Beautiful Ship, but so many passengers makes it hard to actually participate in the offered activities due to limited avalability

Item: Norwegian Escape
Rating: 4.5
Author: sd973nj

Norwegian Escape Cruise Review to Bermuda

sd973nj

Contributor Level: Purser

Cruises: 4-6 cruises

Reviews: 2

Helpful Votes: 80

Overall rating:

4.5 out of 5

7 Night Bermuda (New York Roundtrip)

Sail date: July 08, 2018

Ship: Norwegian Escape

Cabin type: Balcony

Cabin number: 9116

Traveled as: Family (older children)

Reviewed: 6 years ago

Review summary

The Escape is a beautiful ship! Keep in mind the size and number of passengers when booking. NCL is known for its concept of "Freestyle Cruising", but you need to make set-time reservations for the specialty dining and shows, so the concept is defeated.

Embarkation

5 out of 5

Very smooth process with extremely helpful NCL staff.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

5 out of 5

Garden Cafe is always offering a variety of buffet style food.The Manhattan Room is beautiful with live music. Teppanyaki was such a fun and entertaining meal. Moderno was wonderful. Such variety of meats offered.

Garden Café

5 out of 5

Amazing choices for delicious food!!

The Manhattan Room

5 out of 5

Amazing food and very nice atmosphere. Live band plays during dinner. Beautiful restaurant. Highly recommend!

Savor

5 out of 5

Great food and very nice atmosphere.

Moderno Churrascaria

5 out of 5

Amazing! Meal starts with a buffet style salad bar with waaay more offerrings than just salad.Wide variety of meats served rodizio style at table. Highly recommend!

La Cucina

5 out of 5

Excellent food.

Onboard Activities

3 out of 5

The regular pool is very small and always so crowded. There was no room to move in the area and felt like sardines in a tank. Never able to get a chair, and the adults only pool was the same way

Entertainment

3 out of 5

Escape Theater

4 out of 5

We we lucky enough to get reservations for "After midnight" and "The Brat Pack". Both were amazing shows & I highly recommend them. My only complaint is that the theater is small and requires reservations to see the shows.

Headliners Comedy Club

5 out of 5

We saw the Dueling Pianos here twice! Great show!

Service and Staff

5 out of 5

Coffee-Coffe Guy and Washie-Washie Guy made our cruise!!!

Ship Quality

4 out of 5

Ship is beautiful and has MANY things to offer. The problem is, that in order to include so many various things, each thing was made smaller. This meant reservations are required for everything. Sort of defeats the whole concept of "Freestyle Cruising"

Cabin / Stateroom

5 out of 5

Ship tip

If you want to see any shows or do specialty dining be sure to make reservations before you sail, otherwise you wont be able to.

Thumbs up

Ports of call

New York, New York

5 out of 5

Royal Naval Dockyard, West End, Bermuda

4 out of 5

The Dockyard is very nice, but you have to pay to get to Hamilton or St. George. Was better when the cruise ships actually docked right in those locations

Thumbs Up 4

Disembarkation

5 out of 5

4 Comments

SammyAddison 6 years ago

Cool 😎

Thumbs Up 0

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clclip4xs 6 years ago

But you still get to pick WHEN you want to see the shows and go to specialty restaurants...IF you want to. That's what freestyle means. No one tells u when to come to dinner or when to see a show. The only things that r scheduled r the shore excursions and u don't even have to be part of an excursion if u don't want to. Can go it on your own. You have the freedom to choose. Everything is YOUR choice. That's the point.

Thumbs Up 3

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afahey 6 years ago

NCL has the “free at sea” promotion. One of the five available options is a dining pkg that allows you to have 3 or 4 meals in the upcharge restaurants. I believe only 2 of them have a dress code. The others are casual. Cagney’s is SO good!!

Thumbs Up 1

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WileyE 6 years ago

I never eat in the specialty dining spots....plenty of other places to eat on-board wearing shorts.

Thumbs Up 2

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