Thanks for posting. We cruise on the Escape in 2.5 weeks. It's our first NCL too. After 1 Disney and many Carnival and a handful of Royal cruises. Curious to see how it compares.
We were so loyal to Carnival and were getting up there in the loyalty program but then felt they went too far downhill for us anymore. Last couple cruises were more disappointing than good.
So we started doing Royal and thought maybe they'd be our line of choice and....they too began to slip in quality, IMO.
So now we are venturing out. Doing NCL and have Virgin also booked. May try to do a Celebrity or HAL but we aren't quite HAL age yet.
I have to say I already have 2 stikes for NCL though things may be redeemable.
One thing was we had no clue the adults only outdoor area l, Vibe, was a pay you play and sells out online pretty fast. We didn't get it. And our cruise, being in March, is in spring break times so it should be a packed ship.
We heard we can try to rush on the ship and go to some desk or something and try to book it. But we go 11am boarding and heard others got as early as 9:30. So...prob won't get it.
The second thing. We booked an inside on black Friday for a great deal. The balcony was about $1k more, if I remember correctly. So I put in a upgrade bid for a balcony way back when, not long after booking. About a month ago, on a social media group, someone posted they got their balcony up bid for $150pp. We bid $300pp.
Then, about 12 days ago, I got an email saying they declined our bid due to no availability basically. But gave a counter offer of $60pp for an Oceanview. It had and accept offer button and I clicked on it. Then later got an email basically saying we had a new bid and would be dependant upon availability. As of today, we still have an inside cabin. Not sure why they called it a counter offer and had accept offer button. Maybe they just wait to assign us the OV last minute. I am hoping.
Though I do worry about the OV locations so may be a good thing to keep the inside. But a 7 day is a long time to be in an inside with no seeing outside. Especially with a hubby who likes to spend too much time in the cabin watching TV. If we could get Vibe then I could go there when he wants to sit in the room.
We also got 1 free dining plus bought the 2 dining package for 3 soecialty dining nights. Most was already booked in Nov. I could only get 9pm for Cagneys and couldn't get the fish place at all. Did get the French one and the Japanese steakhouse one. Will try to change Cagneys to earlier.
So we shall see. Excited to give it a go. We did manage to snag a resie at Choir of Man. Heard that show is going away end of March, I think. So it's nice to get to see that.