Three and a half years after we last sailed NCL with friends, my family and I returned to the cruise line for a summer getaway. Initially we booked one week onboard using a 20% discount (not just one of the advertised “sales”) and then added a second week as prices kept dropping and our summer schedule changed.

I was truly excited to return to a Breakaway Plus class vessel. These were some of our favourite ships before having children. We’d also accumulated perks with the Norwegian Latitudes program, like specialty dining and send-away laundry, that would be nice to try again. Norwegian Escape, while missing the Observation Lounge from newer ships, still has one of my favourite onboard venues (District Brew House) and all the great features from Breakaway and Getaway.

Our 2023 sailing on Bliss had a few drawbacks, so my excitement was balanced with reservations about the level of service, food quality, and how our kids would like a different youth program. Norwegian has also put their marketing efforts squarely into Prima-class since it launched in 2022, so I had hoped the conditions on the previous-generation ships hadn’t suffered as a result.

After two weeks onboard, Escape was a substantial improvement over our 2023 cruise on Bliss. Bar, restaurant, and cabin service staff were friendly, quick, and professional. Food was generally good, although the same base ingredients appeared conspicuously often across days, venues, and even dishes on the same menu. The ropes course at the top of the ship was a highlight for our kids, and the Waterfront – with convenient access to drinks at Tobacco Road/Pour House – continues to be a top onboard venue.

For our family, though, NCL still didn’t offer as much value as our recent Princess sailings. In what I considered a major downgrade, the Splash Academy supervised kids’ program had no morning or afternoon sessions on port days. One of the two pools was exclusively reserved for adults, and the one designated for families was too busy and had no real shallow section. The surrounding deck was perpetually slammed with guests and blaring music. And while I love O’Sheehan’s, the quick grab-and-go options at the International Cafe on Princess rather than full table service on NCL are much more practical for late night dining.

Disclosure: I did something new and used Microsoft Copilot to edit this post, but reviewed each of its suggestions before making adjustments. I also did not have it write new material or rewrite substantial sections. This is for your own benefit as I was able to remove about forty occurrences of the word “option” as a result.

Booking and planning

Ship and dates

While price is a large consideration in my planning, I don’t book for the lowest rate. I judge by overall value including drink package and other relevant add-ons. The 20% discount specific to my Latitudes number, then considering the More… er, Free at Sea amenities and gratuities brought most summer 2026 Norwegian sailings from Florida into the same range as Princess with the Plus bundle.

We also pay close attention to the pricing for guests 3 and 4; sometimes NCL is stingy with “kids sail free” promotions during the summer months. On this Escape sailing in August 2026, guests 3 and 4 were taxes-and-fees only – so around $400 CAD in fees and $200 CAD in effectively mandatory gratuities each.

On NCL I tend to want to sail “Breakaway or better”, but I had a hard time selecting between Prima-class vessels and the slightly older generation of Breakaway Plus ships. I’ve wanted to try the newer class of ship ever since its introduction as Project Leonardo in 2017, and my grand plans to take an inaugural transatlantic on the first one, which became Prima, were sidelined by the obligations of parenthood.

Prima had a couple interesting sailings from Orlando (um, actually, Port Canaveral). Indulge Food Hall, the expanded Waterfront, and the revised interior like Celebrity Edge-class vessels were all pros for Prima. Luna was sailing from Miami in this timeframe, but as the newest ship in the fleet, commanded a steep price premium.

What cut out Prima-class, and will probably continue to do so for our family-oriented sailings, were the reviews of Splash Academy. Reviews indicate a maximum ~50-child capacity for all age groups, 3-12. Many commenters also bemoaned a virtual queuing system. We’ve never had a capacity concern on Princess, even on peak sailing weeks, as they split the kids up into at least two distinct rooms by age range.

While deck plans are imperfect, I tried to normalize size of the facility based on surrounding cabins: the physical space allocated to the 3-12 year-old kids’ club on Prima, Viva, Aqua, and Luna appears to be only about half what it is on Escape. This was a highly scientific process involving squinting at screenshots.

So, Escape from Miami won out. I hoped that the 2015-era ship, which ran aground in 2022 and is expected to dry dock for refurbishment in October 2026, wouldn’t be too run-down or have downgraded service.

Norwegian has introduced seven newer ships in the fleet since Escape and often as new ships sail their first routes, the tenured staff are reassigned to them to meet high passenger expectations. But I’ve also seen staff on middle-aged ships make up for not being the newest, and really deserve the “10” NPS rating.

In my last set of cruise notes, I mentioned during the What’s Next section that we had to shuffle some cruises around. This meant we had to drop a MSC World America sailing, but Norwegian was the beneficiary of the schedule change. Based on departure date, we could book another week on Escape and still have a two-week summer vacation, just one that was entirely NCL instead of spending an extra day in Miami in between cruises and shuttling between lines. We could even keep the same cabin both weeks sailing on Escape.

Looking back at what other sailings were happening during summer 2026, we could have ended up on Regal Princess in a mini-suite, with Plus, from FLL, with comparable pricing to Norwegian/balcony/FAS/Miami. MSC was also in a similar price bracket with the Aurea experience and Infinite Ocean View cabin. We’ll never know how either of those sailings might have gone. Still, they anchor what I know about the Princess and MSC products, and how I review NCL.

Itinerary

Summer Caribbean itineraries are starting to feel a bit “meh” for me. Southern itineraries have more distinctive ports, but the same problem remains: it is stupidly hot outside.

Both our weeks on Escape were doing the same Western Caribbean stops: Cozumel, Roatan, Harvest Caye, and Costa Maya. I would have preferred one week Eastern, one week Western to have a few different ports, but you get what you get.

Alaska didn’t make this year’s list when factoring in longer flights, time zone changes, and a price premium. I have no doubt we’ll be back and try to do a 14+ day Alaska sailing in a future year, maybe with a cruisetour addition if we think the kids would tolerate looking at hours of scenery from a train.

Nevertheless:

• In Cozumel, I decided to try Paradise Beach the first week, adding a daybed reservation to make sure we had our own space away from the reported crowds. The next week we booked a previously-loved stop, Nachi Cocom, so I had the opportunity to directly judge these all-inclusive venues.
  
• With the improvements to Great Stirrup Cay, the dock and pool at Harvest Caye are no longer obvious advantages. In my opinion it is now a worse stop considering NCL has also built a pier at GSC, added a gigantic pool (the water park is an extra charge, but there’s still a free pool), and most critically: decided to keep the Free at Sea drink package active on the island when Harvest Caye is ~$12 per cocktail.
  
  I expected to still get off the ship and do the long walk down the dock to get to the pool for an hour or two, but $543 CAD for a cabana or $1222 CAD for a luxury beach villa are both price points that seemed extortionate. Clamshells can be bought for around $50 USD onboard, but our kids would rather be in the pool than the ocean, and I’d rather just get back on the ship for lunch.
  
• Roatan, even though it is listed as a “dock” port, is probably the least desirable destination. NCL docks near Coxen Hole (vs. Princess/Carnival in Mahogany Bay). Since the last time we were in the area, apparently there is now a pool area with a one-drink entry fee. No plans for us – we may exit the first week and ponder the shops briefly, but this seemed like a day to enjoy the ship’s amenities.
  
• Pre-trip, nothing stood out in Costa Maya. I figured I’d keep reading reviews closer to sail date and follow the developments of Royal Caribbean’s environmentally spurious project expected to take over the port.

