Norwegian Escape Cruise Reviews - Reviews

My husband and I celebrated our 50th anniversary with our family: 4 children and their spouses and our 7 grandchildren. We loved the variety of activities for each of us. Of course, if you asked my husband, Ping Pong was his favorite.

Escape offered free style cruising so we didn't have to worry about formal nights. Every night was cruise casual for us. If we wanted to dine n any of the specialty restaurants, they were there for our use. 

On July 31 through August 6, 2016 I took my 21st cruise aboard NCL's Escape.  Having experienced 11 cruises with NCL I can accurately state that the Escape is a modern, floating marvel sailing from port to port.  The ship itself consists of several different venues in an attempt to provide a little something for everyone.   However, it is the main pool area which is a failure aboard this vessel.  Sandwiched between the water slide section and the children's  water park is the adult pool area commonly referred to as the "chlorinated soup pot."  The smallness of the pool and its surrounding area made it difficult to have any poolside activities or even to dance when the bands were playing.  That, combined with the difficulty in obtaining seating by the pool, was extremely disappointing even with the distribution of cold towels and strawberry smoothies by the NCL staff.

My cabin was a spa mini suite located on deck 15 forward.  It had a balcony and offered unlimited access to the spa's thermal suites.  The bed was comfortable and when the gentle rocking of the ship was added to it, a fabulous night's sleep was guaranteed.  The rain head shower complete with body jets and the double sink area in the bathroom further complimented the accommodations. 

Nightly shows aboard the Escape although extremely enjoyable, represented standard cruise ship entertainment. 

There was a variety of delicious food choices in all of the restaurants and the  live musical features during dinner in the Manhattan Room greatly enhanced the evening meal.  The specialty restaurants of Le Bistro, Cagney's and Moderno although requiring a separate fee, all lived up to what was expected of them.  At Sugarcane's, the mojito bar,  the unique flavor of their raspberry guava mojito should not be missed. 

My three shore excursions were all acceptable and included a fun filled day at the beach:  Tabiyana Beach, Passion Island and Balmol in the Bahamas (prevented from going to Belize due to hurricane).

Traveling aboard the Escape is mostly a family fueled agenda with plenty of activities for the kids. I, personally, would have preferred to have had more adult themed activities in light of the lack of space at the main pool area.

In any event, an excellent vacation experience was had by all with unbelievably, new and fantastic memories being made aboard the NCL Escape . 

Thanks to the crew and staff for their part in making my dream come true.

During the last few days of the cruise, I wished that we had booked the Eastern Caribbean also & done it back to back. Due to weather, we were unable to visit Belize. Nassau, Bahamas was a great alternative. We recommend not waiting until the last night to look at your photos. Visiting the coffee shop in the atrium & having a different flavored macaroon with my mocha was a fun treat every day.

The Escape is an amazing ship. Having two teens on board there was never a boring moment. The food at the complimentary restaurants were delicious and the menu had something to offer for everyone. The staff was friendly and very helpful. If you ever get a chance to have Fritzie and Theresa as your servers, you will have the best experience you could ask for. We will definitely continue to book our cruises with NCL. 

We had a spectacular time!  We are a family of 9 and have been on 3 Norwegian cruises in the last 5 years.  This ship was new and beautiful!  For the first time we got a balcony room which was so worth the extra money! The food and drink never disappoint!  The Cruise Director, Tyler was awesome and all shows were amazing!  The only downfall there is you needed reservations for everything which we have never encountered before.  We used to get the itinerary and see what we were in the mood for as the day went on.  We were able to get into one comedy show which was great!  "After Midnight" which was phenomenal!!   And without reservations, Howl at the Moon was available every other night which made our trip!  Josh, Mike and Zach were AWESOME!!  And had a few guest stars along the way which was so fun!  We were disappointed that we couldn't go to Belize (which was the key destination for us) because of Hurricane Earl, but we had a ton of fun at the other stops!  Can't wait to book our next cruise!! 

we all had a wonderful time except when bad weather hit, no fault of the cruise line, and couldn't go to Belize.  Otherwise we had fun, great service and great food.

Only one problem, transient men taking your luggage and because you don't know who they work for and with all the chaos, you don't tip them and he ripped off my luggage tags and made a smart remark saying, you'll be lucky if your luggage gets onboard, to my husband and I didn't hear it. Because of that remark and no tags I was still looking for my luggage at 9:30 p.m.

Cabins were small for the price we paid. To many people very crowded. If you had dinner at 5:30pm not able to get kids to kids center which opened at 7:00pm not able to see shows which also started at 7:00pm, very poor set up..

