Live Escape report

[Sunset Lover 1971]

We did a B2B last April and Clarense was our bartender at the Sugarcane Mojhito bar (we spent a lot of time there :)) He told us he was going to the Escape, so we decided our next cruise would be on the Escape as well.

 

Everyone who travels on the Escape should seek out Clarence. I just wish he was in the Mohito bar again. :D

 

Good bar selection. I spent a lot of time at the Mojito bar last October and Clarence was my favorite bartender on the ship. Can't wait to see him in 30 days! :D

[CruisinHarvey]

I think people said he's at Skyline, although he hasn't been there the couple of times I've been.

 

Thanks! If you do see him, please let us know where he. He's really a character. With that ship, it may take couple of days to find him, without your help. I saw his photo facebook page with a couple of pictures from Tobacco Road, so I thought maybe he was there.

[TSUmom]

Well, we're back in Southampton for the third and last time. I'm looking forward to setting off properly later today.

 

It's been really busy for the last couple of days with all the one nighters and day visitors so it will be nice to have the ship back to normal for the crossing.

 

It was a fun day yesterday though. I saw the family off in the morning and then got back to the ship just as my brother had finished checking in. A quick lunch at o'Sheehans and then I gave him the full ship tour. As expected there were rooms open to view and I will be posting pictures of a lot of the Haven Suites later. I've just got to sort through them and try to remember which ones are from which rooms.

 

Also went to the Studio lounge which, as reported elsewhere, doesn't have a bar. It is a decent size though and still has the coffee machine and wine dispenser. I understand that they have been holding the solo meet up elsewhere.

 

Had dinner at Manhattan with my PCC. They are still using special menus there, so it will be interesting to see whether they change back to standard ones today. Again, it was very busy there, but they seemed to be dealing with be it fairly well. They were handing out pagers to people without reservations when we arrived at 8pm telling people it was about a 15 minute wait. Service was pretty good considering it was full.

 

After that, it was back to Howl until closing. I met Clarense, who I previously knew from the Epic and is now working in Margaritaville and the 5 o'clock somewhere bar. He's one of my favourite bar staff from previous cruises so I'll be making sure I visit him a few times. A really good guy.

 

Anyway, gonna go and grab breakfast in a minute (if I can get near anything in the buffet) before going down to get my keycard for my next room (a large balcony on deck 9) and then I can settle in for the main trip. It's going to be a lot of fun.

 

I am hoping you got a picture of a Haven Courtyard PH:) I have been watching and waiting for somebody to post one.

[KeithJenner]

I've just posted room service menus on Instagram.

[KeithJenner]

I am hoping you got a picture of a Haven Courtyard PH:) I have been watching and waiting for somebody to post one.

 

 

I have a feeling that I didn't get that one. I will check later, once I get my current room sorted out. It seems that having people in my room and then leaving has confused the system.

[SullytheBFG]

I've just posted room service menus on Instagram.

 

Do you have a link to your Instagram account?

[TSUmom]

Thank you and I hope you get your room situation taken care of easily.

[allbap]

Following

[KeithJenner]

Do you have a link to your Instagram account?

 

 

Not a link, but my user name is keith_jenner

[minnesotamamafish]

Thanks! If you do see him, please let us know where he. He's really a character. With that ship, it may take couple of days to find him, without your help. I saw his photo facebook page with a couple of pictures from Tobacco Road, so I thought maybe he was there.

 

According to the Escape review thread by CoffeeGoddess, Bong is at Sugarcane Mojito Bar.

[hj1madison]

As stated by someone else, there doesn't seem to be room service at the moment, but I assume that will change tomorrow. I'll upload a picture when I see a menu.

 

Internet has been fairly good. A few dropout where you have to logout and then back in again, but otherwise fine.

 

One observation about it. I pre purchased the package and when I tried to log in there was nothing showing is prepaid. I purchased it and then went to the Internet cafe the next day. They said this is the correct way to do it and the charge would drop off, which it did later that day.

 

Just found the Room Service pics on Instagram. Thanks so much for posting. We are booked in March for a mini-suite deck 8 with an extra deep balcony (about the only connecting suites with 4 in each). We love breakfast on our balcony and that looks like it just got better, even if there is an extra charge.

