Condition of Epic

[New2cruise2022]

@dhanakornGreat pics and fair and honest update. Hopefully NCL is scrambling to clean up the ship and instill confidence in consumers. If it isn’t @Captain-John comments onboard and here in CC, certainly anxious cruisers that have responded to this thread by calling NCL to inquire and new bookings on different ships should motivate NCL to move quickly. 

[Lupush]

The condition of Epic is pretty shocking by NCL standards.  I sailed Epic twice, once in 2011 and once in 2014.  The 2014 sailing was the only time I've ever complained to NCL about anything. 

[Markanddonna]

In 2019, we did a similar sailing on NCL to Israel. They had a coup!e of immigration officers onboard who did the passport interview days ahead of Israel. I am wondering if Ncl didn't have this to cut back $. We had British officers several days in advance in May before England.

 

Doing this on the day of Ashdod was horrible and stressful. Some people didn't finish up until 1:00.

 

After the Greek passport mistake, the timing in Istanbul and Patmos,  I wonder if they know what they are doing.

[dhanakorn]

They’re also fixing the neon lights on the Epic signage. 
 

[Jltjr1999]

1 hour ago, Markanddonna said:

In 2019, we did a similar sailing on NCL to Israel. They had a coup!e of immigration officers onboard who did the passport interview days ahead of Israel. I am wondering if Ncl didn't have this to cut back $. We had British officers several days in advance in May before England.

 

Doing this on the day of Ashdod was horrible and stressful. Some people didn't finish up until 1:00.

 

After the Greek passport mistake, the timing in Istanbul and Patmos,  I wonder if they know what they are doing.

What was the Greek passport mistake? Istanbul, Patmos, and really all NCL excursion disembarkations were very chaotic and wasteful of time. I can't understand why it was such a mess.  Getting off the ship and walking up the ramps with our luggage after standing in line for an hour and a half wasn't fun 😞  We missed breakfast at least 5 or 6 times just to make our designated meeting time for excursions only to sit in the Epic theater for an hour waiting for our excursion to be called 😞 😞

All that said, we did enjoy our cruise but we are DRAINED.

Edited November 16, 2022 by Jltjr1999

[Markanddonna]

25 minutes ago, Jltjr1999 said:

What was the Greek passport mistake? Istanbul, Patmos, and really all NCL excursion disembarkations were very chaotic and wasteful of time. I can't understand why it was such a mess.  Getting off the ship and walking up the ramps with our luggage after standing in line for an hour and a half wasn't fun 😞  We missed breakfast at least 5 or 6 times just to make our designated meeting time for excursions only to sit in the Epic theater for an hour waiting for our excursion to be called 😞 😞

All that said, we did enjoy our cruise but we are DRAINED.

Remember how Ncl asked for our passports for Greece after we had been to Santorini and Athens? I asked and they said someone???? made an error. Greece or Ncl. I'm guessing ncl.

 

We did mostly private excursions or DIY like in Catania and Rhodes. The rain made everything a mess in Nap!es.

 We enjoyed most aspects of the cruise, but it taxed our patience with timing and ports. It

Edited November 16, 2022 by Markanddonna

[dhanakorn]

I think NCL now heard about us complaining how rusty the Epic is. Repainting is in progress

We’re docking at Rhodes today. Three ships in port, quite busy day today. 

 

My TV issue is now fixed. I went to talk the the Guest Service yesterday and the maintenance guy showed up literally within 10 minutes and issue was resolved promptly. I’m very satisfied. 
 

If you have any issues, do let them know and they will generally try to resolve it to make you happy.
 

And I appreciate the concerns that OP @Captain-John and others have raised to NCL. I believe that I have a little better experience on my cruise because some issues have been addressed and resolved. 

[Jayneykul]

I’m glad your issues have been dealt with we won’t be sailing with ncl again

[New2cruise2022]

It is encouraging to hear where concerns are met with resolve. Ships age, mistakes happen, sometimes standards fall short of expectations. That is going to happen. The way consumers and NCL respond and react makes a world of difference. 

[DCGuy64]

On 11/19/2022 at 7:36 PM, New2cruise2022 said:

It is encouraging to hear where concerns are met with resolve. Ships age, mistakes happen, sometimes standards fall short of expectations. That is going to happen. The way consumers and NCL respond and react makes a world of difference. 

Exactly. I really commend @Captain-John and others for taking the time to bring these issues to the attention of staff. It would be so easy just to complain and be done with it, but pointing these things out to those who can do something about them, helps everyone.

