The Epic has sent me back to Carnival and RCI!

[InTheCruisingYearsOfLife]

OP, thanks for the review. For your sake I hope that you don't let Epic scare you away from NCL if you liked the cruise for most parts. Epic is my least favourite of all NCL fleet and definitely wouldn't be my first choice when searching for a cruise. We're fine with the cabins but the overall Las Vegas style design where one can't see out really changes the experience a lot.

 

Epic is a failed experiment for NCL (NCL had already ordered another and had an option for third but Epic was only one built) and for example NCL's next megaships Breakaway and Getaway are based on Epic's plans but many things that were done "wrong" on Epic have been fixed.

 

Also older NCL ships like Dawn class (Dawn, Star) and Jewel class (Jewel, Pearl, Jade, Gem) are much more like ships on other cruise lines.

 

OP, I totally agree with both your post and Demonyte's reply. DW and I were originally booked to do the four-day Rome-to-Barcelona cruise followed by two ore weeks onward to Miami. Thank heavens we dumped the TA and just did the four days! In our view, the Epic is a dud ship.

 

Aside from there being NO attractive décor anywhere inside, there is also precious little connection to the sea (e.g. no decent promenade deck); staterooms look sooooo modular, like cruising Matson (EPIC: Every Passengern In Container). Staff, to the 100% level, were disinterested, and to at least the 50% level were incompetent. I never felt served; I felt processed. Casino staff were the worst -- example: standing in line to buy an entry into the Texas Hold 'Em tourhament, a woman stepped up on the side, picked up one of the three remaining cards. The guy ahead of me decided to buy two cards (one for his buddy, who showed up while he was buying his own), so the woman had the LAST card. How much did the casino staff-critter care about the line cutting? Not one bit; she had the card, her money was accepted, and I was screwed. And yet, this just seemed sooooo NCL Epic, on the tail of a lot of other crap "service".

 

Contrastively, all our other NCL cruises were quite satisfactory.

Edited February 17, 2015 by InTheCruisingYearsOfLife

[justcake]

I agree with the OP completely. If Epic was the first NCL ship we sailed on we would probably have never sailed NCL again. We almost gave up on NCL after the Epic cruise because we disliked the ship so much. We had waited with great anticipation to sail the inaugural season but it was a complete disappointment from the cabin layout and size to the overall feel of the ship. Because of how much we loved our other NCL cruises we tried the line again and it was worth it. My suggestion would be to try the Gem or the Dawn....2 of my favourites.

[mickeysgal]

We are due to sail on Epic this summer. Have been on 2 NCL cruises previously along with RCCL, Carnival, Disney, and our latest favorite Celebrity. Each ship and each line has pros and cons. We happen to love the mega sized ships and are looking forward to trying Epic despite the famous bathrooms. Thanks for your review. NCL isn't for everyone. Glad you gave it a try.

[bradleyk]

This is by far the best ever cabin review that I have ever seen! Extremely honest and funny at the same time... And yes it is about the Epic.

Edited February 17, 2015 by bradleyk

[asubaru]

AandB Mom....when was your cruise?

[bradleyk]

Oh that is not me. that is a dude that I found on youtube while searching cruises last year. He has a ton of well done videos.

As for us we are booked for the Getaway 10/17/15

[mickeysgal]

This is by far the best ever cabin review that I have ever seen! Extremely honest and funny at the same time... And yes it is about the Epic.

 

Ok - that was funny.

 

Crazy bathrooms.

[Rhea98]

This is by far the best ever cabin review that I have ever seen! Extremely honest and funny at the same time... And yes it is about the Epic.

 

OMG! That was so funny--and well done. I've watched so many blah YouTube vids on Epic. How did I miss that? [emoji106] to you (he got one, too).

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[AandBmom]

Thank you for saying what I was feeling as I read the review. I have yet to sail on NCL. But damn if this review didn't pick. Did they not see the cabin layout before they booked?

Also I work in a level one trauma hospital and even we find a stained towel now and then. Guess what we do... get another one.

 

Yes I did see the cabin layout beforehand but just didn't think out the logistics. Was it a vacation ruiner, absolutely not, but just thought it was worth pointing out especially for those with children that really don't want to disturb them while sleeping. As for the stained towels, absolutely it wouldn't be a big deal here and there, but it was every day, not every towel, but 1 of our 6 each day. It just felt like they didn't care enough about their guests to have clean towels.

[AandBmom]

AandB Mom....when was your cruise?

 

Feb 8 - 15, 2015

[AandBmom]

This is by far the best ever cabin review that I have ever seen! Extremely honest and funny at the same time... And yes it is about the Epic.

