My take on the Escape 9/23-9/30

[Rockwife]

Finally, the food. Thanks for reading and happy travels, everyone.

 

 

Food Republic- We practically ate alone here the first evening of the cruise because the location is a bit out of the way and if you’re new to the ship you’ll need to seek it out. I adore Asian foods of all shape and form, so it was a natural first choice. The hostess warmly welcomed us and showed us how to use the screens to order food and drinks (and pay.) My sushi tiger roll was just okay because the shrimp tempura was so hardened they were vaguely unpleasant, but the pork belly dumplings were better. Jeff had several orders of different meat skewers and enjoyed all of them. I regret not revisiting Food Republic later in the week and ordering a different variety of items because I really do love this menu. Maybe next time.

 

Moderno- In all honesty, my memory of the actual cuisine that night is spotty, since I was a little starstruck and focused on conversation. The buffet portion was in some ways a highlight because the meats can get a bit overwhelming after a while. I paced myself, avoided the sushi and buffet bread, and really enjoyed the heart of palm, bean salad, and grilled asparagus. Do try a little cheese bread, mashed potato, and fried yuca sides they bring to the table separately. They’re all very good. Lots of meats were eaten (Jeff reports the parmesan-crusted pork was best). Lots of laughs were had. Lots of wine was consumed. Lovely, lovely evening with Chef Sanchez and his peeps, which I will not forget.

 

Margaritaville- Like I mentioned earlier, I’m no fan of Jimmy Buffett’s music and the one time I dined at the Margaritaville at Universal Studios Florida almost 20 years ago it was among some of the worst food I’ve eaten (lol!) Luckily, this was not the case on the ship and we ate two meals here over the week. The restaurant space here gets very cold, even compared to other parts of the deck nearby, so bring your sweaters or understand that it may be closed due to weather. The pretzel sticks are excellent, as was my shrimp Caesar salad. The Margaritaville fish & chips blow away the MDR lunch offering of fish & chips and Jeff had both a good burger and chicken sandwich. He says the salsa for his chips was a bit overly salted, but the queso was decent.

 

Teppanyaki- If you’ve been to these places stateside, there is nothing at all surprising here. They can’t do some of the flame tricks because of fire hazard, but they added some flare in the performance we’d never seen before. We both ordered the filet and shrimp, along with the usual fried rice and veggies. All were significantly under-seasoned to my palate and the dipping sauces were also bland. I doubt I’d spend the money to eat here again in the future, even though the service was great and I did love dessert. I’ve read plenty of reviews that complained about the green tea cake, but I absolutely loved it. (You do have to like the flavor of green tea, obvie.) The cake is served with a small scoop of green tea ice cream, which made a delicious 1-2 punch of green tea flavor when eaten together.

 

Pincho Tapas- This place is not as popular as I believe it deserves to be, but the location, seating (all high-top tables or high-counter), and fairly adventurous menu probably keeps many away. We ordered the meat & cheese mixto plates, and both offered a nice variety without getting too challenging (no “stinky” cheeses.) The manchego cheese and chorizo pamplona meat were our favorites. Jeff supplemented this with some pork & beef skewers (noticing a pattern here?), but they were so similarly seasoned with chimichurri I couldn’t tell them apart. I liked my patatas bravas very much, but I wished I’d tried some of the seafood or croquetas. No albondigas on the menu seemed strange, as they seem to be a tapas staple. We discovered our favorite cocktail of the cruise here, the Matador, consisting of bourbon, ginger, and elderflower. YUM! If the service at Mojito’s Bar had been better we’d have made it our go-to. Alas.

 

Le Bistro- Getting a table here was like pulling teeth and I honestly felt like the hostess hated my guts after politely inquiring after a table for the third night in a row. I’ll not go into it here, but we did finally get a table in the atrium and everything was fine in the end. Me, my husband, the hostess, and our server all hugged it out. The maître d was not the hugging type, so he gave us a bottle of wine, instead. Bread was just okay, but the mushroom soup was as good as people say. I could eat that every day, even in summer. The waiter insisted I order another app, so I got the seafood medley with puff pastry and instantly knew I’d ordered too much food. That “app” is a saucer-size two-layer pastry, two jumbo shrimp, two large scallops, several grilled asparagus, plus sauce. Delicious, but too large for a multi-course meal. For an entrée, Jeff had his favorite, filet au poivres, and it was “the best steak on the ship.” The server tried to gently steer me from the duck dish, but I was eating seafood so much off the ship that duck was really what I wanted. He was correct, of course, because it wasn’t very good. Imagine a heavily-seasoned layer of shredded duck topped with mashed potatoes, apple, and microgreens. Done properly, it could have been amazing, but it was not.