[DCGuy64]

On 10/30/2022 at 6:05 AM, old nutter said:

We had a superb cruise a few weeks ago on Epic. The staff were wonderful. The general condition of the ship was pretty good for us.  We were in the Haven and so cannot comment on other accommodation.  The only place we noticed the effect of the pandemic lay-off in the suite was the serious pealing on the balcony where the rail varnish had pealed down to the wood.  Curing this would involve serious sanding or replacement and would not be very easy with customers around, and being minor it did not spoil the trip for us at all.

 

The public areas were in very good condition in the main, apart from one glaring example.  The Epic is inherently short of areas with open views to the sea by design.  Most of those areas are on deck 15.  The forward and midships areas are well looked after as are the open decks on Deck 16.  However, the problems that have caused the closing of H2O and the Sports Area also including the closure of the climbing wall, the mini golf the Market Place and some of the children's water features mean that the stern section of Deck 15 has been left pretty-well derelict.  H2O is well barred but walking round that zone of the ship gives a very poor impression.  No effort has been made to make this area attractive.  Maybe the problem causing the closures is making this part of the ship uninhabitable, so NCL do not want customers spending time here? Whatever the reason this problem takes the shine of what otherwise looks a pretty-well maintained ship.

Bells peal, paint peels. 😉 Thanks for your post BTW. We are sailing on the Epic in about 2 weeks' time and appreciate all the information we can get.

[J0Y0US]

Anyone on her recently? I was really considering going on this ship but now having some doubts. We will be Haven though so possibly not as big of a deal since it was actually refurbed unlike the rest of the ship.

 

On 11/21/2022 at 11:23 AM, DCGuy64 said:

Bells peal, paint peels. 😉 Thanks for your post BTW. We are sailing on the Epic in about 2 weeks' time and appreciate all the information we can get.

 

Will be interested in hearing from you if you are on the ship or have returned.

[DCGuy64]

On 12/4/2022 at 12:25 AM, J0Y0US said:

Anyone on her recently? I was really considering going on this ship but now having some doubts. We will be Haven though so possibly not as big of a deal since it was actually refurbed unlike the rest of the ship.

 

 

Will be interested in hearing from you if you are on the ship or have returned.

We returned to the US on Friday and spent the weekend in NYC, came home last night. The ship was in fine shape, as far as we were concerned. We had a mini suite and there wasn't much to complain about. One of the vanity drawers had a cover (I forget what the correct furniture term is, maybe faceplate) that came off but was fixed. And our balcony door handle was loose. But everything worked fine and we had more storage space than we knew what to do with. Saw very little evidence of rust and the shop was pretty much spotless.

[BirdTravels]

On 11/16/2022 at 10:29 AM, Lupush said:

The condition of Epic is pretty shocking by NCL standards.  I sailed Epic twice, once in 2011 and once in 2014.  The 2014 sailing was the only time I've ever complained to NCL about anything. 

In 2011, she was 2 years old. In 2014, the ship was 4 years old. In 2015, they did a dry dock where they demo'ed most of the public areas down to the deck plates and rebuilt. We were on the repositioning cruise from Southampton to Barcelona as she came out of dry dock. 

[Captain-John]

21 hours ago, DCGuy64 said:

We returned to the US on Friday and spent the weekend in NYC, came home last night. The ship was in fine shape, as far as we were concerned. We had a mini suite and there wasn't much to complain about. One of the vanity drawers had a cover (I forget what the correct furniture term is, maybe faceplate) that came off but was fixed. And our balcony door handle was loose. But everything worked fine and we had more storage space than we knew what to do with. Saw very little evidence of rust and the shop was pretty much spotless.

 

I am glad you enjoyed your cruise and happy to hear you found her in good shape. :) 

[DCGuy64]

On 12/20/2022 at 2:56 PM, Captain-John said:

 

I am glad you enjoyed your cruise and happy to hear you found her in good shape. 🙂

Thanks, I credit you for having alerted them to things which they addressed in the meantime. 😀

[spanishguy1970]

58 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

Thanks, I credit you for having alerted them to things which they addressed in the meantime. 😀

We will be on the Epic again in April 2023, our 6th time on the ship. I hope she would like in great shape. The unfortunate part now is we are 121 days and are telling us we can't book the spa pass online we have to wait until we get onboard, that's a shame, first time i see that.

[DCGuy64]

2 minutes ago, spanishguy1970 said:

We will be on the Epic again in April 2023, our 6th time on the ship. I hope she would like in great shape. The unfortunate part now is we are 121 days and are telling us we can't book the spa pass online we have to wait until we get onboard, that's a shame, first time i see that.

I thought you had to wait until 120 days, if it's 121 then you should be OK by tomorrow. I think you'll like the ship, we certainly did.