I Wanted to Love Epic but Didn't

[dlynn0366]

I wonder what NCL's liability is if someone gets injured in the pool? I guess they will just wait for that to happen and then have a person in charge of the pools? I don't get it. They have a guy on each slide. I can't imagine it would be much more money to invest in a 4th guy to stand between the two pools and enforce some basic rules. Like I said, crowded and splashing is one thing (annoying and chaotic but not dangerous) but there were kids jumping from one bench to another (wet, tile benches) and then into the pool where there is a "lip" that takes you from a few inches of water to the deeper 4 ft deep pool. Since it was cloudy, I sometimes had a hard time seeing where the few inch lip ended and the deeper pool began at times and I was really scared some kid was going to break their neck. There was also lots of diving which terrified me.

 

Conandrob, this is the sad part, like you these were not my children but we were doing the worrying :confused: about someone getting hurt. With me it was not their jumping in the pool that bothered me (as a kid I'd be pretty bored in the Haven Courtyard pool) it was the fact they were doing it from the hot tub railing and the huge potential for a serious fall. Also the staff when they told them to stop as this was clearly not allowed but they persisted I'm not sure why they didn't locate their parents :confused: I have an inground pool & even though I've no children I'm more than happy to have friends bring their kids but I have rules...you don't follow them you take your kids & hit the road :D

[che5904]

Conandrob, this is the sad part, like you these were not my children but we were doing the worrying :confused: about someone getting hurt. With me it was not their jumping in the pool that bothered me (as a kid I'd be pretty bored in the Haven Courtyard pool) it was the fact they were doing it from the hot tub railing and the huge potential for a serious fall. Also the staff when they told them to stop as this was clearly not allowed but they persisted I'm not sure why they didn't locate their parents :confused: I have an inground pool & even though I've no children I'm more than happy to have friends bring their kids but I have rules...you don't follow them you take your kids & hit the road :D

 

In the case of the OP, the OP did not see these children being told to stop. On the other side of that coin, I doubt the OP could say with certainty, unless they were staring at all of these children at all times, that staff did not try at one point to stop the jumping. In your case the staff did tell them. Let's assume that NCL had found these parents, then what. Obviously the parents of the children were not attentive enough to know and/or care what these children were doing. So if NCL found the parents and the parents did nothing, again then what. The only recourse NCL has, that I could see, would be to threaten if they didn't settle their children down, that they would be asked to leave the ship at the next port. I can see the headlines now "NCL kicked family off ship because their children were playing". News feeds on negative swing to whatever story they print. Do you really think NCL would get the fair side of that news article. There will always be dumb parents who allow their children to do dumb dangerous things. Unfortunately thats the way life is.

[conandrob240]

Yes, it is true, at no point did I see anyone from NCL attempt to tell the children to stop jumping or diving. Of course, I cannot be certain that no one told them to stop but I will say we spent significant amount of time sitting right near the pools- hours each and every day. This is part of my gripe with NCL- no one attempted to enforce the diaper-age children policy or the pool safety policy (which is clearly posted right on the wall- "no jumping or diving")

[che5904]

Yes, it is true, at no point did I see anyone from NCL attempt to tell the children to stop jumping or diving. Of course, I cannot be certain that no one told them to stop but I will say we spent significant amount of time sitting right near the pools- hours each and every day. This is part of my gripe with NCL- no one attempted to enforce the diaper-age children policy or the pool safety policy (which is clearly posted right on the wall- "no jumping or diving")

 

Yes I do understand what you are saying conandrob and chances are no one did enforce the policy of jumping or babies in the pool.

 

But my point to that post was that if they did or didn't tell them, they really don't have a lot of recourse to follow through. Tell the kids to stop jumping in, kids still jump in. Tell parent to remove their babies, parents take them right back in. Then what?

 

One quick look at these boards and the amount of adults that set out to break policies should tell everyone there are a lot of people that do not respect a company's right to make policies and totally disregard them knowing full well that for most of the policies there isn't a lot of recourse.

