Epic Cruise Review 3/18 - 3/25

[iriecruising]

We are just back from our first NCL Cruise. We have done Princess and Carnival in the past. We read lots of reviews here before heading out on the EPIC and appreciated all the information we got prior to our cruise. So we wanted to add our own review for future cruisers.

 

Arrival and Embarkation -

We arrived at Port Canaveral at approx. 10:45. Signage was good to find our way to the Epic. There was a short line to enter the parking area. There were no signs here saying what the cost was so each car that pulled up had to be told the cost and then get their cash or card out. A sign indicating the cost would have sped things up but really I think the wait was only about 10 minutes to get in. Once we paid ($120.00) we were able to get in another line to drop off our luggage and then park. I think the entire process from arriving at the port to walking into the terminal was probably about 40 minutes. When we walked into the building there was a long line for security and it was not moving. Anyone coming in after us was going to be waiting outside the building. We were traveling with someone who was disabled and needed a wheelchair to get on to the ship so we were escorted to a different, much shorter line. They did not begin to let people through security to the check in area until about noon. After security we walked right up to the counter and got our cards and off we went to board.

 

You do not board this ship into any kind of atrium. We boarded on deck 7, Between life boats and were directed toward the front of the ship and in through a set of doors that were between the forward elevators and stairs. We did not have any problems getting an elevator to deck 9 where our staterooms were located but when we got off we found the doors to the stateroom areas closed with a sign saying rooms were not ready yet. We decided to head for the pool/bar/garden café are on deck 15. I think we had to let 1 elevator which was full go by before we could get on the next one.

 

We certainly were not the first ones on the ship but it was not too crowded yet. Some of our party were smokers and we found a smoking section on the port side of the ship right by the waves pool bar. We got a table sat down and had a waiter taking our drink order within a few minutes. We stayed right there with drinks and snacks from the buffet for a couple of hours until they announced that rooms were ready. Sorry, but the drinks and the fact I was finally on vacation made be forget to look at my watch to see what time they announced rooms being ready. My guess was sometime between 2pm and 3pm! I will say that the area was quite crowded and we were lucky to have found a place in the shade to sit during that time so if you find shade, take it you will be glad you have it after a while. Once the announcement was made people started clearing out and heading for rooms. We stayed a little while longer to avoid any traffic jam at the elevators. When we did head to our cabins we were able to walk right on an elevator.

 

Cabins -

Our party had booked two cabins with the extended balcony on deck 9. As other people have said the rooms are tight and the bed is short. There is very little room to walk by the foot of the bed so we chose not to pull our bed out from the wall a few more inches. The bathroom situation is again what everyone else here has said... "different" I did like the idea of the shower and bathroom being separate but they were both very small. And brushing your teeth from the foot of you bed was kind of odd too. The entrance to the bathroom spot is a sliding frosted glass door with a clearance of maybe 20-22 inches so this could be tight for some people. Once inside the area was rounded and had enough room. The frosted glass for the bathroom and shower did provide some privacy but if you are a family travelling with teenagers or sharing a room with someone you are not quite that personal with then the privacy curtain that closes off that area is a must. Our room was immaculate, The bed was firm and very comfortable but the pillows were the worst pillows I have ever slept on. Even rinky dink roadside motels have better pillows. We had 5 pillows in out room and all were terrible. They were all either rock hard and flat as can be or pillows full of rock hard lumps. Seriously, I have never taken my own pillow anywhere but I had wished I had for this trip! There is storage space galore in these cabins. We packed heavy, very heavy and did not even come close to using it all. Suitcases fit under the bed. We had 2 wardrobes. One floor to ceiling and the other was ceiling to about half way down and had 3 deep drawers under it. Our room had the bed closer to the door than to the balcony. Our friends had the bed closer to the balcony and their second wardrobe was much shallower than ours but if you have the choice take the room with the bed near the balcony. It is easier to maneuver through and there is still plenty of storage. There was storage behind the back of the sofa and 2 big draws under it as well as some cabinets over it. The extended balcony was great with plenty of room. When we arrived at our staterooms one room had 2 chairs and a small table and the other had 2 loungers, a chair and a small table. I asked our steward if he could get us a lounge for our balcony and the next day there he was at the door with a lounger!! I offered him a tip and he actually hesitated to take it and asked what that was for. I explained I was very appreciative that he got us the lounger and just wanted to say thanks and he finally took it! I was quite surprised he did not just take it and leave! We love balcony cabins but these were not our favorites. When we looked down from our balcony we were staring right at the lifeboats. The lifeboats on epic are not at all tucked in to the ship. They hang off the sides. I remember our past cruises the life boats at least being partially tucked in under one of the decks on the ship. Anyway, If you did not look down then the view was amazing as always and I loved having the extra balcony space for a lounger! One more thing to add about cabins.... If you are charging phones or cameras or need to plug in more than 2 things at once bring a power strip. If you use a CPAP machine bring a power strip and an extension cord. Although I did hear an announcement that you can get an extension cord from the ship but seems like it would just be easier to bring your own.

