My parents wanted to take the whole family (Me-41,Wife-48,Daughter-11, and Sister-44) on a family vacation. My mom did a lot a research and chose NCL Escape for the wide variety of food and activities as well as the ports of call.

Lets start of with embarkation. We choose to board a bit later (12:30) and I am glad we did as we missed the rush, so we got on-board in less than 30 minutes. The longest part was the walking. As soon as we got on-board we knew there was a few administrative things to accomplish before we could relax. So I sent wife, kid, sister and dad off to the buffet and mom and I went to get the on-board app set up and book our shows for the week that we could not ahead of time. This way I knew if we wanted to attend we would not have to wait. Here is my first tip: the iConcierge app does not work until your room/account is set up. That takes up to 2 hours after you board the ship. So use the wall mounted screens to book as soon as you get on.

Once that was done mom and I grabbed a drink,snapped a few photos in the Atrium and off we went to lunch. Now everything I had read said stay away from the buffet that first few hours cause everyone goes and its very crowded. I have to say that I completely disagree. Maybe it was the later hour 1:30 and the crowd thinned a little but I think the way they set up the buffet was perfect. Same food on two sides and plenty of seating. The rest of the family were already eating and mom and I got a window table no problem. We both enjoyed our lunch. The made to order panninis were great, My daughter is a chicken tender connoisseur, and she commented that they were the best she ever had, I tried them later in the week as a "snack" and I completely agree. They were cooked really well. One piece of feedback would be that they had no dipping sauces that I could find, so just ketchup. These would have been great with buffalo or sweet and sour sauce. Anyway I digress. Read more