irocet

This is very true. Our cruise on the Jewell in Dec 13 docked on the port side at every port, however our trip on the Epic two weeks ago docked on the starboard side at each port.

You will not get credit for your upcoming cruise until after you return, so you won't get silver benefits until after the cruise is complete. From my experience they usually update your account with 24 hours of completion of the cruise.

I don't think there is a place to see what you'll be credited with, but your cruise consultant through NCL can tell you, or you could probably contact the Latitudes department.

I don't think anything is for sure until it posts to your account. We had a question about how many points we would get on our last sailing and our cruise consultant was able to clarify and was correct in telling us what we'd get.

We have dove twice with Anthony's Key (both times through NCL). The first was in Apr 2007 and again in Dec 2013. I don't remember much from the 07 dive, but I don't recall any issues and we had a good DM and crew. The second time we did the dolphin dive and it was incredible. I highly recommend that dive if it's an option. I do remember them having everyone get in the water at their facility to check weighting and they made us do some really quick safety drills (flood the mask, etc). None of it was a big deal. I'm sure a lot can change in a year or so, but we've never had anything but good experiences with them.

We never saw either episode of Mighty Ships on the Epic. We also didn't see the Undercover Boss episode.

We were just on the Epic and they had Nickelodeon. Other than that it was a movie channel, a channel with a variety of current tv shows, 3-4 news channels and a couple of sports channels. I'm not sure how that compares to the other ships in the fleet.

Try this link.

https://drive.google.com/folder/d/0B_xYZj1Hn7cqMWF2RnNhNnNqNG8/edit

It doesn't look like they uploaded right on my end (very blurry). I'll try to figure out a way to upload a higher quality image.

Here is the front page of the Dailies from our trip. I haven't scanned them into the computer, so if you want other pages, let me know and I can upload those as well.

I'm not sure about the beach club access. I'll try to scan at least the daily activity list to send you.

One other thing I would recommend is bringing a surge protector. I had read on this board it was a good idea and it made charging things much easier. Our room (mini suite) only had one outlet (2 plugs). The surge protector allowed us to charge cameras, phones, etc all at the same time.

We just finished a cruise on the Epic Sunday and they were still reserving shows, but I have seen on here that may have stopped. Check your MyNCL account to see if you can book early. They only had 3 or 4 shows in the main theater throughout the week and Blue Man was definitely the most crowded. I have our Freestyle Dailies if you have any questions about when stuff occurred. I assume the schedule doesn't change too terribly much week to week. If you don't reserve shows, you can go to the box office before the show and about 10 minutes prior to the show starting they release tickets. I was not impressed with Second City (and many of the reviews I've seen are the same), but if you are willing to pay for it, the premium seats for Cirque Dreams and Dinner can't be beat. It was an amazing show and worth $10 extra to be close.

On a side note, the pool area is very crowded, but next to the outdoor buffet are 2 elevators that go to the 18th floor. They have an additional sun deck that is quiet and you can usually find chairs, some of which have nice cushions.

I'm not sure if it's done differently on the larger ships, but when we were on the Jewel in late 2013 we just spoke to the hostess once on board and had a standing reservation for 12 the whole week. We weren't limited to specific times either. You'll definitely want to make a reservation if you'll be eating during peak times as you could have a wait for a larger group.