NCL benefits

We have a bonus from being Platinum status in Norwegian’s Latitudes Rewards program, which is the lowest tier at which the tangible benefits start without requiring additional spend. Once reaching Platinum, there are two specialty dining meals included, which has a decent value if you look at what those meals run at retail. I know this is a strategy to spread out guests during the key evening meal, and the retail prices only fractionally reflect NCL’s costs, but I’ve had some remarkable food and service at these upcharge venues.

Even after 15 cruises and entering their top-tier Elite status, Princess doesn’t include any specialty dining. Carnival gives you a single specialty meal on the cruise where you hit 200 sailing days and then nothing after that (maybe another meal after each multiple of 200 days onboard, but that’s terrible return on investment.)

The other NCL perks starting at Platinum like a bag of free laundry, wine tasting and ship tour are also things we like to take advantage of. All of them would ordinarily result in a cabin charge, so the overall value is there. Priority check-in and early dining booking are less tangible benefits but we’ve also used them every time. While I ascribe $0 value to chocolate strawberries and bottled water – somehow, they always get consumed.

Payments and discounts

I’ll be coming up on a year of having an American Express Platinum card. On its face, $800 plus another $250 yearly to have a supplementary card outpaces any other premium card type in Canada, and it’s still not accepted in nearly as many places as Visa or MasterCard. We have gotten benefits that have outstripped the annual fee, so I kept with it for the 2026 renewal cycle.

The Platinum card provides rewards in the Amex points program, which has a base value of one cent per point – often described as a $10 statement credit for 1000 points. There are more efficient ways to redeem, though. While I haven’t yet been able to figure out the best way to optimize an Aeroplan points transfer, fixed points travel means that we can effectively get 1.75 cents per point and use it on most carriers. 40K points covers one person with up to a $700 round-trip base fare to Florida, and then you pay any difference in fare and taxes over that.

Using 160K points and $800 cash this way gave a $1200 discount on what would have been a $3600 flight. A chunk of those points originated from sign-up and spend bonuses as well, so the effective price reduction was even better than that.

I also timed the original sailing with a Norwegian promotional offer on a CruiseFirst credit: pay $250 CAD, get a $500 CAD cruise deposit. Then, it was back to American Express: in both September 2025 and April 2026, my card was eligible for an offer that returned a $250 statement credit when making a $1000+ purchase at NCL.

While the black-and-white terms of the offer exclude travel agent bookings and imply only new cruises through the Canadian version of ncl.com are eligible, I asked our travel agent to put exactly $1000 payment through. The resulting credit card charge came from Norwegian Cruise Line directly. On both occasions, within a day a $250 refund posted to my account, so that was another $500 saved.

Flights

Because I was locked to the American Express travel portal and had to pick a round-trip flight offered on the same carrier or a valid codeshare, I couldn’t do the usual technique of picking one-way flights on wildly different airlines to optimize for spend and time.

With this cruise sailing out of Miami, I was fortunate enough to find an American Airlines round-trip, both legs non-stop, using MIA as the airport rather than FLL or PBI. This meant slightly shorter travel times between the airport, hotel, and cruise port.

When we moved to Escape for the second week, it involved adjusting one of the flight dates. American’s standard rate (the one above Basic Economy) allows changes for no additional fee, just the flight price difference. The US-based airlines tend to allow this, whereas our domestic Canadian airlines will whack you with $100+ in fees for this privilege unless you’ve bought a flexible ticket.

Hotel

I used to use Expedia (not necessarily the TD-branded portal) for nearly all travel and had some reward points built up in my account that had never been touched or cashed out. Expedia moved to a new rewards program called OneKeyCash and converted people’s point balances to these quasi-dollars in October 2025. That reward balance was due to expire in June 2026, so I looked for the best way to use the full amount where the charge would happen immediately.

The result here was a non-refundable booking for a 1-bedroom suite at the Residence Inn by Marriott Miami Airport. This property in the complex has the advantage of included breakfast, and separate sleeping areas for the adults and kids. This time, I hoped we’d get to stay in this specific room type and hotel, rather than the downgrade that happened two years ago prior to our cruise on Seascape. Rooms in any of the three hotels are more than fine for a one-night stay, and there’s two on-site restaurants and a decent pool.

Pre-cruise

Dining reservations

With our originally booked sailing, I was able to jump on the NCL app at 125 days out to reserve our four included meals. This is another Platinum perk over the standard 120-day window, not well-advertised but welcome. We picked La Cucina, Le Bistro, Cagney’s and Bayamo and selected our preferred early times of 5:30 to 5:45. NCL’s specialty dining allows kids to eat for free from the standard kids’ menu – unlike Princess, who charges children at half the standard rate. This meant we could still have a family dinner and have the adults take full advantage of the specialty meals.

When we added the second week to form a B2B sailing, we were already inside the period where dining reservations open for everyone. While Le Bistro, Bayamo and La Cucina were free at the earlier times, Cagney’s had limited availability for most of the week. I got a 6:30pm table for 4 on embarkation day, and planned to move it earlier once onboard.

6:30 isn’t the worst slot by any means, and in fact is the time of choice for some people. But with that slot, there’s likely at least a 20-minute delay from arrival time before you’re seated, go through the usual pleasantries, have ordered, and appetizers start coming out. Families who are used to eating around 6 are already an hour past that point.

On the second week we also had one additional dining credit (per adult) left to use, based on the changes between More at Sea and the late 2025 re-introduction of Free at Sea. I figured we would get onboard and try to reserve Pincho Tapas Bar or Food Republic as venues you can’t book online.

Travel authorization / consent letter

Normally Kayla, the two kids, and I all travel together with the same flight bookings and reservations. For this trip, she had a tighter schedule, returning to Ontario the day before we needed to fly out for this vacation. Since I have a healthy dose of skepticism about airline schedules, I generated a travel consent letter from the Government of Canada website that would allow me to travel as a solo parent with the kids, in the event her flight was delayed and she needed to meet us in Miami using a later flight or an early one on embarkation day.

The PDF on that page must be opened in Adobe Acrobat. Once you crack it open, it allows generation of a consent letter in the correct format, with the ability to specify multiple destinations as well as cruise-specific choices. I did some Internet research and found a home-based notary public who would sign and seal the resulting letter for $35 CAD. I hoped we didn’t need it, but figured in the worst case, three-quarters of our family could make the ship if anything went wrong in the preceding days.

More travel companions

During mid-May we were also incredibly excited to find out that our friends – the same ones we sailed with on Bliss in 2023 – were able to join us for one of the weeks onboard and would also bring their child for a first sailing. We exchanged travel info and aligned plans, although each family booked slightly different transportation and lodging arrangements for Miami that suited their own needs.

We didn’t specifically book group dinners onboard, even with seven people, since each party had a different number of specialty nights. The available times online for specialty restaurants were even more limited at the point they booked – although we expected more to open onboard.

Another factor was that last time we sailed with these friends, it was a toss-up each day as to whether each family wanted to do dinner on their own or go as a group. That’s one of the benefits of cruising – assuming you’re OK with it socially, you can split off at any point to do your own thing and reconvene for say, a drink after the show. Everyone in the group is flexible and doesn’t take offense if plans need to change, so this was just another appreciated addition to the vacation plans.

Packing

Norwegian also had a slight kerfuffle about dress code earlier this year, initially moving to a more restrictive “pants required in more restaurants” version in February and then backing down in March 2026 to an even-more Freestyle version. Now even Le Bistro, which was always the dressiest of the specialty venues, forgoes the requirement for long pants. Along with the laundry privileges, it would have been entirely possible for each of us to go for the two weeks with only carry-on luggage.