 

Now on to the fun stuff.... Restaurants....

We had the dining package and ate somewhere different each night. The first night we ate at Taste which is one of the main dining rooms. I ordered the NY strip steak and while it was good it was not as good as a steak from say Outback. I was surprised. My husbands food was also good but nothing spectacular. The service was fine and timely but not very friendly at all. The second night we ate in the other main dining room, The Manhattan Room. This really is a beautiful dining room and more formal setting than Taste. We had like 3 different servers through our meal and again none were very friendly. No smiles, no nothing. Even when you said "thank you" you got no response. The food was good that night. I had the Pot Roast and it was delicious!! The next 4 nights we ate at specialty restaurants and that's when things changed! The servers were friendly, smiling and totally different from those in the main dining rooms. Had the filet in Cagney's. It was amazing!, Teppanaki was fun and the food delicious. Between the 4 of us I think we had all the options, steak, shrimp, chicken, etc. and everyone loved it. We also went to the Italian place and lucked into sunset. The view is amazing from here. If you can reserve a dining time at sunset it is really worth it!! The food here was also really good! The next night we did the Cirque dinner show. We did premium seating but did not realize we should arrive early for good seats. We were seated at the end of a banquet table with 11 other people and I could not see the center of the room at all. So if you are doing Cirque get the premium seats but still get there early to get the best seats. The last night we decided to hit O'Sheehan's. We had heard mixed reviews of the service here but we did not wait for a table, we had a server right away and our food did not take long at all! We ate breakfast everyday at the Garden Café buffet and there was a large selection of food and multiple stations to get it from. Did not take long at all. We only had lunch one time and it was also at the garden café. Like breakfast there were tons of choices and the food was good! Try the hashbrown patties at breakfast. They were a favorite!!! Also we followed the advice of another cruise critic poster and took our food from garden café down the café stairs to the Italian Place to have breakfast and it was nice and quiet and had an unbelievable view!!

 

Shows -

We went to Burn the Floor, Priscilla Queen of the Desert and stopped in for the Dueling Pianos. The best if the 3 in my opinion was Burn the floor. Loved all the dance numbers. The talent was unbelievable! The show was interrupted towards the end for a medical emergency. Apparently someone wiped out and hit their head and in minutes there was a medical team there treating him and wheeled him out. The cruise director apologized and the show went on. I mention this not because I was upset the show was interrupted but because I was really impressed in the response time between the announcement of an emergency on the ships intercom and the actual arrival of medical personnel! Again great show!!! Priscilla was good also but just a little slow for me. Again very talented entertainers but just a little slow for me. Dueling Pianos was good also but we did not stay too long. If I had to pick one of the three I would pick Burn the Floor without hesitation!

 

Pools and Outside Areas

 

The pool area and water slides were immaculate every single day! I know because I am a night owl and every night they stack up every single lounge chair by the pool and the surrounding sun decks and pressure wash. It is awesome to know things are getting cleaned so well but I do wish they left one area each night for the night owls to sit and relax. Speaking of places to sit and relax.... If you are not down by the pool on a day at sea by 7am do not plan to get a lounge chair. I know this is typical but when we went down at 7am one day we could not find a single lounger. Our cruise was booked solid and included 430 students on spring break from Clemson university so maybe it was more crowded then usual but it was frustrating not to be able to find a lounger anywhere. We took the elevator from the pool deck to deck 18 and walked all the way forward when we were leaving port in Florida and there are clam shells and cushion loungers there that are not part of Posh. There is no bar there though, no shade and only a shower to cool off with but it was a nice area. Unfortunately they close it at night so you cant go enjoy the view up there. I tried to get POSH passes when we boarded and even though we were on board early they were sold out which was a shame. I looked up there a lot and it appeared there were plenty of empty loungers and even umbrellas up there. I highly recommend at least trying to get the posh pass if you want to be relatively close to the pool and get a lounge! We used the 2 main pools and which were both chlorine pools and much to my surprise, heated too! All 3 water slides were fun! People of all ages were using them and I mean from little kids to grandmas!! So no matter your age give them a try. They were fun!! We stopped by Spice H2O each night but seemed to miss the theme each night. When we got there it was just club music playing. I am guessing they start with the theme at the beginning of the night and then just change to club music. There is also a smoking area on the starboard side of the ship back there for the smokers. The ship layout seemed like it had very little outdoor space that connected to anything. The pool deck (15) connected to spice H20 but the sundeck (16) did not make a full circle and did not connect to anything at the back or front of the ship, the deck you might call the promenade deck (7) (EPIC did not name their decks - just numbers) ran down each side of the ship but did not connect in front or back. The port side had shuffleboard and was a smoking section. They called the starboard side the jogging track but you would just have to jog from front to back over and over again. And you could not see out to the water or sky or anything for that matter because the life boats hung off the outside of this deck. I really missed this. I see that NCL has added a lot more outdoor areas to their new ships! That is a good thing. If there are going to build mega ships that hold 4000+ passengers they really need more outdoor space. Even inside the ship was always crowded. Sofas and chairs and lounge areas outside of restaurants were always jammed. so take that into account if you plan to book on Epic.

