Our family of three (H, W, 16 yo son) had a fantastic cruise on the Escape. I will qualify that by saying we were in the Haven, so this likely had a major impact on our cruise. We picked NCL for the price and as teen-friendly. We had only cruised once before (on RCCL) and even though we enjoyed it, there were things that we did not like about cruising, and the Haven solved those for us. We don't like the crowded, on-top-of-each-other pools, the small rooms, and the small bathrooms. In the Haven we had a quiet (maybe a touch too quiet?) sundeck, a one bedroom cabin with a main room with a pull out for our son, and two bathrooms! Problems solved. Oh! We also HATED the drink procedure on Royal Caribbean, as they had to swipe your card everytime, print a receipt, get you to sign the receipt, and only one drink per card. We were used to all-inclusives where you just walk up get your drink and walk away. ON RCCL it seemed to take forever. The drink situation on NCL was easy -- so receipts, no signing, and two drinks were allowed on one card -- not that we would each have two drinks at once, but if one person is in the bathroom or whatever, the other can still order drinks for both without having to have both cards in hand. Maybe this is a small thing, but it was noticeable for us.

Cabin: We were in an Aft Haven room -- our balcony was enormous with three loungers, a dining table with 4 chairs and a side table. The balcony curved around to the edge of the ship so you could lean over and see where you were going too. Overall the cabin was outstanding! Also the Aft was not a big deal at all for getting to the Haven. And there are aft elevators that were only about 150 steps away (I counted) from our door.

Entertainment: We decided not to do any production shows as they are not really our thing, but we went to Howl at the Moon (great if you like sing along piano playing - we do), and saw one stand up comedy show (about 35 minutes and just average), and the comedy juggler (entertaining but not fantastic). We went to Spice H2O on a few nights and was fun, but we're not crazy partiers; mostly enjoyed the dance music and people-watching. Also did the Casino a few nights and all told broke even. We like roulette, but we're not big gamblers, so we played the $10 table (which we initially thought was too high since it was $1 or $2 on RCCL), but the other roulette table was $25 and as a result, hardly anyone played that table, which made our table super busy every night. Sometimes that was fun as we met some great folks, but sometimes people were a little pushy to get to the table. Anyway. The District Brew House was fun too, usually not very busy and had a guy playing piano and singing there, and the bartenders were attentive. Photo booth there was $5 but be forewarned whatever you do in there is shown on a TV outside the booth, so the people sitting there could have a good laugh at the expense of the unsuspecting! Overall, the entertainment on this cruise was much better than RC. But this relates to the smaller bar venues and not the production shows. The drop slides and the tube slide were lots of fun. We did not do the ropes course, although I kept meaning to, we never got around to it. Read more