In a practical sense, we still ended up checking one large bag and taking two carry-ons, but our kids just needed a personal item each rather than carry-ons of their own. The checked bag also avoids bringing liquids or gels through security.

Travel day

Kayla made it back from her business trip with only some minor bus inconvenience, so the travel letter didn’t need to be employed. I had almost forgotten how terrible a 6am flight departure was, as the last few outbound trips we’ve taken for cruises from Toronto have been at least an hour and a half after that. At that time of morning you’re not contending with traffic, but getting everyone up and out of the house after only a few hours’ sleep is a challenge. The lounge is also not open until 0530, and our flight allegedly started check-in ten minutes before that.

You’re supposed to drop off checked bags no later than an hour before flight departure, and I wasn’t sure if that condition was enforced by the YYZ baggage check-in system or whether it was just based on having a printed baggage tag at that point. As we were pulling into the Viscount garage at about 4:45am, I split up from the family and ran the single large bag down into the terminal. I was able to print and attach the bag tag properly before 5am, but then got stuck in the US destination bag drop line behind some people and didn’t get to a machine until 5:03.

Several parties ahead of me struggled with bag check-in, and so some airport staff injected themselves into the situation. The nearest employee looked at my already-tagged bag with obvious boredom, put it on the conveyor, and selected a “Force Bag” option from an override menu. I am nearly certain this was not standard procedure. With my bag safely in the bowels of the Pearson luggage handling system, the rest of the family had caught up. We made our way through security and US customs in enough time to find out that – of course – boarding was delayed.

Given that the delay would be an uncertain length, I ran up to the Plaza Premium lounge with one kid to try and get some food for the family. Unfortunately, “grab and go” is not provided if there is still space in the lounge. Normally I’d love not having a wait to get in, but didn’t want to get into a situation where boarding started and none of us were aware. It turned out that the two of us had time to sit and eat a hot breakfast, and then I covertly snagged bread products to bring back downstairs.

Total delay was about 40 minutes, but the flight proceeded as normal after that. I liked that everyone seemed to be receiving full cans of pop during the drink service, but the food for purchase was quite limited, especially for flights before 9am. There was also no seatback entertainment and nothing special for the kids. We ended up making up time and landed only about two minutes after the originally expected arrival slot.

In Miami, our checked bag came out quickly. It was sent to carousel 12 – not trivial to find from where we exited at D gates. I called the Marriott direct number and was pleased at the completeness of information from the automated attendant. The recording advised that shuttle service was regularly scheduled every 15 minutes from a variety of pickup gates. We exited the airport and stood by pole 15, and sure enough a mini-bus arrived shortly.

By 10:45am we’d made it over to the Residence Inn. The Expedia-owned booking raised no issues, and the front desk attendant offered us a room immediately if we were OK with being on the first floor. We had no problem with that and agreed. The front desk was also able to link my Bonvoy number to the reservation, which made the mobile app functional.

With the family able to put down our baggage and stretch out slightly, Kayla and I took the opportunity to have a nap to counteract the 3:15am wake-up. The kids insisted they weren’t tired so were permitted some time on their glowing rectangles. We restarted our day around 1:30pm with a late lunch in Cane Fire Grille over in the Marriott “proper” building, then went for a swim in the complex’s central pool. It had been spitting rain and eventually began to storm, so we went back to the room and enforced some quiet time so the children would be reasonable human beings at dinner.

Dinner was at 6:30 over at Champions Sports Bar in the “Courtyard by Marriott” building; there is a happy hour between 4 and 7, and we were able to take advantage of that for our food and drinks. After dinner everyone did some reading and then as the kids headed to bed, I went back over to Champions for a few more drinks before returning for a relatively early bedtime.

Embarkation day

Knowing that Port of Miami is subject to insane traffic, we got up, grabbed our included breakfast from the lobby, and then quickly repacked before catching an Uber to the port. Leaving at 9:27am, we arrived at 9:40; our driver made no wrong turns and picked the right places to merge. As a result, we were in the terminal building and through security before 10am. Once we’d passed through the metal detectors, the Platinum and higher check-in line was a definite time-saver; the standard queue was both significant in length and moving slowly.

Boarding started just after 11am, with Haven passengers beginning to load at 11:08 (no announcement, just the butlered groups moving down the hall), followed by special assistance at 11:20, group 1 (paid priority) at 11:23, and group 2 (which was us) at 11:26. The security checkpoint for card scanning had bunched up slightly, but we made it to the gangway at 11:35 and physically on the ship about two minutes after that.

The terminal flow is still not as smooth as Celebrity or Princess out of Fort Lauderdale, but once onboard things started to move along well.

Lunch in the main dining rooms started at noon, so we had a few minutes to check in at the CruiseNext desk and collect our dates and times for the behind-the-scenes ship tour, Wines Around the World tasting, and Latitudes party. Luckily for me, the BTS tour didn’t start until 8:10 the next morning, so it wasn’t going to be a complete struggle to make it there on time – sometimes they are much earlier than that and it becomes a debate as to whether the below-deck tour is worth it. In addition, this itinerary also moved one hour back on night 1, so an extra hour of sleep was also available!

After lunch and meeting up with our travel companions, I went over to the restaurant reservations location (Levity Comedy Club on deck 6) and was able to easily get Cagney’s that night moved to an earlier time. It was sort of luck of the draw which line you got in, though – while I only needed one change, the gentleman in front of me was booking or re-booking every night and had poor communication with the staff member helping him. More specifically, he was asking for night 1, night 2… while the representative wanted to know specifically which day of the week and the actual calendar day number.

We also visited the muster station (no real effort, just scan your cards and talk to the crew member briefly) and burned some time on the Waterfront before cabins were ready, slightly after 2pm. We were very thankful to be rid of our backpacks, and after dropping those off in the room, went down to Splash Academy to enroll children in the kids programming.

For Splash Academy registration, make sure you bring all the keycards – kids and authorized pickup individuals. We found the onboarding process into kids club to be more intense than past cruises. You select a pickup password, they specifically read the rules to the kids (“no touching!”), and provide quite a bit of information to the guardians. They do require colour-coded wristbands for the whole cruise and there is a fee for losing them; if you do damage it accidentally and bring it back, though, they should replace it for free.

Cabin (13856, BA Balcony)

Location and layout

The 172 sqft BA balcony cabin is a cozier room than the newer generation of ships. Sun Princess offers 200 sqft for a standard (they call it deluxe) balcony, and Prima-class is 186 sqft in the same BA category. Royal-class vessels like Enchanted and Discovery Princess have a closer 174 sqft interior footprint for their baseline balcony rooms, but those have two Pullmans right over top of the main beds when configured for 4 people.

On Escape, the configuration was to our preference, with the main bed able to be set up as a queen and a single Pullman over top of the sofa bed. I mainly noticed the reduced space as we have recently been used to the 212 sqft Premium Oceanview on Princess Sphere class.

One thing I didn’t realize until we got on the ship was that 13856 has a layout where the sofa bed is near the cabin door, while the larger queen bed is near the balcony; we generally prefer the opposite arrangement to let an adult get in and out of the room at night without disturbing the kids’ sleep. This was a result of changing the cabin from the original booking so we could have it for two consecutive weeks, and I didn’t validate the bed positions. It didn’t end up being a problem and I’d make the same choice if it meant the ability to stay in the same room two weeks in a row.