 

La Cucina- Pretty sure we began with Negroni cocktails here, which I love and the bartenders made them perfectly. The fresh bread served with this meal was warm, crusty, and delicious when soaked in olive oil and balsamic- my favorite bread on the ship. Knowing our limits, we skipped antipasti and pasta courses, and began with salads- both were excellent. We each had veal- him the shank and me the scaloppini- and neither of us had a single complaint about our entrees. His side of spaghetti all olio was tasty, but my side of grilled polenta was room temperature and barely “grilled” at all. That one little dud didn’t impact our enjoyment of classic Italian desserts, though. My tiramisu was divine coffee/chocolate/creamy goodness and his chocolate tart was also on point.

 

Now that I've discovered all of my favorites and know what to avoid, I want to go again! :p

[ano]

Did you find the ship crowded? I've been on 25 cruises, even very large ships like Oasis of the Seas, and for me, this was the most packed cruise ever. Buffet and dinning room seating didn't seem bad getting seating, and buffet food lines weren't bad, but the aisles, elevators, and many public areas were packed. Each elevator arrived full so it was wait for the next and next. And the atrium required hundreds of folding chairs to seat every one. Very classy on a cruise ship and the first time I ever saw hundreds of folding chairs to seat everyone. Capacity of the Escape is listed as 4,266 but I heard more than 4,300 were on this one.

[barb65]

Really enjoyed your review. Liked how you broke it down by category. We love the Escape. Next May will our third cruise on Escape. My favorite part is the Thermal Spa. If you sail the Escape again, give the Thermal Spa a try. It was an extra $199 for the week, but well worth it. You'll love it!

[Rockwife]

Did you find the ship crowded?

 

Yes.

 

Weather had something to do with the crowding, I think. I know that I would have spent a lot more time chilling on the balcony or Waterfront had it not been drizzling or foggy.

 

We also noticed lots of groups who tend to move in slow packs that clog things up. Lots of people with canes, walkers, scooters, etc.

 

I do think this sailing felt very crowded, but I think another random week on the Escape wouldn't have felt that way.

[sprint180]

Re the Customs Form questions: For the past maybe 5 years, any cruise going to Canada from the USA has all guests fill out a customs form before embarking on the ship in the USA. I remember being surprised the first time it came up when we were embarking Carnival Glory in NYC, but now we're used to it when doing a Canada cruise.

 

Thanks for the answer. I was confused, wondering what I had somehow got out of filling out on my last cruise.

[Mike_DeA]

Did you find the ship crowded? I've been on 25 cruises, even very large ships like Oasis of the Seas, and for me, this was the most packed cruise ever. Buffet and dinning room seating didn't seem bad getting seating, and buffet food lines weren't bad, but the aisles, elevators, and many public areas were packed. Each elevator arrived full so it was wait for the next and next. And the atrium required hundreds of folding chairs to seat every one. Very classy on a cruise ship and the first time I ever saw hundreds of folding chairs to seat everyone. Capacity of the Escape is listed as 4,266 but I heard more than 4,300 were on this one.

I believe capacity is listed at double occupancy, but there are many triple and quad cabins which are not included in that total, so often the ship sails at over 100% of listed capacity.

[mking8288]

Thanks, OP, for doing this review - our destination is different - good for us to get a heads up on what might be expected. We usually find embarkation on mega NCL ships to be fairly smooth vs. sometimes chaotic disembarkation, even with priority, escorted walk-off with luggage or not - sometimes, having to do with port operations ... and, those NCL folks on the pier are mostly outsourced, contractors - uniformed/ID badged for that day.

 

Food reviews & opinions are always subjective & personal, we don't subscribed to specialty dining, 2 comp'd Platinum meals on 7 nights are sufficient for us ... fresh cold water lobsters are cheap these days (once again, due to drop in export ... just had yummy whole ones baked in cheese, no reasons to paid a premium) Sounded like Food Republic might be worth a visit instead of Shanghai Noodles, for a fee :p

 

Ship's double occupancy capacity is 4.266 - similar to the Breakaway, but as commented above, it's common to sail at 5% to 10% above "full" - 4,500 to 4,600 or 4,700 aren't that unusual - if the sailing had "only" 4,300 onboard, I wouldn't consider it that crowded ... except for the "smallish" elevators. We do the stairs when we can, especially heading down - yielding to those in walkers, scooters & wheelchairs ... turnaround days are the worst.

