Any recent Epic cruisers??

[cruizecrazygramma]

We are booked for the second time on Epic in february and I have been reading alot of poor reviews. Most complain of the same issues which has me concerned. Has NCL lowered their standards? Our first trip on Epic we had a blast but we travelled during a U.S. spring break time (unknowingly) and the pools were full of unsupervised kids so we felt we lost out on pool time but other than that we loved it. Im reading about it being hard to find waiters to bring drinks, that staff just seems to not care. Im looking for input from seasoned cruisers to find out if things have changed. We loved Howl at the moon and blue man group, we ate mostly at the buffet, teppanyake and osheehans. Are the bad reviews accurate?

[soccersharon]

We are booked for the second time on Epic in february and I have been reading alot of poor reviews. Most complain of the same issues which has me concerned. Has NCL lowered their standards? Our first trip on Epic we had a blast but we travelled during a U.S. spring break time (unknowingly) and the pools were full of unsupervised kids so we felt we lost out on pool time but other than that we loved it. Im reading about it being hard to find waiters to bring drinks, that staff just seems to not care. Im looking for input from seasoned cruisers to find out if things have changed. We loved Howl at the moon and blue man group, we ate mostly at the buffet, teppanyake and osheehans. Are the bad reviews accurate?

 

 

We just got off the Epic on Saturday. I'm planning on a full review - but here are a few of my thoughts. Note that I'm a first time NCL'er as well.

 

- Yes, sometimes hard to find a drink waiter at the pool. We had to flag them down, even though we had nothing in front of us, and a table full of people.

 

- Blue Man Group was awesome!

 

- Legends Show was disappointing. Katy Perry was awful, and the Elvis impersonator, while a good singer, didn't have "the moves". Steven Tyler was fantastic!

 

- There were quite a few young families on the ship. Pool was always accessible, and we found chairs on the sundeck in the afternoon.

 

- The White Hot Party was fantastic! We danced until we dropped!

 

- We found the food in Taste to be lacking flavour. We had 1 lunch and 1 supper there. We opted for the Garden Café instead. Much better in terms of choice and flavour.

 

- We ate at Cagney's and were very happy with our steaks. My husband had bison, and I had a filet mignon. I was sad when my meal was over, and I'm not a huge meat-lover. So good!

 

- O'Sheehans was OK. Nothing spectacular. Very limited choices for a late-night snack. Thought I'd read that the menu had been downsized. It must have been. I did not take pictures of the menus from the various food venues.

 

- Sorry to report that overall, the staff was not as friendly as I thought they would be (based on what I read here). Not a deal-breaker, but was expecting more. There was one washy-washy guy who was a total hoot!

 

- We also ate at the sushi restaurant. The food was good, the service was good.

 

- Noodle bar was very good.

 

- We enjoyed the Manhattan Band in the Atrium. Very talented and played a wide variety of music.

 

If you have specific questions, I can try to answer them.

Edited November 25, 2013 by soccersharon

[xcell]

Was the trampoline free..?

 

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[southt00]

When we were on the Epic in January, it was free of charge.

[KBeck28]

I just got off the Epic on Sat as well and I agree with all of Soccersharron's points. I plan on a review as well but it was kind of odd how the entire crew just seemed disconnected. No one really knew answers to questions and the service seemed slow and unmotivated. I have only cruised NCL one other time about 10 years ago and then on Disney Fantasy in Jan. I guess I just chalked up my experience to our expectations being too high because of Disney, but it sounds like I'm not the only one.

 

I will say...having the POSH passes saved us. Always a place to sit and way comfy chairs. Definitely worth every extra penny if you can swing it.

 

As far as the entertainment I think Howl at the Moon was our absolute favorite. Those guys are so funny and talented and roll with the rowdiness of the audience with ease. You don't want to miss it!

[Powriv]

Could it be a brand new crew since they are probably getting the Getaway crew from other ships as it will soon be in service

[Maxsam]

We just got off the Epic and agree with all the comments. Had a great time, but was disappointed with the crew. There seemed to be a lack of coordination and excitement. Although there were a few who were great!

 

I noticed an improvement in the food from our last cruise on NCL 2 yrs ago. That was a plus for me.