Escape also makes worse use of cabin space than Sun and Star Princess, with fewer drawers and a larger moulded desk/fridge unit. The bathroom was also adequate; Escape has the benefit of a solid plastic shower door rather than a curtain despite the ship’s age.

The fridge comes with some for-pay mini-bar items inside. We didn’t need them removed as there was still enough room for our Latitudes bottles of water (one per adult for the entire cruise, how generous!) and the occasional unopened beer or cooler brought back to the cabin.

Cabin 13856 was quiet with little noticeable ship movement. A few times we heard kids running down the hall, but not a lot of noise from the adjacent cabins or above. For the first week onboard we basically felt no motion while under way – it was one of the smoothest cruises we’ve been on. Week two had a noteworthy storm after leaving Cozumel, with some impressive thunder, lightning and pitch and roll that you could feel regardless of where you were on the vessel. The room creaked significantly that night and it was obvious that the ship had sped up in the late evening and early morning hours. I don’t know that a different cabin location would have changed things, but it’s a reminder to bring earplugs or noise-cancelling headphones.

From a deck perspective, I’d have been a little happier with deck 9 or 10, which make the stairs more usable if you’re going to grab a drink from one of the bars and bring it back to the cabin. I was often down to Prime Meridian bar at deck 8 aft just as they were closing – going down was fine but going back up necessitated an elevator.

If we did a future Breakaway or Breakaway Plus sailing, I’d be inclined to investigate Family Oceanview (O5) cabins on deck 5, which are 218 sqft with an extra wardrobe. You’d want to be diligent about specific location based on what is above and beside you, but the extra space might be an appropriate tradeoff if an exterior balcony is not a must-have.

Service

NCL’s room stewards now only visit once a day, but met a much higher standard over the course of our two weeks than our 2023 Bliss sailing. We never had a significant conflict with Andi’s cleaning schedule and I didn’t really miss the evening turndown service.

On turnaround day between week 1 and 2 it was later in the evening before he got to the cabin. He was so apologetic for not having arrived earlier and was prepared to clean the cabin, but we just asked for clean towels and let him continue with other cabins that night. In future, if we’re in the same cabin for more than one cruise, we’ll let the steward know just to skip the service on Day 1 of the new cruise if there are fresh towels and TP.

The main bed had a mattress topper on it – not requested, but talking to our friends they thought their bed was too firm, so I’m glad we had this installed by default.

Paperwork was prompt and complete, and any of our small requests were immediately handled. Contrary to other recent reports, Escape is still using the tear-off physical coupons for Latitudes specialty dining and laundry perks rather than having them encoded on your card. We received them both weeks as expected.

Ship

Escape was two months away from a scheduled dry dock during this sailing, and the ship reflected the need for refurbishment and small repairs throughout. It was nothing that impeded the voyage for us. I contend it was much like the condition of Enchanted Princess from our summer 2024 sailing; things like peeling tables on the balcony, some beat-up chairs in the buffet, and a couple of missing tiles in the family-designated pool. The actual cabin conditions (bathroom, balcony) were in improved shape over Enchanted. I didn’t run into anything unsafe, and when facilities were broken or out of order, they seemed to get fixed in a reasonable amount of time.

I still find the layout of Escape and its sister ships one of the best at sea. The ability to move fully from aft to stern on any of the lower decks without having to change levels is wonderful. There isn’t the situation where one or two main dining rooms require access from a specific stairwell or elevator bank because of galley positioning, like the deck 6 restaurants on both Sun and Enchanted Princess.

While the casino on deck 7 had not yet been converted to smoke-free (an enclosed smoking casino section is rumored for the October 2026 dry dock), we were unbothered during the times we walked through it during our sailing. The same cannot be said for Spice H2O at the aft of the ship. Spice features a starboard-side cigarette smoking area that wafts into the rest of the outdoor venue, compounded by the very pungent exhaust from the ship’s generators. The enclosed cigar lounge on deck 8, just aft of the exterior Pour House bar, still wafts outside as people enter and exit. This is a shame because the Pour House is the superior of the Waterfront bars, with wider drink selections and slightly more seating than the Sail and Sustain / Cellars wine bar on the port side. Like Enchanted Princess, we also caught whiffs of smoke on the lowest deck aft while going to or from the kids club.

The Latitudes Platinum ship tour showed the main galley, laundry facilities on deck 2 and 3, and the backstage area used for both the Supper Club and main theatre including storage and dressing rooms. We also briefly stopped in front of the crew mess which was called “Anglers Cafe”. They did check keycards to confirm Platinum-or-higher status. I always appreciate the behind-the-scenes look and the guides weren’t pushy about CruiseNext, so our tour did not become just a 60-minute sales pitch.

During our first week, there happened to be a Kosher at Sea group who had exclusive use of the private room underneath Taste on Deck 5. I’d been slightly apprehensive before the sailing: when there is a group booking that isn’t a full-ship charter, it can negatively impact availability of public venues and restaurants. Given that they didn’t exceed private dining occupancy, everything remained open as usual, and the charter operations seemed well-organized with no real impact to other passengers. One other change was that one elevator in each bank operated in Sabbath mode for the relevant timeframe, where it stopped on every floor without requiring a button push. Again, a very minor concession – you just had to look for the sign outside the elevator and pick one of the other seven cars or take the stairs.

Pools and splash park

Many of the ships we’ve sailed in the past few years have an aft pool in addition to the two main ones on the lido deck. These three pools are generally all-ages, occasionally with some time restrictions. During our sailing, Escape dedicated one of the two lido pools on deck 16 to adults only, and the other one was the “family” version. Instead of a proper aft pool, Escape then offers a water grotto feature in Spice H2O. While refreshing in its own way (Kayla really enjoyed it), the grotto is definitely not an equivalent for the 1m-depth Wake View pool on Sun and Star Princess, or the similar ones on Enchanted and Discovery Princess. Spice is also an adults-only venue for most of the day.

Escape’s concession to kids is a splash park area with a smaller water slide. If you have smaller adventurous children, the slide requires only a minimum height of 102cm (~40″) rather than the more common 48″ restriction. Because of the single family pool on deck 16, the splash park is oversubscribed with playful and noisy kids.

For our family, the water venues on Escape didn’t meet expectations. The family pool was slightly too deep at about 5 and a half feet, so both kids and adults of moderate height were trying to secure the valuable territory around the walls. The atmosphere was noisy, and the water overly salty. Our kids, who love the water and want to swim every day, were uninterested in the Escape pool after the first day onboard – we went back once more but it did not change the situation. This meant that we didn’t get to swim much on the ship during this vacation and lost a potential family daytime activity.

Another Deck 16 problem was the sheer number of people on the deck, at the Waves bar, and generally milling around. The house band was on the stage closest to the adult pool and had an unreasonable, uncomfortable volume. I would compare it to some concerts we’ve been to but not in a positive way.

Ropes course

A feature on Escape the kids and I enjoyed that we hadn’t done on any other ship was the ropes course, accessible from deck 18. You’ll need appropriate clothing (the FAQ specifies flat, fully-closed footwear so no Crocs), a top that covers your shoulders, and if you’re wearing shorts, they need to come down close to the knee as they don’t want the harness touching your bare skin.

After getting your height and weight checked, the staff buckles you into a harness, then you clip into an overhead track and go up a flight of stairs effectively to deck 19 where the course begins. You have a few ways to go up even further, as well as move from port to starboard across the ship on a variety of different beams, ropes, and planks. You’re always secured, but it’s still pretty thrilling to look down and see how high up you are.

