Semi-Live NCL Epic: February 25 - March 3, 2024

[livinforcruisin]

SPECIAL REQUEST

Hi Sailing12away,

 

If at all possible during your Epic adventure would you kindly give our daughter Rachel and SIL Peter a hug from their Mum in the UK.  They are performing on board as The Upbeats Duo.  Of course, only if you happen to come accross them.  I know it's a big ship.

 

Hope you have a wonderful trip regardless of special requests. Many thanks.

 

[Yesimapirate]

Mental note for my cruise:  only post how amazing the entertainment duos are 😁

[Sailing12Away]

55 minutes ago, livinforcruisin said:

SPECIAL REQUEST

Hi Sailing12away,

 

If at all possible during your Epic adventure would you kindly give our daughter Rachel and SIL Peter a hug from their Mum in the UK.  They are performing on board as The Upbeats Duo.  Of course, only if you happen to come accross them.  I know it's a big ship.

 

Hope you have a wonderful trip regardless of special requests. Many thanks.

 

Absolutely! We'll go hunt them down and sneak attack hug them.

[Sailing12Away]

Snuck a taste of some of the cookies from yesterday, then headed to Mrs Potato for a quick lunch. Where are all my hash brown lovers at? Crispy hockey puck, shredded...

 

We sampled the cheese balls and chicken drops, then split a bacon baked potato and carne seca rosti. Amazing. Had to get my potato fix in before hopping on the ship.

 

Have a small container of leftovers that we'll bring with us, ran out of room.

[Sailing12Away]

Hubby had room for dessert, but I was stuffed so took the last few bites of potato to go.

 

In the Uber on our way, but the driver wanted to avoid tolls so it's taking the long way. I didn't realize the hour drive would now become 90+ mins. Grumble grumble.

 

Should be at the port around 2 and hopefully on board by 2:30.

[livinforcruisin]

5 hours ago, Sailing12Away said:

Absolutely! We'll go hunt them down and sneak attack hug them.

You’re wonderful.  Thank you so much. Have a great trip.

[Sailing12Away]

They have cookies. So whoever started the rumor that there's no more cookies was wrong.

 

Embarkation was empty, lounge was empty, on the ship as fast as I could walk to it. Checked in at the muster station then up to the room to see friends.

 

No need to go to cruise next to sign up for the latitude rewards, concierge took care of all that for us. No dinner with the officers on this ship.

 

Pre embarkation desk screwed up my dinner reservations, so concierge is trying to fix it. 2nd time in a row so I'm not doing that ever again.

 

Up on the posh deck waiting for the SpaceX launch as we sail away. RCC wonder of the seas just passed us by. That ship is huge. Definitely give them props for that side see through pool, looks nice, but way too many people for my liking.

 

3 drinks in, but left my phone charging so hubby has those photos. Let the fun begin!

[Sailing12Away]

MSC Sea something or other just pulled out. We're the last ship left at terminal 3. Got to see the SpaceX launch which was really neat. Phone was turned the wrong way on the video because we were chatting and late to capture it, but that was neat to see.

[Sailing12Away]

Turn your head sideways...

[HBCcruiser]

2 hours ago, Sailing12Away said:

They have cookies. So whoever started the rumor that there's no more cookies was wrong.

 

Embarkation was empty, lounge was empty, on the ship as fast as I could walk to it. Checked in at the muster station then up to the room to see friends.

 

No need to go to cruise next to sign up for the latitude rewards, concierge took care of all that for us. No dinner with the officers on this ship.

 

Pre embarkation desk screwed up my dinner reservations, so concierge is trying to fix it. 2nd time in a row so I'm not doing that ever again.

 

Up on the posh deck waiting for the SpaceX launch as we sail away. RCC wonder of the seas just passed us by. That ship is huge. Definitely give them props for that side see through pool, looks nice, but way too many people for my liking.

 

3 drinks in, but left my phone charging so hubby has those photos. Let the fun begin!

