Overview
About
Passengers: 4,266 | Crew: 1,733
Passengers to crew: 2.46:1
Launched: 2015
Decks
- Deck 5
- Deck 6
- Deck 7
- Deck 8
- Deck 9
- Deck 10
Additional decks
Deck 5 layout
Cabins
Mid-ship Oceanview Stateroom with Large Picture Window (OB)
Oceanview Stateroom with Large Picture Window (OX)
Inside Stateroom (IX)
Family Oceanview Stateroom with Large Picture Window (O2)
Family Inside Stateroom (I1)
Family Inside Stateroom (I2)
Family Oceanview Stateroom with Large Picture Window (O1)
Cabins
Balcony
Cabin size: 103 - 276 sq. ft.
Connected rooms: 213
Accessible rooms: 16
Maximum passengers: 6
Number of cabins: 1168
Reviews
Traveller rating
- 87
- 58
- 37
- 39
- 36
Time of year
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Cruise Experience I want to start by saying that I know this post will “dub” me as a “Karen” because anyone who isn’t satisfied with subpar service is now called that. I have been going on cruises for 30 years and the last five were through NCL as an adult. My prior four experiences were okay. Not bad, not great. But you get what you pay for, so I always got what I expected. This was our first cruise taking both kiddos (ages 2.5 and 6). We booked this cruise through a cruise consultant and made sure to ask if there was a family friendly cruise before booking. We were assured this was a very family friendly ship and there was the Splash Academy for our older child and we were told there was something called the Guppies Nursery for kids ages 6 months-3 years. It was very difficult to find any information about this program, but our cruise consultant, who we booked through, told us it was a place we could drop off our 2.5 year old. So to start from the beginning, it’s easier to just list out everything that happened to keep this length-aware. - Paid extra for priority access. Got on the ship around 12:30pm and did not get to enter our room until 4pm. There was no where to go, so we sat in a casino bar since there were open chairs (with our two kids). No one would let us on the lifts because we had a stroller. People would just stare at us as they shoved their way into the lift, even if we’d been waiting. No help from staff - When we arrived to the port, a man told us he would take our bags. We gave him our room number and we saw him write it down on two tags. He then asked my husband for a tip. My husband was doing something and didn’t have a chance to grab money yet. They man rudely said again “Aren’t you gonna tip me man? You should really tip me”. So my husband asked him to break a large bill. He then sent two of our bags to the correct room and sent our other two bags to a random state room. Two of us didn’t receive our bags until about 9pm because of this. It seems as though the man was angry hit husband didn’t tip right away and decided to “inconvenience us”. - On port days, there were no signs about where to go, where you were or how to exit the ship. If you ask a staff member for help and tour question does not involve spending more money, they treat you like rubbish. - The moment we got on the ship, we went to the Splash Academy to get signed up. We asked about signing up for the Guppies Nursery and that’s when we were informed it is not a drop-off for kids, it is two small rooms with about five toys that kids can play with. So we were completely lied to about that. My daughter went to the Splash Academy once and had mo desire to return. She said everyone was unfriendly and it was boring. She was really looking forward to meeting other kids so this was a huge bummer. There was literally nothing else our 2.5 year old could do on this ship. She wasn’t allowed in Splash Academy, we are potty training and while we’re almost there, we will put a swim diaper on her just in case. We were informed on day one that swim diapers were not allowed anywhere and kids who were not 100% potty trained, were not allowed to use anything in the aqua park. While I do understand this rule, our cruise consultant should have told us when booking. I received about 50 emails prior to the trip about how I could spend more money, but no informative information that would help us. So our 2.5 year old was allowed in the arcade and the tiny Guppies playroom where older kids were also allowed. - On my first day on the ship, I broke an acrylic nail. I called the spa and asked if they had mail glue I could quickly use. I was told to go to the spa and they would help. Upon arriving. A very rude woman asked me who I spoke to. I said I didn’t get a name. She rolled her eyes, picked up the phone to make a more important call and handed me the nail glue while rolling her eyes. - We booked two shore excursions through the ship about 3 months in advance. One was in St. Thomas going to a beach and another was in Great Stirrup Cay to swim with pigs. My 6 year was so excited for this! She literally talked about it for months. We were told to go to guest service the day before and schedule a tender time since tenders had to take people