With kids along, you may still have to help them move the top tether in the correct direction as it can get slightly stuck. There are also parts of the course that were blocked off, so at some platforms there is only one possible direction to go, and it might be towards a single rope with quite a bit of wiggle.

We went to the ropes course two or three times over the voyage, but by our second time on the course, our kids kept pushing to try more daring routes and built a lot of confidence doing it. I suggest trying it out on port days – because fewer passengers are onboard, the ropes course has a shorter wait and fewer dodging of other passengers.

Food

Main dining

Because of our Free at Sea and Latitudes specialty dining, we didn’t spend much time in the main dining room. When we did go, ignoring NPS inflation and my desire to not get anyone in trouble for less than ten points on a formal survey, I would give it a solid 7/10.

The best category in the MDR was usually the service. All the waiters, maitre’d team, and restaurant managers were excellent to chat with and patient with the kids. Michael and Mark Anthony in the Manhattan Room were particularly accommodating. Beverage service was also excellent, and I can’t recall a meal where I wanted for wine. It wasn’t all the time, but there often was someone acting as a sommelier who would pour from bottles right inside the restaurant, rather than having to go to the galley.

Food quality wasn’t a problem, but shareholder value has been increased through reduced menu size, more presence of upcharge items, and the same core ingredients used in multiple dishes across multiple days. You also can only order one entree without an upcharge, although unlimited appetizers and desserts are included. For a couple evenings it was hard to pick an entree that was a must-have. I was never disappointed with the result though.

We also were able to make it to sit-down breakfast in a main dining room more often, due to the time rollback on day 2 that lasted most of the week. I liked the pretzel roll sandwich (offered every 3rd day or so) as well as the other sides. When we had group breakfast, there seemed to always be one item that got missed from the larger order, but the pastry selection made up for it and frankly we probably didn’t really need whatever the missing component was.

Even with a group of seven people we didn’t have any real wait time. That flexibility was welcome for evenings where we didn’t have a specialty restaurant booked. Main dining room reservations seem unnecessary on Escape, unless you have a larger group than ours or are determined to eat at peak hours.

Specialty dining

Over the course of our two weeks onboard, we tried every specialty venue except for Teppanyaki and Moderno – both didn’t resonate so we didn’t try to book them. My favourites were Cagney’s, Le Bistro, and Bayamo, with honourable mentions to Food Republic and Pinchos Tapas Bar as a different style of dining but with tasty dishes.

Usually I am an Italian food enthusiast, but our dinner at La Cucina did not live up to previous ones or my usual expectations for specialty dining. The meal on day 7 of week one started on a negative note with the hostess not being able to find our reservation, and then poking around in the system while a line grew behind us. It appeared to be related to our B2B cruise, and eventually she was able to do something that assigned us a table – which was then retracted as we waited in the bar area, and we were sent to another table. I should have known this would be a harbinger of problems to come on the next sailing.

Apart from that, the La Cucina menu has been pared back from our previous NCL sailings, and in general the food was pretty “mid”. This combined with a very busy atmosphere and scattered service made it our least favourite of the specialty dining venues. La Cucina carries a $40 cover charge if you don’t have a package or voucher, versus a $60 charge for steakhouse, French and seafood specialities; it seemed apparent to us why it was on the cheaper end.

The final issue with La Cucina: as we started our second week onboard Escape, my curated pre-cruise restaurant bookings did not appear in the mobile app. The app behaved inconsistently on turnaround day, and we didn’t have a reservation on night 1/week 2 to go to, so I let it go until the next day. After a good night’s sleep the reservations had still not shown up, so I went down to the restaurant reservations section of the Guest Services area to verify.

The staff member confirmed that the reservations had been clobbered in between the B2B sailings, which to me seemed related to the apparent inexperience of the La Cucina host and whatever was done in the system that original evening rather than purely a loss due to consecutive bookings. He was able to recover our original times at Cagney’s and Le Bistro, but Bayamo was “completely sold out” and “the most popular restaurant on this sailing.” I was assured that we would be first on the waitlist if we chose to show up at our originally booked time.

Rather than return to La Cucina on night 2, we decided to cancel and try our luck at Pincho Tapas Bar. Showing up slightly before the 5:30pm opening time got us bar seating for four with no wait. I enjoyed the mixto charcuterie board, garlic shrimp, and chorizo. The dining package allowed four menu choices per person, and we didn’t pick any of the desserts (because frankly there is a buffet upstairs and O’Sheehan’s has late-night sugary choices as well.) If you are going for full optimization with dining credits, it wasn’t a totally filling meal and it’s another $40-class cover charge versus the 50 and 60-buck options, but we wanted to have the experience and I’m glad we did try it. Service was excellent and the food came out very quickly.

The other specialty restaurant we tried outside of the conventional set was Food Republic. We went with our friends after Splash Academy opened earlier for the evening session on a port day, and the very kind maitre’d Bineesh was able to fit our group of four in without a reservation. By far the sushi rolls were the best (you get to pick four items per person, and it might be worth using all four choices on these), with notable mentions to the potstickers and kimchee fried rice. I would not order the thai steak and noodle salad again as it was more of a kale-type green than the expected cabbage. Unlike Pincho, we were all very full afterwards and into the evening with no need for a late-night O’Sheehan’s run.

I didn’t want to try and brave a waitlist at Bayamo on our expected night, and Kayla and I were able to snag a later Cagney’s seating just for ourselves while the kids were in Splash Academy. Post-pandemic, the number and quality of selections are worse at nearly all the venues. In fairness, Cagney’s was solid every time we went over these two weeks, even with a reduced menu. Yes, things are not the same as they were ten years ago, Jake.

Oh, and if you have any non-refundable onboard credit, and choose to leave an additional gratuity at a specialty dining venue by writing it on your end-of-meal receipt, the gratuity does not deplete that non-refundable credit; you’ll be paying out of pocket.

Garden Cafe (buffet)

Kids love the buffet, and Garden Cafe is a classic cruise ship self-serve eatery, so we did quite a few meals there as well. It seemed like it was smaller than the Princess equivalent – and middle-of-the-road for choice. By far the best selections were whatever the carvery was serving, the pasta station with spaghetti as a constant, and then the Asian and salad bar sections had the occasional standout. Certainly, anything that was a daily special was worth a try. The turkey dinner and carvings from the whole pig were some of the best meats I’ve had, whether on a ship or not.

One odd thing that came up was that pound cake was only a lunch item and only served in a certain section. Our kids loved having this as a post-Splash Academy snack, so I ended up hoarding a few slices from the late lunch spread and keeping them in our cabin. The buffet had a hard close at 9:30 and so soft serve was also not open after kids club. Nearly everything was still set out right up until 9:30 – you could still get pasta at 9:15. Princess advertises an 11pm close but reduces what’s out there from around 9pm.

There were absolutely capacity and flow optimization problems in the Garden Cafe, so you did have to be on point to find a suitable table for breakfast or lunch. The layout (where the aft elevator bank exits directly into the buffet, and only the buffet) was also confusing – a problem addressed on newer Breakway Plus ships with the Garden Cafe moving to the forward section of deck 16.

Lastly, there is no regular “for kids” section, although one evening from 5-6:30 the kid-friendly foods and special desserts did make an appearance. If you don’t have a specific specialty dining booking, it is worth wandering around the buffet and seeing what the daily selections actually look like before you commit to the main dining room – you might be pleasantly surprised and choose to eat there.