I have over 30 cruises. NCL has a lot going on for everybody. Plenty to do even for old time cruisers. Brought  wife, daughter and granddaughters. Everybody enjoyed themselves. Nightly entertainment had lots of variety. Ship was beautiful and easy to navigate. Only negative was food was poorer than in complimentary dining rooms than on other cruise lines. Felt it definitely could use some improvement.

Favorite was the casual freestyle as well as the multitude of venues for entertainment and food, however,  O'Sheens meal of the day was an undercooked burger served by a waiter who didn't know the difference between cheddar, American or Swiss cheeses.

 The cabins too small and location of many balconies were horrific...right over the galley of one of the specialty restaurants which provided nonstop banging, clanking all night long, every night, as if it was right in our cabin. We had to change cabins on the 2nd day. 

The Garden Cafe was cramped, crowded, hot and felt very closed in whereas other ships offered a wide open, spacious back end of the buffet in the back of the ship. 

The elevators were snail's pace at best or never came, or just skipped the floor instead of stopping. 

The beds were far from luxurious and soft which matched the bath towels that felt like used sandpaper. 

I can honestly say everything about the cruise and the escape was top notch. My wife and I could not have been happier with everything about the entertainment, crew, and staff. 

Just as a point of reference, this was our 19th cruise, 4 of them on NCL. 

The Good:

Great food!

Beautiful ship. 

The Bad:

1) We have to pay for almost everything on this ship. Even on the main restaurant NCL is placing items on the menu for $25 to $30 per order. Lobster can only be had for an extra $29.99 charge.

2) No more free room service! 

3) Manhattan Room, the larger of the 3 main dining venues is so loud (live music every night) that one just can not enjoy a meal. This is not a subjective thing. IT IS LOUD, so one can barely hear the waiter and one's travel companions. 

4) Wait service is getting really really poor. Although the quality of food being is very good and staff were very friendly, the servers seem to be way too busy (not enough of them), so they aren't (or can't) be attentive. In two occasions our appetizers were completely forgotten. Once they brought soup and salad at the same time; on another occasion the wrong meal was brought to the table. Very often we had to wait a very long time between courses. The service just did not flow. 

5) We had a mini-suite, and by mini-suite NCL means nothing other than a bathroom with a bathtub/shower combination. Other than that, it was just as small (and very narrow) as every other balcony cabin onboard. 

6) The smallest balconies in the industry: We had already seen that on the NCL Getaway... On the Escape, they are just as small. 

7) Over 4300 passengers with double occupancy (in our cruise it was a lot more because there were too many family with many 3 or 4 in their cabins) for just one adult pool (which opens for kids after 5pm), and not enough loungers. NCL optimized the number of passengers without giving these same passengers any more deck or pool space. It makes sense for their coffers, and their passengers have to deal with very busy open deck spaces. Programing around the one and only adult pool was Carnival like, of poor taste and very loud. 

8) No more Capitan's Dinner or Reception. They just don't want to give their guests a single chance to have a free glass of wine! 

9) No Sauna or changing room facility off the gym. If you want to enjoy the steam room, you MUST pay for their spa packages, and you have to sign up for it for the entire cruise, not just for a day of two. 

9) New "NO OUTSIDE BEVERAGE POLICY" is too restrictive, and even though they claim it was implemented due to "security", they managed to allow wine, which off course they charge a "corkage" fee. It's is all so obvious! 

All in all, we managed to have a great trip among the 4 of us, but it was not much due to NCL. If NCL keeps it up, they will be another Carnival for us. That means, that cruise line you just take when there is not other choice and/or they had a great sale! 

Our family of 6 adults (3 couples) had a wonderful time aboard the Escape. Our 3 cabins on the 11 th floor were next door and we were able to have the balconies connected by having the steward open the partitions which allowed us to enjoy sail aways and mornings privately.  This was our first sailing with NCL and we were impressed with the food, service, entertainment options, and cleanliness of the ship.  The only complaint being there aren't near enough spots to sit on deck - in the sun or shade - and as is always the case, there are those who hold multiple chairs for those who are never there.  When someone finally comes up with a way to enforce the elimination of this aggravating behavior, it will be a great day, but I'm not holding my breath.

We were a large group of 18.  My favorite part of cruise destinations was Tortola.  This offered a new island to explore.

Also liked the 8 day cruise. I really felt like I had enough time to relax and enjoy the boat and its amenities during this time.

The large ship was well appointed, very nice cabins, and a good quality to the included meals.  However, evening reservations for "non-optional" dining in the main and auxiliary dining rooms , shows, and most of the ship's entertainment are necessary for crowd control.  There is only one small main pool and one kid's pool making deck time anything but enjoyable.  This ship is not conducive for a relaxing vacation.