[conandrob240]

Sorry, I disagree. There was a guy manning the slide- he handed out tubes, told people how to carry them up the stairs and then another guy that told you when to head down- the slide worked seamlessly without any dangerous behavior happening. The same could have been done at the pools. No, everyone wouldn't have listened but it would have definitely cut down the dnagerous behavior.

[che5904]

Sorry, I disagree. There was a guy manning the slide- he handed out tubes, told people how to carry them up the stairs and then another guy that told you when to head down- the slide worked seamlessly without any dangerous behavior happening. The same could have been done at the pools. No, everyone wouldn't have listened but it would have definitely cut down the dnagerous behavior.

 

But the guy at the slide had recourse, if they didn't listen to him, he could just refuse to give them a tube. If these people had any respect for authority (in this case NCL) or their rules in the first place, what makes you think they would pay any attention to someone telling them, what was as you said "clearly marked"

 

So you didn't answer my question. What recourse for this type of thing does NCL have if they don't listen.

[conandrob240]

Okay, then use the example of the tubeless slide. The recourse is the same- tell them they can't use the slide anymore or tell them they can't use the pool anymore.

 

This isn't exactly rocket science. There are pools all over the world. The recourse is the same as at any one of these pools. If people don't follow the rules, they are asked to leave the pool. If a person was dedicated to lifeguarding the pools, he could tell people to get out if they didn't follow what he told them and then enforce it.

 

 

I am not sure what or why you are debating? What exactly is your point?

[che5904]

I am not sure what or why you are debating? What exactly is your point?

 

Actually if you look at my first post I was responding to what DLynn had posted, then after that I was just answering your posts that appeared to be directed at me.

 

I was just having a conversation, that is one of the reasons for CC is it not. Or is it just for someone to have a conversation with themselves or only those who agree with their point.

[conandrob240]

If that is your idea of conversation, I am glad I don't know you IRL. You are actually just being argumentative for no apparent reason. Or do you actually believe that no one at NCL should have made an attempt to enforce the pool policies?

[thebooler]

In the case of the OP, the OP did not see these children being told to stop. On the other side of that coin, I doubt the OP could say with certainty, unless they were staring at all of these children at all times, that staff did not try at one point to stop the jumping. In your case the staff did tell them. Let's assume that NCL had found these parents, then what. Obviously the parents of the children were not attentive enough to know and/or care what these children were doing. So if NCL found the parents and the parents did nothing, again then what. The only recourse NCL has, that I could see, would be to threaten if they didn't settle their children down, that they would be asked to leave the ship at the next port. I can see the headlines now "NCL kicked family off ship because their children were playing". News feeds on negative swing to whatever story they print. Do you really think NCL would get the fair side of that news article. There will always be dumb parents who allow their children to do dumb dangerous things. Unfortunately thats the way life is.

 

I disagree with the last part of your post. That's the way life is if the people in charge allow it to be. There's no point even having rules if nobody is going to enforce them. Especially if it means a potentially serious accident is just around the corner.

[che5904]

I disagree with the last part of your post. That's the way life is if the people in charge allow it to be.

 

I have no intention of getting into this again, if you are interested in my view read the previous posts.

 

I will correct one thing that you are apparently disagreeing with. So you may want to make sure you are actually disagreeing with me. I said "There will always be dumb parents who allow their children to do dumb dangerous things. Unfortunately thats the way life is." The last sentence was in reference to the sentence right before it "dumb parents allowing children to do dumb dangerous things". How anyone could disagree with that is beyond me.

[halos]

.;) I think some of the reactions were pretty strong given the review which I think was pretty fair and balanced.

 

.

 

LOL...You have NO idea how 'mild' they really are. Try going on the RCI or CCL boards with the slightest negative comment.... :eek:

It's a bloodbath I tell you!!

;)

These comments here, are pretty civilized for a message board.

 

Pools were pretty cloudy when we were on in April - attributed to all the little kids that were in the pool. When we wanted to cool off, we went on a slide. You couldn't pay me to get in that pool water! On the days when we were out there very early, the pool was definitely clean. No doubt it was the kids in the water making it that cloudy.

