This was our 5th NCL cruise and prior to this cruise we had enjoyed the Getaway and Breakaway ships. The Escape is also a very nice ship. We quickly passed through embarkation and was on the ship in about 20 minutes we went to our cabin which was ready for our arrival. We met our cabin steward Neil was was great throughout our cruise.

We were traveling with 2 other couples who had a mix of packages offered by the cruise line. The beverage package was one package that we all had and made hydration very easy and convenient. One couple had the dinner package and was not able to take full advantage due to the specialty restaurants being booked on the first day of the cruise. A new change is that in the specialty restaurants they have eliminated the up charge and replaced it with alacart fee's which will add about $20.00 to your charges for these restaurants. Our group ate in 2 of these restaurants, Cagney's and La Cuchina Cagney's being great and La Cuchina was not worth any up charge at all. The food was poor and the service about the same.

All other dining was very good, the Garden Cafe, O'Sheehans were always very good. One couple in our group ate at Le Bistro and they had a very good meal there. Pool side was as always crazy. People taking up numerous chairs and then never showing up to use them and staff not doing anything to make these chairs available. The other thing that was crazy was they removed all of the small tables between pool chairs. They had them stacked and buried behind pool chairs so they were not available to pool users. This made no sense. Read more