NCL Escape – Cruising in the Caribbean

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We took a Western Caribbean 7 night cruise on Norwegian Escape from 2/15 to 2/22/2020. This is our 4th cruise on NCL but first on the Escape. Despite that fact, we still learned a lot on this cruise. Here’s what we would like to share:

The unexpected:

  1. The embarkation process was very hectic and took much longer than expected. This is perhaps due to the coronavirus which required an extra questionairre and closer screening of everyone’s passports. I noticed that they went through every single page of our passport, presumably to make sure we didn’t go to China in the last 30 days. However, since passport isn’t required on this trip, and people could have potentially gotten a new passport within 30 days, I don’t think this method is fail proof. We arrived at port close to 12:30 and didn’t board until around 2:30pm. A wait of roughly 2 hours. The longest wait we’ve had, compounded by the Miami heat and rain. It wasn’t a pleasant experience but I will give them a pass considering the coronavirus issue. I know this embarkation period is longer than expected because the ship had to delay the muster drill from 3:30pm to 4pm because they couldn’t get everyone on board by 3:30pm.
  2. The tendering. Our itinerary includes the private island of Harvest Caye, Belize. This is well known as a non-tendering island. However, we had to tender for some reason. There was no other ship docked. So my guess is the Escape is too large for the dock. The tendering process was a nightmare. It took us over an hour each way, which made the day quite short and if you forgot something on the ship, you probably wouldn’t want to retrieve it. In our case, we decided to buy the suntan lotion on the island instead of tendering back and forth. We know at least one tender boat that was ordered to return, unload, and reload because they didn’t scan everyone’s sea card correctly. Fortunately we were not on that boat.

The good:

  1. We were impressed with the employees overall. Every employee that we encountered had a positive attitude and always greeted us. We didn’t see anyone upset.
  2. The service in O’Sheehan’s is very fast and good. (Service in the MDRs are a hit and miss, and coffee not hot.)
  3. I love the fact the entertainment in the Supper Club includes dinner. This means if you have trouble catching dinner AND a show at night, you can literally combine the two by going to the Supper Club. I haven’t seen this offered on other ships.
  4. Big shoutout to all the crews at Splash Academy. My 7 year old really enjoyed going there every day. On port days, Splash Academy offers lunch and dinner for $6 each (prior sign up required) so if you want some time alone at port, you really can. My child begs to go to Splash Academy. Just a warning: Since they do such a good job and kids love going there, at times they can reach maximum capacity and your child can’t go in until someone else’s child is checked out.

The not-so-good:

  1. Our cruise director Jackie Tang is probably the worst cruise director we’ve had. I don’t think he’s “bad” per se but he rarely showed his face. We never saw him at any of the theater shows or comedy shows. He did speak over the intercom and show up at the muster drill. But even over the intercom, he would usually sound very hesitant and unsure of what to say. Often we would hear him correcting himself, or say things like, “This morning, our activities include” followed by silence. Literally silence. I don’t mean momentary silence. I mean, silence, for good. Most of the directors we’ve had are very funny. This guy never attempted to crack a joke. My guess is he’s a bit shy and new at the job.
  2. The service in the restaurants are hit and miss. We did find out you can request your favorite server and they would try to seat you in his/her section. We’ve encountered a few servers that are very good, and overall the service isn’t bad. However, the coffee in most dining rooms are lukewarm at best and the refills are not frequent enough for our liking. The glasses (for water) are also mostly tainted.
  3. I personally think the variety of the shows on this ship is limiting. There are essentially two types of shows on this ship: Music, or Comedy. While I like both types of shows, I also enjoy acroabtic shows, magic shows, etc. It seems that Celebrity cruises deliver more on the variety.
  4. This ship was rather crowded on decks 6, 7 and 8. If I had to choose again I would choose a smaller ship. We have sailed on NCL Bliss before and it wasn’t nearly this crowded. (Both ships were full capacity.)
  5. There’s no lobster night. Or seafood night. This seems to be the direction most cruise lines are going. However, you can pay for lobster at Bayamo by Ocean Blue or Cagney’s Steakhouse.
  6. In order to get reservations for shows you will HAVE TO book early. We were only able to get reservations for one show – After Midnight. For the comedy show, we had to show up 30 minutes early in order to get in for standing room only.

Tips and Tricks:

  1. Club H2O. This is an adult only section that most people don’t seem to know about until the last day. It’s on deck 17, and it’s got its own bar, hot tubs, lounge chairs, big screen and a grotto water feature.
  2. There’s filtered water available at Club H2O, Garden Cafe, by the pool bar, and some of the other bars. Since bottled water are not cheap and cabin water tastes like crap, I recommend filling your own bottle with waters from these locations or in dining rooms and bring to your own cabin.
  3. Our room (8114) which is categorized as MX (a mini-suite) has a much larger balcony than normal mini-suites. This didn’t come with a higher price tag. The balcony is about 3 times the size of a normal one, however, since it protrudes out compare to the balconies upstairs, it does mean you will have to get dressed before you can go out (or you’d be putting on a show).
  4. I’m not sure why I never knew this tip until this cruise, but we definitely took advantage of it multiple times on our trip! So, you know how the cruise ship often makes announcements over the intercom system? You know how when you are in the room, you often can’t hear what is being said? In the past cruises, I literally would jump out of bed and open the door so I could hear it from the hall way. Never again. So apparently, you can turn on the TV, and turn to channel 22 to listen to the announcements! There’s even a delay so it gives you enough time to turn it on and turn the channel and not miss anything. Channel 22 is the ship front camera and annoucement channel. So another tip I have… (read next item on this list)
  5. If you want to save money and book an inside cabin room, but you want to see the outside, guess what? You can just turn on the TV and leave it on Channel 22! Channel 22 is the live camera footage of the camera that at the very front of the ship. At night, the outside is dark, so you would literally just have a dark screen. In the morning when the sun comes up, your TV screen will show exactly what’s outside so you’ll see exactly that! It’s like having a window in your room, without paying for the upgrade. Of course you can also turn it off whenever you wish.
Restaurant At the Cozumel Dock

Last but not least, as we know now, our cruise was one of the last ships NCL sailed before the pandemic halted the entire cruiseline business in the US. We kept in touch with some fellow shipmates and to the best of our knowledge, everyone came out safe. We consider ourselves very lucky and we also contribute this to the diligence of NCL’s employees on cleaning and sanitizing. As always, cruises are risky of outbreaks and we must be proactive in protecting ourselves.