 

Cloudy pool water usually always equates to sunblock...and kids are usually pretty globbed up with it, however you might see the same thing with a pool full of fair skinned adults ;)

[ontheweb]

Writing this while it is still fairly fresh in my mind. All will be here in one post- not a fan of the multi- post reviews but happy to respond to any and all questions and I may post some pics later. I'll also do a separate review of the ports.

 

We sailed on Epic from Barcelona on August 19. Myself and husband (40 yrs old) and our 13 yr old nephew. All have sailed Disney before. Husband and I did Mexico cruise on Princess yrs ago and I did Alaska on Princess with my parents and more recently NCL Jade to Egypt, Turkey, Greece also with my parents. I like cruising but don't love it, husband is lukewarm about it and nephew adores any kind of travel. We did a week on land visiting Paris, Girona and Barcelona Spain. Then the Epic cruise.

 

Overall exterior impressions: As we pulled up to the pier and saw her for the first time. I thought- that is one HUGE, ugly ship. Not very appealing from the outside but size is very impressive.

 

Embarkation: we arrived around 11:00am. This seemed very crowded and disorganized. Small area for check- in. Not the huge, soaring terminal buildings I am used to. Nowhere to sit. Even though it seemed crowded, we were checked in almost right away (maybe a 5 min wait). Check- in was very easy. I was a wreck worrying over the paperwork for my nephew whose father has sole custody. Shouldn't have spent even one second worrying- they looked at and asked for nothing other than his passport! After check- in, there are some duty free liquor shops before you board. We bought a bottle of vodka, baileys and 2 bottles of wine which we placed in our hand luggage. No one checked the hand luggage after the initial security check before you get to the check- in lines. They started calling numbers about 5 minutes after we checked in. We had #5 and it was about a 30 minute wait until we were called to board.

 

Initial Impressions: while very nicely designed, no " wow" factor. I missed the soaring multi- story atrium and "wow" of Disney's ships. But, I think the Epic was very tastefully designed with great colors, fabrics and furniture throughout.

 

Pool/ Slides: Upon boarding, we went right to the pool deck in the hopes of checking out the slides before they got crowded. But we found the slides to be closed until after the lifeboat drill due to some maintenance/ cleaning work. Disappointing. Pool area was nice, plenty of chairs, pool itself was nice but seemed really small ( only to seem much, much smaller as the week wore on) and even though we had just embarked and were among the first in the pool, it was dirty and the water was almost hot. They had most of the "water features" around the pools off and they would remain off ( or they'd have one per day on) for most of the cruise. On all days except the last two, the water in the pool was so dirty you couldn't see your feet. In addition, it was so overcrowded, it was unbearable on many days especially sea day and Marseilles day but even on the other days, it was really crowded. Lots of infants in the pool, clearly not potty trained many without even swim diapers on ( and a few completely naked). No one enforced the no babies in the pool rule. Kids in the pool were mostly out of control with jumping, splashing and playing. No one said a word to them even when the jumping was clearly dangerous ( for example, jumping from first water bench to next and then into pool- I thought someone was going to smash their head open). Needless to say, the pool was never refreshing or relaxing but we did have a chance to enjoy it for an hour or two if we arrived when it opened or later in the evening. However, pool & slide hours were limited. Most days hours were 10am- 7pm which seemed a little short to me. Chairs weren't an issue and always seemed to be available even long after noon.

 

Slides were really fun especially the toilet bowl slide but the lines for that slide were always at least 30 minutes long. I got to ride it at 9am sea day opening a few times when it was empty but other than that, always a line. Lines for the other slides ranged from 5-15 minutes wait. The green slide was very fast and really fun. We visited the adult pool a few times and it was much more relaxing over there. However, that pool was horrible. Deep, steep ladders, teeny square box of a pool. Disney surely has NCL beat in the adult pool area.

