Norwegian Escape Cruise Reviews - Reviews

The experiense was beyond the expectstions. Thanks a lot for everything and I hope see you again. The food and the restaurants were awesome. The service during the cruise was exceptional. Again thak you.

It was truly amazing. An experience everyone should have at least once. I can't say enough about my dining experience at The Manhattan Room with our server SETIAMI & her Supervisor PLACIDO...the highlight of our week. Never a dull moment because of the amazing entertainment, wonderful shows & the best crew ever!!! Everyone should be commended for professionalism. We had the best time!

First time cruising with NCL, loved the ship and all that it had to offer. Price more expensive than other cruise lines with same amenities but overall good food & a good experience. I booked this cruise over a year in advance and price never dropped, other cruise line used previously have also booked over a year in advance with price decrease/adjustments for same cabin type etc. overall an enjoyable first experience with NCL. Thanks

The ship was BEAUTIFUL! Balcony room was great for family of four. Buffet chiefs were not friendly. Waitress staff was not helpful or friendly. They wanted to charge for EVERYTHING if they had to help you. Seating was impossible. Water slides and kids swimming area opened late and closed early. Children's Splash Academy was nice but charged for times they said were free. Port of calls were AWESOME and FUN! Not Worth the money for this cruise. I've cruises 2 other times paid less and it was so much BETTER!

The excursions did not live up to our expectations, but I can't blame NCL for that. The ship, the crew, the entertainment, food and drinks were all exceptional and I will not hesitate to book another cruise with NCL. They were very organized, helpful when we needed help and very sincere and friendly. Even traveling with a nine month old and an 80 year old (which worried me at first) was made into a terrific experience by the NCL staff....I cannot give them a higher recommendation.

It was a terrific family experience with something for everyone and the opportunity to have nightly dinners together. The ship's crew was outstanding, upbeat, and eager to please! Lot of activities, great food/drinks, and land experiences. Perfect weather every day along with calm seas! From 7 to 74, the trip was a huge success!

It was a terrific family experience with something for everyone and the opportunity to have nightly dinners together. The ship's crew was outstanding, upbeat, and eager to please! Lot of activities, great food/drinks, and land experiences. Perfect weather every day along with calm seas! From 7 to 74, the trip was a huge success!

This was the right cruise for our group which ranged from age 18 to 77.  There will always be pros and cons:

Pros:

Activities: Water slides - we loved the scary ones that dropped out under your feet and the slower one on the inner-tube.  The clear tube section over the edge of ship was spectacular.  Loved the ropes course with zip line 20 stories over the side of the ship.  Entertainment: Shows were great with amazing talent but only two for a week was a little underwhelming.  Comedy shows were nice as was the dueling pianos.  Park West did a good job with the art auction.  I actually bought a painting after three days of contemplation.  Fastest internet I have experienced on a cruise ship. 

Cabin: mid-ship mini-suite: nice, clean, good storage, great sized bathroom with walk-in shower. very quiet.  Loved the buttons that lit up indicators in the hall to let your steward know when you are "At Home", "Make up room" or "Do Not Disturb".  Our steward, Jocelyn, was awesome.  She kept us clean, stocked, got our bill right and did not bug us.  Great towel animals and chocolate covered strawberries.  They brought me foam pillows upon request.  There will be feathers if you don't ask for foam.  They will give you extension cord if you need it for CPAP.  No chair or coffee table.  Balcony was kind of small

TV very limited: the usual NCL channels, several news channels, one TV favorites channel and one movie channel.  They showed some movies around the ship at times.

Ports: Loved visiting my monkeys at Gumbalimba Park and there is great beach snorkeling on Roatan at Tabayana Beach - we did ship excursion.  Loved that money for that park goes to rescuing animals and feeding the wild animals on the island that would otherwise be threatened by the deforestation (plus the islanders eat the endangered iguanas on the rest of the island so they need the protected area).  LOTS of fish right off the beach.  Most parrot fish I've ever seen in one place.  Just be careful, it is shallow.  Use a guide if you don't know what you are doing.  I got fire coral scrape last time. 

Had a great Discover Scuba ship excursion on Costa Maya.  Dreamtime Dive Resort were very professional and very safe.  They did a class and had participants practice the skills in shallow water before taking them over their head.  Then took them to a nice reef with some fish.  They are still recovering from a hurricane but there was more to see than Discover scuba excursions elsewhere.  Very good student to instructor ratio made me feel my nephew was safe on his first scuba experience.

