NCL Escape Family Review March 17th

[Lisalk12]

March 17 2019 NCL Escape

Disclaimer** this will be long. I take tons of food photos!!! I love to read reviews pretrip, journal when I’m on a trip, and relive everything by sharing our trip with others.

 

First a little about my family. "We" consist of my husband (44yrs), me (43) and our sons, 17 12 & almost 2 (I know it’s a crazy age spread). DH and I have sailed in 2013 on NCL Star through CAS (7 night ocean-view to the Caribbean). June 2015 we booked a family cruise aboard NCL Sky's (4 night penthouse suite to the Bahamas). We continued our journey aboard NCL Gem in March 2016. We originally chose a balcony but later called NCL and upgraded our room to a mini-suite. A week before we were able to upsell that moved us to a 2 bedroom family suite. And we did the same upgrade in June 2016 aboard the NCL Jade.

 

 

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[Lisalk12]

Our accommodations:
For this trip we booked a family oceanview (rooms for 5 are few and far between) on the 5th floor. Due to always being able to upgrade in the past we really thought we would eventually upsell to a suite but we didn’t realize that NCL only allows you to upgrade 2 steps. So the largest we could go is a mini suite (so no can do because they do not have any balcony or MS that holds 5). It’s a stupid rule. We even tried to cancel and rebook another way and they said we couldn’t.

This would be the first trip sailing/flying with a toddler. And with this came many new issues, trials, and great memories. We booked when we could chose one free perks and chose UBP. I loved the UBP on our other trips. Not that we drink a lot but I like to try different things and like not having to worry about getting something that I didn't enjoy drinking.

We called 1 month out to set up my account to have special dietary (Gluten & Dairy Free) note attached to the room number. I love cruising NCL just for the fact that they cater to my dietary needs. I never eat at the buffet (with the exception of a random salad lunch) even though cross contamination doesn’t usually effect me. I always preorder my dinner the prior night and it will be ready and compliant when my family’s order is ready. For this trip Garfield was the person assigned to take my nightly orders. He went above and beyond taking time to chat with my boys, give recommendations and even had the chef make a special dessert for my last night in Savor. We did one night of specialty dining for the boys and one date night speciality dinner for my husband and I. We made no reservations in advance due to the baby needing to lead our scheduling but always managed to get reservations for dinner the day is where we wanted but we ate early (5:00ish) most nights.

So ... here we go aboard the beautiful Norwegian Escape.


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[Lisalk12]

Fri & Sat travel -
Just kidding we have to get to New York first! We live in the eastern part of Oklahoma and decided to fly out of Dallas so we could have a direct flight with Southwest. We didn’t want the baby to have a long drive and then have to stay confined in an airplane the same day so we traveled to Dallas the night before our flight. We stayed in the Element Hotel ($253 for 2 rooms) by Dallas Love Airport that offered a park and fly option ($8/day).

I found the room to be clean and comfortable. It had a refrigerator, microwave, stove, and dishwasher. It offered healthy pre-made meals and a free breakfast buffet the next morning. We put the big boys in one room and us with the baby in another room. The hotel offered free Shuttle service every 30 minutes to the airport. We left the hotel at 9:30 for 12:55 southwest flight.

We got our tickets & luggage dropped off. We planned on having the baby sit in our lap since he is under 2 and all we had to show for him was a birth certificate. The big boys used passports and also have Tribal ID cards. I kept the babies stroller and knew that people take it with them but didn’t know the procedure for getting it tagged. Figured out the hard way that you need to have a special tag and a luggage claim tag on it to board. I was able to get both of those at the small boarding desk while my family boarded the plane. I was concerned with the recent grounding of some jets that it might be a madhouse. But all went smoothly and security was fairly easy to go through. My husband had the clear walk through and could of taken all three boys if we had done some research.