 

Ups...

Howl at the moon, Blueman Group, whitehot party, the ports and our mini suite cabin.

 

Downs....

Our invisible room steward and his/her lack of attentiveness.

Long waits at the MDR

[3DBeach]

Not making excuses for them but I wonder how many of them have families that have been affected by the typhoon? I leave on Saturday and will attempt a review when I get back.

 

 

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[soccersharon]

I just got off the Epic on Sat as well and I agree with all of Soccersharron's points. I plan on a review as well but it was kind of odd how the entire crew just seemed disconnected. No one really knew answers to questions and the service seemed slow and unmotivated. I have only cruised NCL one other time about 10 years ago and then on Disney Fantasy in Jan. I guess I just chalked up my experience to our expectations being too high because of Disney, but it sounds like I'm not the only one.

 

I will say...having the POSH passes saved us. Always a place to sit and way comfy chairs. Definitely worth every extra penny if you can swing it.

 

As far as the entertainment I think Howl at the Moon was our absolute favorite. Those guys are so funny and talented and roll with the rowdiness of the audience with ease. You don't want to miss it!

 

For some reason, we never did see Howl at the Moon. I think we really missed out on something good.

 

 

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[voyager89]

Are the performers of Legends in concert always the same? I hate Katy Perry :mad: and Elvis is just a meh to me

[caribophile]

Did you find an unusual amount of pitch and roll on the Epic? I've read that on a few recent reviews and that concerns me since I am a bit prone to motion sickness. Someone actually suggested that he thought the stabilizers were not engaged.

[3DBeach]

Are the performers of Legends in concert always the same? I hate Katy Perry :mad: and Elvis is just a meh to me

 

I believe the performers change every 6 months. I know when we sailed back in January it was Michael Jackson, jimmy Buffett and Diana Ross. We didn't go but planning on it this time...can't wait to see Steven Tyler!

 

 

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[soccersharon]

Did you find an unusual amount of pitch and roll on the Epic? I've read that on a few recent reviews and that concerns me since I am a bit prone to motion sickness. Someone actually suggested that he thought the stabilizers were not engaged.

 

Yes. Our first two sea days were a little rough. I was seasick in the morning. Ginger gravol and water seemed to help. I am not usually prone to seasickness, so I was surprised by it. It was windy, so am thinking the height of the Epic made things worse.

 

My husband uses a seasickness patch, and that seemed to help.

[soccersharon]

I believe the performers change every 6 months. I know when we sailed back in January it was Michael Jackson, jimmy Buffett and Diana Ross. We didn't go but planning on it this time...can't wait to see Steven Tyler!

 

 

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Steven Tyler was awesome! Enjoy!

[Disney1992]

I was also on the 11/16 cruise and agree with SoccerSharon. If you are using the Speciality Restaurants, please allow an hour and a half for your meal. Service was SLOW all around.

 

I am very prone to motion sickness and I was not a happy camper the first two days. We've been on 8 cruises, one prior NCL, but this was our first Mega Ship. For every cruise, I start taking Bonine a few days before the cruise and continue taking throughout the cruise. This method has never failed before, except for this trip. I was very nauseous and queezy the first two days. It got a little better as the cruise went on, but it left a lasting impression on me. I'm not sure I'd sail the Epic again.

 

You could definitely feel the motion of the ship, no matter what deck you were on. Our cabin was Deck 16 Forward, so that didn't help either. It got a little better on the lower decks, but not by much. I was rather surprised by that. We took the Behind the Scenes Tour and while they didn't outright say they weren't using the Stablizers for most of the cruise, it sounded like they were used sparingly during our cruise. They only deploy them at certain speeds. Since the Eastern has a lot of ground to cover, they were usually going faster than the speed for the Stablizers. They did use them on the last sea day, our tour day, as the Officer told us they were in use.

[300dtc]

When we were on in July the Legends performers were Tom Jones, Adele and Tina Turner...some good, some not so good..but the price was right so who cares:p Our room steward was very attentive and if i asked her for something it appeared like magic (mini-suite). I guess people complain about the elevators, but we didn't use them,except one day after an especially grueling day on tours, and ending up losing weight even after eating desserts and ice cream everyday! Never got sick, actually never felt the ship move at all except one evening. We ate in Taste, Manhatten Room, O'Sheehans, Buffet and El Adagio, I would say the risotto was the best i've had in the Italian rest. I would probably say we enjoyed the food in the buffet (carving station is very good) and Taste (we tried a regional specialty every night and were never disappointed).