 

It is great fun tagging along with you and monitoring ship location on MarineTraffic app. Now I wonder what your internet will be like in the middle of the Atlantic??? Thank you again and have a safe voyage.

[fabnfortysomething]

Hi Keith

nice to meet up with you and your family again

off the Escape this morning and a lovely wait at Southampton train station for our 11.45 train and 5 hours later got off to be picked up by our son

 

However he refuses he get his guitar out to entertain us and wont even bring us any drinks!

 

back to reality!

 

will start my own review soon so can relive the last few days

[kismet618]

I had posted these on the Everything Escape thread...Thanks again Keith Jenner...but for those that missed them there:

 

Courtesy of Keith Jenner, here are the Escape Room Service Menus:

https://instagram.com/p/9bOcQoygoV/?taken-by=keith_jenner

https://instagram.com/p/9bOexSygoY/?taken-by=keith_jenner

[Kdiamond55]

According to the Escape review thread by CoffeeGoddess, Bong is at Sugarcane Mojito Bar.

 

Yes! You cannot know how happy this makes me! I'm coming for you Bong!

 

[KeithJenner]

Well, we're now on our way to Miami. Actually, as I type this we are heading for Spain, but more of that later. It's time for an update on what's been going on for the past couple of days.

 

Things started off pretty well on Thursday. We left the old room and went down to guest services for a new key. That seemed to work fine, although my card still have corks and caps on it, rather than the UBP. I was told that I would have to change my card later that day.

 

There were a number of people who were staying on and pretty well everyone had trouble of some sort. The most common problem was that the ability to charge things to the account was lost, although that was fixed fairly quickly in the afternoon.

 

I had an extra difficulty though. It seems that the fact that they had carried my account across all the way from Hamburg, but that I had different people with me on each leg was something that the system couldn't deal with. The result was that they couldn't get my card to open my cabin door.

 

It took numerous attempts with different cards to get it working. At one point it looked like I was going to have two cards, one for the door and one for charging, but that didn't work. For a while, if I wanted to get into my room I had to call someone to let me in, but that didn't work either as They were so busy that I ended up waiting for a while the one time I tried it.

 

Finally, when I was at the cruise critic sail away the card I had stopped working for charging, and I took this as a sign they had done something to it. Another visit to guest services resulted in my finally getting a card which worked for everything. It's an interesting card though. It's one of the orange first time cruiser cards which has my platinum status on it and it also states that I have the inning package, corks and caps plus the UBP. I've had a few strange looks from bar staff who obviously think I've purchased both C&C and the UBP. Still, it is a unique card. :)

 

It was a lot of messing about, but at least for me it was the first day that I'd had any problems. Others had been to guest services multiple times almost every day.

 

Anyway, after that I tried Food Republic for dinner. It really was excellent. I had the Bulcogi Tacos, which I think we're the best thing I've had so far and the BBQ Port Belly noodles which were also very good. Unfortunately my phone had run out of power so I didn't get a picture of them.

 

After that, it was back to Howl again where I drank far too many beers. As I've now got the UBP I had my first fireball of the trip along with lots more. We rounded the night off at o'Sheehans where I had some fajitas before I called it a night.

 

However, when I got back to my room I found my platinum sparkling wine waiting for me, and in one of those decisions which we tend to make at about 1am after I few beers I decided that this was the perfect time to open it. :)

[KeithJenner]

I woke up yesterday feeling the after effects of the night before, feeling a distinct up and down movement. I'm in a deck 9 large balcony now and we are certainly feeling some movement up here.

 

The waves were apparently 11ft yesterday, but we seem to be moving more than I would expect from looking at them. It's also very windy which I don't think is helping. I was in one of the mini suites with large balcony when I was on the Getaway recently and we didn't feel any movement at all there. We never had any rough seas then, so that is understandable, but first impressions is that this ship isn't handling moderate seas and wind as well as I'd have hoped.

 

I actually don't mind some movement, and don't get seasick, but I do find that I struggle to shift a hangover on a moving ship, and that proved to be the case yesterday.