 

That is the best video ever! I know I'm catching a lot of flack for complaining about the bathroom, so why did I book this cruise? I booked it to try something new. You never know until you try. But now I've tried and like the guy in the video, I just don't think the bathroom made sense. In an interior cabin it's way worse than the one in the video b/c the sink shares the only counter space with everything else.

[Cruzaholic41]

I know I'm catching a lot of flack for complaining about the bathroom, so why did I book this cruise? I booked it to try something new. You never know until you try. But now I've tried and like the guy in the video, I just don't think the bathroom made sense. In an interior cabin it's way worse than the one in the video b/c the sink shares the only counter space with everything else.

 

BINGO! You tried it. You tried to love it. You reached out and tried a 4th cruise line rather than marrying yourself to one business like a lot of these people. The end result was, you didn't like it. And you're not alone. If Epic and her design, including the staterooms, was such a smash hit as some people like to proclaim, NCL wouldn't have only built 1 of them. They would have continued like they are with the Breakaway design.

[Lib0007]

I'm cruising on the Epic in March. I hope we will love it . . we love the RC mega ships.

 

Were there formal nights (although I know you don't have to do) . . if so, do you remember when they were?

 

Thanks.

[eroller]

Well the EPIC wouldn't send me back to Carnival (it would take a lot more than that!), but yes to Royal Caribbean. I haven't sailed on EPIC but I did have lunch onboard and toured the ship twice. I wasn't very impressed. In fact I canceled a cruise I had booked on her after the first luncheon. I felt the ship seemed dark, closed-in, and VERY crowded even for embarkation day. It sort of reminded me of a mid-range casino hotel in Vegas like Harras. In fact I embarked right into the casino which I felt was odd and not a great first impression. As someone else mentioned, no spaces on the ship left me with a feeling of WOW. I felt the nicest areas were The Haven (go figure!) and the Studio singles complex. Both were well done.

 

Last month I sailed on GETAWAY and absolutely fell in love with the ship and the entire NCL experience. I couldn't have been more impressed. There are some similarities between GETAWAY and EPIC but they are vastly different ships. GETAWAY is far more open and bright, and totally open to the sea with the wonderful Waterfront promenade. It really sets this design apart. Also I never felt crowded on GETAWAY. The ship is designed well and handles her passengers with ease. The only exception to that might be the main pool areas which were crowded and a bit disjointed in design.

 

Anyway my point in all this is that you can have two very different experiences on the same cruise line. I think this is especially true of NCL as they seem to be the least consistent of the major brands. Until GETAWAY I had pretty much written off NCL as my experiences were inconsistent at best. That all changed after GETAWAY and now I can't wait to have more experiences on NCL. In fact I sail on PEARL this Saturday. I hope it lives up to expectations!

[meggie711]

I'm cruising on the Epic in March. I hope we will love it . . we love the RC mega ships.

 

Were there formal nights (although I know you don't have to do) . . if so, do you remember when they were?

 

Thanks.

 

NCL does Dress Up or Not nights. To be honest, we wore what we felt like every night and fit in just fine. I wore dresses every night, and we chose a night to dress up a little more than the other nights. We're going to have a dress up night on our upcoming Sky cruise even though it's a quick one. It'll be DS's first cruise, and I can't wait to see that little nugget dressed up. :)

We loved Epic and would sail her again in a heartbeat if the price, time, and itinerary were right.

[meggie711]

Well the EPIC wouldn't send me back to Carnival (it would take a lot more than that!), but yes to Royal Caribbean. I haven't sailed on EPIC but I did have lunch onboard and toured the ship twice. I wasn't very impressed. In fact I canceled a cruise I had booked on her after the first luncheon. I felt the ship seemed dark, closed-in, and VERY crowded even for embarkation day. It sort of reminded me of a mid-range casino hotel in Vegas like Harras. In fact I embarked right into the casino which I felt was odd and not a great first impression. As someone else mentioned, no spaces on the ship left me with a feeling of WOW. I felt the nicest areas were The Haven (go figure!) and the Studio singles complex. Both were well done.

 

Last month I sailed on GETAWAY and absolutely fell in love with the ship and the entire NCL experience. I couldn't have been more impressed. There are some similarities between GETAWAY and EPIC but they are vastly different ships. GETAWAY is far more open and bright, and totally open to the sea with the wonderful Waterfront promenade. It really sets this design apart. Also I never felt crowded on GETAWAY. The ship is designed well and handles her passengers with ease. The only exception to that might be the main pool areas which were crowded and a bit disjointed in design.

