NCL first-timer Escape review

[cnvh]

Now that I'm fully unpacked, time for a review...

 

BF and I sailed on the Escape out of NYC to Bermuda on 9/2; it was BF's first-ever cruise, my 4th (2 previous on Carnival, one on HAL), and first time in Bermuda for both. We are in our mid-40's.

 

We took Amtrak in from Central PA and used a car service (Carmel) from Penn Station to the pier. The car service was a much nicer experience than a cab ride and was about $20 including tip, not much more than a cab. We arrived at the terminal at about 11:20am, sailed right through security, got our boarding group card (#29), and waited in line for about 20-30 minutes for check-in. They had only just started calling boarding groups 1-4 when we got in line, but by the time we were checked in, we didn't even have time to use the rest room before all boarding groups were called and we were walking onto the ship. Sidewalk to ship in under 45 minutes, which has been my smoothest boarding experience so far!

 

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[cnvh]

Once onboard, we headed right to one of the touch screens near the elevators to book our specialty dining and make our show reservations. (No need to go and stand in line at the box office, or anywhere else for that matter.) There are TONS of touch screens all over the ship; there were lines at the ones closest to where we entered the ship, but we went up a couple decks and easily found available touchscreens.

 

Once we were all booked, we headed to Taste (or was it Savor? I always got them confused) for a relaxing lunch. Service was prompt and attentive, food was OK (we ordered a burger and a cheese steak), which was fine because we were starving, lol!

 

After a leisurely lunch, we headed up to Deck 10 and got there just a few minutes before they opened the hallways to the cabins, at around 2:30.

 

Dinner on our first night was at the Manhattan Room, which would become our go-to dinner option on our non-specialty dining nights. Overall, dinners in the Manhattan Room were quite nice! Served hot, cooked properly, not overdone... I was very surprised to find the fettuccine Alfredo to be perfectly al dente, really spot-on. Our only complaint in Manhattan, which would later prove to be consistent elsewhere in the dining venues, was that any beef dish (steaks, medallions, etc) was always properly cooked and served medium rare as ordered, but all 3 times we had beef, it was tough and flavorless despite being cooked exactly to order. By the middle of our trip, I just stopped ordering beef altogether.

 

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[cnvh]

We had the UBP and the SDP, and considering that I suspect most of the rest of the passengers also had the UBP, I was surprised we didn't see more drunk people onboard... Honestly I only saw one person completely obliterated, and that was around 7pm the first night of our trip. With that being said, most of the bartenders we encountered looked frazzled, overworked, and not exactly friendly-- of all the crew onboard, I saw the fewest smiles from the bartenders. None of them were RUDE by any means, just very harried and looking to get their jobs done as quickly as possible.

 

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[cnvh]

SPECIALTY DINING

 

We picked Moderno, Bayamo, and Le Bistro for our specialty options.

 

Moderno was FABULOUS. BF loves Brazilian steakhouses, but it was my first time experiencing one. The salad bar was incredible, but a little too incredible-- we tried so many things on the salad bar that we barely had any room for the meat courses afterwards! (Rookie mistake, lol...) If I had it to do over, I'd pass on the salad bar altogether... The meat offerings were superb, though salty. (I think I drank more water at that meal than any other.)

 

Next up was Bayamo, which was a $12pp upcharge on top of the SDP. We were cool with that, since I love seafood... However, sadly, Bayamo was probably one of the worst meals we had all week. I ordered the king crab legs for an appetizer, and the seafood trio for my meal... The crab legs and lobster tail were obviously from frozen (to be expected), but the lobster tail was tough and overcooked; plus, there was a wadded-up chunk of aluminum foil on my plate, about the size of a pencil eraser-- I'm assuming at least a portion of my meal had been cooked in/on foil, and they hadn't bothered to check the plate before sending it out. The mashed-potatoes side was half-composed of an un-mashed chunk of solid potato. The food was OK, but not great; had it been one of the regular restaurants, I wouldn't have thought much of it. But, not only was it a specialty venue, but one with an additional surcharge above and beyond the SDP-- I was expecting a bit more quality control and attention to detail than what we had.

 

The icing on the cake at Bayamo was when our server was clearing the table before dessert-- she reached for the salt and pepper shakers next to my water glass, missed, and ended up sticking her entire finger into the water in my water glass. (No biggie, we're on a moving ship, mistakes happen.) She said sorry, but then she just removed the S&P shakers, leaving my now-fingered water glass on the table! It wasn't until she came back later, and I had to ASK for a fresh glass of water, that she thought to replace it. (Again, not the level of service I'd expect from a premium specialty restaurant.)

 

I did end up calling the Bayamo restaurant manager later that night to voice my concerns (I'd grabbed her card from the hostess stand on our way out), and she apologized and graciously offered to refund our $12pp service charge, which I thought was fair.

