Epic Western Caribbean - Thanksgiving Cruise 2014

[CruzLover80]

In response to the MDR question, I can answer that, we ate 4 nights out of the 7 at the MDR. Timing is EVERYTHING.... the first time we went to The Manhattan Club, which was great, service was extremely slow. We also had to wait to be seated, somewhere around 30 minutes, but they did give us a glass of champagne for our wait in Fat Catz. For the remaining 3 dinners, we went to Taste. The service was a lot quicker and so was seating. We did stay away on Thanksgiving and stuck to the buffet, which was pleasantly empty and so was the last night.

[SissasMomE]

It's so nice to read a review where things were clearly not perfect yet instead of complaining you managed to have a great time! We are waiting our turn on Epic February 8th and I admit I will be bummed if we miss a port because we are not good sea day people. We also have been to all of these ports several times but our dd and son in law are bringing my 5 year old grand son and all will be new to them!

Thanks again you did a great job hitting all of the important topics!

 

You should be ok in Feb. Nov and Dec can be rough for tender ports ...

[LrgPizza]

It's so nice to read a review where things were clearly not perfect yet instead of complaining you managed to have a great time! We are waiting our turn on Epic February 8th and I admit I will be bummed if we miss a port because we are not good sea day people. We also have been to all of these ports several times but our dd and son in law are bringing my 5 year old grand son and all will be new to them!

Thanks again you did a great job hitting all of the important topics!

Thank you for the nice comments. Stuff like that happens. We don't cruise expecting perfection. That's impossible, and anyone imagining that will be let down. We simply cruise expecting to have a great time, and for that reason, we always mange to do just that.

[kenlyn]

Thank you for the nice comments. Stuff like that happens. We don't cruise expecting perfection. That's impossible, and anyone imagining that will be let down. We simply cruise expecting to have a great time, and for that reason, we always mange to do just that.

 

Where's that darn like button! I would like to have a drink with you because your glass is already half full!

[kenlyn]

You should be ok in Feb. Nov and Dec can be rough for tender ports ...

 

Thanks for the reassuring words! We only cruise January or February and have had great luck so far. Well except for fog in Tampa....that's a whole other story!

[nlstigger]

We were on that cruise and also had a great time.

 

We were disappointed to miss Grand Caymen, because it has s one port we hadn't been to, but even if we made it in, our excursion would have surely been cancelled due to the rough seas. The snorkeling excursions were also cancelled in Cozumel due to rough seas.

 

It is amazing how a deck of cards and some family time can make a wavy sea day fly by.

 

I ate in Taste on Thanksgiving and it was crazy crowded, but I expected that and had booked reservations for 7:30 before we left. They were handing out pagers and there was a 40 - 50 min wait, but we were able to get seated at our reservation time. First night was the only other crowded night for us and we had 8:30 reservations. It was nice to be able to book reservations for party of 4 this trip. I don't remember being able to book MDR for small tables before.

[hencoll]

Thank you for the nice comments. Stuff like that happens. We don't cruise expecting perfection. That's impossible, and anyone imagining that will be let down. We simply cruise expecting to have a great time, and for that reason, we always mange to do just that.

 

That's exactly how we cruise and we have never had a bad cruise. Thoroughly enjoyed your review. The Epic is our family's favorite ship. We cruise on the Getaway in January and the Breakaway in March, hoping we enjoy those just as much as the Epic.

 

Question for you... what is a frozen Dirty Banana? :p

[lelder1]

for my family was non-traditional. We went bowling and had the ribs in O-Sheehans. It was a lot of fun bowling when the ship was rocking and rolling. I almost beat my brother in law and that NEVER happens!

 

We also experienced inconsistent service in the MDR's - one time, we waited 45 minutes between the appetizer and the entrée. The server apologized and said that they are responsible for everything in their station (food delivery, busing the tables, going to get the food, etc) so that really slows them down. But some MDR meals were fast so I think it all depended on the server and the time you went.

[LrgPizza]

Question for you... what is a frozen Dirty Banana? :p

There are loads of frozen drink options at the pool bar and spice H2O. This one includes dark rum, banana, ice cream, more dark rum, and I think more dark rum.

 

for my family was non-traditional. We went bowling and had the ribs in O-Sheehans. It was a lot of fun bowling when the ship was rocking and rolling. I almost beat my brother in law and that NEVER happens!

 

We also experienced inconsistent service in the MDR's - one time, we waited 45 minutes between the appetizer and the entrée. The server apologized and said that they are responsible for everything in their station (food delivery, busing the tables, going to get the food, etc) so that really slows them down. But some MDR meals were fast so I think it all depended on the server and the time you went.

 

We had Moderno's on Thanksgiving. Yum!

 

The inconsistent service is everywhere. From the time we ordered dessert in Le Bistro until the time we were finally given our check was 45 minutes. I was ready to start throwing things. The same thing happened with dessert in Cagney's (45 minutes), and also at Cagney's on Getaway. That is part of the reason we like to leave the specialty restaurants after our entree, skipping dessert.

[hencoll]

There are loads of frozen drink options at the pool bar and spice H2O. This one includes dark rum, banana, ice cream, more dark rum, and I think more dark rum.

 

That sounds amazing especially all of the dark rum!:D

[Soxpeat]

We were on the on the epic turkey week as well. The seas were a little rough and the weather was not the best but it was a good trip. Only issue was having to take our son through the casino to pretty much do anything fon 6 or below which I don't know how that's even legal to force children through an open casino (saw numerous children playing slots and we just shook our heads, guess it is a cruising like a norwegian thing) and were not really happy about that but everything else was okay except it took way too much work to get meat at Moderno.