Previously cruised Carnival and Royal. Decided to try NCL because of the ports and free offers. Booked a mini suite on Escape going to St Thomas, Tortola, Bahamas. 

Embarkation - Best experience on any ship

Cabin - Room smaller than Royal. Bathroom in mini suite was fantastic

Overall ship - Beautiful. Beyond noisy! In main dining areas you could not carry on a conversation with the people at your table. I can't emphasize enough how loud it was everywhere you went on the ship. We felt it was more the design of the ship than the amount of people. The different areas on the ship were competing with each other so if you were in the atrium they amped up the mike to be heard on 2 levels from front to back of ship. If someone was performing in a bar or were playing the piano they increased the volume to compete. We have been on many big ships with many people and never had this complaint. It was like when you are with a group and several conversations are going on at once and people will talk louder to be heard and that makes other people talk louder and it gets louder and louder and nobody can be heard. Also, the air filtration was poor. The smell of food and people permeated the ship making the elevators sometimes sickening. Walked the stairs because it took several minutes for an elevator to arrive and many times was already full this was all floors at all times. On this ship the top decks are dedicated to Haven level and activity so not much chance to enjoy the views from high levels. As others have mentioned you can forget swimming in the pool, you are lucky if you can sit in the pool. Only two pools which is not sufficient for this size of ship. There is an adult only area but it does not have a pool. 

Food - Have always enjoyed the main dining areas. On Escape the main dining areas were too crowded, tables too close, food was only fair, menu was small, service was slow and cold and hot items were room temperature. Speciality restaurants (we tried three, steak house/habatchi/Brazilian) were exceptional in food and service and you could carry on a conversation. The buffet food was excellent (not our normal choice for every meal), setup superior to Carnival and Royal. 

Drinks - only Pepsi products, with normal juice and tea complimentary. Every mixed drink I tried except at the mojoto bar was undrinkable. Wine was good. At first I was thinking the free drink package was a waste until I found the mojoto bar. It was the absolute best, taste and service!!

Disembarkation - Best of all cruises we have taken. We were off in 15 minutes. 

 Not part of cruise - If you need transportation from Ft Lauderdale to Miami use MJS transportation. They are very reasonable (15 per person or 30 per person if just 2 people) only waited about 10 min, new extremely nice Mercedes vans and they text you continually to keep you posted on arrival!!

This was our first time on a new(er)ship so of course we were wowed. We received complementary dinners in three specialty restaurants on board. The food was very good in all three. The remaining days we ate in the free dining areas. The food was fair and the service in Taste and Savor was average. We tried eating in the Garden Cafe several times (breakfast, lunch, dinner). The lines were too long, which was avoidable, because they refused to open both sides until the lines were extremely long. They also blocked seating areas until the area which was open was nearly full. The food in Garden Cafe was OK but they had the same thing every day and very few dessert choices. The ship seems geared toward families with younger children, and if we had been traveling with children this would have been absolutely perfect for us. -- but we weren't.

Our favorite part of the cruise was the endless choice of excellent food. There are tons of options on this ship and you dine alone (with family) at each of them...there's no group seating. We also enjoyed the entertainment. There's so much to do that we simply couldn't do it all. My children truly enjoyed the Splash Academy, in fact they never wanted to leave as they were always thoroughly entertained and were thrilled about meeting new friends. 

For the most part everything about the Cruise/ship was perfect. If I had to select one negative it would be the salt water pools. That was new to us and it was bothersome to our eyes. In addition, both pools are deep (5ft and 6ft) which doesn't account for non-swimmers and/or beginners. The pools were also very crowded during the days at sea (which should be expected). 

Word of advice: select your excursions ahead of time and only choose to go out during 1 or 2 of the port days as many of the options for all three ports of call are similar AND many of them are expensive. Lastly, there's a $13.50 per person per day gratuity charge which can add up quickly so plan for it. However, you do have the option to request your money back at guest services (on Thursday morning). If you choose this option be sure to tip as you go as it is well deserved.

My favorite part of the cruise was the dining whenever you wanted. We ate dinner at odd times every night but it was never a problem, your staff was always accommodating. I was disappointed in the seating by the kids activities especially by the kids pool and our cabin steward was not so great. But other than that the cruise was awsome.

Beautiful ship with excellent entertainment and a wide variety of activities.  Prefer ships that hit 4 ports instead of just 3.  Many dinning option but most specialty restaurants with additional costs.  Extensive new activities like a huge ropes course and steep drop water slide.

New ship . Don't care about you . Poor customer service . Charge for everything . Free restaurant very slow . Food better at the buffet unless you pay for the food options that are not free . They should pay attention to the staff they have .