This was my seventh cruise and my fifth NCL cruise. We had a balcony room near the back of the boat on the 11th floor. The room was quiet and the room and balcony are exactly what I had expected of a newer large NCL or RCI ship,

I've always discounted reviews of others when they posted negative reviews of food. I'm not a particularly 'foodie' type person. I will clarify my thoughts by saying this is my first cruise post covid pandemic and so it's been four years since I was last on a cruise ship. The level of service in the main restaurants from pre-pandemic and post-pandemic was the biggest negative I experienced. Their was less variety of offerings, less emphasis of food presentation, less interaction by servers. Did I notice those things? I did, did it bother me...not too much. What I did notice was the quality of food was pretty disappointing. Nearing the end of the cruise my wife and I decided we simply preferred the buffet over the dinning rooms. We did have dinner one night at Food Republic and that was really enjoyable.

I am not a smoker and my wife is an ex-smoker. I bring this up because Escape has on open casino near the middle of deck 7 which has opening to deck 6 and deck 8. For me the smell of cigarette smoke changed from overwhelming to just always present throughout the 3 main decks. My wife felt similarly. Read more