Did I hear my name? 🤣LOL! On the Harmony in April in a 2 bedroom Aqua suite - Star class. 

[Seas2mountains]

6 hours ago, Sailing12Away said:

They have cookies. So whoever started the rumor that there's no more cookies was wrong.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for doing a live review! 
 

Posting again as the first post disappeared. 
 

The cookies are sadly only being provided to people booked in the Haven or suites. 

 

We were on the Gem in the Haven about a week ago and saw the cookies in the Miami terminal Haven/Suites boarding area. We saw them again in the Haven pool area. 

 

Other posters are correct that they are no longer being served in the buffet. Haven only.  We did not see them when we walked through the buffet area to get to Great Outdoors. 

 

Have a wonderful cruise!

 

Looking forward to following along. 😎

Edited February 26 by Seas2mountains

[dexddd]

That is the best lounge for treats I've ever seen.

[Sailing12Away]

Ahh, will have to take a pass through the buffet and peak. So bizarre that they would still offer cookies for Haven only. They're nice, but not a big enough feature to convince non Haven folks to come join the dark side.

 

Lots of kids on this trip in Haven which is odd to all of us. Have seen at least 10-20, hard to count the little buggers when they're running like crazy loons. Our neighbor friend said there's some above them who are pounding on the floor like fe-fi-fo giants. Said he'll wait to see if it's just first day energy or if a chat is needed via the concierge about how sounds travels.

 

Saw the butler quickly when I ran back to the room to get my paper for GSC. Our large group has one of the 2br villas so we weren't sure how that worked if we were all taking different tenders in the morning. Paper had our villa number and I just had to fill out how many people they should expect. There was a second form with food options and price tags, so we all said we'd wait until we get there to see if we need food in the villa for a charge or will just walk ourselves to get it.

 

Butler mentioned she has 13 cabins to look after this trip which seemed high to me. Plus our neighbor has a different one. So either our rooms are the cut over, or there's no rhyme reason to how their cabins are assigned.

free-style-daily.pdf

[Sailing12Away]

Once the sun went down it got a bit chilly so we all headed inside to sort out dinner. Our plan was to see what was in the MDR, then check the wait at Osheehans, and last resort was up to the Haven restaurant. Couldn't pull the MDR menu on the app which still annoys me, so down to deck 5 it was.

 

We didn't see anything special that jumped out, so continued on our quest. Stopped in the shops so Lando could buy a ship replica. Funny thing... the original $59.99 price was crossed out with a sharpie and it rings up at $79.99. With the latitude discount it came back down to that original price, but man that's some shady stuff there. He was saying most other ships cost him $25-50, so that's on the rise.

 

Osheehans was a 40 min wait, so back up to the Haven. If we're waiting and drinking may as well be with a lot less people. Haven was a 20+ min wait that felt more like 30, but saw some of our friends and got lost in chatter. They ended up being seated next to us so it was almost like we had a table for 7 which was nice.

 

Haven food is Haven food, it never changes. My biggest complaint after having sailed Celebrity recently. Apps came fairly quickly, then we waited a very long time for dinner to arrive. I could have sworn you could get the filet by itself previously, but I may be mistaken. So I got the S&T and gave hubby an extra surf.

 

They didn't come around with the fixings for the potato though. Every table except ours. So by the time they did it was the only thing left on my plate, a naked spud yearning for some bacon and chives. They also didn't give me any butter, put 2 of the same cups of that other stuff so I had to steal hubby's. So service was off a bit, but the first day tends to be crazy.

 

We ordered glasses of wine, but the waitress insisted on putting the food order in first before taking the drink order. That was the first clue there may be issues in the back. With the wine it was very confusing. I opted for a simple white, hubby wanted the Silverado that HBC always talks about. Waitress brought a taste over and said the bottle had been open 3 days already. If you know it's not great, why bother bringing it? Then she said she has a different but similar wine that smelled much better, but then said she has to open a fresh bottle for his full glass. Wait, what? If you need to open a new bottle of that one how is it different from opening a new bottle of the Silverado? Then as she poured the glass went on to say it was the last bottle on the ship. So that whole exchange was very confusing, we'll see what we can actually get on day two.