 

On these trips, I like to spend an hour in the morning walking round the waterfront, and our clocks went back yesterday, so it was especially ideal. However it was raining outside and large parts of the waterfront (the whole of the port side) are closed off. In fact, I think the only reason that any of it is open is for the smokers to get to the outside Tobacco Road bar. This morning all the other doors are shut.

 

I ended up walking around inside and went to the buffet for a coffee before meeting up with friends in o'Sheehans for breakfast. The corned beef hash is as good as I remember it.

 

Then it was to the meet and greet, which was packed (275 people apparently). I haven't signed up for any of the activities planned, and the various announcements about those took up a lot of time. We had some light entertainment from the fact that many meet ups were at the 5 o'clock bar at a variety of times. It doesn't sound funny writing that now, so perhaps you had to be there to get it.

 

I then had a few hours relaxing in my room before I started to get fed up with the movement so went to Cagneys which, being on a low deck and central doesn't have as much movement. A couple of us went to the Hypnotist show, which was ok. There was a medical emergency announced whilst she was doing the hypnotism, which interfered with things and I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and suggest that is why she had a number of failures.

 

We then went to Cagneys. This was interesting, as it was a chance to see what happens with the a la carte dining. There were four of us, all needing charging separately and I was the only one with the dining package.

 

Firstly, I will say that as long as you aren't ordering many different appetisers or sides then there probably won't be all that much difference in price. We all ended up with bills around $30.

 

I asked if there were any restrictions with the dining package and was told there wasn't. I don't actually trust this info and I'm sure that additional entrees would be charged for. All I can say is the the current information I have is that there isn't a restriction on sides. We will see if this is true or not when others go there.

 

Anyway, I had the veal chop which was very good. Unfortunately, as I really never got going yesterday after over indulging the night before, I wasn't really in a position to enjoy my meal as much as I'd liked (that's the last two times I've been to Cagneys not feeling great, I must plan better).

 

Everyone else was very happy with their food.

 

The problem which seems quite obvious with the a la carte is making sure that everyone in a group like ours gets charged for the correct things. They seemed to be fairly well on the ball with it, but got it wrong right at the end as one of us got charged for someone else's desert. I can see this causing trouble.

 

It took us about two hours for our meal. At times the service seemed quite slow, but two ours for a party like ours is fair enough.

 

We went back to the brew house afterwards, but I decided to call it a night fairly early. They have confirmed that they are showing the Rugby World Cup final today so I need to make sure I'm up for that.

 

When I woke up this morning I found we have taken a turn in the night and were heading towards Spain due to a medical evacuation. I'm not sure what impact this will have on our progress, but assume we will have to sail a bit faster to make up time. It will give us a bit less leeway to dodge storms, which could be an issue as I understand there's some nasty stuff out there.

 

The waves are a lot smaller today, but there's still quite a bit of movement up front here. I really think it could be the wind as much as the sea which is causing it.

 

I've been writing this on my balcony with a coffee. It's a bit chilly out here, but not too bad. I'm off now to get myself ready for my walk, if I can find anywhere to go.

[kikki21]

I have to say that I felt more movement with this ship than any other! I felt it in Moderno, the Theatre & our room on deck 15! It didn't seem sea related but wind related! She seemed quite ponderous at times going through the sea at maybe our slower gears!

[packercruising]

What is Howl, and where is it?

[KeithJenner]

What is Howl, and where is it?

 

 

Howl at the Moon, duelling pianos. It's in Headliners

[packercruising]

Thanks! Sounds like a good spot to have a ouple brews. :)

[fabnfortysomething]

Keith

 

we are thinking of you especially tonight on Halloween night !

[jayhawkers2]

All of the balconies are a decent size, but that extra room on the angled balcony is very nice.

 

I didn't really get to use it much going from Hamburg to Southampton, but it was nice to see it. Certainly worth it as it costs little or no extra.

Hi, would like to view the angled balcony pics..we have that on Jan 9 cruise..were they posted on roll call? Thanks

[LMaxwell]

Keith do the upcharge MDR items carry a mandatory service charge?

[Yorkvillain]

Keith which deck 9 B6 room are you in?

 

Thanks for the great reporting and amazing pictures.

[KeithJenner]

Keith

 

 

 

we are thinking of you especially tonight on Halloween night !

 

 

:)

 

It actually wasn't too bad..