This was our fifth NCL cruise, and first on one of the mega-ships. Our last NCL cruise in 2014 on the Dawn was a bit of a downer, but I had heard great things about the Escape, and we were really excited to be sailing on her.
We came down to Miami a day early and stayed over on South Beach at the Colony Hotel. I didn't expect much, and the expectations were met. It was a place to sleep for the night and close to the beach, which was the main goal. We did get to visit my favorite place on South Beach (multiple times), Puerto Sagua. Great Cuban restaurant - no frills, A+ food. I think I had 4 meals there in about 26 hours time!
Embarkation was painless... arrived at the front-end of our scheduled arrival time, sailed through check-in, and we were on the boat inside of 25 minutes from arrival at the port.
Big balcony, with lounge chairs and regular chairs. It felt a bit cramped with all that furniture, but we made it work. The room itself was your standard room - nothing amazing there. Was a bit perplexed at the lack of storage for clothing. We basically shoved everything into the closet. It worked. Biggest issue with this room - being three decks down from the Spice H2O night club, it was very loud when there were events at night. Tolerable, but noticeable. I was aware of this before the trip, but if I hadn't read about it here, I would have been very disappointed.