 

There are still many unsold cabins for our upcoming sailings, should be interesting to see how crowded things become for us, or not - chilly/wet weather and/or rough seas would definitely squeeze everyone indoors, making it worst. Anything stood out from O'Sheehan's if you ate or try things out there as I believed NCL rolled out some new menu items there ?

 

Much obliged for taking the time to write this up & answer questions.

[Rockwife]

Thanks, OP

Anything stood out from O'Sheehan's if you ate or try things out there as I believed NCL rolled out some new menu items there ?

 

Much obliged for taking the time to write this up & answer questions.

 

You're welcome! I don't think Escape had the newer menu items when we sailed last week. I had a solo breakfast at O'Sheehan's of the Express variety and my husband had the open-faced roast beef sandwich for a solo lunch. Service was "frenzied" for us both, but I think it's just because it's a popular restaurant. Food was decent bar food, as was expected.

[ano]

I wouldn't consider it that crowded ... except for the "smallish" elevators. We do the stairs when we can, especially heading down - yielding to those in walkers, scooters & wheelchairs ... turnaround days are the worst.

Actually the elevators were the biggest on a cruise ship I have ever seen, and there were banks of eight of them. But, because they were so large, and packed, good luck getting out at your floor if you get wedged in the back. Also they didn't seem synchronized in any way, so often one was very packed, and a second later one came by with nobody in it.

[josephmz]

We were on Escape the week before you. Same itinerary.

 

Sorry about your embarkation woes. Actually, ours was the best we've ever had. About 20 minutes from metal detectors to boarding ship. We weren't in a suite.

 

I would have been upset at missing Bar Harbor. That was our favorite stop.

 

Agree about the steak in Le Bistro. It and the mushroom soup were fantastic. We always look forward to La Cucina. Love the lamb with side of pasta with olio.

 

We found the crew to be very friendly and helpful.

[momto2js]

I think the weather plays a big role on Escape and I wonder about having it based in New York. It was designed for you to be outside not having everyone onboard spending most of the day in the few inside spaces. I also wonder often why they don't use the theater more often when weather is an issue. Pretty much everything in the atrium could be relocated to the unused theater easily. I know they need rehearsal time, but not all day, certainly??

[kirsty_r]

I was on this sailing...

 

Having been more accustomed to the epic I actually found the escape much less crowded, except the atrium and buffet. I had no problems with elevators but if there were a few waiting to get in one I tended to just do the stairs. I also noted people generally only pressed one of the elevator buttons... noting each button only controlled half of the lifts...on the last day which was quite warm there were plenty of sun loungers available throughout the pool decks and spice h20.

 

I noticed on sea days the theater was used e.g for movies or talent shows. Supper club got used for group parties. I found it much more crowded indoors in the evening than in the daytime and this is when large venues are already in use for other entertainment so the atrium is the only option. I wasn’t a fan of the layout of the skyline bar or 5 o’clock and felt margheritaville was vastly under used. I did love the waterfront but just wished there was somewhere to order complementary snacks e.g nachos or popcorn whilst chilling out.

 

I had some very good meals in the MDR and a few at o sheehans but agree service was a little frantic in oSheehan’s - definitely not 24 hrs as if you went at 11 they wanted you to wait till 12 for lunch. Seating in MDR at lunch got busy on sea days if you didn’t go as soon as it opened, that could be solved by opening more dining rooms for lunch. Service was relaxed... others call it slow. My worst meal was actually at cagneys - it’s definitely a personal thing, I didn’t think the meat I ordered was any better than the one at the MDR earlier in the week. There was a massive push to get people to use the buffet - I think I only went there twice.

 

Bar staff top notch especially at 5 oclock. Sometimes service was quite slow for drinks at osheehans. I found district too loud to sit in for a nice drink which was unfortunate...

 

Embarkation queues were slow. I presumed it was the Canadian form slowing it down as other than that once at the desk mine was pretty rapid. Getting on and off at ports I found no issues.

 

Staff and officers were amazing!!

 

 

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[jdvmd]

Awesome review!