O’Sheehan’s

Food service at O’Sheehan’s follows the table service model, which is nice at some parts of the day and terrible at others. We enjoyed their breakfast, served until 11am, as an alternative to both the buffet and main dining room. Lunch and dinner times were never too busy, but it’s during the afternoon and late-night periods that tables get occupied and you get an unpleasant wait.

I started out with good luck getting seated immediately with the kids when we showed up even a few minutes before 10pm, but got skunked with over a half an hour expected wait arriving around 10:15 another night. That sort of turned us off from future family visits and meant I had to plan earlier in the day for adequate pre-bedtime desserts.

My judgements are mainly based on the late-night offerings which are a compressed menu of five appetizers, four entrees and three dessert choices. I give high marks to the pretzel bites and Cobb salad, and while I loved the Reuben I would suggest going into the situation with a fork and knife; the bread gets soggy quickly. The pub hot dog was a let-down due to overly crispy, sharp bacon bits, and the chicken wings (despite ordering them crispy) were not of high quality to start with.

O’Sheehan’s outdoes paid, limited room service delivery – but every night I couldn’t help but think that the International Cafe, with its variety of desserts and sandwiches over-the-counter, was a preferential choice for securing food from 11pm onward. I suggest the competition replicate a slightly less soggy Reuben and introduce a decent hot dog in their late-night foodstuffs.

Drinks and bars

No real complaints with the Norwegian drink program and service. I spent most of my time at the Tobacco Road bar (called Maltings Whiskey Bar on other ships), although was happy with the morning service at O’Sheehan’s too. The default Free at Sea selections without upcharge were perfectly fine for me and included some liquors that I would have expected to be more premium.

The two-drinks-per-person privilege saved time and made it easier to get drinks for my spouse or friends. A few bars like the one inside Garden Cafe or the outside Sail and Sustain where they might let you have an unopened can offered the best chances at getting the occasional drink to put in your fridge. A few days, I appreciated not having the 15-drink cap of Princess Plus, although I doubt I was ever too much over that figure.

Conversely, not having access to bottled or canned water in the regular FAS plan, especially something like a San Pellegrino / San Benedetto / Perrier, meant that I had to go downstairs every night and pick up a couple fountain club sodas that didn’t stay sparkling or chilled very long. Unlike the food section, the bar in the buffet definitely closed before 9:30. Since all the other bars on the upper decks are also shut down at that time, you’re traipsing downstairs if you want something other than the default iced tea/lemonade/water.

Table service didn’t start in earnest until week two, when the staff recognized us and would then make a deliberate attempt to come over. Even then, it seemed like Kayla was getting skipped by some servers on subsequent passes if she didn’t order something initially.

Unlike Star Princess and our delightful outings to Crooners Bar, though, the focus on NCL is not on cocktail-making. Each venue has one or two notable specialty drinks, but nothing like the variety, customizations, and personal attention to flavour preferences we had in March. If you want beer, cider, wine, or an uncomplicated mixed drink – no problem – although we did still have the occasional margarita where it just didn’t taste like the basic lime and tequila. But if you just want to sit back in a lounge the evening and try a drink or three that are new, different, or have some thought put into their construction – then our experience on Escape was not that. It wasn’t bad, it just didn’t seem as elevated, and I don’t think NCL is going for that standard. Well, maybe the Haven sets that standard, based on what I’ve seen on YouTube.

It also wouldn’t be an NCL post without complaining about them adding tax to drinks when close to shore in certain destinations. On week two, on the last night we sailed in to Florida much earlier than usual – around 11pm rather than 5 or 6am, and immediately tax started.

Youth program: Splash Academy

Baseline review: our kids liked the Splash Academy program, required no convincing to go or stay, and we never had to wait too long to check them in or out. I’ve asked them, and both have a slight preference for Firefly Park on Sun/Star Princess, but Splash Academy is a place they’d return to without complaint if we chose to sail Norwegian again. It was still hard to drag our kids away from the evening sessions on Escape.

The staff were very welcoming and the actual logistics of pickup and drop-off were highly structured. At registration, you had to set a pickup passphrase, which was always required to collect them (rather than by their numeric position on the Big List of Kids or just their names, validated against a signature and recognition of parent.) This seemed less secure than you might think because you’d have to say the passphrase out loud at each pickup.

At each drop-off, you were also asked where you’d be during the time the kids were attending the program. I can’t imagine this is effective unless your kid bails very quickly. If I tell you I’m going to a restaurant at 6pm, it’s very likely I’ve left by 8pm for a drink, a show, or another drink. This is another positive for Medallion tracking with families as the staff could just call whatever bar you’re currently at.

Because of the bigger physical footprint of the 3-12 year old area, the kids are mostly free to wander during the sessions, and select different activities that appeal to them. Choices included organized arts and crafts, some leader-driven group activities, but the big draw was the video games (Nintendo Switch primarily.) There wasn’t a small jungle gym or slide to encourage physical motion, and like on Sphere-class the facility is “in the basement”; Discovery/Enchanted Princess have a small, covered outdoor area that can be used in fair weather.

While the kids reviewed the actual programming highly, the biggest downside was that Splash Academy on Escape did not run any supervised sessions on port days during the typical morning (9am – 12pm) or afternoon (2pm – 5pm) slots. It’s a valid assumption that many families will be out in port doing activities, and I expect it also allows the youth staff to perhaps go out into port themselves more frequently.

This reduced schedule is not on par with our other cruises or my research into kids programming on other lines and ships. A few go into more of a “free time” mode during daytime port day slots, but we found it unusual that the entire thing was shut down until the evening. On this sailing with four consecutive port days and plans really for only 1.5 of them each week – Harvest Caye was a half-day outing at best – not having any daytime kids club access (in combination with the negativity about the family pool) meant that we fell back a lot more on screen time.

I’m not too perturbed about a higher degree of tablet use than usual on vacation, but I see having our kids out of direct Mom and Dad supervision for at least some time each day as a positive thing – they get a little more freedom to make choices, have different social interactions, and adults get some time with their books without being asked every two minutes how to accomplish a task in Hello Kitty Island Adventure. (I recommend the game on iOS/Apple Arcade as it is fully playable on a cruise without WiFi, but make sure you fully download it, launch it, and do the onboarding first before embarkation.)

Now, it’s not all doom and gloom and the immense burden of looking after one’s own kids. On port days, Splash Academy opens at 6pm, which is an hour earlier than sea days and most programs we’ve been to on other ships. This extra hour opens up availability for parents and caregivers to go to earlier dinners, shows, and activities – and gives less lag time in between an early family meal at the Garden Cafe and whatever is the next suitable thing for kids to do. I would love to see evening sessions consistently begin at 6pm, but recognize it wouldn’t give the staff much time for their own meal break.

One evening at drop-off, I was told that they were expecting rougher weather, and that I should call in “a few times” to extension 012 throughout the evening to check in on how the kids were doing – there is a medical center checkup required if a vomiting incident occurs and you want to come back to the program, regardless of the sea conditions. Our kids are decent seafarers, so I settled on calling in twice as we were transitioning from our own activities, and the children were fine both times. Now, the mere question of being asked if they were OK twice by a staff member did influence one child to think that leaving might be a better option (more tablet time?); thankfully, sibling peer pressure was effective in a decision to stay for the full session.

We need to try other lines to get a fuller picture of how these programs run onboard – Disney, Royal Caribbean and (perhaps somewhat unexpected) Celebrity all have supervised youth clubs and I’d love to understand both how they operate and if they’d work for our family.