 

Room: we had a balcony cabin which was ready at 12:30pm. I really liked the room layout. Balcony was nice and roomy, lots of good storage space, very modern design. I liked the sink area outside the bathroom and I actually found the shower/ toilet space to be fine even for the three of us. Beds were comfy and our room steward was awesome. If the room had been about 2 ft wider, I think it would have been perfect.

 

Food: mixed bag here. Buffet was actually very good- best on any ship i have ever been on. But While the buffet was very good, it seemed they wanted to push everyone to eat there for breakfast and lunch. An alternate dining option (Taste) was only available one day (sea day) for lunch and Taste had very limited breakfast availability- 8am until 9:30 am. I am not a huge fan of buffets and would have preferred a nice sit- down option for lunch and breakfast. And the buffet is where the ship volume really showed up- it always felt claustrophobically crowded in the buffet.

 

The main dining rooms were fair. We sometimes had a good meal and sometimes had a bad meal- nothing was ever more than good.

 

Moderno and Cagneys were excellent. Le Bistro was good but, IMO, not much better than the main dining rooms. We didn't feel our meal,there was worth it. Service was excellent in speciality restaurants, decent elsewhere. No one was rude but no one gave exceptionally good service either. English was sometimes an issue.

 

The pub was okay. Decent pub fare but horrible burgers.

 

Bars: with the VAT and gratuity added in, I thought the drink prices were absolutely insane. The drinks you got for the price weren't even very good. If I pay $12-13 for a drink, I expect it to be hand- crafted, top shelf and amazing. None were. They were just okay. Never any drink specials anywhere either. We were happy to have what we brought and just drink our own.

 

Entertainment: overall, good. We all loved BMG. The Spanish Ballet and Los Locos were also excellent. Not sure what all the fuss over Howl at the Moon is all about- we didn't really think they were very good. There was a guitarist and piano player some evenings who were very good. Charlie Love was the main attraction in the jazz club and he and band were also very good. There was a duo- Twice as Nice- which we both thought were terrible and they seemed to be everywhere! DJ was good. Spanish duo performed by the pool were also very good. Legends wasn't very good. I thought the Elvis guy was laughably bad and the other two seemed adequate singers/ performers but not really great impersonators. Bingo sucked- ridiculously low payouts.

 

I felt the big screen was very underutilized with 1 or 2 movies a day and 1 HR of Wii and the rest of the time weird travel scenes flashing on it. I found the Headliners club to be a horrible venue in terms of seating- a bunch of bar stools all lined up in a row. Line of sight with the columns in there made seating terrible. The Fatcats jazz club also had terrible seating with the rows of high backed chairs. Why was it set up like that? Why not have comfy couches and intimate seating like you are supposed to have in a jazz club?

 

Charging for things like darts and pool was silly and really turned me off.

 

I was often bored and wished they had more activities going on during the day. The schedule was filled with spa demonstrations and assessments, overpriced Bingo but little else.

 

I am a fan of casinos and indulged a little on Epic but not as much as I planned to. Payouts were terrible and the choice of slots was pretty limited. On the plus side, I have no idea what the whole " smoke" fuss is all about. I found nowhere in the casino to be very smokey.

 

Teen Club: 13 yr old nephew LOVED this club. He met some amazing kid's from all over the world. He was dying to get in there at opening every day and wanted to do every activity which he described as " awesome" and much better than Disney's teen program. He did the activities until midnight or 1 am each night and had the time of his life.

 

Overall: we enjoyed the cruise and had a great time. Too many disappointments to say I loved the Epic but I definitely liked it. But it was a mixed bag. It always seemed just very, very crowded. Itinerary was excellent. Food was so- so. Design features were mixed- some great, some not so great. Teen program gets high marks.

 

We were on the same cruise, and I have to say I agree with your review probably around 90%.

 

We found embarkation somewhat more confusing. They would make announcements as to what number group could now embark, but the announcements were muffled. I'd ask an NCL staff member what was said and either get told to listen to the announcements or they could not make them out either.