Don't listen to others...just enjoy yourself!

[Sammae]

Hi! We were on the same cruise as a few others who replied here. We had been on Epic 1 time previously, and have been on the Gem. We had a large group, so I'd organized where to meet and how to get our UBP stickers ahead of time so we could all find each other.

 

While we were in the Atrium getting our UBP stickers, I noticed that things were very disorganized and the crew didn't seem to know what was going on. We also saw a few tours of new staff going through the ship at this time. I'm wondering if things have been shuffled around a bit with the Getaway coming and with them sending some of their crew home to the Philippines after the typhoon?

 

Things definitely improved as the week went on. We sat mostly in Spice H2O during the day and never had a problem keeping our drinks full. Clarence in O'Sheehan's was an excellent bartender. The food there was how we remembered it from before quality-wise, although the menu is a bit different. In the bar area, they were letting us order off the full menu instead of just the limited bar menu.

 

We ate in Manhattan Room twice, Cagney's, La Cuicina, Le Bistro, Noodle Bar and Sushi. All our meals were excellent. Service was slow in the Noodle Bar and La Cucina when we were there. Not a deal breaker for us - we have no where better to be and we're used to spending 2 hours on a meal.

 

All in all, I'd say things were a little different - some better, some worse. I'm chalking a lot of the "worse" up to the turnaround they're experiencing. We had a blast and are missing the ship terribly!!

 

Sam

[ERLEC]

I was also on the Epic on the Nov 16th cruise and found this ship to be rocking and rolling a lot, even if the water was not so bad.

 

I have been on the Carnival Valor following the tail of an hurricane in 2009 and it was less rocky. The Epic has a bad design with this high front cap. Or else they are not using the stabilisers because it cost too much money in fuel when deploying them... I don't know.

 

But I'm sure this ship is not fuel friendly for sure. It's so damn high in front... But the view in there is amazing! The lounge chairs with red cushions in the front was opened for public use. Very quiet area... Loved it! soooo relax....

[Single Cruiser]

About half the crew got off Epic following the TA to Miami on 2nd Nov so yes many are new, lots of the leaving crew were having 2 months off before joining Getaway in Jan.

 

Yes, that's of the NCL crew are from the Philippines so you can imagine a week into their 9month contract the events back at home :( and they are halfway around the world..

 

Legends changed over during the crossing so the new ones (Tyler, Perry, Elvis) will probably do at least until Jan/Feb then another set until April TA.

[Time to travel the world]

Did you find an unusual amount of pitch and roll on the Epic? I've read that on a few recent reviews and that concerns me since I am a bit prone to motion sickness. Someone actually suggested that he thought the stabilizers were not engaged.

 

 

I would not suggest it for people prone to motion sickness. I believe it was about 22 knot winds at times and really rolls around. I had been on the Carnival Sensation in I thought it was around 50 knots and not nearly as bad..

 

I felt the food and service in the Taste and Manhattan restaurants was not nearly as good as the complimentary restaurants on Carnival. However I would go on the ship again despite all this because I was in a studio cabin and it was a great way to meet others as it offered the studio lounge access to meet up and post get togethers.

 

Sharon did you get any email addresses of ppl from the ship? I didn't and would love yours and others.

 

Joanne

[soccersharon]

I would not suggest it for people prone to motion sickness. I believe it was about 22 knot winds at times and really rolls around. I had been on the Carnival Sensation in I thought it was around 50 knots and not nearly as bad..

 

I felt the food and service in the Taste and Manhattan restaurants was not nearly as good as the complimentary restaurants on Carnival. However I would go on the ship again despite all this because I was in a studio cabin and it was a great way to meet others as it offered the studio lounge access to meet up and post get togethers.

 

Sharon did you get any email addresses of ppl from the ship? I didn't and would love yours and others.

