irocet

Like was said previously, vests are no longer required whether you bring your own gear or rent theirs.

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We went in the afternoon during sea days and never waited more than about 10 minutes to get on. I'm sure there are a variety of factors that may impact how busy it is, but the line was never too long on our trip last year.

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I would try your local scuba shop. They'll have the widest variety of masks on hand and they should help you find one that works for you.

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If the dolphin drive through Anthony's Key is available, I highly recommend it. One of the best dives I have done and most everyone on the boat agreed. That was 2 years ago and was our second dive with them. They've always been good to us, though I will mention that unless something has changed, they do a couple drills (mask clearing, buoyancy, etc) with you before going out.

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We've never had an issue changing after being paid in full. I usually call our cruise consultant a few weeks prior looking for upgrade opportunities. If there is a price difference in the cabin, you'll be responsible for that, but we've never had any additional fees outside of the price difference between the rooms.

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We've taken a surge protector on a few NCL cruises and never had an issue.

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Thanks for the review. Were you in a family MiniSuite? Deck 9? If yes, Any other noise from below and how was the view from the balcony?

We were on deck 9 and I'm assuming we had a family minisuite since ours had the drop down bed in the ceiling. We didn't have any issues with noise from below. The view was great. I'd say it was comparable to most other balconies we've had in the past. One thing to note, 9 is directly above the waterfront, so when you look over the balcony, you see the roof of the waterfront. Also, on this ship the life boats are outside the ship, so you'll also see those from the balcony.

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The Escape has it. We used it in Feb on our cruise and it worked great.

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We just did the 4 day at the end of January. We've actually done that cruise twice and had a great cruise both times. Now that drinks are included, it's even nicer. If it weren't for the fact we got on the Escape right after, it would have felt more like a tease though. The other thing to keep in mind is that it's been hit or miss getting into Great Stirrup Cay. We spoke with the captain one evening and he said it all depends on the wind and sea conditions. A couple trips prior to ours were not able to get in there. Overall, it's a good time, with good entertainment, and I'd have no reservations about going on that one again.

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I use a GoPro Hero 4 Silver. It takes very high quality pictures and video, comes with a waterproof housing, and it has a built in screen on the back. The down side to the GoPro is you don't have a zoom and there aren't a lot of customization options.

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Just curious - How did you manage a bridge tour? We did the paid "behind the scenes" tour on the same sailing and the bridge was off limits.

I can't really give a good answer to this as I'm not really certain. We ended up on a VIP list on this trip and I think it had to do with some of the crew we meet on our sailing the week prior, but I can't say for sure. I can say it was limited to a small handful of people and we did not get the behind the scenes tour as well. Sorry I don't have a better answer.

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Did you upgrade after arriving to the port?

No, sorry I should have said we upgraded a couple of weeks prior to sailing.

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We got off the Escape last week (2/6/16) and I wanted to share some of our thoughts on the ship. This was our 6th cruise with NCL and have been on the Sun, Jewel, Epic, and twice on the Sky (the second was immediately before the Escape).

Boarding: Being gold in the Latitudes program allowed us to bypass the long check in line, so that was quick and painless. The boarding process went pretty quick as well. I think we had to wait for 3-4 boarding groups ahead of ours, but it probably only took 20 minutes or so until our group was called. Once on board, we went to the buffet for lunch. As we saw on the Epic, the buffet on the larger ships is quite extensive and has a large variety of foods. Most everything we had from the buffet was very good, with a few things not being that impressive.

Our room: We upgraded from a balcony to a mini-suite prior to boarding. The room was laid out nicely and the bathroom was a good size with dual sinks and a bathtub. We had plenty of storage for two people, but it would have been nice to have a few drawers. As I had seen mentioned on here before, our room did have a constant creak to it when we were at sea. You could actually notice it throughout the ship at times. Our room steward did a great job and was always cordial and telling us to enjoy our day when we would see him.

Ship layout: I thought the ship was laid out very well and found it to feel less congested than the Epic. Certain places like the atrium were busy during certain activities (newlywed game, dance off, etc), but we expected that. The pool was also busy, but having just come off the Sky the day prior, it didn't seem any worse than that ship. We don't spend much time at the pool, so we only worried about finding one chair to leave our stuff at to go do the slides and we never had an issue finding one nearby. The buffet could get crowded at breakfast and lunch, but we were always able to find a seat. If one wasn't available inside, there were always seats just outside the buffet in the outdoor section. We never went through the casino as we would transit on deck 6 or 8. You could sometimes smell smoke coming from the casino, but I never felt it was overpowering on other floors.

Entertainment: We saw both of the main theater shows as well as For the Record at the Supper Club. Million Dollar Quartet was fantastic and probably the best show we saw all week with For the Record being a close second. The musicians in the Million Dollar Quartet were fantastic and the singers did a great job of capturing the sound of the people they were playing. For the Record is definitely worth paying extra for as the show was very high energy and the music was very well done. If you see that show, I recommend not showing up too early as they tend to seat front to back. We got there early and were sat right next to the stage. Because they do a lot of the show in the audience, we had to keep turning around to see them, so sitting further back would have been nice. We thought After Midnight was terrible. I thought the musicians were great and the production was obviously high quality, but it was impossible to understand what was going on and what the show was actually about. Of all the ships we have been on, this was definitely the worst show we have seen. We also saw the comedian the first night for his early and late adult show. Both were very funny. We also spent 3 nights at Headliners for Howl at the Moon. As was the case on the Epic, it was a ton of fun.

