Live from NCL Escape 05/28-06/04/23 Miami to DR/St. Thomas/Tortola/GSC

[Seas2mountains]

It’s a beautiful but  hot day for those of us who are not yet acclimated to summer humidify and heat. 
 

We had a leisurely morning as we arrived in St Thomas before 11am. We had an excursion to Coral World at 1pm.  If you do any cruise ship excursions, be prepared to arrive early to wait for the start time with a lot of standing around waiting. NCL does have water stations and towels available for pick up as you disembark from the ship. 
 

We were lead to open air buses and it was about a 20-25?minute ride to Coral World. This might take longer during peak travel times when more ships are in port.  
 

We were told we have 2.5 hours to spend on a self guided tour with a map.  Our granddaughter really enjoyed seeing the turtles, fish, dolphins, sting rays, parrots and birds.   Coral World is an easy walk to Coki Beach.  I’ll add photos at the end. 
 

 

[Seas2mountains]

[Seas2mountains]

[Seas2mountains]

You could easily see most of Coral World in 60-90 minutes leaving time on Coki Beach. If you want to leave earlier or later, there are taxis available at a cost of $14 per person. 

[big al]

25 minutes ago, depplep said:

Definitely looking forward to the Observation Lounge. I find it strange that it has a buffet.?? Hopefully we can dine outside without freezing. 

The buffet in the OL is very small & limited & is open in the early AM, then closes till 2 pm..there is no dining outside in the OL, but you can dine outside on deck 8 on the Waterfront...

[depplep]

19 minutes ago, big al said:

The buffet in the OL is very small & limited & is open in the early AM, then closes till 2 pm..there is no dining outside in the OL, but you can dine outside on deck 8 on the Waterfront...

In October in Alaska, I''m hoping so. My Florida blood is pretty thin. 

[Seas2mountains]

You could easily see most of Coral World in 60-90 minutes leaving time on Coki Beach. If you want to leave earlier or later, there are taxis available at a cost of $14 per person. 

[Seas2mountains]

We are all having a great time. I may be delayed with updates due to enjoying time with family and having slow wifi. 

[Seas2mountains]

Day 6.  

[Seas2mountains]

While we stayed on the ship in Tortola, our son and his fiancée said they loved the beach they found and had a great time snorkeling and saw a lot of fish and sea creatures. 
 

We took advantage of the time to have some down time to play monopoly with our granddaughter and try the ropes course. We have enjoyed having breakfast and lunch at Taste or Savor. 
 

Our granddaughter loves spending time with her new friends at Splash Academy. They were open yesterday from 2-4pm and she only got to spend about an hour as she was busy with the ropes course. 
 

We all had dinner at Le Bistro last night and at Cagney’s on Wednesday evening. The food and service have been excellent. They still serve Veuve Cliquot in Le Bistro and mentioned a supply issue as to why it wasn’t available on the rest of the ship. Our son’s fiancée said the meal at Le Bistro was one of the best meals she has ever had.  She had the steak tartare, French onion soup, lamb, and strawberry dessert. We agree with her that it was a fantastic meal. 
 

Here are some photos from Tortola and some lunch photos. Cheeseburger, fish tacos, spinach salad and shrimp fritters. 

[Seas2mountains]

A few food photos from Le Bistro.  Make your reservations early as the space has limited seating compared to other specialty dining restaurants on the ship. 
 

Filet de Beef and Seabass plus desserts. The $10 supplement on the filet only applies if you want Foie Gras included. 

[Seas2mountains]

We enjoyed time off the ship in the pool at Taino Bay in Dominican Republic. 
 

We got back on the ship about 12:30pm which gave our granddaughter lots of time on the water slides on the ship with no lines. 
 

I’m able to post updates while half the people are off the ship and not bogging down the wifi. 
 

You can get a ride on those golf type of carts by paying tip money.  It does not cost anything to use the pool or lazy river but they encourage purchasing items at the stores, bar or restaurant. We couldn’t figure out how to give tips for use of the pool.

 

The pool is 4 feet deep in most areas.  The ship kid’s pool is 5 feet deep. 

[Beachfrog]

I am so very much enjoying your posts. Thank you for sharing your trip with us. Which beach did your son go to in Tortola?

[cruiseny4life]

Your day in Taino Bay looks marvelous! I really love seeing photos of that pool complex. It's going to be hard for me to explore the Dominican Republic outside of that area. I'm a sucker for a lazy river! Sounds like everyone is having fun, including the grands! 

 

Also, thank you for posting this live. There is such a dearth of lives right now that I'm starting to skip over to other lines (looking at you MSC) for their lives. I appreciate you taking time to post. Thank you!

[Seas2mountains]

We did eat lunch today at Garden Cafe and there weren’t too many people. We like the salad options and can always find other decent entrees. 
 

We are still in the kid’s pool area where our granddaughter is still taking advantage of no lines for the yellow water slide and the blue water slide that involves using an inter tube. She’s waiting for her uncle to be with her for the scarier water slide.  
 

If it were just my husband and I, we would not have selected this cruise ship or itinerary for this time of year but it has been a great choice for our family members. 

[Seas2mountains]

We had another great day on the Escape and enjoyed the sea day. Bayamo is our favorite restaurant and we had wonderful service and food. 
 

Guest services said there were 5118 passengers and there were about 700 kids. 