Making it through security quickly we had plenty of time for a sit down lunch at Cool River Cafe. I enjoyed my first (of many) margaritas and we had a delicious lunch of hamburgers, quesadillas, prime rib sandwich and a grilled cheese for baby.

We went to the gate to wait for our plane but noticed TSA and guards putting on gloves, eye protection, and meeting right by the door at the gate. Of course I’m curious and a little concerned that they know something that I didn’t know. Turns out they were rechecking for TSA. Everyone had to get their ids and tickets out and they went up and down the lines.

Finally, onboard the plane with the stroller properly tagged and put under we are ready for takeoff. I didn’t know how baby would handle the cabin pressure. We gave him a binkie for takeoff and he did great!

He loved eating plane crackers and watching basketball on the tv programs available through the Southwest app. The flight there lasted almost 3 hours. Baby fell asleep the last hour and he woke as we started descending. He wasn’t a happy camper at all. So I let him bite off and chew on a small sample of gum. That seemed to help him calm down and he finally spit it out and took his binkie for the last few minutes of the plane ride.


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[bjtravelnews]

What a beautiful baby!  Thanks for sharing your moments with us!

 

[Lisalk12]

What a beautiful baby!  Thanks for sharing your moments with us!
 

Thanks for following along! And we think he’s cute also... but maybe we are a little biased. [emoji2368]


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[Lisalk12]

Upon exiting the plane it became obvious that NY airport had undergone a HUGE improvement since we had been there in 2016. It took us some time to manage a stroller through some construction areas to find our luggage and we had to show our claim tickets to get them from behind a roped off area. We had planned to use Carmel car service that my husband had found online. He had reservations made and called from the plane and from the luggage pickup to let them know we were ready. We found the parking garage and began to wait. First they said 8 minutes, 15 minutes later they said an additional 15 more minutes. Finally, we canceled the reservation and went back inside and airport. We found an Uber stand and had a SUV large enough to carry all of us and our luggage to the hotel in about 10 minutes. Uber to the rescue for $100. We asked our driver if he would be available to take us to the port in the morning and he was going to be off. But we made arrangements for him to come and pick us up at the port for our return trip to the airport.

NYC Accommodations:
Saturday night we stayed at the Moxy hotel. We had originally reserved one room with 4 bunk beds. When we arrived the room was already given out. So they were amazing and gave us two rooms with plenty of room for the 5 of us ($286). They also gave us coins for drinks at the bar.



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[Lisalk12]

We enjoyed dinner at Legasea that was on the 2nd floor at Moxy. We had chicken breast dinner, seafood pasta, and their famous chicken and biscuits.



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[Lisalk12]

My husband and I used our coins for free glasses of Prosecco at the bar and then enjoyed a “relationship status” and Coney Island beer. Both were delicious!

We took the boys ice cream from the vending machine for dessert.

We used the door hanger to have breakfast delivered at 9:00 the next morning.



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[Lisalk12]

Forgot these photos that my son took of NY from the plane. I begged him to send them to me... I better use them!!


Heading to bed for the night. But will be back tomorrow (and will actually be talking about the cruise ship then).


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[vacation44]

Enjoying reading your review.   Thank you for taking the time to share your vacation with us.

[kodesthemoose]

Can't wait to hear what you thought of the Family Oceanview! 

[spartn91]

Thank you for sharing your vacation with us.  

 

[01Sweetpea]

Looking forward to the rest of your review! 

[cincicruisers]

Great review..looking forward to more.

[Lisalk12]

Thank you everyone! Glad you are enjoying reading!


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[Lisalk12]

Sunday Sailing Day
We woke up to a great breakfast delivered to our room hot and on time. According to online friends the port line was LONG at 10:00 so we decided to make the most of the morning and my husband and big boys walked to Macy’s to get he and I a green shirt. (March 17...how did I miss that I needed something green to wear in all the crap that I packed)

After a couple of purchases they walked back and we decided to pack up and get the luggage tags on our bags. Now I forget every time that I will need a stapler or tape to put these things on with... so my husband being the sweet thing he is stopped at Walgreens and got some tape.

