snownow

Just off the Bliss. No straws... other than starbucks on board. They still have the green plastic ones.  Over all i did not miss them, and no one really seemed bothered. Its a good thing. 

The images and reviews look much better. Walls moved out, bar moved, that area where they set up to sell crappy shirts gone, and the hot tubs moved up stairs. Looks way better, but i can give you a first hand review in... 15 days!

Just south of the port area is a strip of beach with several bars/restaurants.  It would be a better choice than the stuff at port.  Several have beach chairs... for customers. 

They did for us, gift shop has a hole punch.  (where we bought our lanyard) 

There have been multiple posts about the escape rolling them out. I am sure bliss will have them by the time you go. I will be on board in 30 days. I'll let you know!

That would be a nope. Have at it off ship in port though. 

I would have made a comment to the hotel director or customer service. They handle that stuff pretty quickly. 

Our bliss roll call is now active. Just was able to post.

My sarcastic answer would be 5'oclock somewhere Bar.... Other than that i agree with the post below. Teppanyaki for fun, or Cagneys for a nice steak.

I liked Teppanyaki best. cagneys would be great for a 50th if y'all are steak fans.

 

Sent from my SM-G955U using Forums mobile app

We sailed with Disney when the kids were very little. Service was nice, but with a steeper price. We tried Carnival several times... and wont go back ever. We have only sailed on NCL escape. The price point makes it easy to jut get two rooms, for the same price as 1 on Disney. Service has always been good, food 1000% better than carnival, and the newer ship was pretty awesome. We do have two more trips booked with NCL, one in haven... so pretty loyal for now. Only downside is it may be time to jump ship ... so to speak... to another line to try new stops.

So what makes me happy with ncl, Deck 8 on the escape love the couches and chill out areas with an awesome bar near by. Specialty restaurants and dining like a human. Making reservations like i would back home, and not having the its 7:30 cattle call mass seating is sooo much better.

Only bad... as everyone says about ncl, pool deck sucks.

#1 as stated there is no real formal night. But people do dress up for dinner and pictures.

#2 My tween and teen love NCL. Push them to head to the team/kids club the first day to make friends. On cruises where they miss the first day or two, all they want to do is hang with us. On ones where they make friends its the opposite, we have to beg them to spend time with us. They do keep the kids pretty busy as well.

#3 as stated above, depends on the boat, But mostly no, no other charge but you do need to make reservations.

they don't confiscate the beer when you leave the ship? xrayed?

 

Sent from my SM-G928V using Forums mobile app

Nope. Baggage checked coming on, not going off. I ended up taking a large yeti style cup full of margarita... Made for a good morning. :)

Answer what i can...

1. yes

2. Not our favorite stop, but not bad. Just make a pool/beach day of it. There is not much to do there without significant travel. But the beach is pretty ok.

3. No idea

4. We always take dining and drink packages.

5. Normally more than carnival (yuk) and normally a little less than Royal.

6. I love Roatan in the western stop, and eastern would be Tortola ( We love Jost Van dyke)

7. No, we use a service named Jiffy Jeff. Not the cheapest, but he has always been on time.

8. Have not bid on upgrades yet,

Short walk. Look for turtles in the bay as you walk in. Pool was busy, but we found seats pretty easy. Beach was not busy and had lots of room the more you moved down the beach. Water is not amazing, we spent 80 % of our time at the pool. Some one also brought beach balls to the pool. We had a group of about 50 playing keep the ball in the air. It ended up being quite fun. Also we may have filled a large yeti water container with a beverage from this ship and brought it on shore... May have :)

don't we all, but I will take the $100 OBC.:halo:

Bought it when they went public, use it every cruise. A dividend would be awesome, but hey a hundred bucks is a hundred bucks. :halo:

Pending trade war will drive up costs on everyday items. We have already seen a spike in material costs in my industry up to around 30% in the last two weeks. When the items people buy everyday end up costing more, they spend less on travel and items they don't need. Stocks of companies that primary source of income is from our disposable income always seem to get hit first. Easy answer: our government picking a fight with our main trading partners causing the stock market to start to correct. Easier answer... Stocks go up... then they come down. Some times too fast. :)

Hmmm don't know if i could have made that any less political?

