NCL Epic 9-29-13 Trip Review

[aceacebaiby]

***I will try and make this in chronological order as best I can but the trip was such a blur and we've been back for a couple of weeks now, so I may do sections for some things (entertainment, restaurants, etc). :)

 

Let me start by saying that me and my husband have never cruised prior to this so we have nothing to compare it to. We're pretty laid back and go-with-the-flow type people but reading some of the reviews had me a little worried. That being said, we had the BEST time! We were also on our honeymoon so maybe we were still in that newlywed phase ;)

 

9-28-13 - Pre-cruise in Barcelona

We booked our trip through a travel agent, who booked everything through NCL (hotel and transportation included). We stayed at Hotel Montblanc and while the room was a little outdated (we even stayed in 2 twin beds pushed together...how romantic for a honeymoon! lol), it was so close to everything (walking distance to Las Ramblas, Gothic Quarter, restaurants, etc) that we ended up loving it. Beware of the shower though; it's a tight fit and quite slippery. DH ended up taking a pretty nasty spill in it.

 

We arrived to the hotel at about 9am and this is when I really started to wish we would have booked the room for the previous night as well because at this point we had been up for about 24hrs (there was NO sleeping on the airplane for me!) and the room wasn't supposed to be ready until 3pm. They did hold our luggage for us though until the room was ready so we decided to do some walking around. We happened upon Las Ramblas and walked it pretty much to the end. We went to the market with lots of fresh fruit, fish, meats, etc. There were a lot of yummy looking restaurants that we would have liked to try had we been hungry and more awake. We tried to kill as much time as we could, but decided to walk back to the hotel around 11:30am. We found some couches tucked away by the restaurant/bar and ended up crashing for a couple of hours (man was I OUT!). At 1:30pm, we went to check on our room and luckily it was available.

 

We grabbed our luggage, headed to the room, and slept til about 8pm. After waking up, we decided to freshen up and grab a bite to eat. I was afraid that things would begin winding down soon, but was pleasantly surprised that the city was full of hustle and bustle! Being that we were in Spain, we wanted to find a tapas restaurant. We asked the front desk and she gave us both a card for a glass of free champagne at Taller de Tapas (which was just around the corner from the hotel). It was EXCELLENT! Small but lively and the food was awesome! Highly recommend it. After that, we walked to the Gaudi Cathedral and Arc de Triomphe (both were close by). After getting lost in all the tiny little alleyways, we headed back to the hotel for the rest of the night.

 

The next morning, we awoke and had breakfast at the hotel restaurant. It was decent but nothing spectacular. Sliced meats, danishes/rolls, juice, etc. After that, we headed to the lobby and waited for our bus. After loading up, we were on our way to our cruise!!!

[aceacebaiby]

9-29-13 - First day on the ship!

 

After we made our way off of the bus, we headed to the terminal. The process was *mostly* smooth. There were different check-in lines (preferred members, cash-only, etc...much like boarding an airplane). There was a lady near the front telling us to go down to the end, but that sign said something about preferred members. We went back to the sign that was for normal check-in and she got stern with us, so we turned around and went back to the other end and got checked-in just fine (I guess the signs are there for nothing??). The process was very simple and quick. We were handed our boarding number and managed to find a couple of seats to wait in (definitely not enough seats for as many people that were there). We probably waited for less than hour and then our number was finally called!

 

When we boarded, we walked around a bit to get acclimated. After probably half an hour of exploring we decided to grab a bite to eat in the Garden Cafe (review later) while we waited for our room. In the middle of eating, the announcement was made that all the rooms were ready. We finished up and went to find our room.

 

Our cabin was 10073 (a balcony room, which I am so glad we decided to upgrade to because there's nothing like the views we got to witness). I had read A LOT of negative reviews about the rooms, especially the bathroom situation, so I wasn't expecting a lot. But it was just perfect for us! Yes, it was a little small when walking by each other, but the storage was awesome. We had 4 pieces of large luggage between the 2 of us and we managed to store everything up and out of the way. Yes the bathrooms have glass walls, but they weren't clear enough to actually manage to see anything. As a married couple, it wasn't an issue at all. Even if it would have been, there is a curtain that you can close off to the rest of the room. We never had any issues with the sink either. Even at full blast it never splashed onto the counter/bed. The only real negative drawback that we found about the room was the size of the bed. We're both tall people (I'm 5'9 and DH is 6'3) and our feet hung over the edge. In all honesty though, we're quite used to this in general so it wasn't even a huge thing. Also, the bed was 2 beds pushed together (which again, how romantic for a honeymoon! lol) but the sheets provided enough padding that it wasn't too terribly noticeable. Other than that, we liked the room!