 

Anyway my point in all this is that you can have two very different experiences on the same cruise line. I think this is especially true of NCL as they seem to be the least consistent of the major brands. Until GETAWAY I had pretty much written off NCL as my experiences were inconsistent at best. That all changed after GETAWAY and now I can't wait to have more experiences on NCL. In fact I sail on PEARL this Saturday. I hope it lives up to expectations!

 

That's so funny! Epic was our first NCL cruise and it turned us into huge NCL fans! Granted, we did miss having access to the sea like we were used to on RCCL's ships, but we spent a lot of time on our aft-balcony, up at Spice H20, and outside of Bliss by the water, so we still felt a connection to the sea, and not like we were in a floating hotel. We can't wait to see what else NCL has to offer. Maybe it's because we had our first aft-facing balcony, but it was just a really special, unique trip. We even talked today about how we'll miss the Epic cabin because we liked the bathroom setup. Different strokes for different folks.

[Psychobueller]

It's your money, but I have to say that being displeased with the Epic is a bad reason to never sail NCL again. Even a cursory browsing of reviews would reveal a lot of critical reviews that highlight the negatives you mentioned. The Epic was a failed experiment (the F3 project) whose sister ships were cancelled. Why not try the Breakaway class ships, which are getting excellent reviews? I mean no offense to anyone who liked it. But to give up on NCL based on their failed ship makes no sense to me.

Edited February 17, 2015 by Psychobueller

[AandBmom]

I'm cruising on the Epic in March. I hope we will love it . . we love the RC mega ships.

 

Were there formal nights (although I know you don't have to do) . . if so, do you remember when they were?

 

Thanks.

 

No they don't have formal nights and they don't serve Lobster in the dining room any more. I really missed the formal nights from other cruises. Sure you can dress up whenever you want but it's missing that special night feeling where you see hundreds of other people dressed up.

[AandBmom]

It's your money, but I have to say that being displeased with the Epic is a bad reason to never sail NCL again. Even a cursory browsing of reviews would reveal a lot of critical reviews that highlight the negatives you mentioned. The Epic was a failed experiment (the F3 project) whose sister ships were cancelled. Why not try the Breakaway class ships, which are getting excellent reviews? The Epic is the turd of the fleet, no offense to anyone who liked it. But to give up on NCL based on their failed ship makes no sense to me.

 

Fair point! The replies to my post have definitely convinced me to try NCL again but on a different ship. My husband is feeling very negative towards NCL right now but he doesn't go on CC so I'll have to read him some comments here to help him get over associating the Epic experience with NCL overall.

 

Just like people say they can't stand CCL I always say people would feel differently if they tried the Breeze. It's my favourite ship of all time.

[eroller]

 

Just like people say they can't stand CCL I always say people would feel differently if they tried the Breeze. It's my favourite ship of all time.

 

See that different strokes for different folks! I really disliked the BREEZE and much prefer older Carnival ships like FREEDOM and the smaller Spirit Class. BREEZE felt very crowded to me with low ceilings. Food & service were the worst I've ever experienced on Carnival and I'm Platinum with them. There definitely were not enough staff for the amount of passengers and even getting a drink meant waiting in line. Entertainment? Don't even get me started. I felt the Playlist Productions were a joke. I've seen better from a high school production. I even prefer the more colorful Joe Farcus interiors on the older Carnival ships over the rather bland and IKEA-lke decor on BREEZE.

 

The good thing is that there is something for everyone in this world of cruising. The challenge is sometimes finding it as even within the same cruise line there are major differences.

[newmexicoNita]

This was our first NCL cruise but our 8th cruise over all. Previously we have sailed 1x on Princess, 5x on Carnival and 1x on RCL. We have loved all of our past cruises. We were so excited to try a new cruise line and were optimistic about the Epic, but unfortunately the Epic just didn’t give us the cruise experience we’ve had on other lines. We won’t be back on the Epic and maybe not even on NCL. We have enjoyed the 3 other cruise lines and will stick to those in the future. Don’t get me wrong, we did enjoy ourselves and we believe a vacation with family is what you make it, but for the purpose of helping others plan I will point out the great, the good and the not so good.

 

THE SHORT REVIEW:

 

Great: O’Sheehans, ice cream, cabins quiet with comfortable beds, food always open, cirque show

Good: buffet, getting on/off the ship, kids program, blue man group

Not so good: staff seemed disinterested, ship appeared in poor shape (stained towels, rust spots, etc), ship layout weird, ship unappealing, cabin layout terrible, extra charges for a lot of stuff, activities closed a lot of the time,

 

THE DETAILED VERSION:

 

The Ship:

The Epic looks nice enough on the outside but the inside isn’t very impressive. Never once did I walk into a space and think “wow this is beautiful”. I’ve had that feeling on many other ships with beautiful atriums, beautiful promenades, etc, but not on the Epic. It’s rather dark and gloomy. Further this ship seemed run down. There were lots of rust spots, the pool towels were almost all stained.