Two... one staff and one place.

On the Escape, My 9 year old daughter and I are walking around the lower deck, we passed by the 5 o'clock somewhere bar. They had a few customers, but were not super busy. Clarence "The Chocolate cowboy" , stopped us and started up a conversation with my daughter and I. He was super nice, super friendly and made her a custom blended drink. He probably spent 20 minutes chatting with us. The rest of cruise, she wanted to stop by every day to say hi and get a new blended concoction. Our next cruise... First thing she wanted to do was go see him. He remembered us, was sad as he had no blender this trip, but ran inside to make her something special. He is a great NCL employee and really did go out of his way to make our trip special, even for a 9 year old.

The other was our stop at Jost Van Dyke... Heaven on earth. Love that beach

The first time we bought them, we did not notice, get told or read the fine print. They also made it seem to us that you could always use two. However, it was just the current promotion when we purchased them. It has just given us a reason to cruise more :). But like other posters has said, some cruises still take two, you have several years to use them or sell one. They are transferable, and even selling it under the face value you still profit.

NCL often has cruises you can use 2 of the certificates at a time; or even promos to use 2 on any cruise. We used 2 of ours for the cruise we are taking in a couple of weeks. We still have 2 more. This cruise it's me, DH, my mom and a friend; our next cruise will be just me and DH so even if we use one we are okay with that.

The brew house is never very rowdy. Piano cuts out pretty early, and it not a night club type of place. I think you will be fine.

Our oldest carries her phone and we pay for the app on board. It works... most of the time. If she is leaving to go do something out of the plan for the day, she is to call us so we know where she is. Other than that, meals together, and a curfew, and the normal ground rules, no other peoples rooms (no going to other peoples rooms and waiting in the hallways), no going out of common areas, BOYS only in group activities in common areas. Our 15 year old is pretty responsible though.

We have not yet let the 11 year old check herself out of kids club, but she has a phone and the app as well so she can call for pick up if needed.

Love the stops for Carnival... Really dislike Carnival. I would go NCL over the carnival, even with the stops. WE have 2 girls, They love the teen and kids club on NCL 1000% over Carnival. Plus the Escape is a great boat, with way better food and drinks included.

Fill your yeti cup with a pain killer or three on the ship. Head to the beach for an hour or two, cool off in the pool and hit the ship for lunch. Its not a big place, the beach is ok, the pool was fun.

We had someone bring a beach ball to the pool and get a massive game of... dont let it hit the water. It was pretty fun with like 50 people.

The Escape is a very nice ship. Food and service have been great on all our trips. The entertainment we have seen has been very good.

We love everything about it ... other than three things. The pool design is horrid, overcrowded main pool and the kid pool has 0 seating. Atrium shows are packed and way too full for the space. Lastly smoke, Open casino with out proper air handling. It is not designed well.

If you can get past those three little things you have a great trip.

$100 in ones for tips, $500 just in case and walking around cash for port.

We cruise with two girls 15 and 11 now.. The last couple of cruises we book 2 rooms. You have to have an adult in both rooms. By the way, after getting them their own room we will never go back to sharing. Worth the extra just to not have us stress over their mess.

1. yes, and no. The new policy is not to open them. On our last two NCL cruises we went to the guest relations manager and told them we have children in both rooms, and need faster access as they are not connected. They did not want to open them, but in the end did. Your room attendant will not open them. We also got extra keys for each room.

2. Wife wanted rooms next to each other, so we went 2 balconies or mini

3. All party's in the same room will need the same packages. So yea, they both will end up with the drink package.

4. Thats all you....