Ten Days on the Norwegian Escape: Our First Caribbean Cruise

Long before I was planning cruises for other people, Cody and I booked one for ourselves: ten nights out of the Port of Miami on the Norwegian Escape, the ship you see in the photo above with the Guy Harvey sailfish painted across her bow. We drove down from Colorado, parked the car for the week, and walked onto a ship carrying almost 4,700 passengers not really knowing what we were doing. This is the trip that made me a cruise person - and everything I now tell clients about their first cruise traces back to something I got wrong on this one.

Embarkation day is not a day to plan around

We showed up at the terminal early, assuming "early" meant "efficient." It meant standing in a line that didn't move for an hour before the ship even started boarding. Lesson learned: check-in windows exist for a reason, and the real move is a late lunch near the port, then walking on when your window opens and the crowds have thinned. Once we were on, though, it clicked immediately - seventeen decks, a full-size go-kart track up top, and our cabin steward already knew our names by dinner.

The itinerary: a mix of islands and sea days

Ten nights gave us a longer run than the standard 7-night Caribbean loop, with stops at Great Stirrup Cay (the cruise line's own private island in the Bahamas), Roatan in Honduras, Costa Maya and Cozumel in Mexico, and a call at Harvest Caye in Belize, with sea days woven in between. The private-island day was the surprise favorite - no port town to navigate, no excursion to book, just a stretch of beach that belonged to the ship for the day. Cozumel was the opposite: we caught a cab to a beach club south of town instead of fighting the cruise-ship crowds right off the pier, and it was worth every peso.

What I'd actually pack differently

We overpacked for the ship and underpacked for the ports. You need almost nothing for sea days - the ship provides towels, chairs, and more food than any one person should eat - but a real day bag matters for excursions: reef shoes for Roatan, cash in small bills for Costa Maya, and a dry bag if you're tendering ashore anywhere. The tender rides themselves, like the one in that photo, are half the fun once you stop worrying about your camera getting splashed.

Why I plan cruises for clients now

What stuck with me wasn't the ship, honestly - it was how much of the trip's value depended on decisions we made with zero information: which excursions were worth booking through the cruise line versus independently, which port days to spend on the ship instead, which cabin category actually mattered. That's the job now. If you're weighing your first cruise, I've written up exactly how I plan them, flat fee and all.