Epic Solo Studio Lounge Boarding day

[als777jo]

Anybody know if the lounge is available when we board the ship since cabins are not ready till 1:30?  I have tried searching everywhere and cannot seem to find an answer to this. 

 Thank you very much 1st time on Norwegian looking forward to it.

[marktwothousand]

Yes, but there would likely be next to nothing going on there. The bar opens for an hour sometime between 5 and 7 for the studio meetup, but other than that, the lounge is usually empty. There will probably be some cookies and coffee. Once you board, find a copy of the daily schedule of events (its called Freestyle Daily, its on blue paper) and look up what time the Solo cruisers meet up is. Usually 5/5:30 or 6. Go to the lounge at that time, it will be better for you.

[als777jo]

Actually I'm sailing by myself and I was thinking if I was heading up to my cabin and it wasn't quite ready yet it would give me a place to sit and chill😉 It is also helping me decide whether or not to carry on my small suitcase I just don't wanna roll it all over the ship

[perditax]

11 hours ago, als777jo said:

Anybody know if the lounge is available when we board the ship since cabins are not ready till 1:30?  I have tried searching everywhere and cannot seem to find an answer to this. 

 Thank you very much 1st time on Norwegian looking forward to it.

 

I haven't been on Epic, but have been on GA, Escape and Bliss (some of them multiple times), all in the last few years as a solo cruiser. The solo lounge is never closed/unavailable, from what I've seen. The only gotcha on embark day is that if you're still using your phone (while in port), you won't get signal in there, but at the same time the paid WiFi system is unlikely to be working yet either. 

 

You can totally chill in there while waiting for rooms. And have coffee, tea, snacks, etc. 

Edited April 1, 2019 by perditax

[ColinIllinois]

16 minutes ago, als777jo said:

Actually I'm sailing by myself and I was thinking if I was heading up to my cabin and it wasn't quite ready yet it would give me a place to sit and chill😉 It is also helping me decide whether or not to carry on my small suitcase I just don't wanna roll it all over the ship

 

When I was on the Epic the Headliners Club was available to drop off carry on luggage until the rooms were ready.  That was a while ago so maybe someone else can chime in if it was available recently.

[als777jo]

Good to know thank you😁

[marktwothousand]

For studios, usually if your room is "almost" ready but not completely, you can probably leave an unvalueable piece of luggage in the closet or lock some stuff in the safe. (like for example if you need to leave a heavy jacket in a bag, or your carryon is just too heavy). Just let the steward know you left it in there so they don't take it away when they do the final check.

 

Usually you can tell if your room is in the "almost" ready state when the door is propped open but the room has otherwise been cleaned.

 

But the advantage to doing this in the studios is that they're closed off from the rest of the ship behind secure doors, so its not like just leaving your bag in a regular stateroom.

 

Being your first cruise, I doubt you will want to be wasting time waiting in the studio lounge for long, unless you need to sleep or relax due to a medical condition, you will very likely feel like you want to start exploring the ship.

[als777jo]

Thanks so much for the info. It's my 1st NCL and solo, but 10th cruise. So yeah, totally going to explore the ship. Food, explore, drop off stuff, explore more, muster lol.  I may just leave my bag with the porter cause my carry on is easy to carry around.  If I could do a drop off, that would be great. I'd even tip extra extra for the convenience lol.

[als777jo]

One more question, is it easier to access the studio lounge from the front of the ship?

 

[sid_9169]

2 minutes ago, als777jo said:

One more question, is it easier to access the studio lounge from the front of the ship?

 

The main entrance, closest to the lounge is near the forward elevator bank / forward stairs...

[als777jo]

Awesome thank you