Bottom Line - The cruise ship and experience were fair to poor. Not horrible, not great. After this experience would not go on the Escape again and would probably not go on another Norwegian. It was not as bad as some reviews indicate, but there are better options.

The design of the ship has a number of obvious flaws, which if you discuss with the staff, they will admit to, but also indicate there is no solution. For example, the help desks for restaurants, excursions and other are right next to the Atrium where there is always something very loud going on, so you need to yell to speak to the help desks. The jogging track is in the middle of a high traffic area and goes through a smoking section. Another design issue is no water available near the sports area or ropes course. There are not many areas to play a game with the kids or do something quieter for a break - hence why the library was always packed.

The cruise is really trying to compete with Carnival rather than Royal/Disney/Celebrity as it was essentially trying to be a drinking cruise with just enough for families. For those like my family that were not as interested in drinking and who were traveling with multi-generations, there was less to do than one would expect. Read more