 

After checking out the room, we decided to lay out in the sun for a bit at Spice H2O. Again, after reading reviews, I wasn't sure if we would even be able to find a chair. But there were plenty. We ordered a drink and spent the next hour or so there until the Muster Drill (which was pretty quick and painless). Later that night, we ate at Taste for dinner which was pretty good. Then we ended our night with Blue Man Group which was AWESOME! (both reviews later)

 

9-30-13 - Sea Day

Don't remember much of what we did that day except lounge around and eat :-)

[caribophile]

You've got my attention! We'll be on the Epic in December. Anxious to hear more....

[aceacebaiby]

***In this post I'll review the restaurants we ate at on the ship and in the next post I'll review the entertainment.

 

Free Dining Options:

 

- Garden Cafe (Buffet) - We ate here for breakfast and the occassional lunch but never for dinner. Food was good for being a buffet. It reminded me of a typical Vegas buffet though. They serve a lot of people so of course its not going to be gourmet (I sense through the reviews that people expect gourmet) but the food was always fresh and hot (or cold if it was supposed to be). The waffles with banana compote was my favorite for breakfast! This place was ALWAYS busy though. My one bit of advice would be to grab your plate of food and head downstairs to La Cucina (of course not during dinner hours tho). I don't think people realize that they have that area open during breakfast/lunch as its so much calmer down there and I was always able to find a table by the window.

 

- Taste (one of the 2 MDRs) - more "modern" and casual than Manhattan. We ate here 2-3 times. Food was good. The only thing that I really stood out to me was when I ordered the Lobster/Steak on embarkation night...the steak was a bit too tough for my liking. But other than that our food was great and service was too.

 

- Manhattan (MDR) - we ate here once for dinner. This was the only time during the entire cruise that the restaurant was PACKED (besides the buffet). I think the night we chose to eat here was the night we went fairly late, so I imagine thats why (otherwise we ate around 7:30pm every other night and never had a wait...the restaurants always seemed empty around this time). Before we were sat, the hostess gave us the option of waiting for a table or sharing a table. We were starving so we opted for the latter. I envisioned a larger table with several couples seated there, but it was a 4-top with just us and another couple. It wasn't bad persay, the couple we were seated with were nice but we aren't the most social people so I'm not sure I would choose that option again. Food and service were just as good as Taste though. They did have a band playing and a dancefloor, but we were seated too far back to really hear/see anything.

 

- O'Sheehans - Our only real bad experience on the ship. We ate here twice to fufill our late night munchies (after our nightcaps at Bliss lol). I ate wings both times and they were good (minus the 1 tiny sliver of celery I got the second time...what can I say, I love celery with my wings!). Our service was HORRIBLE the second time though (the night before disembarkation). Had that been our first experience, we wouldnt' have been back. We were seated at the bar in front of the bowling alley. We waited for almost 15 minutes to even be greeted. I thought maybe because people don't usually eat there (and because we both had our drinks with us that we brought with us from Bliss) that maybe they thought were just observing the bowling but THEY seated us there, we didn't just plop ourselves down there. After looking around for a server, a manager finally came over and gave us menus. 5+ minutes later we STILL have yet to be greeted by a server...so again I start looking around when we see the manager telling a server to go greet us. He takes our order (no apologies) and fortunately our food is out to us in about 5 minutes. We eat and never see our server again (:confused:)

 

- Outdoor Buffet ("midnight" snacks) - Decent for some late night munchies. Nothing like eating nachos and drinking hot tea because you're freezing your butt off outside at night :eek:

 

- Room service - We only chose to order room service once and it was for breakfast the day we were in Rome - we knew we'd be short on time because it was such an early/long day and we're not morning people lol. There's not a lot of variety, but it did the trick and came pretty much on time. They even gave us a call about 5 minutes before it arrived to let us know it was on its way.

 

Specialty Restaurants:

 

- Cagney's Steakhouse - my favorite of the 3 we chose to dine at. I ordered the filet mignon and it was perfect! If you're a carnivore like we are, I'd recommend this place.

 

- La Cucina - very good! Nothing that stood out enough to comment on, but great food and service.