 

Joanne

 

I posted my email addy on our roll call :)

 

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[SusieQ4U]

I just got off of Epic today (12/7). I was bit anxious about the service issues I'd heard and read about -- including reviews from a friend I know well (who isn't a big "complainer") who was on her 3 weeks ago.

 

I did notice a lot of staff members, including our room steward, with "junior" in their title so their may be a fair number of new staff. However -- I found that the overwhelming majority of our cruise we experienced friendly, efficient, and professional service.

 

Weird tip for getting pool side drinks -- or maybe not so weird -- they stop by more if you already have a drink or an empty cup nearby! Someone told me this was in response that they had gotten complaints about being "too pushy" - so they look for folks that look like they want drinks. Whether this is the reason behind it or not - it seemed to work for us. If we got our own first drink we were never thirsty afterwards. :-)

 

We ate in the main dining room (Manhattan) only one night. Not because it was bad but because the other options were just too tempting. We did do a lot of the specialty restaurants but you can eat plenty well without spending an extra dime. (If I return I will plan more than one meal at La Cucina.)

 

Food was everywhere on this ship -even a small snack buffet in the Casino!

 

We noticed a good bit of motion despite calm seas. I find this to be true of all the newer bigger ships I've sailed on. (Allure of the Seas, Carnival Breeze, Carnival Dream). Could be me -- but it seems to me the mid-sized (or smaller?) ships that I've been on (NCL Sun, Carnival Valor, Carnival Sensation, Carnival Fantasy) rock less under "normal" seas. We did have an issue with motion one night that was disconcerting, though not especially alarming (perhaps I am just ignorant about how ships work, though). The seas were VERY calm and there was virtually no wind. (this was Thurs night). The ship rocked -- hard -- for appx 7-10 mins in a "something is wrong" way. Word around the ship the next day was there had been an issue with the stabilizers. The only crew member we heard directly speak to this was a chef and I don't know what his level of knowledge may or may not have been but he referred to the issue as "very serious" and said we were leaning by "45 degrees" and "we almost tipped over". Like I say, he was a chef so I have no idea if his understanding was correct. I didn't feel like it was 45 degrees (we were still standing) but something definitely happened that wasn't normal. How serious it may or may not have been is not something I am qualified to say. It was 'serious' enough to empty out pools and hottubs and it was difficult to walk while it was going on. But whatever the problem was it was corrected within a few minutes.

 

The other days the motion had an odd rhythm to it as well -- not what one would expect from seas/winds so I do think the motion is at least in part due to the design of the ship. If prone to motion sickness, I'd expect to experience it on this ship. This is not a "you won't even know you are at sea" experience.

[Out to sea!]

We just got off the Epic on Saturday. I'm planning on a full review - but here are a few of my thoughts. Note that I'm a first time NCL'er as well.

 

- Yes, sometimes hard to find a drink waiter at the pool. We had to flag them down, even though we had nothing in front of us, and a table full of people. Never had a problem finding drink servers near the smoking area (port side of ship next to the pool.

 

- Blue Man Group was awesome! Very much so!

 

- Legends Show was disappointing. Katy Perry was awful, and the Elvis impersonator, while a good singer, didn't have "the moves". Steven Tyler was fantastic! I thought the show was good but who the hell is Katy Perry and what makes her a "legend"?

 

- There were quite a few young families on the ship. Pool was always accessible, and we found chairs on the sundeck in the afternoon. I found chairs also available but the two main pools were always filled with kids. I also couldn't believe how small the pools were (literally, my pool at home is larger and I'm not trying to cram 4,800 people into it).

 

- The White Hot Party was fantastic! We danced until we dropped! Didn't go but the video afterwards looked fun.

 

- We found the food in Taste to be lacking flavour. We had 1 lunch and 1 supper there. We opted for the Garden Café instead. Much better in terms of choice and flavour. I agree. Service as also slow in both the Taste and Manhattan. Buffet was much better than I expected for all dining times.

 

- We ate at Cagney's and were very happy with our steaks. My husband had bison, and I had a filet mignon. I was sad when my meal was over, and I'm not a huge meat-lover. So good! We tried La Cucina during sailaway from St Martin. Fantastic service and food! Shrimp Risotto was the best!!