The layout of it is poorly planned. With stairs/elevators only at the two far ends of the ship, you have to walk through tight cabin hallways, or through the pool deck where you can only walk single file or you’ll trip over pool chairs, or single file through the very narrow casino that goes on for ever. In most spaces I couldn’t even walk through hand in hand with one of my children. One of the main dining rooms opens up to the casino above which means increased noise and smoke in the dining room.

 

Further, the sports deck with the kids climbing and jumping activities is on top of the adults only quiet deck and the children have to walk past the adults only sign and through the bar area to get to the sports deck. I’m sure the people really wanting an adult’s only quiet space didn’t appreciate kids traipsing through regularly.

 

The running track is located on one of the decks on one side. I don’t think many people even found it and I really missed being able to walk around the ship on an upper deck like on other ships.

 

The kids’ splash area and waterslides are also poorly located as parents can’t really sit and watch their children. The waterslides all end at different places so you can’t keep track of more than 1 child at once and if your little one is in the splash pad you have to fight for the few chairs in the area to sit and watch them while you get dripped on from the above waterslides. On other ships I’ve really enjoyed being able to sit and watch all of my different aged children enjoy the water activities at the same time.

 

Certain things are so tucked away you have to go searching for them – ie the shops. I think they missed a huge opportunity to sell to guests by putting the shops in a place where people didn’t happen upon them very often.

 

Cabin:

What a weird layout. We had an inside and a family balcony. The family balcony was nice except that you had to walk around the bed to get anywhere. This meant only one person could stand at a time in the room. The inside cabin was way worse. We’ve done insides before but this one was tiny. Also, the bathroom experiment that they did clearly didn’t work very well. The sink is on the desk/table and it’s the size of a mixing bowl. It’s impossible to wash your hands/face, etc without splashing water on all your stuff. The electrical outlet is on this desk which means anything you’re charging is close enough to get wet. Also, you get out of the shower into the room. Awkward for those sharing rooms with anyone other than their spouse. If someone walks in your room when you get out of the shower you’re standing right at the door. Also it’s impossible to use the toilet or sink at night without waking up everyone in the cabin b/c there’s no bathroom door and the little toilet door and shower doors are very noisy. It’s like sleeping in a bathroom. Also the tv was placed in such a position that when the bunks were pulled down the tv was covered. We usually like to watch some tv after kids are in bed but this was impossible. Further, the tv was seriously lacking in variety. Not that we go on a cruise to sit and watch tv but it’s nice to be able to put a show on for the children while we’re getting ready for dinner. There was 1 channel for kids which played repeating episodes all week long. On a positive note, the cabin was very quiet and the beds were great!

 

Food:

I loved that there was always somewhere to eat. I found on other lines there would be times of the day where nothing was open but on this ship there was always somewhere to eat which was nice with kids off their normal routine.

O-Sheehan’s pub is great. The food is good. The service is pretty good. Nice ambiance and it’s wonderful that there is no charge. We loved the wings, mozzarella sticks, cheesecake, burgers, pot pie, and banana bread/fruit plate.

The buffet is actually quite good. Lots of choice, clean, well stocked, never very busy, etc. Sometimes I thought the placement of things was odd and you had to go searching for stuff ie, pancakes in one area and syrup quite far away, etc. Great staff in the buffet!

 

The Dining rooms – The dining room menus were mediocre. Many nights not much seemed appealing. Food often came out the wrong temperature. The taste and quality of the food was just okay, not great. We experienced very slow service in the dining rooms every time we were there (dinner every night and breakfast 2x). The Manhatten room was better but not by much. The hostess that seated people seemed grumpy al l the time and sometimes gave attitude. The staff were hardly around, they didn’t say more than two words to the guests it was so different from our past dining room experiences (even when we’ve done the freestyle method). I’m used to the servers asking how our day was, where are we from, making menu suggestions, etc. On this ship this never happened. I heard the specialty restaurants were great but we never tried them. Also we had to specifically ask for children’s menus (our children are obviously of the age they’d want them) and despite the fact that the menus were activity sheets for kids, they didn’t have any colors to use. If they want happy, quiet kids in the dining room a few crayons would go a long way. We started bringing our own to dinner.

 

Activities:

While the ship had several neat activities for kids (spider climb, jumpy thing, rock wall, etc) they were closed a lot of the time. They would open for a few hours here and there. We had 3 seas days and lots of time to kill it would’ve been nice to have these open more.

