Norwegian Escape Review
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This was our first time on Norwegian and it will be our last! We'll go back to cruising the Carnival Corps lines.
If we'd known we had to tender in two of the four ports, we never would have booked this cruise. There was no notice about tendering and the process in Roatan was totally unacceptable. Tenders were loaded without regard to how slowly the unloading would be. We bobbed in the water in a hot, overcrowded tender for 45 minutes to go less than 100 yards while some people on later tenders waited 2 hours in the theater. The cruise director lied to people in the theater saying the delay was because Royal Caribbean was also tendering. Royal was docked. It's clear that Norwegian's influence in Caribbean ports is well below that of Royal and Carnival. In Cozumel, despite being one of the larger ships, we still had to tender. At least the process there was with better ferry-type vessels. Still, time wasted on tendering cut into activities in port. We had to completely ditch our plans for Cozumel because of it. You simply must be up front at booking about which ports are tendered. We've been to all these ports before and did not expect to have to anchor. We didn't find out about the tendering until the port talk on the first sea day, which was poorly promoted and attended, leaving most passengers clueless about the situation in Roatan and Cozumel.
We started off so well and then it went downhill. Embarkation was smooth (mainly because we were the first cruise after repositioning) although the terminal is cramped. We enjoyed not feeling like we have to really dress up for dinner. However, the food options were so inconsistent. Some nights were good (prime rib, steak). Others were awful (Mexican). The buffet is laid out very inconveniently and we wish you'd swap out the Asian food section for other international dishes. The fact that 80-90% of your crew is from the Asian continent does not mean you have to have Asian food every day for your guests. We loved the crepes and wished they'd been available at all meals.
Cabin Review
Family Balcony Stateroom
We were pleasantly surprised at the functional layout considering the size was smaller than we are accustomed to on Carnival Corp. ships. Storage is good. The climate control system was very much appreciated. We had more hangars than we've ever had on any ship. Even the bathroom layout worked really well. All that was diminished by the thin and rough toilet paper, cheap mattress and beddings, oddly smelling soap and shampoo/conditioner (which seems to dry out my hair instead of condition it), and somewhat ragged towels. We can live without towel animals on our bed every night, but the toilet paper and linens were comparable to a Motel 6.
Port Reviews
Harvest Caye
Nice place, just wish our key cards worked, or, better yet, the food was already covered in the cost. It's not a great beach spot, but the pool is great. Love the animal section with the butterflies.
Costa Maya
Not many options here. There's no beach and you have to get off property to do anything other than shop. The restaurants aren't anything great either. Worst nachos I've ever had - how do you mess up nachos!
Cozumel
We love Cozumel, but having to tender into this crowded port really ruined our plans for the day. It was time wasted that could have been spent exploring this lovely island. To get away from the big cruise crowds, we quickly ventured downtown on the side streets to find less aggressive vendors and some fantastic food/drink options, plus a much calmer atmosphere.