CamaCama's Family Vacation on the Escape 11/21/2015 (Detailed PICTURE Review!!!!!!)

[CamaCama]

What a fantastic review, and the pic's are superb. This is what Cruise Critic is supposed to be about. Thank you so much for taking us along with your family. The kids are just too cute:D Can't wait to continue tomorrow.;)

 

Thank you so much!!!

[CamaCama]

DAY 4 - St. Thomas

 

Good morning... we were all up at 8am and Mila woke up feeling very warm. She definitely had a fever. (Could she have caught something from Guppies camp yesterday? That's what everyone immediately thought...she is a thumb sucker so she could have picked up germs there pretty easily. Who knows...) She was acting fine though so I gave her some Tylenol and we decided to see how she was in the next hour or so which would help us decide what to do in St. Thomas. We didn't make any prearranged excursion plans so we figured we would go to Magen's Bay. My mom had been there 20 years ago and remembered it being gorgeous so that was the plan if her fever went down and she was feeling OK.

 

 

 

 

We watched on the balcony for a while as we pulled in to dock at St. Thomas. Within 20 minutes of Mila taking Tylenol she felt much cooler but she was clingy (clingier than usual lol).

 

 

 

[CamaCama]

We couldn't wait to get out there, it looked so lush and beautiful! Living in FL you don't get to see mountains like this... not even close... it's so flat so this was a nice change!

 

 

 

We turned around to back in

 

 

 

 

We docked right behind MSC Divina

 

Edited December 9, 2015 by CamaCama

[CamaCama]

The girls loved the balcony... Mila was happy and seemed to feel better.

 

 

 

Yes Sienna fell asleep in her clothes from the night before haha... not my fault... remember we were at brat pack and didn't put the kids to bed. My mom said Sienna fell asleep at the table after eating dinner she was so tired so they carried her back to the room and into bed and she was out!

 

I noticed her splash academy bracelet was coming apart the day before but this morning it was really bad. After our day in St. Thomas we'd see about getting her a new one...

 

[CamaCama]

We headed up to Garden Café around 9:30 with all of our stuff with us. Since Mila seemed to feel good we decided to get off the ship after we ate and head to Magen's Bay.

 

View from breakfast

 

 

 

Happy

 

 

Ready to hit the beach

 

[CamaCama]

We were off the ship by 10:30. Such an easy process... NO lines at all (and stayed that way the entire trip, we never encountered lines for anything)... we took the elevator down to Deck 4 and walked right off after scanning our cards.

 

 

 

 

Always cleaning

 

 

The lifeboats stick out from the side of the ship, I don't think any other ship has them like that, unless I just never noticed but I thought it was odd the way they did that. More deck space I guess.

 

 

Finally got to see the hull art up close

 

[CamaCama]

We walked to the right towards the front of the ship to take some pictures first...

 

Mommy it's soooooooooo sunny

 

 

 

 

NCL Spirit was pulling in as well, they would have to tender

 

 

[CamaCama]

There were tons of cabs and open air buses to take you wherever you wanted to go. We asked the first guy we saw to take us to Magen's Bay and he escorted us to an open air bus that was already pretty full. There were only a few seats left for us, the kids sat on our laps. We were off to Magen's Bay a minute later...

 

$8 per person each way plus $4 entry to Magen's Bay.

 

We ended up only paying for 1 way since we weren't sure what time we wanted to come back and our whole bus would have had to decide on a time together... way too complicated. The kids were FREE since they sat on our laps.

 

 

Apparently all the people already in the bus had been waiting there for over 30 minutes they said. They were pretty annoyed at the driver already and when he pulled over a few minutes into the drive they yelled at him. So he kept on going, I guess he was going to pick up a local?? Then he stopped about 1/4 mile out from Magen's Bay to collect the money. The people in the bus were saying that nobody else does that, they collect when you get to the entrance. Took him a while to figure all the payments out... after about 10 minutes we were back on our way to Magen's and at the entrance within a minute.