 

A bar tender said the next cruise will have 5800 passengers. 
 

There are no states room door decorations or magnets.  Some passengers who had them were told to remove them. 

If you have thermal spa passes and use the thermal spa pool, the side jets on the port and star bird sides don’t work very well consistently and kind of sputter and struggle to maintain pressure. We have been on the Getaway, Breakaway, Bliss and Encore and did not have any issues until being on this ship. 
 

We drank P+ wines, champagne, and the NCL ‘66 gin.  It was easier to get P+ in the atrium, all specialty dining restaurants, Manhattan, Taste and Savor but not in all lounges and not by the pool. 
 

I’ll post more photos and updates tomorrow. 
 

Our granddaughter had so much fun at Splash Academy and made many friends. Tonight she had dinner at Garden Cafe so we could enjoy dinner at Bayamo with our son and his fiancée. She walked around waving and saying Hi to her friend by name.  
 

It was definitely more stressful cruising with family as we adjusted time schedules and plans to make everyone happy. It also extended dinner as we are usually in and out at specialty dining in 60-90 minutes but our travel companions eat slow and it takes longer with more people so it was a minimum of 2 hours with them. 
 

This our first cruise ever to not make it to a trivia session.  
 

We are blessed to get to do a B2B on the Spirit starting on June 21st with no family members. Just my husband and I. 🙂

 

We had to retrain our son to honor the “Do Not Disturb” light for our room when Splash Academy was open as he thought that meant we were in the room and he could ask us questions. We thought our granddaughter was hurt in Splash Academy if someone was knocking at the door when she was at SA  and he couldn’t figure out why we didn’t answer the phone so that’s why he knocked at the door. He gets it now. Lol. 🫢😬

 

[Seas2mountains]

 

Good morning from the Escape! We had a great last breakfast at Taste and as of 10am, we are waiting for the disembarkation line to get shorter before we get in line to disembark. We have a late afternoon flight out of FLL. 

[Seas2mountains]

Day 7 Daily. 

[Seas2mountains]

Ropes course and Spice H20 photos. 

[Seas2mountains]

Our son and his fiancée absolutely loved Choir of Man and were stunned to hear it was the first full performance by this new cast on this ship.  My husband and I had seen the performance on another ship and while we also loved it, we had conflicts with dinner reservations and decided to listen to Ben in The District instead. 
 

They also loved hanging out in Syd’s Norman Pour House for the different performances and  karaoke.  People were in Syd’s long before the performance and it looked like every seat was taken.  My husband and I enjoyed the performances on other less crowded ships so we again decided to go to The District instead. 

[Seas2mountains]

On 6/2/2023 at 12:12 PM, Beachfrog said:

I am so very much enjoying your posts. Thank you for sharing your trip with us. Which beach did your son go to in Tortola?

Thank you! Cane Garden Bay. It was about a 20 minute taxi ride.

Edited June 5, 2023 by Seas2mountains

[Seas2mountains]

We waited until about 10:40am to disembark. While the lines were shorter than they had been, it still took until 10:56am to get into the cruise terminal and it was a little after 11am when we got through customs.

The area outside the cruise terminal area was very crowded between the 5000+ people getting off the ship and 5000+ people getting on the ship. Since we didn't trust that an Uber XL would fit our 5 suitcases plus the 5 of us, we walked over to the taxi stand and waited about 3 minutes for a taxi mini-van to arrive to take us to the FLL airport.

 

We don't know if the taxi driver charged extra for the five of us or for the tolls as he used the express lane and it cost $130 before tip which was much more than we paid in early May to take a taxi from the same cruise terminal to FLL - I think it was $80 then for two of us. 

[Seas2mountains]

On 6/2/2023 at 12:14 PM, cruiseny4life said:

Your day in Taino Bay looks marvelous! I really love seeing photos of that pool complex. It's going to be hard for me to explore the Dominican Republic outside of that area. I'm a sucker for a lazy river! Sounds like everyone is having fun, including the grands! 

 

Also, thank you for posting this live. There is such a dearth of lives right now that I'm starting to skip over to other lines (looking at you MSC) for their lives. I appreciate you taking time to post. Thank you!

Thank you for your kind words. Do you have an upcoming cruise planned? MSC Yacht Club is definitely relaxing and their One Pool area is much better than the Haven pool area.

 

Yes, everyone had a great time and we really enjoyed the time with our granddaughter.

Edited June 5, 2023 by Seas2mountains

[Seas2mountains]

On 5/30/2023 at 9:04 AM, bernard530 said:

Thanks for posting suggestons for dinner. I'm staying at the JW Marriot so this definitely helped

I really liked Casablanca and would choose that option for the food options and views  over Mike's but we were in a situation with some really hungry family members and Mike's worked just fine for our group. I would warn that there are no views from Mike's and it is a bar restaurant.

[Seas2mountains]

On 5/29/2023 at 6:14 AM, hallux said:

A tip on the dailies - in the NCL app when you open the FSD you should have an option to download it.  This downloads as a PDF, you can do that and then post the PDF rather than taking 6 pictures.

 

At least that's how it works on Android, and what I did for my cruise in March.

Thank you for the suggestion. When I read live reviews, I prefer to see the photos as the PDF appears as a file that I then have to download and open to view. Are you suggesting that you can download the PDF and have it appear like photos or do you  have to click on the file and open the attachment to view as a reader?