Activities: The ropes course was a blast and we did it twice. The crew did a great job getting people through the line and on the course without long delays. You can spend as much time as you want on it, so you can explore the different challenges it offers. We also spent a good bit of time on the water slides. The yellow slide is underwhelming as it didn't seem to have enough drop to keep you moving at a descent pace. I had to push myself in a couple of spots to keep from coming to a complete stop. The raft slide was fun and can be done single or double. The line for rafts can take a few minutes, but it went pretty quick and they do a good job of finding out who wants which type of raft so that as they come down the slide someone can take what they have. The two drop slides were the best. The line for those was obviously much less than for the tube slide, so you could get right back in line and be on the slide again in no time. One note, they do not allow any jewelry on the drop slides, so rings, earrings, belly rings, necklaces, glasses, etc. must be removed prior to riding.

Meals: We ate dinner in either Taste or Savor, with the exception of the Supper Club and our dinner with the Captain, which was in Moderno. For the most part, service in the main dining rooms was fine. We had one night that seemed very slow, but for the most part, from the time we sat down until we left was about 90 minutes. We had a group of 6 and only made reservations one night. We never had to wait more than a couple of minutes to get in and we ate at different times from 6 pm to 9 pm. All of the food we had in the main dining rooms was excellent and cooked as requested. Some in our group stated that some of the desserts were hit or miss. I'm partial to the warm chocolate lava cake and recommended that to everyone. I think on more than one occasion everyone at the table had that for dessert. I thought the food at The Supper Club was just ok. Some of it was better than others, but I didn't find it anything to write home about. The food in Moderno was excellent with the exception of the desserts. The salad/starter bar has quite an assortment of stuff to choose from and everything I had was very good. The meats they carve tableside were also very good and were cooked perfectly. I highly recommend the grilled pineapple they bring around. You definitely won't go hungry at that restaurant.

Drink service: We had the beverage package and never had an issue getting drinks. In the smaller clubs, the wait staff was always available and pretty quick getting drinks. In the main theater, we usually got drinks at the bar in the back of the theater prior to the show starting. We never waited more than a couple of minutes to get served at the various bars we went to around the ship. Bong at the Mojito bar was fantastic and is quite the showman. He obviously enjoys what he does.

Final thoughts: I had read about the movement of this ship prior to sailing, and you could feel a slight movement even in small waves, but it was so minor you forgot about it and didn't notice it. The Captain on our bridge tour did mention that because of the height of the ship, it is much more susceptible to movement from the wind. He indicated that the 2 extra decks on the Escape vs. the Breakaway and Getaway make a big difference in that regard. Most of the trip was in small waves, but we did have 5-10 foot waves one night and I didn't think the shipped moved much.

Overall, we had a great cruise and didn't have much to complain about. After our cruise on the Epic last year, we were hesitant to book on another large ship due to how crowded everything felt. After cruising on the Escape, I think we will would not hesitate to book on one of the larger ships again, although I still think the Jewel class is our favorite.

We use a GoPro Hero 4 Silver. We bought it mainly for our scuba trips, but we use it for snorkeling as well. It takes great pictures and video and it's high enough resolution that you can zoom and crop pictures without them getting blurry or pixelated.

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It's available on the Escape. We used it last week and it worked great. I can't answer about calling to shore question.

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We just used it on the Escape last week and for the most part it worked great. There were occasional times I had to restart the app to text, but overall it worked great and was worth it considering the size of that ship.

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We always book the NCL transfer. Super easy and you don't have to sit in the back of a potentially nasty cab. The only downfall is if you are overnighting in Miami, you've got to go to the airport in the morning for the transfer.

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No problem! An NCL cruise consultant can tell you which rooms do and don't. They may know if all of the mini suites do as well.

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We were in 9842. Ours was not a connecting cabin, but the other couple with us were in 9796 and it had a tub and was a connecting room to the mini suite next to it (9794 I believe was the room next to theirs).

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I'm not sure about balcony rooms, but some or all of the mini suites have tubs. Our mini suite and another couples mini suite in our group had tubs. Both on deck 9.

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They've had Mountain Dew on all the ships I've been on (Epic, Jewel, Sky, and Sun). I don't remember if it was specifically listed on the menu, but I'm sure they'll have it.

The hand dipped ice cream was included (no additional charge) on the Epic when we sailed in March.

Our experience was similar to brookie848, although we never made a reservation for dinner on our trip. We ate in both MDR's during the week and only had a wait on one occasion that was about 15 minutes or so. Our dining time varied from 5:30 to probably 7:00 each night depending on what we were doing. There was one night we were going to go to the Manhattan Room, but they had a big line, so we went to Taste and didn't have to wait.

We didn't notice much smoke when we were on the Epic a few weeks ago. Every once in a while you could smell it if you passed someone that was smoking, otherwise we didn't really notice it. The rules are that you can't smoke unless actively playing though.

We have dove twice in Roatan, both times with Anthony's Key. We never had an issue with them or their equipment. Our last dive was in Dec 13 and we did the dolphin dive. That dive was one of the best dives we have ever done and I highly recommend it.