 

The waterslides were fun. The pools were tiny, with so much weird open space around them.

 

The planned activities were pretty few and far between, especially on the first 2 sea days. I missed previous ships with planned scavenger hunts, general trivial rather than all American History trivia.

 

The kid’s club was pretty good although they were oddly strict about things like children having their own card to sign in. Once my son left his card in his cabin and they had to get a manager to let him in, even though I was signing him in, he was registered, I had my card and I could see that they punched his room number in and pulled him up on their computer.

 

Evening movies on spice deck were nice but they didn’t have any towels available for warmth, they often packed up the lounge chairs so it was hard to get comfy and the children themed movies started way too late for the children to stay and watch.

 

The bowling alley was a nice touch and it didn’t require any staff to run it, so why charge $7 for it?

 

Shows:

Cirque Dreams show was excellent and this was the best meal of the cruise!

Blue Man Group was interesting. A little slow at some parts, but over all very enjoyable.

I heard the hypnotist was quite entertaining.

I heard negative things about Second City.

I heard Howl at the Moon was a great time.

We didn’t make it to the other shows due to life with kids.

 

Service:

While we did encounter some wonderful staff, this crew had such a different vibe than we’re used to. They were quiet and kept to themselves. I can’t remember a single staff asking how our day was, where we were from, what we had planned that day, etc. They just didn’t interact. They were all about business and even that wasn’t very efficient. Usually when I come back from a cruise I feel like my children were treated special by the crew as were we. Also, I feel like tipping my cabin steward, dining staff, etc. This time the only staff that stood out were Ravi on the spice deck and the Nickelodeon coordinator from Toronto (name?). Also the staff spraying everyone with hand sanitizer before entering all eating spaces was great! "Washy Washy, Happy Happy". I felt better knowing pretty much everyone entered the restaurants with clean hands.

Embarking and Debarking were very smooth!

 

I will say, you seem to have given a very objective review and that is important. I hope, you give NCL another try, if not, enjoy your cruising days. There are many really great ships out thee and many good lines.

[Kampfire]

We just got off the Epic on the 2/15 and we had a good time but mostly because of the cruising couple we were with.

 

The highlights of the ship is def the availability for food and entertainment. Hands down the nightlife after 11PM on the Epic was the best out of the other two cruises we've been on. Carnival Dream and RCI Oasis of the Seas.

 

The negative was the service. Bartenders/servers/staff just didn't look like they gave any cares. Waiting for drinks at the bar was beyond painful to the point of anger. Staff walking in front of you and running into you and not saying "excuse me" is not acceptable. Having the hostess seat you at Cagney's ($30 up charge per person) and wait 15 min for your waiter to show up and ask you to take your drink and meal order at the same time is completely unreasonable.

 

Service makes cruises and IMO and that's where the Epic fails to deliver.

Edited February 17, 2015 by Kampfire

[mickeysgal]

We just got off the Epic on the 2/15 and we had a good time but mostly because of the cruising couple we were with.

 

The highlights of the ship is def the availability for food and entertainment. Hands down the nightlife after 11PM on the Epic was the best out of the other two cruises we've been on. Carnival Dream and RCI Oasis of the Seas.

 

The negative was the service. Bartenders/servers/staff just didn't look like they gave any cares. Waiting for drinks at the bar was beyond painful to the point of anger. Staff walking in front of you and running into you and not saying "excuse me" is not acceptable. Having the hostess seat you at Cagney's ($30 up charge per person) and wait 15 min for your waiter to show up and ask you to take your drink and meal order at the same time is completely unreasonable.

 

Service makes cruises and IMO and that's where the Epic fails to deliver.

 

You know, this is what NCL usually excels in...their service. We've had great friendly service on the Gem and Pearl. What's going on with Epic? This isn't what I'm expecting out of NCL. Are the rest of the ships experiencing this as well?

[AandBmom]

You know, this is what NCL usually excels in...their service. We've had great friendly service on the Gem and Pearl. What's going on with Epic? This isn't what I'm expecting out of NCL. Are the rest of the ships experiencing this as well?

 

I heard complaints like this from several people on our cruise and many of them are NCL lovers. They said this experience last week on the Epic was like nothing they've experienced before on the other ships..The feeling was that the staff were perhaps poorly trained, weren't held to any expectations and that they were under staffed almost everywhere except the kids' club.

[HokiePoq]

Sorry you did not enjoy your cruise, OP.

Remember the Epic is a unique ship. We enjoyed it but the bathroom was not a deal breaker with us. NCL got the message and it is the only one with that design. The other new ships are quite different.

Hope you will try another NCL cruise.