Bad experience

Norwegian Escape Cruise Review to Caribbean - Eastern

Fedupcruiser

Contributor Level: Purser

Cruises: 4-6 cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 11

Overall rating:

2.5 out of 5

Verified Review

7 Night Caribbean: Great Stirrup Cay & Dominican Republic (Port Canaveral Roundtrip)

Sail date: February 18, 2023

Ship: Norwegian Escape

Traveled as: Singles/Friends

Reviewed: 1 year ago

Review summary

It started off bad from the start when the staff was rude to us and just kept getting bad from there. Our room was cramped and set up for a couple instead of two singles. Nobody seemed in a good mood. Servers were over worked and tired. Same servers all the time. Then they wouldn’t let us off thhe ship cause I owed a 8,000 bill from medical when I had an asthma attack from something triggered by an allergen on the ship. I had already paid them 3,000 but they wanted more. They even asked if my friend would use her credit care and pay my bill. The nerve of these people. I was outraged. I told them my bank was closed today cause it’s a Saturday and I can’t do anything about getting them anymore money. They were threatening to not let me off the ship if I didn’t come up with more Money. So I finally signed a promissory note and they let me off the boat. And not to mention the boat was so over booked. It had 4500 people and there and you could tell it. We will never go on Norwegian again

Embarkation

3 out of 5

Not bad

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

3 out of 5

Nothing exciting

Onboard Activities

2 out of 5

Pools

Entertainment

3 out of 5

Children's Programs

No kids

Service and Staff

3 out of 5

Everyone seemed over worked.

Ship Quality

3 out of 5

Yes

Cabin / Stateroom

1 out of 5

It was too cramped. Our beds were too close together.

Ship tip

Don’t go

Thumbs up

Ports of call

Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic

3 out of 5

Yes. Dune buggy’s. Roads were awful

Thumbs Up 0

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas

3 out of 5

Catamaran

Thumbs Up 0

Tortola, British Virgin Islands

3 out of 5

Land and sea tour

Thumbs Up 0

Great Stirrup Cay (Cruise Line Private Island), Bahamas

2 out of 5

Too crowded

Thumbs Up 0

Disembarkation

1 out of 5

Terrible. They held us up 2 hours for a hold

14 Comments

Cruisers4Lyfe 1 month ago

Thanks for sharing

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Cruisers4Lyfe 5 months ago

Thanks for sharing

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Renee6870 1 year ago

I’m sorry to say that this doesn’t feel like a well thought out review. Most reviews share their cabin but there is no cabin on this one so no way to determine if this was an inside cabin or a 2 bedroom Haven cabin. If it was a smaller cabin, dimensions are given in advance. Also as others have stated, having the room made to two beds rather than one is nothing more than a mild inconvenience. Cruise ships do not take health insurance. It’s our responsibility to either purchase special travel insurance or present our bills to our insurance companies when we return home for reimbursement. I can’t speak to cost as we have no idea as to the extent of the treatment. I will state this though, while something on the ship may have triggered the attack, I don’t believe it’s due to negligence. I’m clumsy and have fallen on the ship before. This particular ship actually, and paid my own medical costs to ensure I wasn’t seriously injured (I have a special disease that puts me at risk of extensive bleeding when I fall). Also I agree with others that it’s literally impossible to overbook a cruise as people literally need a place to sleep. Like flights, when they overbook, they ask for volunteers to take another flight because there are only so many seats. I’m sorry you did not have a good trip but writing a thorough, accurate, and honest review is important for any and all businesses without use of exaggeration to better help those needing information.

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Gwbigdog 1 year ago

Hum

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BiddySue711 1 year ago

Always have travel insurance ….and you can get your steward to change the beds up quite easily. Sorry you didn’t enjoy yourself….

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MrGiggles 1 year ago

Obviously, they created an account just to post this review. Would have been better off contacting NCL to express concerns.

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Jerrec 1 year ago

Hopefully you take your advice and don’t go on another cruise. The issues were unfortunate but could have been avoided in the first place. Travel insurance is highly recommended, even by the cruise lines. Additionally the bed situation could have been fixed beforehand if you had specified, and worst case you simply advise your cabin attendant and they can rearrange the beds. As others have posted, cruise ships can’t be overbooked. That would mean some people get left at the port because they don’t have cabins. It may have been at or near capacity, nothing unusual there.

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MrBcflyers2016 1 year ago

ummm...I accept that perspective can be very different person to person, but this post set off my "I doubt that" meter. An $8k asthma bill, maybe. That sucks, but maybe (Trip ins? Personal Ins you can bill back to). Over crowded, not possible. I looked the ship up. "Capacity4,266[4]Crew1,733[2]" - From Wikipedia "The ship's increase in double occupancy capacity from 3,969 of her older sister ships to approximately 4,270 resulted from an additional deck built for cabins." - From Wikipedia If, as you say, the ship had 4,500 people on it, it was actaully under max occupancy by 1,499 people. As there is now way to book more people than cabins, I doubt it was overbooked. Your room setup is your responsbility, to communicate to the crew prior to the cruise. Also, I am certain (as we've done it), the crew will reconfigure, upon you request, during the cruise. I am truly sorry to hear you had a medical issue on the cruise. As to the rest of the review, I'd like to see what other cruisers have to say in their review.

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GriffFamily 1 year ago

Rough trip.

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javawoody 1 year ago

Interesting

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walte27f 1 year ago

Sorry you had a bad experience, but they can’t overbook cruise ships.

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woody20 1 year ago

2 comments from what you complained about, I always purchase travel insurance if something like this happens and a cruise ship has a certain number of cabins and for a certain number of people. There is no way a cruise is overbooked as you say it was. A cruise ship of that size holds a lot of people, if you don’t like crowds don’t book a cruise, especially a large ship.

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AuntPinkie 1 year ago

Sorry you had so many difficulties.

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cdavid46 1 year ago

A couple of brief comments: 1) you have the option prior to your cruise to have your cabin made into 2 beds rather than 1. 2) sounds as if you are prone to allergies so there is something called travel insurance that would have taken care of those onerous medical charges. 3) neither of these situations would have been any different on most mainline cruises. 4) cruise lines sail at less than 100% occupancy frequently. I doubt that crowd issues were as terrible as suggested.

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