We selected to cruise on the Norwegian Escape since it is the newest ship of Norwegian. We have cruised before with Disney and NCL (Sky) and our experiences were awesome. The first thing we didn’t liked was the boarding experience, it took us over two hours to embark from the time we received our cabin keys. Once we boarded we went to our cabin, we had a mini suite. The cabin was average, nothing special. The set up was awkward since the space between the closet and the bed is about 1 feet, not leaving much room to get your clothes and things from the closet. The bathroom was very nice, very large and comfortable. The balcony was also very nice. After we viewed our cabin we headed up to the Garden’s Café to have lunch and it was very crowded. It took us over an hour to get our food and find a table. I’ve never seen a place so packed with people, it reminded me of “black Friday sales”. Then we proceeded to explore the ship and every single place on the ship was crowded. The ship’s capacity is 4,248 people and you can see it. Almost every one of the amenities are inside the ship, there are not many amenities outdoors. The stores, the casino, the main lobby all smell like cigarettes since people are allowed to smoke in the casino which covers a large area of the ship and it is in a central location. There are only a few areas for adults to get away, there is a pool and a water cave, a bar, large screen TV, and hot tubs at the aft of the ship, that is only for adults but only during certain hours. After 2 p.m. kids can come in. There also the brewery which was the only adults only place. If you are a couple traveling with no children and want to have a nice quiet time, this is not the ship for you. We never had the chance to get in the pool since it was always packed with children.

There were a few restaurant selections but the menus were almost the same, with the exception of a few items that vary from restaurant to restaurant. We didn’t get the specialty restaurants package but for what we were told from other people that got it is that they had to wait too long and sometimes they ended up eating at a regular restaurant. The food wasn’t good, I returned my meal on 5 occasions, since it was under cooked. Entertainment was ok. My wife and I were looking forward on having some Latin dance lessons as we had in other cruises but that wasn’t offered on this cruise. There was not a specific place for Latin dancing, they only had two options a duet and a DJ, which moved constantly around the ship and in most instances we missed it because they only played for an hour or so and by the time we found it, it was late. We went on three shore excursions and while the excursions were enjoyable we were rushing back to the ship because there wasn’t enough time. By the time we disembarked, found our tour guides and got on the road it was almost noon, and we had to be back at the ship by 4 p.m. That didn’t leave us much time to explore or to shop. So if you are planning on doing a shore excursion expect to spend the entire day on the excursion even if it only says 2 hours.

The debarkation process sucked even worse. It took us over three hours to disembark, due to a system malfunctioning, or so we were told. This is the first cruise I was glad when it was over. Overall, the ship looks nice, the food is ok, nothing special, and amenities are substandard. But the worst part was how many people were onboard. Every place was always crowded and that limited the enjoyment. I will cruise again with Norwegian but definitely not the Escape.