Norwegian Escape Wedding Review (10/21/18)

[TMD7496]

Wedding Review: (I’m only reviewing the wedding here and not the cruise itself). This will be long and very detailed. I’m sorry for any spelling errors and if I just jump around from topic to topic since I’m typing this quickly. 

 

Embarkation Day:
So I was on the 10/21/18 sailing and got married 10/22/18 at sea for a symbolic ceremony. Upon boarding, the first thing I did was go to the salon and make a hair appointment. I decided to make the earliest possible appointment which was at 8am. There were NO makeup services on board, but I had a makeup artist as a friend traveling with us so it was okay. When I got to my cabin, I had a message on my stateroom phone from Mary Ann, who was the group service coordinator/my wedding coordinator. We scheduled to meet at 7pm that night. I sat in her office and she went over my contract from top to bottom discussing all of the wedding details. There, I met my photographer and discussed what type of pictures we’d be most interested in (outdoors, indoors, etc). I had to bring down my cake topper so it would be ready for the next day. Mary Ann was extremely sweet and so easy to work with. She answered all of my questions and helped me out when needed. 

 

Wedding Day (morning):
I arrived to my hair appointment at 7:45am and they were ready for me about 10 minutes early before my appointment was scheduled. I came with pictures of what I wanted and the woman who did my hair did it even better than the photos. It took approximately 1 hour. I can’t remember her name but I addressed that I was concerned about it not staying in place all day and she made sure it would. My hair stayed in place from 8am-3am when I took the Bobby pins out. After my hair appointment I headed up to my mom’s room to start getting my makeup done and getting ready. She was staying in The Haven 2 bedroom family villa and there was plenty of room for myself, my maid of honor, and 3 bridesmaids to get ready together. 

 

Wedding Day (afternoon):
At 1:50 I headed down to Moderno which was where my ceremony was taking place. Let me tell you, walking through the ship in a wedding gown is an experience. I had to walk from the forward elevators all the way to the aft elevators and people were stopping me to congratulate me. It was amazing and so sweet. When I arrived outside of Moderno, Mary Ann already had my bridesmaids/groomsman in place ready to begin the ceremony. We walked into the restaurant and lined up right by where we’d be walking but still out of everyone’s sight. What felt like hours (but was really about 5 minutes) Captain Niklas Persson arrived and soon after I heard my bridal parties processional song beginning. All in all, the ceremony was beautiful and Captain Niklas did an amazing job. There is nothing I would change about my wedding ceremony. Immediately after the ceremony, we had our recessional and were walked back in to do our keepsake certificate signing. Then we were able to take pictures with the Captain. After that it lead into my first dance as husband and wife and my dance with my father. We then had a quick champagne toast and started taking photos. Lorie (our photographer) started posing us and little by little more people joined our pictures until we had our whole group there for some very nice photos. After the group photo, everyone left and my husband and I were taken right out the back door of Moderno for some beautiful aft facing photos. After, Lorie took us to deck 8 to take photos in front of the beautiful chandelier. We then took photos in the elevators (which were more beautiful then I originally expected) and she lead us down for photos in her studio. Taking the photos was so much fun for us.  

 

Wedding Day (evening):
We decided not to have a reception and instead did a group dinner at Taste restaurant. They sat my party of 30 on the balcony area so it felt like a private section. They had a table decorated with my wedding cake on display. The group dinner went great and the waitstaff was fantastic. After dinner, we cut the cake and everyone enjoyed it. I had a 2 tier cake with vanilla cake, vanilla custard, and white buttercream frosting. It was surprisingly better than I expected. After dinner, we got changed and decided to go to the Norwegian Night Out Party at Spice H2O. Alvin (Cruise director) hosts a great party and all of my guests had a great time. 

 

Photos: 
The following day, Lorie called me up and asked me to come view our pictures. It was so fun because she put them up on a big tv screen in her studio and played a cute slideshow with all of the pictures and she took over 250 of them. The photography package I chose was 50 photos on USB and 10 prints. It was hard to choose only 50 but all of them was well over $1,000 which we didn’t see worth it. By that night, Lorie had my flash drive and prints ready for us to pick up. 

 

Complaints: 
Despite a great day, not everything went as expected. I received chocolate covered strawberries, assorted canapés, and the remainder of my wedding cake delivered to my room while I was out. I was out from about 5:30-3am and the food was sitting out for so many hours so it wasn’t good anymore. It had to go right in the garbage which I was upset about. Also, my package includes a 6inch wedding cake delivered to my stateroom and a printed photo with a frame. It was never sent to me and I realized it when i was reviewing my contract on the 5th night of my cruise. I went down to guest services to ask about it and was told the wedding cake I received at my ceremony was the 6inch cake? I had a 2 tier cake that I spent $500 and I explained that but they claimed I received it. I said okay whatever because I didn’t want to argue and didn’t really want it much anyway. I asked about the photo and they sent me up to the photo gallery. At the photo gallery they said I had to talk to my photographer. I ended up receiving my photos but it was definitely a hassle to get it. 

 

Final Opinion:
Overall, the ceremony was beautiful. Norwegian definitely did an amazing job. The staff was the friendliest I’ve ever had on a cruise ship before. I probably wouldn’t sail on the Escape a second time but I’m very happy with how my wedding turned out.

[PGPrendy]

Thank you for sharing your experience here.  Your photos are gorgeous!  We are considering the Escape for our 10th anniversary vow renewal next year, and I have been wondering about the experience.  Although not exactly the same as a vow renewal, I think that reading about your wedding experience helps :-)  

 

[cnssu123]

Thank you for sharing your experience! We are currently looking into the norwegian escape for our wedding as well. 

 

Question, did you go through a group travel agent or did you go through directly with Norwegian? I put an inquiry for the group rate directly with NCL and I am not liking the pricing or what they are offering, wonder if there is better advantage to find a group specialist. 

 

Thanks

[MJandEJ]

Thank you - this was very helpful! And oh my gosh your photos are amazing! That gives me some peace about our upcoming wedding on NCL!

[TMD7496]

On 12/10/2018 at 9:39 AM, cnssu123 said:

Thank you for sharing your experience! We are currently looking into the norwegian escape for our wedding as well. 

 

Question, did you go through a group travel agent or did you go through directly with Norwegian? I put an inquiry for the group rate directly with NCL and I am not liking the pricing or what they are offering, wonder if there is better advantage to find a group specialist. 

 

Thanks

I’m sorry my reply is so late! I haven’t been on here in a while. I booked as a group directly through NCL. I ended up getting money back after all of my rooms were booked and I liked the promos they were offering at the time (I think they have changed since my group booked though). However, I wasn’t too thrilled with my PCC handling my group. So it’s really just personal preference I think! Best of luck with your planning and I’d be happy to answer any questions if you have any in the future!