 

- O'Sheehans was OK. Nothing spectacular. Very limited choices for a late-night snack. Thought I'd read that the menu had been downsized. It must have been. I did not take pictures of the menus from the various food venues. We found the food to be good (especially the bangers and mash) but the service was painfully slow (such as waiting 15 minutes after being seated for anyone to even ask us if we wanted something to drink). While we found most of the crew to be very good, O'Sheehans was the one exception to the rule. They just didn't seem to want to be there. Oh, and excellent hot wings as well!

 

- Sorry to report that overall, the staff was not as friendly as I thought they would be (based on what I read here). Not a deal-breaker, but was expecting more. There was one washy-washy guy who was a total hoot! Except as mentioned before in O'Sheehans, we found the staff to be very friendly.

 

- We also ate at the sushi restaurant. The food was good, the service was good.

 

- Noodle bar was very good.

 

- We enjoyed the Manhattan Band in the Atrium. Very talented and played a wide variety of music. All of the performers (bands/shows) were very good.

 

If you have specific questions, I can try to answer them.

 

Just wanted to add to this list. We were on the Epic two weeks ago (Thanksgiving week). While the cruise was okay, personally, I would not want to cruise the Epic again. The very small rooms (128sf inside), the glass doors for the toilet/shower, and the general disjointed feel of the ship was a let down. There are lots of things to do on ship but you'd better have running shoes on to get to them! Most every bit of deck space is (IMO) designed for kids and not adults (such as the main pool area). There is no way to even look over the bow of the ship unless you sneak up to the Deck 18 in the Haven area (climb the stairs on the starboard side just before you enter the buffet). Likewise, the view off the aft of the ship is disrupted by the H2O screen. For those who like to spend a couple hours in the afternoon watching some TV, the TV channels provided were very disappointing. Usually, we've had ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox to watch but on the Epic, you had one movie channel and one TV channel (Favorite Movies and Favorite TV) and the rest was news.

 

This was our first NCL cruise and while we were disappointed in the Epic, we are not put off with NCL and had no problems with the way they run their fleet. Looking forward to our next two cruises on the Sun (a more conventional cruise ship).

Edited December 8, 2013 by Out to sea!

[soccersharon]

Just wanted to add to this list. We were on the Epic two weeks ago (Thanksgiving week). While the cruise was okay, personally, I would not want to cruise the Epic again. The very small rooms (128sf inside), the glass doors for the toilet/shower, and the general disjointed feel of the ship was a let down. There are lots of things to do on ship but you'd better have running shoes on to get to them! Most every bit of deck space is (IMO) designed for kids and not adults (such as the main pool area). There is no way to even look over the bow of the ship unless you sneak up to the Deck 18 in the Haven area (climb the stairs on the starboard side just before you enter the buffet). Likewise, the view off the aft of the ship is disrupted by the H2O screen. For those who like to spend a couple hours in the afternoon watching some TV, the TV channels provided were very disappointing. Usually, we've had ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox to watch but on the Epic, you had one movie channel and one TV channel (Favorite Movies and Favorite TV) and the rest was news.

 

This was our first NCL cruise and while we were disappointed in the Epic, we are not put off with NCL and had no problems with the way they run their fleet. Looking forward to our next two cruises on the Sun (a more conventional cruise ship).

 

I agree with you. We enjoyed our Epic cruise, but would be more apt to choose smaller NCL ships in the future.

 

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Edited December 9, 2013 by soccersharon

[wheatengirl]

We have been on the Epic twice. We cruised the 1st time the week before Thanksgiving last year and this time Thanksgiving week. The Thanksgiving cruise was so crowded compared to the non thanksgiving week and you really needed to be very patient when doing anything on the ship. However, we did find the crew friendlier on this most recent cruise. Our cabin steward on deck 11 forward, David, was the best we have had on Any line. We were in a large balcony cabin and asked for an extra lounge chair and he had it there in 10 minutes. he was very efficient.

 

We knew that Thanksgiving week would be crowded because we have cruised at least 5 times on various lines during that week and we were not disappointed in any way. We had a very enjoyable cruise and would love to sail the Epic again but will be trying the Getaway next.