EscapeLife

First time on NCL - The Escape is a beautiful ship offering great amenities and friendly crew - our cabin steward ALFIE was AWESOME!! He was attentive, engaging and professional throughout the entire cruise. This is impressive especially considering he and other crew members typically work up to 80 hours per week over the course of a 6 or 7 month contract with 2 months off in between contracts! Entertainment... Fortunately, we booked shows months in advance otherwise we would not have seen any shows - Million Dollar Quartet was simply phenomenal! We are both in our mid-late 40s and thoroughly enjoyed this show. Same applies to After Midnight, which delivered a Broadway level performance. Unfortunately the Brat Pack performance was cancelled due to injury - Being true Northeasterners, we were surprised at the number of passengers who had no understanding of theater etiquette - which is no fault of NCL itself. All of the performers delivered great performances only to be disrespected by a NUMBER of passengers walking out and talking during performances. DINING.... The escape offers and number of dining options - Highly recommend the dining option. First the positives... The hibachi (considered Specialty) the chefs were highly skilled and entertaining, the scallops were the best that either of us have had prior to our trip- La Cucina (Italian) Considered specialty dining, was five stars!! Tim had New York Strip and could not stop raving about the juicy texture and seasoning (for someone that eats steak regularly and did so thruout the cruise he found the NY Strip offered by this restaurant to be the best anywhere) I elected for the veal and found it to be very good as well. Casey's Strakhouse (considered Specialty) offered ENORMOUS portions - Tim had the queen size prime rib cut and it was the size of the plate - he could not eat all of it which is VERY rare for him although he did manage to find room to eat the hot chocolate lava cake for dessert! Regular dining rooms like the Manahttan Room, Taste & Savor were essentially the same restaurant (common menu found at all three restaurants) though decor was refined and inviting- wait times were manageable however we did tend to dine somewhat late- Wine Lovers must visit The Cellars - partake in the flight and enjoy the ambiance relaxing in the very comfortable seating located on the ships Boardwalk- NEGATIVES... The following offer room for improvement- The Garden Cafe (ships all day buffet) - does offer a variety of choices HOWEVER the food itself is definelty mall food court quality and sometimes falls short in achieving that status- the scrambled eggs (or so they said) were powdered eggs and absolutely abhorrent- bacon was good, hand dipped ice cream was great and desserts were plentiful (albeit looked better than they tasted) - Salad bar could definelty be improved and lacked spinach, croutons, protein (other than ham) and cheese. SEATING was insufficient during all three peak meal times and unable to accommodate the large number of passengers opting for the included buffet much like the Sundeck - which seemingly was unable to accommodate the large number of passengers looking to soak up the Rays and enjoy pool time. Definetely need to rethink Sundeck layout