 

Casino....

There was a 3% charge to use your onboard account to gamble so bring cash if you don't want to pay the fee. There were lots of slots players complaining about that. I am not a big gambler so I just used cash. There were plenty of tables to play cards at and I often saw dealers with no players but there were only 2 roulette wheels and the "cheap" one which was a 10.00 min bet with 2.00 chips was 3-4 people deep all the time and the more expensive table was empty. I tried to play several times and could not get near the table. There were so many people playing the table (at one point there were 12-14 people playing) it was covered in chips and it took the dealer forever to payout and clear the table. 4-5 minutes between spins! And yes the casino covers nearly the entire deck 6 and in the middle there is a circular area that is open to deck 5 and 7. Half of the casino in this area allowed smoking. Does not matter that it was only half because even if the smoke itself did not travel the smell did. The smoking side was heavy with smoking players. So be aware if you are sensitive to smoke this entire area will not be good for you.

 

We really did love being on our cruise and we absolutely loved the "freestyle" dining. We made reservations for almost everything but we made them at times that were convenient for us and what we had planned for the day. We were even able to change our reservations last minute one night without any trouble at all. Loved that aspect and loved the décor of the ship. For the most part everything was immaculate. The bathrooms outside the Bliss nightclub got messy from time to time but considering the amount of college kids with the Ultimate Beverage Package on board I don't think this was avoidable. We never felt nickeled and dimed the way other posters had mentioned. The 2 nights we ate in the main dining room there were no items listed with an upcharge, we were charged about 70 cents in taxes on our drinks while in port but we expected this from reading the boards here on CC. We were able to walk right off the ship when docked in St. Thomas and Tortola and unfortunately had to skip Great Stirrup Cay due to weather. We battled 40 knot winds Thursday night and the ship was really rocking. I was not surprised at the cancellation the next morning. Our charges for a clamshell and sun mats were credited back and we were given an additional 15.00 credit per person on our account for the cancellation and enjoyed another day at sea instead!

 

All in All we had a great time and are seriously considering NCL for our next cruise. (we will be taking teenage daughters on that one) The specialty restaurants were awesome, the flexible dining times are great, there were so many entertainment options and they were all good but I wont pick Epic again. The ship was just too crowded, the rooms too small and outdoor areas too few, too small or closed at night. I will look at either the small ships with less people or the newer ships with more outdoor areas for relaxing! But again would not hesitate to do NCL again!

[anandaindonesia]

Nice review. Glad to hear you enjoyed your cruise.

Keep cruising!

 

Sent from my SM-G610F using Tapatalk

[Oakman58]

I enjoyed reading your review, thanks for taking the time to write it and share with us.

[iriecruising]

I enjoyed reading your review, thanks for taking the time to write it and share with us.

 

Thank You! Your review was really helpful when we were preparing for our trip!!!

[lisaem79]

Thank you for this nice review! I worry about getting lost on such a big ship!

[iriecruising]

Thank you for this nice review! I worry about getting lost on such a big ship!

 

 

It really was not hard to Navigate around the ship. All the common inside areas like clubs, restaurants etc were on Decks 5,6 and 7. The outside areas started on deck 15 which was the main pool deck and that deck was easily accessible from either set of elevators. My one recommendation would be to find a room cabin close to the elevators. Midship cabins really are not close to an elevator on this ship. We loved being close to an elevator!!

[jaxw17]

Thanks a lot we will be on her on the 7th May