back and forth. I showed the man at guest services our tickets for the next day. It said we needed to meet at the shore excursions tent on the island at 10:45. The man assigned up tender #7. I asked what time I needed to be down there and he said “We will alert you when your tender is ready”. The next morning, we were ready to go around 9 but they had only called a few tenders. At 9:30, I started getting nervous and said to my husband that we needed to walk down so I could talk to someone. We went to where the tickets said to meet (Encore Theater) and I was told to go to the other side of the ship. I walked to the other side of the ship and was told I needed to return to the previous side of the ship. I tried asking several staff members and they would always cut me off and just tell me to “go over there”. I tried to explain that I was going to miss my excursions but no one would listen. I couldn’t even finish a sentence. Finally, a staff member told me “we let them know you guys are running later, it will all be fine. They know.” So I calmed down because it seemed like it would be fine. When we got to GSC, I went to excursions tent and heart a group of people arguing with the staff because they were late for their excursions too. They had the same experience as me where they were told it would be fine and not to worry. I went and spoke to the woman and she very rudely told me she could not accommodate me as I was late. I explained the situation that I was trying to get to a tender but the staff wouldn’t allow me and that they told me it would be fine. The woman just kept saying I should have been there earlier and the crew on the ship shouldn’t have said being late was okay because it isn’t. This was so frustrating. I did everything exactly the way they told me to! I’ll be honest, I handled it poorly. I cussed and I yelled. But mostly because no one cared. My daughter was holding back tears because the one thing she wanted to do, we weren’t able to. When I got back on the ship, I went to guest services to discuss what had happened and I was met with Desirae. She never introduced herself, I found out her name later. She never smiled. When I told her what happened, she let me know that because we had priory boarding, we should have been on the first tender. I let her know, again, that we went to guest services the previous day and we’re told tender seven. I even showed her the piece of paper with a man had written down, tender seven. She kept saying that no one at guest services would tell me that because they would have said we had priority. I explained many times that we were told tender seven and to wait for the tender. She then said that we received something delivered to our door the day before telling me that I needed to meet somewhere else at 9:30. We never received this. I asked my husband, neither of us ever received anything. So we missed our excursion, because of them. And then we were told it was our fault! I have never missed a short excursion on a cruise. But there was nothing else I could’ve done. I tried telling them that they were getting us off the ship too late, but they basically told me to shut my mouth. And then, when we missed our excursion, I was told it was my fault. No apology, no empathy. Nothing. What a load of rubbish! They called back later, said we were refunded our money and that next time we’ll need to be off the ship earlier. Again, blaming us for something we couldn’t change. I asked how it’s fair that they wouldn’t let us off the ship but then they made us late for our excursion?! Desirae just reminded me that we were refunded and it was our fault. - On the day of embarkation, we used the yellow tags which were given to us, to put on our luggage. They removed our luggage the night before so when we got off the ship, we were told to go to where the yellow area was. There are a few men there “helping”. They don’t actually care to help, they just want you to ask for assistance with your bags so they can get a tip. If you tell them an actual problem, like “My bags have yellow tags but are not with the other bags with yellow tags” they just walk away. We ended up having to look all over the room trying to find our bags. No one would help, no one would even acknowledge us and unless we were going to give them money. We finally found our bags, the only yellow tags mixed in with the orange tags. How ironic that our four bags were the only ones to get put in the wrong spot! We looked at all the other bags and they had orange tags. - If you want WiFi that streams, you need to pay an extra almost $300. So our kids weren’t able to watch anything on their tablets. Which, to be fair, I didn’t think they would need their tablets at all since there’s usually so much to do a cruise ships. But this is the one time that having Wi-Fi would have been the one thing or younger daughter could do. We decided to purchase a movie for $10. We were told that by purchasing it once, it would go into our saved movies, and we