 

I was disappointed that Slam Allen was on vacation and not playing in the Fat Cats. At our meet and greet I was told by Manatee Mike. who had gone to Fat Cats the night before. that the performer was not nearly as good as Slam Allen who he had previously seen on the Epic. OTOH, if Slam was there I would never have discovered the Spanish guitar player playing at Maltings bar. (Someone there told me that the guitar player at Fat Cats was"good, but nothing special".)

 

My wife swam many short laps in the pool early (about 7 AM in the morning). It was still clean then; I do not know about later. Definetely later the very small pools, especially considering the size of the ship, were overrun with children. Actually, on our only other crusie with NCL, not only were the kids jumping in the pool violating the rules, but they were doing so while being watched by the camp consellors.

 

We found the food fine, but we are definetly not foodies, or any sort of gourmets. We ate at Manhattan,Taste, O'Sheehans. and the Spiegel tent for the cirque show.

 

The very first night in Manhattan when asked, we said we'd eat with people. After waiting a while with no one added to our table for four, we gave up and told the waiter to convert it to a table for two. the only time we ever had table mates was the Cirque dinner and show. We were on our third night, but our table mates, having boarded in Rome, were on their last night. They were very talkative. My wife later commented to me that she had a feeling they had been on the ship for a week, and never had anyone until that night to talk to at dinner. I prefer anytime on HAL and Princess in which you can request and get a table for two or have a larger table and meet people.

 

We also loved Blue Man and Cirque. We very much enjoyed the Spanish guitar player at Maltings. We caught a Motown review in the Manhattan dining room one night that was very good. We were early, but stretched out dinner by lingereing over our herb teas and ordering an extra dessert.

 

Trivia was fun, but the prizes, even for a cruise ship, were really lame.

 

I agree that the big screens were not at all used to any advantage.

 

Another diappointment to us was that the one excursion that we really wanted (and was different than found on other ships To Arles and a seaside village where you could swim {or shop}) was cancelled because it did not sell the minimum number they needed. That they could put this on our credit card pre-cruise, and then cancel it on us 2 nights prior to the port, still pisses me off. We did get a more expensive tour at a discount (we actually saved about 2 cents I think ), but only after complaining and demanding to see the person in charge.

 

Overall, I have to agree wholeheartedly with your first statement. We enjoyed it, but there were too may disappointments to rate this as one of our top cruises.

[Luckybee]

What DOS are you in? I'm booked in 17033 :)

 

We're booked in 17004 !

 

Btw we're also Canadians in Southern Ontario but I know Ottawa pretty well. Both dh and I attended school there way back when. Beautiful city except in the winter ;)

[thebooler]

I have no intention of getting into this again, if you are interested in my view read the previous posts.

 

I will correct one thing that you are apparently disagreeing with. So you may want to make sure you are actually disagreeing with me. I said "There will always be dumb parents who allow their children to do dumb dangerous things. Unfortunately thats the way life is." The last sentence was in reference to the sentence right before it "dumb parents allowing children to do dumb dangerous things". How anyone could disagree with that is beyond me.

Then NCL should take the matter up with the "dumb parents" and avert a possible serious accident.

 

No matter how you look at it, or how you turn the words, it should have been dealt with, whether the parents were dumb or not.

[VillaHappy]

Yes, I like cruising but don't love it. My husband doesn't like cruising and this cruise did nothing to change that. Again, he had a good time, but the crowds were too much for him. We frequent AI resorts in the Caribbean, mostly Jamaica and I will say that I definitely prefer hat type of vacation- much more relaxing. but there are times when we want a very active itinerary and since it was my nephew's special trip & first to Europe, we wanted him to get a little taste of everything.

 

I am biased towards Disney not because I think DCL is THAT much better but because I am a huge Disney- freak so that also needs to be taken into consideration.

 

I think you are a wonderful aunt! And I enjoyed your review as the Epic is on our short list of possibilities to try in 2014.

[dlynn0366]

We're booked in 17004 !

 

Btw we're also Canadians in Southern Ontario but I know Ottawa pretty well. Both dh and I attended school there way back when. Beautiful city except in the winter ;)

 

I'm sure you have seen this but if not here is a video link for your DOS