Just got off the Escape. I should say this was a 7 day cruise to Maine and Canada out of NYC.

The Escape is about 3 years old and was a BIG ship by Norwegian standards. We had 4300 passengers, and I guess if there was a theme here it was massive crowds everywhere. We have been on Allure of the Seas, which is bigger, but this one felt much more crowded, the most crowded I have ever been on out of 25 cruises. Long lines to get on the ship too. We waited 90 minutes to get our room key, but lines after us were even longer.

So let me talk about the crowds first. Getting food at the buffet and finding seating wasn’t bad, and getting a seat in the main dinning room wasn’t bad, but the hallways, especially near the buffet was just packed with people. The Atrium, which I’ll talk more about later, gets so packed that everyday they need to add hundreds of folding chairs to contain all the people, and finding a seat there can be impossible. Read more