could access it for the rest of the cruise. It never went into our saved movies, and so we had to rebuy it four different times. They charged us every single time. We went down to guest services and they said they would remove the other charges but they never did. We will need to call again to make sure we get the other $30 back. My family and I had fun where we could but ultimately, this trip was a giant waste of time and money. We work very hard for our money and want to use it to travel with our kids. This was not cheap! And while I can accept that you get what you pay for, we didn’t even get that. For the amount of money we paid, I would have expected decent customer service at the very least. I realize that some of this is on me. There are several things I didn’t mention that happened, that were obnoxious, but that probably could’ve been solved by me reading through every single small print on the 85 page documents they send. But we were lied to just to book, and then things completely out of our control were blamed on us. It was the worst experience I have ever had! I have been a loyalty member with NCL but this has completely changed my viewpoint on cruising. Ironically, I spoke to about six other families that had the same negative experience. Not very many people seem to be enjoying the cruise due to the god awful staff and the lies just to get people aboard. STAY FAR AWAY FROM NCL!!! You would be better off taking $5k and lighting it on fire. Literally, any other cruise line is better than NCL! I am not high maintenance and I have never been called a “Karen” prior to this trip. I’ve traveled for years and never had an experience like this cruising, or anywhere. You don’t get what you pay for, you get much less. And they’ll shame you while they shamelessly take your money.…
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This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.
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In the past, I have cruised on Carnaval, royal Caribbean, and Princess cruise line. Not loyal to any of them. I took my first cruise on NCL (The Breakaway) in May of 2022 and had a very good experience. So, when it came time to cruise again this May, we signed up for NCL on the Escape. Yikes, what happened in a year that they became so bad. First and foremost, the room was not clean. The carpet was filthy. I will add pictures if I can. The high traffic areas of the carpet, like in front of the bathroom and by the tv were filthy. I mean, like hotel 6 that lost its franchise 5 years ago, just filthy. Dark and stained. When you lifted the lid on the toilet, there was a smell of urine. You could see dust in the corners of the floor like the vacuum could not reach the all the way to the wall. On the bright side, the rest of the room was nice and seemed clean. We were given only two towels for the entire day. No more evening room turndown. So if we showered in the AM, there were no towels to shower in the PM. There were just so many things that were lacking on this trip that we just could not understand why it was so different from a year ago. Here is a list of a some of the issues we had: Bad service in Manhattan room, bad. It got better the second time. No food from 10:45AM to 11:45AM as even the 24-hour restaurant was closed. The buffet subpar. Boring and not good. Tiny coffee cups 80% of the buffet closed a lot of the times so lines were long. All premade hot sand were not hot. The dining room was not kept clean. No plugs on bathroom for hair dryer or razon Lack of entertainment. Wow, we had great shows the year before. No soap or paper towels at the buffet wash stations most of the time. Same sheets all week. You changed the time for one of my excursions. From 4:00 PM to 8:30 AM and would not be refund cost Public Mens and ladies’ rooms messy. And at times did not flush. Tv remote in room did not work. Waiting on Tender boat over 45 min for it to fill completely before it took off, lots of angry people on boat and lots of empty tender waiting. Notifying the world that we were not in our room with a light on our door did not sit well with me. Nor did I like walking into a dark room feeling for the slot to stick my card as the room lights shut off when you took your room card with you. Departing process. Cluster You know what). Nobody knew where to go or what was going on. When the elevator opened on the 7th floor, there were so many people in the hall, the people on the elevator could not get off. What a mess. Nobody was directing anyone except for people going on Miami excursions. The color code system for departing order was unenforced. There was no staff directing people anywhere or telling you want was going on. We were forced to leave our room by the steward before our color was called. But there was no food or any place to sit while we waited for our color to be called.…
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This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.