 

 

About the drive: it's a very hilly, winding road drive! You go up the mountain and then back down to get to the beach. There are a few spots where there are no guard rails!! It's gorgeous at the top, the views are incredible but we were gripping the hand rails holding on. The drive took about 20 minutes total, felt quicker.

 

 

 

 

[CamaCama]

We were dropped off at the far end (far from concession stands) and walked down to the water to find a spot to put our towels down.

 

 

We quickly found a spot under some trees and put our stuff down. Mila made herself comfortable...

 

 

View straight out from our spot

 

 

To the left

 

 

To the right

 

 

There is plenty of shade here under trees

 

[CamaCama]

It was such a gorgeous day, we were so excited to be there. Len wanted to do the stand up paddle boarding so we figured we would just get that out of the way right away while it wasn't so crowded. It was $30 each for 1 hour. I decided to do it with him since it's more fun experiencing it with someone right?!

 

 

Len getting a quick lesson

 

 

And off we went... what an arm and leg workout!!!!!!!!!! You don't realize how many muscles you use trying to balance yourself haha, it was really fun and so gorgeous out there. We saw fish in the water right under us it was so clear and the water was so calm.

 

 

 

 

[CamaCama]

 

 

My arms were dead so I came back in after about 40 mins... since we had 20 mins left the guy let my mother in law take it out until the time was up. They were really nice guys!

 

 

Then Sienna wanted to take out a kayak so we did that too, she saw fish right from the side of the kayak, she loved it.

 

 

[CamaCama]

By the time we were done, Mila was snoozing... she had fallen asleep easily in my father in laws arms. She didn't feel warm again yet but I was hoping her fever wasn't going to come back.

 

 

I had a snorkel mask with me so I decided to go out to do a little snorkeling to see if there was anything to see. I walked over to the right all the way to the end to these rocks.

 

 

View back to the beach

 

 

 

Most of the bottom looked like this and it was a bit churned up so not 100% clear but I did see a few fish around here (see the fish upper left hand corner?)

 

 

Bottom middle of pic

 

[paulh84]

Oh the St. Thomas taxi drivers :eek:

 

You have to be on your toes with them and know the prices. And don't be afraid to get out! Last time I was there we were going from the Marriott to the port area and took a 'detour' 10 minutes up into town to pick up a local relative.

[CamaCama]

Checking out where I am..

 

 

I don't know my fish but there were a lot of these guys around

 

 

After about 20 minutes I headed back since there wasn't much to see. Sienna can't get enough of the water, she's totally a beach bum.

 

 

 

 

[CamaCama]

 

 

 

 

We got a coconut water to share and enjoyed another hour or so until we all got hungry.

 

 

Mila was still sleeping so we figured we would walk over to the concession and get some food to bring back. I didn't get any pictures of this but a slice of pizza was $3.25 and a pie was $21.95. We got 5 slices to share and 2 cans of soda ($2.50 each) and figured we'd eat more once we got back on the ship later. This would hold us over until then.

 

Mila was up when we returned and we all ate then decided it was time to go. It was about 2:30pm at this point and we had been here since 11ish so about 3.5 hours. We could have stayed longer but Mila was feeling warm again. I gave her Tylenol and hoped this didn't turn into anything more.

 

Sienna had to run back into the ocean to "clean off the sand" right before we left. We had to drag her out! haha

 

[CamaCama]

We packed up all our stuff and headed to the exit... there were several open air buses waiting to head back. We got right on one and it was the same rail-gripping ride back to port. Same cost too.. $8 per person and kids were free.

 

 

We were dropped off in town outside the port and shopped for a little

 

 

We also found this guy who gave us each a free shot of flavored rum!

 

 

 

 

[CamaCama]

We didn't buy much, just let the kids pick one thing each, but there were some pretty cool shops

 

 

 

Quick obligatory picture before getting back on the ship

 

 

Nice touch NCL with the cold drink and cold towels!

 

 

It was about 4pm and Len and I wanted an iced coffee from the atrium café. Worst EVER! It tasted burnt and watered down. So gross. How can they get it so wrong? Maybe I'm a starbucks snob?? It was just so off.