 

- Le Bistro - It was good, but if you don't like fancy, I don't recommend this place. It was just a tad bit too fancy for me. As a side note, we had a card when we first arrived to our cabin that was in celebration of our Honeymoon. We were able to bring it to any restaurant of our choosing to receive our "special treat". We chose Le Bistro to "celebrate". I was kind of hoping for a free glass of wine, but instead they sang to us (I've never seen my DH with a more red face! lol) and gave us the BIGGEST slice of cake I've ever seen in my life (on top of a 3-course meal, including dessert!). Our servers were very good though.

 

- Noodle Bar (a la carte) - DH was not interested in going here at all, so one night we chose to go our separate ways so I could try it out :-) The restaurant (it shares a space with the Chinese restaurant) was nearly empty when I ate here. I ordered the dumplings and Shanghai street noodles. Both were delicious. Service was a bit of a dissappointment though. My noodles were spicy and I only ever got a refill on my water right as I was about to leave. My glass sat empty for far too long (for there not being hardly any other guests there). Oh well. It was still tasty!

 

We also ate dinner at the Cirque Show, but I'll save that review for the next post! All in all, the food was great. I know some people are annoyed that you have to pay an extra price to eat at some of the restaurants, but IMO they were worth it!

[soccersharon]

Thanks so much for your thoughts :) We board the Epic in less than a month.

 

Sent from my GT-S5830D using Forums mobile app

[mj]

Great review. Keep it coming.

[SuzanneH]

Yay!!! A new Epic review :0). Thank you for taking the time to write this!!

[aceacebaiby]

Happy to help! I know that before we set sail I was stalking these boards like crazy looking for any new information!

[aceacebaiby]

Entertainment:

 

Blue Man Group - I wasn't SUPER interested in seeing this but DH really wanted to so we made reservations for the first night (and heck, it's free so why not?). I had never seen a show before and in my mind I pictured a bunch of blue guys banging on unconventional drums the whole time. My expectations were low but I actually ended up LOVING it! It had humor, a story, audience involvment (the ending was my favorite) and of course awesome music. Be forwarned though, if you're not into quirkyness and weirdness, it might not be for you. But like I said earlier, its free, so why not give it a chance? Two thumbs up from us!

 

Cirque du Soleil - Me and DH are huge Cirque fans (we've seen about 7-8 different shows including 3 in Vegas) so we were really looking forward to this. It's the smallest Cirque venue we've been to but they do a great job given the lack of space. We didn't "splurge" on premium seats. Really, no matter where you sit, you'll miss something. Another warning, you *MAY* get called up to participate on stage (this "keeps-to-herself-and-hates-any-kind-of-attention" girl got called up to shake a cowbell in front of everybody). The dinner is not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. The "coconut" shrimp is lacking on coconut flavor, but beyond that I really don't even remember what we had. So it couldn't have been TOO bad! Again, two thumbs up!

 

Legends in Concert - Wasn't my favorite. Don't get me wrong, the impersonators can sing, but it was a tad too cheesy for me. Again though, its free so why not check it out? If anything, it got us out from our room for a bit.

 

Martini Tasting - There are several tastings on the cruise (wine, beer, and margarita) and we chose to try out this one. We got a total of 4 martinis to try (classic, cosmo, peach, and espresso) for $15. These were the strongest martinis I've ever had (and the first time I realized that NCL Epic mixed drinks are STRONG!). If you're looking for a STRONG drink (and LOVE the taste of vodka) this one is for you. Unfortunately, me and straight vodka don't mix very well, so I didn't even finish any of my drinks. But our bartender was entertaining so at least we had fun :-) Next time though, I'll try for the wine and beer.

 

Bliss Ultra Lounge - We went here twice for our "nightcaps". During this time they had trivia and then karaoke going on (separately from each other). Again, we're starting to realize that NCL Epic mixed drinks are STRONG! Mojito, Pina Colada, Rum&Coke...all strong! Both the trivia and karaoke were lacking in audience participation and the "host" tries so hard to get people involved (bless their hearts). But Bliss was never really packed so thats why we chose to drink there.

 

BINGO - We decided to try Bingo out one day on a whim. We asked for prices before we went in to grab a seat, but they told us to just have a seat and they'd go over all the info. Holy crap...we paid $60 for ONE game (3 cards for each of us)! We're used to $10 for 3 cards and 10 games back home. We were already seated though and excited to play so we pony'd up. Lucky for us, DH ended up winning and got us just over $300 (which was almost enough to pay off our room charges). So for US it was worth it, but I probably wouldn't pay that much to play 1 game again.

 

Next up I'll review our shore excursions and ports!

[Sparkles87]

looking forward to hearing more. Im on the Epic next July