 

The next night, BF and I were seated in the Mixx bar area, enjoying some cocktails, when the ship-wide F&B manager was making rounds and approached us to ask how we were enjoying our experience thus far. I was honest and told him that we'd been having wonderful experiences everywhere, with the exception of Bayamo, and I'd spoken to their manager already and she offered to refund our upcharge-- however, the refund hadn't posted yet. The F&B manager immediately took a note pad from his pocket, took down our details, and went to a nearby hostess stand; he returned a moment later to assure us that our refund had indeed been processed, and he handed us one of his cards, on which he scribbled a note giving us a voucher for two comped meals at Margaritaville. Totally unexpected and certainly not requested, but much appreciated-- that's great customer service!!

 

Our last SDP meal was at Le Bistro, which was lovely. BF had the mushroom soup, which was probably the best mushroom soup I have ever tasted-- and that's one of my favorites which I often order when I see it on a menu. SUPERB.

 

Last but certainly not least, we did enjoy our comped lunch at Margaritaville on our final sea day... It was phenomenal! The volcano nachos were possibly the best nachos we've ever had, and the burger was everything a burger should be and then some.

 

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[Aprille]

Nice review. Thanks for sharing your experiences. :)

[Tootsiepop6]

Thank you so much! I'm on Escape this Sunday for the first time. And first NCL.

 

What did you do for shows?

[BirdTravels]

Cool review. Thank you very much!

[cnvh]

We had originally booked "Wine Lovers-- The Musical" (lunch), "Choir of Man" (dinner), "Brat Pack," "After Midnight," and the dinner cabaret/supper club with Melinda Doolittle. Wine Lovers, CoM, and the Melinda Doolittle show all involved upcharges since they were in the supper club and included meals.

 

After Midnight was wonderful, all vintage "Cotton Club"-esque old jazz numbers, we thoroughly enjoyed it... It was a bit slow to start, but ended strong and had an incredibly talented cast. Melinda Doolittle also performed in After Midnight, so we got a chance to catch her and so enjoyed her performance that we booked her (pricey) supper club show for later in the week.

 

Wine Lovers was our first upcharge show in the supper club. The show was cute/OK, but the meal was not so good... One had no choice of selection, there was a fixed 3-course menu and you got what you got. Unfortunately, what we got was pretty "eh" to our tastes... The first course was a salad with roast duck, I'm not a fan of duck to begin with and it was tough and gristly. Second course was beef medallions--cooked properly to order, but tough and flavorless. The dessert, however, was on-point (a cappuccino cheesecake, I'm drooling just thinking about it!)

 

After our so-so lunch experience at Wine Lovers, it kind-of put us off to future experiences in the supper club venue... To have to pay extra $$ for a meal, which may or may not be something you wouldn't want to eat in the first place, for the privilege of seeing a show which should otherwise be included without an upcharge, was a bit irritating. So we ended up canceling our reservations for Choir of Man and the Melinda Doolittle show, based solely on the upcharge/fixed meal thing. (There's plenty other entertainment to be had onboard that doesn't include an upcharge!)

 

We ended up skipping out on our Brat Pack reservation because we opted for an early bed that night, so I can't comment on that show.

 

However, the ABSOLUTE highlight of our week was the "Howl At The Moon" dueling pianos in the Headliners venue. They played a 4-hour gig 4 separate nights, and we ended up catching them every night they played, for at least an hour or two... Those guys were INCREDIBLE. Three performers, usually two onstage at any given time (one rotating out for an occasional break), but it was often all three of them onstage together. The talent in those 3 performers just blew us away-- they took requests and seemed to have no limit on what they could play. And not only on pianos! Drums, guitar, fiddle, you name it... They played everything from Billy Joel to Eminem... At one point one of the guys did an aria from an opera... Country, pop, classic rock, show tunes, cartoon theme songs, EVERYTHING. They weren't shy about fishing for tips along with requests, but they totally earned it-- the first night they would get song requests stuck to $1s and $5s, but by the last night, people were ponying up $100 bills with their song requests, the guys were THAT good.

 

It was also the show/bar where the other ship performers came to hang out on the last night, and at one point a couple other guys from one of the other shows took the stage to do a hair-raising rendition of Aerosmith's "Dream On"... Omg, I seriously get goosebumps just thinking about it.

 

I'm not sure how long this particular Howl at the Moon crew is onboard, but Matt, Chris, and Steve were freaking amazing. Not. To. Be. Missed.

 

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[vacation44]

Thank you for taking the time to post your review.

[beerman2]

SPECIALTY DINING

 

We picked Moderno, Bayamo, and Le Bistro for our specialty options.

 

Moderno was FABULOUS. BF loves Brazilian steakhouses, but it was my first time experiencing one. The salad bar was incredible, but a little too incredible-- we tried so many things on the salad bar that we barely had any room for the meat courses afterwards! (Rookie mistake, lol...) If I had it to do over, I'd pass on the salad bar altogether... The meat offerings were superb, though salty. (I think I drank more water at that meal than any other.)