Cozumel: I did Captain's Choice Certified Scuba = ship excursion.  The Dive Shop was also very professional.  Carmello earned a very nice tip from me.  He spent 15-20 minutes and an extra safety stop looking for the my camera that I dropped on the ocean floor.  And he found it!  We saw some great reefs and walls.  Turtles were plentiful and we saw a nurse shark, gigantic lobsters, lots of fish and a green moray eel.

Food: Buffet was great.  Clean, great variety and taste.  Plenty of seating. Many, many stations for each food section so you don't spend a lot of time standing in line.  Food in specialty restaurants was good to great.  (except see below).  Great variety of restaurants.  If you do one of the pick two promotions, then you can get three specialty meals for two people free.  You need a little variety on a week long cruise so we were glad we did this.  The Italian was our favorite and Le Bistro was second.  But the three main dining rooms were nice with live entertainment in the Manhattan Room.

Most of the embarkations and disembarkations were smooth and you would never know that there were 5,100 people on the ship.

Loved the little fish in the carpet that told us which direction we were headed on the ship. 

Mini golf was nice to have in the shade which is something other ships could learn from but it was small. 

Tyler the cruise director was great.  He was everywhere.  He was in the John Hughes 80's show, he played drums in the dueling piano show.  He just popped up everywhere you went.  Very lively and kept things running smoothly.

The Assistant Food and Beverage Director was also EVERYWHERE.  We saw him supervising every single meal we ate at every single restaurant.  He would be in the buffet at 7 a.m. and the specialty restaurants at 10 p.m. as well as all the main dining rooms.  We started to wonder if there was a teleportation system for Tyler and the F&B guy.

Cons:

The first disembarkation at the first port was a nightmare.  They had all the excursions at the same time since Carnival was coming in a few hours later.  There were so many people crammed into the stairwell that I got claustrophobic and was literally shaking by the time we finally got off the ship.  They really needed to group people before they got off the ship like they do on their smaller ships if they are going to have all the excursions at once.

There was live music or game shows twenty feet from the shore excursion desk which meant forty feet from the guest services desk.  Why in the world would you have such a set up where you have to scream in their faces.  We did not have to go to either desk much but the three times we did, it was a very bad experience. 

Food service was very slow.  Three hours to eat a meal at the French restaurant.  The Tepanyaki restaurant was not good at all.  We left before desert which people said was the worst thing they ever tasted.  They said the cake tasted like grass.  Some of the chefs were entertaining but they were literally two feet apart with eight chefs yelling and banging in one room which ruined the experience.  Lack of choice on appetizers, salad, soup and desert also took away from the experience.

My least favorite part of the ship was the pool area.  There were plenty of lounge chairs because most people did not even bother to hang out at the pool.  They literally had the same size pools on this giant ship that they would have on a ship that was half this size.  They needed a giant lagoon style pool or at least four pools to accommodate 5,100 people.  It was made even worse by the fact that the pool was about six feet deep so you can only hang out around the edges.  Thus the pool could accommodate about a quarter of the number of people than a regular ship pool. 

But the most disappointing part of this trip was Harvest Caye.  They continue to advertise snorkeling at Harvest Caye but the company that did the snorkeling quit on them.  And there is no diving option.  Snorkeling or diving in Belize was the bucket list item I wanted to cross off on this ship and I found out one month before the cruise that they were not offering snorkeling.  You cannot snorkel off the beach there...yet they rent snorkel equipment.  It is murky, there are jelly fish and there is nothing to see.  There was a nice pool but I can go to a nice pool two miles from my house.  The one restaurant was expensive with a limited menu and slow service.  If it were just me, I would have cancelled this cruise when I read about Harvest Caye and gone on a different cruise line.  But this cruise was for my nephew and he loved the zip line. 

Overall, it was a great cruise but I think NCL could do a little work and earn that great deal of extra money they charged.

Food was great on the cruise.  I don't see a need to do the premium restaurants when the regular ones are so good.

I only have two complaints: 1) I did not experience a single bartender who knew how to handle a crowd in the section/station, taking care of those who were there first before others.  While waiting, other around me also complained about this, so it wasn't just me. I quickly learned which bars and bartenders to go to who made a drink well.  Most of my drinks were too strong or ratios poor mixed.  2) Audio engineers at the pool stage/system do not know what they are doing.  Both the general volume being painfully loud and EQ'd poorly and the mix when bands performing being very off.  I spoke to a few of the bands and they too were frustrated with how poor the engineers were.  As someone who works in the music, audio, and entertainment business, I was disappointed this aspect of the entertainment program is overlooked.  Especially when it can be easily fixed.  Than being said, the engineers you have in your theatre were very good, as I would expect.

