NORWEGIAN ESCAPE

The Norwegian Escape carries 4,300 people and is essentially a floating city crowned with water slides and climbing ropes. It’s breathtakingly huge. And we were traveling on a completely full ship — no vacancies. We had never been on such a crowded cruise. It was like leaving a Ravens game throughout most of the ship, though after a few days we found the hidden nooks and crannies, like the library and the top deck — there were an astounding eighteen — and you had to walk up stairs to get there because there was no elevator, which definitely discouraged the piglets. But the overall vibe was pretty overwhelming. If we hadn’t had a mini-suite with a balcony we would have probably lost our minds. Our balcony became our quiet sanctuary to escape the Norwegian Escape.

If this had been my first cruise, it would have soured me from ever doing one again. Luckily, we knew the ropes and were able to keep the madness at bay, for the most part. The vast majority of our fellow passengers were there to party and they stayed up late, drinking, dancing, and gambling in the casino. So, we found that early mornings were the usually the best time to explore the ship — which truly was full of wonderful surprises. Sunrise was definitely our favorite time of the day.

But I would strongly recommend you book a smaller ship carrying, say, somewhere around 2,000 people — which is still a lot — whenever possible. Because bigger ain’t always better.

Just imagine 4,300 people trying to swim with only a tiny kiddie pool and an adult pool of the backyard variety. It was broiling hot during most of the cruise, but the thought of swimming in a sardine can pool filled with drunken fools, madly pissing away all day, made us cringe. Luckily, they had a refreshing rock grotto with dripping water on the fantail where we could get wet and cool down without fear of contracting some vile disease.

I guess that every paradise comes with its very own creepy crawlies. So, it’s always wise to be on your guard. Cruise ships have been dubbed “germ incubators”, and it can definitely be a crap shoot when you travel in close quarters with large numbers of the great unwashed.

“Washy! Washy” became our cruise mantra and the friendly ship staff met us at every door with hand sanitizer. They even had a young Asian fellow who roamed the ship with a big spray bottle of Lysol, gayly singing familiar songs by the Beatles and Elton John, but with lyrics about washing your hands.

And to make things even more interesting — in the Chinese curse sense of the word — the Covid-19 Coronavirus had recently started spreading fear and death out of China like a wildfire plague, infecting the world with a pandemic of unknown origin or cure. The Diamond Princess cruise ship had just been quarantined in Japan. Italy had experienced its first fatality. And all hell was breaking loose.

But as we departed Miami for our seven day dream cruise through the Western Caribbean, it was sunny, eighty degrees, a reggae band was playing, the boat drinks were flowing, and what could possibly go wrong?