Just returned from the Eastern trip on NCL Escape this past Sunday. I had some mixed feelings ahead of the trip seeing such mixed reviews (though, at the end of the day, a cruise is a cruise and a vacation is a vacation and I knew I'd have a good time!). I'm pleased to say that a lot of those worries were put to rest after our trip. I'll go through a couple areas to give you a better sense of our experience:

Service

I heard a lot of negative reviews about staff attitude on Escape. We did not find this to be the case overall, minus a few exceptions. Like any job, there are always crew/staff who would rather be elsewhere or who are having a hard day, but nothing that struck me as far outside of the norm. While we didn't see our room steward frequently, he greeted us by name on Day One and our room was always promptly made up and turned down every day. We did almost all specialty dining and the service was almost always very prompt and courteous. There are some great bartenders at the 5 O'Clock Somewhere bar on the waterfront, Tobacco Road, and Sugarcane. Our stop in Nassau was canceled (due to passenger sickness and a diversion to PR, nothing to do with NCL) and they promptly staffed Guest Services with plenty of crew to answer any questions promptly. Most crew and staff we saw in passing were friendly and acknowledged us, with some remembering us throughout our trip. Read more