 

Next up was Bayamo, which was a $12pp upcharge on top of the SDP. We were cool with that, since I love seafood... However, sadly, Bayamo was probably one of the worst meals we had all week. I ordered the king crab legs for an appetizer, and the seafood trio for my meal... The crab legs and lobster tail were obviously from frozen (to be expected), but the lobster tail was tough and overcooked; plus, there was a wadded-up chunk of aluminum foil on my plate, about the size of a pencil eraser-- I'm assuming at least a portion of my meal had been cooked in/on foil, and they hadn't bothered to check the plate before sending it out. The mashed-potatoes side was half-composed of an un-mashed chunk of solid potato. The food was OK, but not great; had it been one of the regular restaurants, I wouldn't have thought much of it. But, not only was it a specialty venue, but one with an additional surcharge above and beyond the SDP-- I was expecting a bit more quality control and attention to detail than what we had.

 

The icing on the cake at Bayamo was when our server was clearing the table before dessert-- she reached for the salt and pepper shakers next to my water glass, missed, and ended up sticking her entire finger into the water in my water glass. (No biggie, we're on a moving ship, mistakes happen.) She said sorry, but then she just removed the S&P shakers, leaving my now-fingered water glass on the table! It wasn't until she came back later, and I had to ASK for a fresh glass of water, that she thought to replace it. (Again, not the level of service I'd expect from a premium specialty restaurant.)

 

I did end up calling the Bayamo restaurant manager later that night to voice my concerns (I'd grabbed her card from the hostess stand on our way out), and she apologized and graciously offered to refund our $12pp service charge, which I thought was fair.

 

The next night, BF and I were seated in the Mixx bar area, enjoying some cocktails, when the ship-wide F&B manager was making rounds and approached us to ask how we were enjoying our experience thus far. I was honest and told him that we'd been having wonderful experiences everywhere, with the exception of Bayamo, and I'd spoken to their manager already and she offered to refund our upcharge-- however, the refund hadn't posted yet. The F&B manager immediately took a note pad from his pocket, took down our details, and went to a nearby hostess stand; he returned a moment later to assure us that our refund had indeed been processed, and he handed us one of his cards, on which he scribbled a note giving us a voucher for two comped meals at Margaritaville. Totally unexpected and certainly not requested, but much appreciated-- that's great customer service!!

 

Our last SDP meal was at Le Bistro, which was lovely. BF had the mushroom soup, which was probably the best mushroom soup I have ever tasted-- and that's one of my favorites which I often order when I see it on a menu. SUPERB.

 

Last but certainly not least, we did enjoy our comped lunch at Margaritaville on our final sea day... It was phenomenal! The volcano nachos were possibly the best nachos we've ever had, and the burger was everything a burger should be and then some.

 

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NCL officers ( Food and Beverage) do a great job handling situations.

 

We had a server situation in either Taste or Savor, which turned into Chocolate Covered Strawberries for the last 3 days of Cruise delivered to our cabin.

 

Enjoying your perspective on the Escape.

[spdwain]

Thank you again. I am looking forward to Howl At The Moon even more now. I hope the same guys are there in December.

[snorklinbarb]

Enjoyed your review. We were least impressed with Bayamo as well a couple of years ago on Escape. Your point about an extra charge on top of the specialty dining pkg charge is well taken and the food did not blow us away vs. say Le Bistro and others.

 

Any idea when "Choir of Man" finishes up and what the replacement might be? We enjoyed the separate show/dinner (special courses prepared by the chef) when Brenda Braxton was in "After Midnight" and had her own show. Melinda Doolittle was a favorite American Idol contestant and glad you got a chance to see her in the show. Bet her solo performance is excellent as well. As we understand it, 3 performers will rotate through with each staying a couple of months.

 

One thing that always keeps us coming back is the attention to detail, visibility of officers and follow through. Your Food & Bev. Dir. story highlights that perfectly.

 

Do you by chance have a list of the other officers (someone else asked on that other thread of Who's Who on Board)? Don't know if you had a Meet & Greet where they give out cards with that info. Of course, staff rotates with vacations, etc.

 

Could you comment on some of the other entertainment in the lounges, solo, duos, house band? Do they have a Caribbean/Reggae band onboard?

 

You mentioned Manhattan Room. Do they still have musical entertainment during dinner?

 

Glad you had a great time.:)

[Sand and Seas]

Thank you for sharing your review with us! Escape is a favorite of ours.

 

 

While we have been on the Escape 7 times, we had issues with Bayamo on our last cruise (April) too. Based on our prior dinners in there we had booked it twice for our April cruise but cancelled the 2nd reservation. My lobster was over-cooked too and DH wasn't impressed with his entree either. Strangely, our salads were totally bland and unappetizing too, while we had loved them on prior cruises.

 

If you didn't try Pincho Tapas, can highly recommend it for your next Escape.