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We finally decided to take the plunge and do a cruise. Our schedules and times are very restricted and we were always debating if a cruise was an option for us or if should stick with resorts....we took a chance, booked the cruise on our own, even riskier because we didn't know much, only what we had researched on social media, reviews and friends. We went all out and booked a Haven owner's suite on the 18th floor and the forward area, this is the area that people tell you to stay away from when its your first time cruising because of the motion sickness. We never felt anything! We also went full gusto and paid for the drink package and the extra specialty dining. Glad we did the drink package...the specialty dining was great but in all honesty, we agreed that we wouldn't need to buy extra any more because the Haven restaurant was amazing. Our first server was Deicy and she gave us the rundown on what wines, champagnes, spirits came in our package and we sure did take advantage it. Speaking of Haven restaurant, I want to acknowledge Terrence for taking such amazing care of us and also to commend you on your staff. You have amazing staff and they were always a pleasure to see. Our room was breathtaking! We didn't know it would have so much storage space. The bathroom was so comfortable and spacious, we actually had two toilet rooms and so we made it into HIS/HERS. The bed was so comfortable, our first morning, we got up and ordered breakfast and went back to bed and woke up at 2pm. I don't know if we were just exhausted from the excitement of being on our first cruise, the sea air of both, but we slept like babies. So Haven rooms come with a butler and Reynal was amazing, he took exceptional care of us and "Johnny on the spot". He spoiled us everyday with snacks and treats, welcomed us one evening with a table full of goodies. Super attentive. Our room steward, Glen, doesn't fall far from Reynal. He always freshened up our room everyday and had it looking like the first day. Impeccable. Glen was also the one that would bring us the ironing board and the iron to use before dinner. Thank you Glen for that favor. We did love our Haven lounge, we would venture out of the Haven and go try our some other bars but they just don't compare to the Haven lounge. We also loved getting to know our Bartenders and bar staff. We miss Shah, Made', Chacha. Thank you for your hard work. We miss you so much and hopefully we will see you again one day. Made' saying good-bye to you was heartbreaking and just know that we left the same way. We want to thank Dilip, thank you so much for making our experience a dream. Did we get hooked on cruising....YES! Did we book a Next cruise....YES and Dilip, a lot of the reason our experience was what it was, was because of you and your staff. You all have exceeded our expectations and we will forever be chasing that cruise "high". My review might not resonate with some because everyone will have a different experience, different room, different expectations, but for us, we honestly would had had fun anywhere on that ship, we loved meeting people and becoming good friends with some that have stayed in contact with us since the cruise. We went with a positive outlook and were going to make the best of our time together, whether cruise life was for us or not. So glad it turned out the way it did. Ok, I do have to admit that I would would loved to have have more spas on the Haven sundeck or a small cool pool, Ok but that is it!…
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Overall, I genuinely enjoyed my trip on the Escape. The breakaway plus class are beautiful ships but a bit too large for my taste. I very much enjoyed a lot of time in the spice h20 area with the grotto, tobacco road/ cigar bar and the skyline bar (late night). Depending on the time of day the ship sometimes felt very uncrowded even at 100% capacity. The middle smoking area could have been situated better. they put it above the pool deck and it was uncovered and windy which isn't, in my opinion, the smartest idea. burning embers and strong winds don't mix well. There was also very limited and uncomfortable seating consisting of only bar stools. the back smoking area was much more comfortable and accomodating. I wasn't a fan of syd normans though. it seemed very small and the bartenders seemed to have no idea what they were doing. Also wasn't a fan of the food republic. I do like the indulge food hall which is similar on the prima class ships though. The service was good but the crew was definitely understaffed its a solid ship design and not hard to find your way around even though its such a large ship. If I was going to cruise on a larger ship again it would be a breakaway or breakaway plus class.…
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Overall, I am not happy in this cruise. Though the food in Garden buffet has lots of choices, they were the same choices for seven days. Our photographs were never delivered to our cabin although we were assured delivery and despite paying for them, ruining our vacation. Our cabin smelled like a heavy smoker stayed previously. One good note, our housekeeper Jay was very helpful and accommodating. He was always assisting us with a smile. Also, we like that the waiters and waitresses were always smiling and very helpful.…
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This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.
1 Helpful vote
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