 so we let them take turns sleeping in the pullman bed.

 

 

 

We have them provide one when we fly, but take our own when we drive to the port. Though we were very happy with the condition of the one they provided on Epic, it was a smaller sized one (Graco travel lite) which worked ok for our 10 month old but wouldn’t have worked for a toddler.

 

 

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[thatjoeguy]

Following, considering Escape with the baby next year! You'll probably cover this later on, but did you have room for a pack n play in your mini suite?

 

We actually had the pack and play set up in two different locations throughout the trip. Out minisuite was a bed by the bathroom, couch by the balcony. The first night or two, we had the pack and play in the hallway between the bathroom and the rest of the room. It ended up being a really tight squeeze between the pack and play and wall, but we managed to get by while he was asleep. We later moved the bed slightly closer to the closet, which gave us enough room to put it between the bed and couch, which was a much better set up. This still gave us room between the bed and closet. We had thought about putting it in front of the couch, but this last set up gave us good access to everything.

[thatjoeguy]

Much delayed continuation:

 

Getting to and from the ship:

Coming from the midwest in January, we flew direct in to FLL the day before the cruise left. We rented a car and car seat ($36 total from Enterprise for the 24 hour period) at FLL and drove to The Conrad in Fort Lauderdale, which was by far the most space we'd have all week. I realized that we'd forgotten the new bibs I had just bought for the kiddo at home, so I walked to CVS, who didn't carry them. I did get a diaper genie insert, which was great for dirty diapers on the ship. The next morning, we stopped at a Target on the way to the port, and picked up the bibs as well as a Nuby silicone mat, that we ended up using every day on the ship, and we're still using every day at home. I dropped off the husband and kid at the port, then dropped the car off at one of the downtown Enterprise locations. I was planning to Uber to the port, but when I looked at the wait times, I just decided to take advantage of the nice weather and walk, about 3 miles.

After the cruise, we booked the NCL airport transfer to FLL, which we've used before. Since it was a bus, we didn't worry about a car seat.

[thatjoeguy]

Ports:

When we booked last year, we were supposed to be doing the Eastern Caribbean, which we had done several times over the past few years. With the hurricanes that went through, we were moved to Western, which we hadn't done in a while. The planned itinerary was, Falmouth, Jamaica on Monday, George Town, Grand Cayman on Tuesday, Great Stirrup Cay, Bahamas Thursday, and Nassau, Bahamas on Friday.

Jamaica is quite anti gay, and the kiddo was a bit under the weather, so we just stayed onboard that day.

In the Caymans, we walked to 7 mile beach. The ocean side of the road had sidewalks for most of the way down the street - I believe that there was a solid line of sidewalk on the island side of the street. We took the turnoff just after Church Street turns into Bay Road. Overall, it was slightly less than a mile to the start of the beach. We then walked down another quarter mile or so to some shade and tide pools.

We were scheduled to dock at Great Stirrup and reserved a large cabana for our group. Unfortunately, due to weather, we were unable to tender and had to skip this stop, giving us a 0/2 for landing on the private island. At this point, I don't think it exists. We had pre-booked the excursion, so it was just returned to our account as a credit. Since we already had some OBC and didn't spend that much onboard, the remainder was returned to our card after the trip.

Instead of an extra sea day, which happened last time we missed the island, we went to Nassau a day early, and changed our stop to an overnight. The first afternoon, we walked to Junkanoo beach, less than a mile west of the cruise port. Unfortunately, it was cool and windy, so we just walked a bit further along the beach for a few minutes before heading back to the ship. The weather the next day was similar, and we had been to Nassau a LOT before, so we stayed on board on Friday.

[Sotermarler]

Ha ha, I don’t think it exists either! [emoji23]

 

 

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[cruznds]

Following, going with a 20 month old in March thanks for the write-up.

[zitsky]

I don't have kids, but I'm enjoying your review. :)