Entertainment

Escape has three bigger-ticket production shows in the main theatre: Choir of Man, ICONS: The Bands, and Syd Norman’s Presents: Rumours. Of these, Choir of Man is still closest by production value to the top-billed shows like SIX, Priscilla, and Jersey Boys that Norwegian used to have onboard ships. As Norwegian moves out of Broadway-style productions, Royal Caribbean seems to be going the opposite way, expanding their big-ticket offerings with Wizard of Oz, Back to the Future, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Spongebob being the four headline shows on Icon-class vessels.

Choir was entertaining and very funny, and I liked this one the best out of any of the theatre shows. There is a point where there’s some audience participation; in our viewing, the participant called up had seen the show previously and correctly guessed the next song, and the on-stage interaction ended up with a hilarious off-script moment.

Rumours in particular has moved out of the smaller Pour House venue due to popular demand and an updated licensing arrangement. This change meant I actually got to go without experiencing a cramped setting and impeded views. Both Rumours and ICONS were worth seeing, but I didn’t try to go again on week two.

Slight advantage for the Escape theatre, which has a bar inside for easy pre-show drink access – this was dropped from newer Breakaway Plus ships (but brought back as part of the convertible theatre/club on Prima-class.) Shows also did not require reservations either pre-cruise or onboard; it was open seating except for a small reserved Haven section.

We also went to Howl at the Moon on two nights where it was offered. It was entertaining and provided a few laughs, but a lot of the same songs get repeated week to week. There is a very particular set list that the performers cover, and the performance is less audience suggestion/tip-driven than might be implied. Kayla went to the post-10pm “adults only” session and didn’t find it to be a significant difference than the material earlier in the evening. Worth going once, maybe twice on different weeknights – and the singing and instrumental proficiency is very performer-dependent. At-your-chair drink service in the venue was effective and efficient.

Ports

Cozumel – Paradise Beach and Nachi Cocom

Based on reviews and wanting to try a new beach in this category, we chose Paradise Beach as our all-inclusive beach and pool day for our first stop in Cozumel. It’s on the same stretch of beach clubs on the western side of the island, with a similar length of taxi ride from the port as Nachi Cocom. In addition to the all-inclusive food/drink package, the two families also booked daybeds to make sure we had a reserved space.

As my main benchmark was our time at Nachi Cocom from December 2025 and the second week of this sailing, I’ll spend a few bytes on the key similarities and differences. Paradise Beach was a busier venue as per the reviews, but not in an “impossible to avoid people in the pool” or “too loud to function” sort of way. In fact, Nachi Cocom seemed almost overly quiet and sedate in comparison, reinforced on our week 2 visit. At Nachi check-in, we were asked if there was anyone we wanted as our waiter, and thankfully I’d remembered to document Felipe’s name in the December 2025 post so we were able to sit in his section again.

The daybeds we picked at Paradise Beach (20 and 21, closer to the property entrance) were out of the way of most foot traffic as anticipated, but unfortunately bed 21 was immediately beside a path that led to a smoking area as well as used for garbage transportation, so you got an occasional noseful of two types of unpleasant odour. We wouldn’t pick either of these bed numbers again, and limited daybed availability on future cruise dates will steer our booking choice.

Two large benefits at Paradise Beach were a much bigger pool than Nachi Cocom, as well as all-day and legitimately unlimited food service. (Nachi has a one-item-per-course, per-person food constraint.) The bathroom facilities were also more expansive at Paradise Beach, as well as a dedicated changing area. Drink service was perhaps a little slower than Nachi, but we also didn’t use the pool bar to supplement. The pool bar at Nachi Cocom offers a swim-up section but Paradise’s requires getting out of the water.

Another anecdote from Paradise Beach: Three of us were drinking Tecate and were offered a bucket of beer after a couple orders, despite it not being officially included in the all-inclusive rate – our waiter said he’d take care of it, and indeed we were not charged extra at the end of the day. Since we had kids and weren’t being too wild meant they were happy to reduce back-and-forth to the bar.

I did walk around to the beach area and the kids and I went into the ocean briefly, but it’s clear that for them, a well-maintained pool is the preference. There is a “fun pass” upcharge at Paradise Beach that gives access to the inflatable, floating water park structures, but it wasn’t a fit for us that day.

Overall, I was pleased, and we’ll consider Paradise Beach for future family excursions in Cozumel. With Nachi Cocom, because of the two trips in proximity and the decent visit to Paradise Beach, we’ll likely hold on any future bookings there until we’ve tried a few more shore excursions in Cozumel – both all-inclusive and other.

Harvest Caye

Both weeks we visited Harvest Caye were quite similar: exit the ship after breakfast, walk down the pier to the pool area, find a spot to drop our towels and accessories, and then have a brief swim. Most of our time in the pool seemed to be spent redirecting our kids to be more conscious of others around them, which I put down to not having a daily swim onboard.

We also went through the wildlife experience section to see the butterflies, parrots, and toucans. On our second visit, the entire venue seemed busier (no free loungers, so we stashed our stuff by one of the planters and it was fine). The kids did enjoy the splash pad area closer to the rentals building.

Before leaving the ship, people were getting two drinks filled at O’Sheehan’s and pouring them into a large tumbler, presumably to take to the pool or beach. The typical warning in the daily program refers to taking food or dairy products off or on the ship, and only prohibits bringing beverages back on – so it seems like filling your 64-oz Stanley with your poison of choice, drinking it in port, and heading back onboard is a viable way to avoid paid drinks in a port like Harvest Caye. Practically, security off the ship and entering the port aren’t searching bags either. I may have been eager to stay longer on land with a cold beverage, although after a couple hours hunger would bring me back onboard anyway.

Costa Maya

We exited the first week to walk around and check out the port. It was blisteringly hot and by the time we reached the end of the pier, everyone was already scalded. The port area is deliberately confusing, and what’s worse is that some huge chunks of it were under construction – so the “free” pool and wildlife exhibit were entirely inaccessible. Again, we were beset by unpleasant smells through various sections of the mall.

This place met the clear definition of “tourist trap”. One of my kids fell in love with a legitimately beautiful pig sculpture and was devastated to find out that it wasn’t coming home with us. Since I’m not into souvenir shopping and didn’t have a shore excursion planned, I skipped this port on week 2 and stayed onboard. Kayla and one of the kids went out on the second week and said the pool area had been re-opened, so it was maybe just an unlucky week.

Back-to-back

Rather than an explicit meeting, NCL sent out a letter a few days before turnaround day giving details about how things would go. If you hadn’t already, you were told to go to Guest Services for a new keycard with longer validity – we had done this on day 2 of the first week at the advice of our travel agent, so our cards reflected the 8/16 departure date. Customs would be done off the ship in the terminal. Because we were staying in the same cabin we didn’t need to make any special arrangements – just bring our passports and cards. We were told to meet in the District Brew House at 9:30 on disembarkation morning.

On arrival in District Brew House we noticed a few food and beverage items set out for us, specifically small sandwiches, so we didn’t go totally hungry during the morning. The spread one-upped Star Princess’ status-based disembarkation venue (which was pleasant, considering it was for people who were expecting to leave rather than stay another week.) Last year’s B2B on Sun Princess used the Arena for staging several hundred guests, with no food or drink offered.

Fewer than 20 of us continued on the next sailing, including a guest performer who was also staying on for the next week. I imagine the duplicate itinerary had a lot to do with the low number of B2Bers.

