Cruising The Caribbean - Norwegian Escape

Over the rest of December, 2017, after our return from the river cruising my husband (the travel agent of the family) had planned two cruises in the Caribbean. The first left from Miami, the Norwegian Escape. This was only our second time to cruise with Norwegian. We had taken a short cruise a couple of years earlier on the Norwegian Sun and enjoyed it so we thought we would give Norwegian another try.

The Escape was newer and larger than the Sun holding over 4200 passengers plus crew. Embarkation was a bit hectic but always expected. There are few times when you board for a cruise that there isn't a wait or crowds or lines. Because we were so close to the holidays, there were more kids than usual which always adds to the energy and noise level but certainly makes the cruise more entertaining. (If you want a cruise with no kids, chose a time that is not near school vacations, that is a longer duration and farther away than the Caribbean or Mexican Riviera.)

What followed our boarding though did not get us off to a good start. As expected, our rooms would not be ready until afternoon. That is normal procedure for most ships. Usually we would head to a place to eat lunch--preferably the hamburger place or a pizza stop on the ship, out of the busy bustling buffet. Before doing that though, we though it would be a good idea to get our reservations in at the specialty restaurants. That's where the chaos began.

Lines were long and crowded into a small space. We managed to finally get a dining package that gave us three specialty restaurants (there were at least eight to choose from) and find reasonable times to schedule our dinners.

Always looking for a bigger TV.

Seeing the chaos at the dinner reservations line, we thought we'd better check out the spa quickly. Bob likes the thermo packages that many ships offer and often there is a limited number. We did the required tour and asked about the package. It was quite pricey and he decided to pass for this one week voyage.

Lunch--finally. But we had to eat in the buffet as we didn't find a quiet place anywhere else. I would soon learn that a quiet place was an oxymoron on this ship.

Ah, but the announcement came that our rooms were ready. Anxious to get rid of the backpacks we were carrying, we headed for our room. I had already given myself a pep talk about the room. After the upgrade to a suite on the riverboat, I knew this was not going to be as luxurious as that. What followed after we opened our stateroom door though was thoroughly not expected.