And now we are ready to board the beautiful NCL Escape!


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[Lisalk12]

We called for an Uber at 12:00 to take us to the port and it arrived in a timely manner and it was a wonderful short trip to be dropped off right in front of pier 88. We kept one carry on backpack for the baby’s things as well as his stroller (which I hated the stroller! We didn’t want to buy an umbrella stroller for the trip so we used an old one that my mother had from my oldest son... that meant it was about 17 years old... my husband threatened to throw it overboard a few times)

The baggage handlers took our bags and placed it with others with a maroon tag and we walked to the elevator and went to the next level.

The doors opened and there was NO LINE at all. We showed our passports and birth certificate for baby and boarding docs and we walked straight through the metal detector. We waited maybe 5 minutes in line to get to the desk which allowed us just enough time to fill out the medical forms and we were ready.

My husband tried one more time to upgrade. The nice lady just smiled and said sorry. And we took our pictures and got our cards and walked onto the ramp to board our home away from home for the week.


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[Lisalk12]

We went to the guppy nursery and signed baby up for the 6 month-3 nursery program. Now he has NEVER been away from a family member. My mom and dad watch him while we work and my 17 year old babysits if we want to go out. So, I was really worried about the daycare situation. I was very happy with the signup and they answered all my questions. They asked great questions to get to know his likes and dislikes and said they would give me a pager and would always send me a message if he was unhappy for more than 10 minutes. Still wasn’t sure about leaving him but it was nice to have an option.



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[Lisalk12]

We knew we needed to eat soon before the dinning rooms closed for the safety drill so we went to what I thought was O’Sheehans. (Actually Taste) and had a great first meal.

Macaroni, nachos, roasted tomato soup, hamburgers, fruit, orange chocolate mousse and chocolate ice cream.

 

 

 

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[Lisalk12]

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[Lisalk12]

We set up our phones to use the NCL app to text/call while on the ship this was well worth the price. It gave the big boys freedom and I could checkin whenever I needed. My husband had texting service through our phone provider to allow him to stay in contact with work and family back at home.




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[Lisalk12]

We used the app to make dinner reservations for Savor at 7:15. With reservations we never had to wait to be seated at a restaurant. Which was really nice! The restaurants never seemed busy but we tended to come at an earlier time.


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[Lisalk12]

After lunch we stayed in atrium for the drill. The drill was a quick overview but the atrium was sure packed! I missed the comfortable chairs in the theater that we had during past drills. But at least we didn’t have to stand outside in the blistering New Orleans heat like we did on the NCL Star.


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[Lisalk12]

After the drill we were ready to go to the room!


I found the room to have plenty of room for the five of us. The sofa made a comfortable bed and a bunk bed come down above it. The room came with tons of storage and we unpacked everything into the cabinets and shelves with no problem at all. Two large suitcases fit under the master bed and allowed even more room for the babies pack in play between the bed and sofa.

The only issues I had were:
Bathroom! Waiting on someone in the bathroom wasn’t fun. We solved this by using the family bathroom by the Splash Academy in emergencies (plus a great place to put dirty diapers as they had a diaper genie) and my husband and I used the shower at the thermal spa. So that problem was solved!

Sleeping patterns! This is unique to us but with baby getting up early and going to bed early and taking a midday nap. Plus a teen that likes to sleep in and stay up late it seemed the room was always in use and a quiet place without quiet people. It would of been nice to have a separate space that we could of used.

But I would be willing to sail in a family oceanview again....don’t tell my husband. I’ll hoping for a suite again someday. [emoji16]


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[Lisalk12]

Sail away I always have a mango meltdown and try to find a place for great photos. But this is what we had...

Yes it was nap time. So I have a few photos from our dirty window but we did see the Statue of Liberty and the bridge.

Plus most importantly I got the mango meltdown!



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