Staying in the same cabin for the subsequent week is lovely – you don’t have to burn any extra time packing and unpacking, and we could stay in the cabin much later on turnaround morning since the room steward could deprioritize it. NCL is deliberate about closing hallway doors and we didn’t want to get in the way of housekeeping, so we didn’t try to access the cabin again between 9:30am and 2pm.

We left the ship closer to 10:30, with a short wait in the cruise terminal as US Customs was reviewing seafarer visas and work permits for some of the crew. Customs consisted of facial recognition and seemed to be able to scan everyone’s faces properly in our group. There was another short wait upstairs, but we were back onboard by 10:52am. As we walked along deck 6 towards the atrium, we were greeted by the general manager who thanked us for sailing again and gave the family vouchers for some gelato – a very kind gesture.

Activities and crowds were largely identical both weeks. There wasn’t a significant difference in passenger makeup and while week two seemed mildly improved from a service standpoint, I’m certain it’s because the crew recognized us.

Wi-Fi and technology

Norwegian has revised their app since our last sailing, but it still sits below Princess and Celebrity equivalents for usefulness and functionality and is closer to our interactions with MSC’s mobile app. We could make and adjust dining reservations properly, and I didn’t get unexpectedly booted out of my login session over the two weeks. You can get specialty dining (but not main dining) menus. Activities are only listed in a PDF of the Freestyle Daily newsletter, so you can’t “favourite” potentially interesting ones or add events to your calendar directly.

The B2B cruise introduced some issues; I couldn’t view my onboard account statement during the second week (it still could be accessed from the stateroom TV) and a few non-critical information sections returned a Whoops! error. I did try a few different troubleshooting steps but didn’t pursue it.

We only had the 150 minutes of Free at Sea Wi-Fi access included per week, and NCL has managed to block iMessage traffic without a paid plan – in the past they hadn’t totally locked it down. Some iOS push notifications did come through but unpredictably so. The 150 minutes did extend to each of the kids in our cabin, so there was a small amount of connectivity for some Netflix shows that hadn’t been downloaded pre-cruise.

The biggest inconvenience was that it was unusable for communication with our friends; if you only have 150 minutes, you don’t want to leave the Internet signed in for very long, but you won’t get any messages when signed out. We tended to use the cabin phone to call one another instead.

For my use over the course of a week, 150 minutes was fine and not a huge inconvenience, especially considering we had access in both Mexican ports with our cell phone plans. We also would have had US roaming access on turnaround day in Miami, but cell signal was unusable inside the ship, and incredibly awful on the outer decks when parked next to the NCL terminal.

Still, including a time-limited package rather than the unlimited, decent-speed access Princess offers in their Plus package was yet another value mismatch for the Norwegian product. Much like the convenience angle of a drink package, not having to think about Wi-Fi is a good mental offload on vacation, even if I’m not going to use it heavily.

Disembarkation and back home

We had stashed some NCL “priority” bag tags from a previous sailing where they’d been kindly gifted to us, so didn’t need to worry about precise disembarkation time. All of us were still pretty tired, especially due to the one-hour forward time shift on night 6, so we slept in the cabin until as late as possible (slightly after 8) and decided to get off the ship rather than try to negotiate breakfast.

This was probably the best disembarkation I’ve had on NCL – certainly not the best of any line, but the queues kept moving and we were outside at the taxi stand in under 15 minutes. The taxis at PortMiami were not flowing well, and hampered by an argument the dispatcher was having with the driver at the front of the line. Two grown adults calling each other “stupid” while a line of people built up was less than ideal. Our taxi ride to the airport was also slightly terrifying, with our driver vastly exceeding the speed limit and changing lanes every time it might put us two seconds ahead of another car. The same sort of thing could have happened in an Uber, for sure, but there was definitely a sense of our own mortality as we exited at MIA.

American Airlines’ checkin did not offer a fully self-serve bag drop, but there wasn’t much of a wait to get our checked bag to an agent and into the system. We were still very early for our flight, but got through security and found our way over to a gate near the American Express Centurion lounge in concourse D. Exactly three hours before scheduled departure, we went up and were given access right away – but the place was still quite busy and people standing in line for food kept blocking hallways and were very close to the table we found. Still, the buffet selections and drinks were decent, which is not always the case in an airport.

Retrospective

There are several things to unpack about this vacation with Norwegian Cruise Line. The obvious theme, and one I’m sure we annoyed our friends with, is the immediate and constant comparison to our recent Princess experiences. We’ve sailed their current-gen and previous-generation ships multiple times in the past three years, so it’s natural to review NCL considering my recent memories.

In isolation, these sailings on Escape were perfectly enjoyable. I didn’t get incorrectly charged for anything onboard. All the promised perks operated as expected. I had nice dinners and drinks. I got to unwind from work by tearing through eleven or twelve novels on various fictional topics. I watched a few different theatrical and musical performances, and didn’t have to take the bus back from Toronto when they were done. None of my family got sick or injured. There weren’t any travel catastrophes. And it was truly an improved time over the Bliss sailing in 2023; I’m now convinced that even slightly weak and inconsistent service causes a very outsized, negative overall feeling.

But when you pay a certain amount of money for a vacation, and believe that there is a moderately better cruise available for a similar financial outlay, it makes everything just that little bit more dull. Medallion on Princess offers a unique convenience, versus a standard cruise card on NCL. Kids club has more sessions on Princess, versus Escape’s limited port day programming. Pools on Princess suited our family, NCL did not. Sure, NCL has specialty dining, but the main dining room, buffet, and International Cafe on Princess more than make up for it.

Apart from Princess I’ve sailed MSC, Carnival, and Celebrity. While all those cruises were under somewhat different circumstances than our more recent arrangements, NCL is a very close match to MSC’s standard cabin offerings, still beats Carnival, and might be slightly weaker than Edge-class on Celebrity. But with the typical dates, itineraries and bundles I select, Princess currently tends to stand out as having the things we like and not many we don’t at an acceptable price. Celebrity might be the closest positioned cruise product; they also appear to operate kids’ programming during the three standard slots even on port days. Based on our positive outcomes on Edge and Ascent, it might be worth another look (accounting for the price of the near-necessary premium drink package upgrade.)

As in 2023, we didn’t tie up any of our money in CruiseNext deposits for future Norwegian sailings, but I’m not coming off this trip with an unsettled feeling as I did after Bliss – like something I’d really enjoyed in the past might have been ruined, or even just devalued. Norwegian will still be in competition for my cruise dollar, and if I can get some positive information about Prima-class kids club operations, I’d love to try another family vacation on the new hardware.

What’s next?

Kayla and I won’t be away from Norwegian for long. Both of us will be taking separate trips later this year with friends and no kids along – she will be sailing Getaway shortly, and then a few weeks later I’ll be on Luna for a week of barely controlled debauchery. Child-free experiences will let us each appreciate the NCL product in a different way, at the very least with a more “freestyle” schedule. I will be very happy to sail a Prima Plus vessel, and especially what will be NCL’s newest ship at the time.

What is now our “usual” holiday trip is coming up as well at the end of this year, which will be on Sun Princess. We are also keeping our Star Princess booking next March, which was made with a non-refundable deposit (as a trade-off for a decent amount of onboard credit). Any future sailings will be refundable as I’ve saved at least $2000 from original sailing prices these past years, rebooking as fares drop. Things are a little fuzzier for the rest of 2027 and into 2028, but we’re still considering a few more Princess cruises and looking to sail on MSC before June 2029 to keep our status there.