I have more recommendations for Norwegian but won't make them here in a public place.

Had a great time apart from the mishap of fracturing my fibula. Food and service terrific. Ship VERY crowded at times, so know that before you book. Overall, 8 out of 10.

It was a terrific family experience with something for everyone and the opportunity to have nightly dinners together. The ship's crew was outstanding, upbeat, and eager to please! Lot of activities, great food/drinks, and land experiences. Perfect weather every day along with calm seas! From 7 to 74, the trip was a huge success!

Restaurants, friendliness. Ship very cleaned, employees willing to help, packages wonderful. There were some that ran the extra mile: Jose, Irene, Jennice.

Restaurants, friendliness. Ship very cleaned, employees willing to help, packages wonderful. There were some that ran the extra mile: Jose, Irene, Jennice.

We were celebrating our 50 anniversary on this cruise and all our family was with us.  The grandkids loved all the waterslides and the ropes course.  The ropes course was not open very much.  If there is wind at all it is closed and there is almost always wind.  Be aware of the evening entertainment.  All of our teenage and adult family members found the After Midnight show to be a little to risqué for our taste.  We saw the show on a cruise in December and there were parts that appeared to be changed this time.  The show The Company Man was fantastic.  Last cruise we say For the Record-The Brat Pack.  This show was particularly offensive in language so none of us went to it.

After doing 3 cruises on Norwegian Escape and Getaway in the last year we will opt for a different cruise line next time that is a little more refined.  Need something a little quieter and more dignified.

We had an awesome time on the Norwegian Escape.  The food and entertainment were great.  The service was also very good.  My husband is on a no-salt diet and they accommodated us very well for that.  

The only negative was that smoking was allowed in the casino area.   Because the casino area was located near all the onboard shops, the photo gallery, the art auction area, and some of the specialty restaurants, it smelled really bad just walking through there.  The smoke permeated at least 3 levels in that area.   It prevented us from taking advantage of all the amenities in that area.  We were very disappointed in that.  

Norwegian Escape does a fantastic job providing enough activities for kids.  Ropes course, multiple slides, arcade etc.  

The ship is large but not overwhelming.  Food is fantastic and the many options allow crowds to dissipate so it doesn't seem crowded anywhere (except pool deck on at sea days).  

Overall, a super experience.

Loved the cruise.  The boat was beautiful.  Kids loved the slide and ropes coarse. However when given the 3 free specialty dining meals, making reservations for these meals was very hard.  With 4,900 people on the boat and limited space in these small spaces is very tricky.  We had 1 reservation as of day 1 and it was pulling teeth to get in the other 2 times.  We ended up waiting at the door for almost an hour watching empty tables for the entire time, yet they waited 45 minutes to find us a table.  Also silly that the adults only pool is where they showed the kids movies and the kids aren't allowed to be there.  Minions is surely not an adult movie.  The kids watched it from the bridge area standing beside the jogging track.  I just thought that was silly.  Other that that I had a wonderful time.

The ship is beautiful and kept so clean. It has an abundance of choice's for dining from grab something quick in the to white linen dining! We tried several and I cant say which was best because they all were excellent!  The pool area is rather small for a ship that carries 6,000 guest but we did so many off shore excursions that we did not spend that much time at the pool.

Paid extra for 5 mid-ship cabins. But you have to walk all the way to the front or all the way to the back to get to any where. But it's a fun trip for the family get together. Same thing with Garden Café. The booths blocked access to seating area. You have to walk all the way front or back to get to seating area. DJ's don't know dance music, and staff taught wrong dance steps.

This was my first time on the Escape. I always do the Haven with NCL and this was my honeymoon. I though a new ship would be better but I was somewhat disappointed. Didn't meet my butler until later in the day, told "no" for things requested.  I have always had a good experience on the Breakaway Haven which I have been on twice. The ship was nice and I enjoyed the ports. I was REALLY disappointed with the Food Republic and pleasantly surprised by the good food in Bayamo. The drinks were great and the highlight was the Haven Concierge who did everything to help accommodate us. I LOVED the comedy show!