 

 

My mom saw these guys who looked like captains in the atrium café. She decided to go over to talk to them and ask some questions. They said we go an average of about 19 knots. I don't remember what else she asked and I'm not sure what their titles were but she had them laughing.

 

[CamaCama]

We got Sienna a new bracelet from splash academy on deck 5 since hers was ruined already then we went up to the pool deck to get some food and see what was going on. Mila wanted to show off her new toy from St. Thomas, we were happy she was feeling ok.

 

 

 

This lemon orzo salad that you see on the plate from Garden Café was amazing!!!

 

 

It was 4:30 at that point and we saw the ropes course was open... so Mila stayed with my mom and Len, Sienna and I headed up there. There was a pretty long line but we had nothing else to do so we waited on it. The wait was about 40 minutes and when it was our turn they wanted to measure Sienna since she looked small. I knew she'd be under 48" and she was... way under. BUT do you see where it says "without a chaperone"? One of the parents there was arguing with the NCL employee about that wording. She wanted to go up with him which would be considered a chaperone... but they still said no, he had to be 48". Period.

 

 

Len took her to the kids ropes course and I went up on the big one. She had a great time there and once I was up on the big one I realized it would be way too scary for her. It was scary for ME!!!

 

 

Edited December 9, 2015 by CamaCama

[CamaCama]

 

 

The sun was setting over St. Thomas so it was a gorgeous view and I had a 10 year old in front of me telling me how fun it was and not to be scared but man I had a death grip on the safety rope the whole time. It was very high up and windy and kinda freaky zip lining over the side of the ship. The plank wasn't bad but the zip lines I had to muster up the courage for a few minutes before doing them.

 

 

 

 

[CamaCama]

The Plank

That rope hanging next to me was to pull for a picture... I never actually found those pictures though.

 

 

 

It was 6pm by the time we were done so we met my mom back at the pool and went down to shower/change for dinner. We found this in our room but didn't take advantage...

 

 

Sienna wanted to go to splash academy at 7:00 so we got her and Mila something to eat quick at Garden Café and dropped her off. Mila was exhausted and my in-laws already had eaten dinner while we were at the ropes course so they offered to watch Mila and put her to bed.

 

We had been wanting to try Food Republic so my mom, Len and I decided to go check it out to see if we could get in to eat there... it was almost 8 at that point. We got right in, no wait!!

 

[CamaCama]

We were so excited to eat here, we heard great things about it before our sailing and on the ship the last 4 days. It lived up to every expectation... it was an awesome meal! We loved everything we ordered and it only came to about $40 for the 3 of us to eat plus Len got a beer!!! SO worth it. If you eat at one pay restaurant while on the ship, let this be the one.

 

(Some pictures I took earlier in the week of Food Republic)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CamaCama]

Menu up on the screens by the entrance

 

 

 

 

We sat at a high top table for four right in front of this bar area (straight back from where you walk in)

 

 

You place your order on these ipad looking devices at the table. You can customize any order by writing in the comments, very easy and really cool concept.

 

 

[CamaCama]

 

I'm trying to remember off the top of my head what the names of these dishes were...

 

noodle soup with pork

 

 

Fried rice

 

 

Chicken teriyaki

 

 

Shrimp tempura roll (customized)

 

 

We also had Edamame and Len had 2 sushi rolls. We all enjoyed everything and wanted to go back but just didn't have time. LOVED it!

 

[LuCruise]

Awesome review. Thanks so much for sharing all your wonderful pictures. Am glad that your DD was ok and her fever passed. There's nothing worse than being sick on vacation.

 

After seeing your review I'm confused again about our St Thomas day. :rolleyes: We're also coming with kids (think our younger one is your older one's age). I had it all figured out that we'd go to Coki beach...BUT...Magens Bay looks wonderful too :D

 

PS - That rope course on the Escape looks like tons of fun too!

[CamaCama]

Mila was still up when we got back so we took over and my MIL, FIL and mom all went to the Dueling Pianos show that started at 10. They raved about it!

 

crazy hair

 

Goodnight!

 

 

 

END OF DAY 4.