[tomsuelaw]

I would be so bummed to miss a port when there are only 3 to begin with. We are doing the same cruise in Jan and I am trying to prep myself mentally just in case we miss GC. We are not "sea day people", we cruise for the ports and we always seem to miss at least one on every cruise. Praying we don't this time.

 

I appreciate your positive attitude, I will try to remember it if we miss GC too ;)

[DandDM]

 

I would also recommend the cabins we had (10193 and 10195) - it was super quiet and there is nothing across the hall so very little traffic in the area.

 

 

I don't mean to hijack, but curious if they allowed the partition between your balconies to be opened?

 

 

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[LrgPizza]

I don't mean to hijack, but curious if they allowed the partition between your balconies to be opened?

No clue if it's allowed, but when we first walked onto ours, my husband leaned against ours a little, and went crashing onto the neighbor's balcony because it wasn't latched or locked or whatever. He said for a split second he didn't know what happened and thought he was going over.

[DGP1111]

We just returned from a fabulous vacation on the Epic. I absolutely LOVED this ship, and it sucks that it is leaving the USA, where I'd have easy access. [/color]

 

I agree with that 'sucking' part. :)

 

Doing my 6th, and final, Norwegian EPIC sailing in two months, and I'm determined to enjoy it as much as I've obviously enjoyed the earlier ones.

 

Glad to read you had a nice time.

 

If you still have access to your Freestyle Daily info . . . do you recall if the Martini Tasting event was held only once or, perhaps, twice on your sailing?? It's been done twice on each of my previous ones, but earlier in the year a few people reported just a single offering.

 

Thanks, also, for your feedback. :)

 

.

Edited December 3, 2014 by DGP1111

[LrgPizza]

I agree with that 'sucking' part. :)

 

Doing my 6th, and final, Norwegian EPIC sailing in two months, and I'm determined to enjoy it as much as I've obviously enjoyed the earlier ones.

 

Glad to read you had a nice time.

 

If you still have access to your Freestyle Daily info . . . do you recall if the Martini Tasting event was held only once or, perhaps, twice on your sailing?? It's been done twice on each of my previous ones, but earlier in the year a few people reported just a single offering.

 

Thanks, also, for your feedback. :).

I just checked. We actually had it 3 times! (That's because our updated daily for the day we missed the port included it - Day 5. It wasn't on the regular day 5 daily, though.) It was listed on Day 2 and Day 7 at 3pm. There were also multiple beer tastings, and also a margarita tasting right before the martini tasting on day 7, if you want to just make an afternoon of it. :)

 

[DGP1111]

It was listed on Day 2 and Day 7 at 3pm.

 

Mega THANKS to you for the details of the 'original' plans. :)

 

. . .and also a margarita tasting right before the martini tasting on day 7, if you want to just make an afternoon of it. :)

 

Hypothetically (of course) I may have chosen to do something VERY similar to that on an earlier sailing. :eek:

 

To err is human . . . but it takes a better excuse the second time. :D

 

.

[LrgPizza]

I mentioned this before. Here are my tickets from buying the same drink at the same bar on the same afternoon. The one that has Cherry and Limeaid misspelled is the best price. haha! Looks like tax was added to 2 of the 3.

 

Edited December 3, 2014 by LrgPizza

[Mrswood83]

I'm sure this has been answered before but I have never gotten then drink package on NCL and have it next year... Does every receipt have a price you have to sign? Does it all just get refunded on your bill at the end? From my experience on Celebrity they don't make you sign and it all swipes in at $0 on your bill... I guess it just makes me nervous that I am signing a bill for an amount and hoping they take it off (I know that's probably silly but still lol)

 

 

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[PathfinderEss]

Thanks for the nice review.

[LrgPizza]

I'm sure this has been answered before but I have never gotten then drink package on NCL and have it next year... Does every receipt have a price you have to sign? Does it all just get refunded on your bill at the end? From my experience on Celebrity they don't make you sign and it all swipes in at $0 on your bill... I guess it just makes me nervous that I am signing a bill for an amount and hoping they take it off (I know that's probably silly but still lol)

 

 

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Yes, you have to sign a ticket every drink and it's taken off your account at the end of each day. We've done UBP twice and had no problems.

[LrgPizza]

 

I appreciate your positive attitude, I will try to remember it if we miss GC too ;)

 

Thank you. I do have to admit that this was Thanksgiving day and watching NFL football all day on the big screen at Spice H2O might have helped a bit.

 

Thanks for the nice review.

 

You're very welcome.

[lbrandon]

Wow that is weird about the difference in drink prices. I've never looked that closely before on previous cruises. This time we're doing the UBP so I guess I really won't worry about it as long as the charges don't show up on my bill at the end.

[lelder1]

I don't mean to hijack, but curious if they allowed the partition between your balconies to be opened?

 

 

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Sadly no - we saw our room steward first day and when we asked he said it was not allowed. We really didn't have any problems though - we would just turn the locks to the cabin doors go back and forth since someone was always in the rooms.

[DandDM]

Sadly no - we saw our room steward first day and when we asked he said it was not allowed. We really didn't have any problems though - we would just turn the locks to the cabin doors go back and forth since someone was always in the rooms.

 

 

Ah, bummer! Was hoping for a double balcony. Thanks for the reply!

 

 

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