Escape 4.23-4.30 Review-First time Cruiser

[CorkyRogers]

Hey all...just wanted to give back after so many great posts helped me before my cruise. I'll try and make it as brief as possible.

 

Like the topic says, first time cruiser so I was a bit hesitant since I've never really been on a boat before. We were travelling with 27 people of all ages, included an 8 month year old. I was booked for the inside studio solo traveller room. Room 12511. I'm a 36 year male if that helps.

 

Getting on the boat: I think in normal situations, this would have been easy. But with a group, its a pain lol. When your dad wanders off like a 5 year old with no explanation to just have a smoke, your brother and sis-in- law are trying to maneuver the carriage with in the hordes of people rushing to get on the boat. Ugh. Ok that was unique to us. One thing that was annoying when after we checked in, and we go up the escalator, there's a gentleman that gives you a group number for boarding. We were group 8. We waited for an hour and they were still calling group 6. But we saw people with group 12 flyers boarding so we just chanced it and got in line. They didn't question anything.

 

The boat is huge. One thing that I was kind of disappointed in was the small size of the pool. But then again, I have nothing to base off of. If anyone can let me know if that is a good size for a cruise ship pool or not that, that'd be great.

 

Never ever had a problem getting drinks at any bar. I have no idea if we had a packed boat or not but there was never more then a few min wait if that. I had the UBP so that def was used :)

 

Never really had a bad meal. Taste/Savor/Manhattan all had the same menus every night. No matter how many people ate, it always took up about 2 hrs of our time which was kind of annoying if you wanted to do other things at night.

 

Food Republic I ate at the last night and was soooo mad I didn't go there sooner. Fast and soooo good. I loved it there. I pretty much eat only meat so I ate steaks most of the time. The steak frites was really good. Ate at Cagney's one night and had the Rib Eye which was perfect! The pork belly appetizer melted in your mouth. I really enjoyed the buffet. Never really had a problem finding something to eat. Had soft serve about 10 times a day :)

 

My inside studio room was great. It is tiny but for one person it is fine. I had plenty of room to stow away all my clothes. The bed was a full size so you had plenty of room for you and a guest. The shower is maybe just a teeny bit too small. I kept knocking the liquid soap dispenser off the walls. Great little feature was the color changing lights in the rooms. Kind of random, but for only having a few channels on the tv, always found something to watch. The Guy Harvey channel was really really interesting. Engage channel had some great shows to just chill out and watch. The one channe that rotated tv eps was solid and the movie channel had alot of great movies to watch. I know I should have been out enjoying the cruise but I slept in some days and on the Nassau port day I was really sick.

 

Major gripe is that parents do not watch their kids. There were kids in the pool, kids in the hot tub, kids in h2o at one point. It was really annoying and I wished Norwegian would enforce those rules a bit more.

 

Grabbing a lounge chair was always a hassle. But people in my group were early birds and would grab one for me. Usually in h2o which I thought was the best place to lay out if you wanted to be away from the kids. The grotto there was a really nice touch as it really did refresh you after sitting in the sun all day.

 

Howl at the Moon (duelling pianos) was my favorite. We went there 3 times. Such an entertaining show.

 

As for my being worried about getting sea sick. I did feel the boat quite a few times. A few people in our group said its not usually like that. And we even talked to a few people that had sailed on the Escape twice already who said its not really this bad either. Dramamine usually cured that up tho.

 

I cannot stress this enough...nearly every staff member on the boat was amazing. They all were very personable and nice. Some you noticed were working 3 different locations through out the day. Sylvia (my favorite bartender) was in Waves bar in the morning, Mixx in the afternoon, and headliners at night.

 

Leaving the boat was pretty easy too. No main hassles except for dealing with parents and what not lol.

 

I hope that helps for anyone. Sorry if this was long in the tooth or scattershot. First review lol. Let me know if you have any questions.

 

Overall, I really really enjoyed my first cruise. Next time I will bring non drowsy dramamine with me. I would love to check out other ships but I loved the whole freestyle thing. Just decided, hey I'm hungry now, I'm gonna go eat was pretty cool.

 

:)

[Victorious8]

What was the age range of the people in the studios? Did you hang out with anyone from there or were you mostly with your family? How late did the nightlife usually go?

[NLH Arizona]

Thanks so much for your review. Reading so many reviews like yours pointing out how great the crew is and that there were no issues getting drinks.

[CorkyRogers]

What was the age range of the people in the studios? Did you hang out with anyone from there or were you mostly with your family? How late did the nightlife usually go?

 

Other then a friend who was next door to me, she was 28, I didn't see many people there. Sadly, I only ventured into the lounge once when I first got there. There was a board outlining specific events for the solo travellers. The few people I did see were a bit older. However, I think they were with a rather large group as they were wearing t-shirst for the southern drawl band which had almost 400 people on board.

 

I was usually out til at least 1:30-2am. One of my friends in the group was out til at least 4am every night. O'Sheehans is open 24/7 so I think he did most of his partying there and gambling at the casino. At least twice he closed it out and was told he had to leave so they can clean lol. Hope that helps!

[Loonbeam]

FYI - The pools on Escape (and most new builds across lines) are VERY small for the passenger count. Sadly don't see that changing anytime soon..

 

Side note (and one I need to research) is that as the ships get higher, does that limit the amount of water that can be up on top for balance reasons??...

[bear3412]

..... The bed was a full size so you had plenty of room for you and a guest.....

 

:eek:

 

:D

[Jim The Lizard]

Great review, some good insight for future studio travelers. And, the pool is tiny.

[wanttoBcruising]

been thinking of jumping ship so to speak, came close to trying NWG last year (only done Carnival). From your 1st experience, a lot sounds like cruising (big ship, small pools, lots of people, too many unwatched kids, etc.). glad to see you liked your dining options - it's the 'freestyle' that's concerned me, used to that set dining time every night. Anyway, thanks for posting.. someday I'd love to try. :-)

[riddle]

Hey, I'm 63 and you sound like my kind of fun people!