 

Dinner took 2+ hours (past 10pm when we finished), then in normal form closed out the bar before crashing. Breakfast has been ordered to come around 8am and the general plan is to start making our way over to the villas around 9 or so. I'm just looking forward to a nap in the sun.

[Sailing12Away]

Good morning from GSC! Don't remember if I mentioned it yesterday but they are no longer doing the coupon vouchers for latitudes. Just a simple two sided paper in the room saying what you get. So we'll see how that works tonight when we go to moderno for dinner.

 

Some photos of the mountains of papers in the cabin when we got here, including the price list for the villa food.

[vacation44]

Really enjoying your live report as usual.

 

We did have the latitudes coupons on our Encore cruise two weeks ago so wonder if that is a new thing or ship thing.

 

Have a great time and looking forward to your daily report.

Edited February 26 by vacation44

[HBCcruiser]

1 hour ago, Sailing12Away said:

hubby wanted the Silverado that HBC always talks about. Waitress brought a taste over and said the bottle had been open 3 days already. If you know it's not great, why bother bringing it? Then she said she has a different but similar wine that smelled much better, but then said she has to open a fresh bottle for his full glass. Wait, what? If you need to open a new bottle of that one how is it different from opening a new bottle of the Silverado? Then as she poured the glass went on to say it was the last bottle on the ship.

😱 I’d never touch a bottle open for three days! Running out of Silverado?? That’s scary 

[Sailing12Away]

Looks to only be about 3 villas in use on silver cove, we have the whole lagoon to ourselves. Very quiet and peaceful, just wondering where everyone else is.

 

Golf carts to get you from the front to reception, then to your villa and back over to the buffet. Servers coming around to bring drinks as we need, endless flow water.

 

Buffet was ok, but nothing fancy. So I'm curious what was being served on the non silver cove side.

[cruiseny4life]

Oh, there's so much you said that I want to comment on, but I can't remember. And I'm NOT the one drinking/having fun! I'm droning at work. 

 

You obviously have much more expensive taste in wine than I have, so I am probably recommending a bottom of the barrel blah wine...but here goes! If Epic has it, try out the Shades of Blue Riesling. I'm not much of a wine drinker. When I do drink wine, it's generally a cherry wine from Montana that I absolutely adore, but this Riesling is the best wine I've ever had. I am so not a wine connoisseur! 

 

In October, we're planning to be in Orlando. At first we were going to stay four nights at Disney, then two or three nights at Universal so we could check out Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Animal Kingdom, plus the two Universal parks. I priced it out through every means possible. It would have cost more than $5,000 for three of us at a VALUE resort....so now, we're going to spend maybe a day in Orlando so my husband's mom can check out Magic Kingdom. Then on to other places, but perhaps we'll spend some time at Disney Springs. Lord knows we've spent enough money there already to last a lifetime, but why not. 

 

I'm so absolutely delighted to see this live from you. I can't wait to follow along on all of the wonderful posts and I hope it's a more joyful cruise than Pr1ma. Ill try not to be obnoxious as I follow along. 🙂

[Sailing12Away]

Shades of blue was what I had last night, so I'm not always high brow. That was free with the basic drink plan and just fine.

 

The tide is going out so now you can see the rocks and such we were walking on earlier. Sitting in the sun to dry off before heading to the tender. Couple people from our group are headed to the pool, but I'm getting a few more shades of pink.

[Sailing12Away]

Oh, and at breakfast the butler said we can't get French press coffee. She made the press and poured it into a carafe, but you can only have personal French press in the restaurant. Odd....

[cruiseny4life]

13 minutes ago, Sailing12Away said:

Shades of blue was what I had last night, so I'm not always high brow. That was free with the basic drink plan and just fine.

Hehe!! Yay! I'm sure it wasn't as nice as some, but I did enjoy. 

 

I remembered - so sorry you had to get the lobster (well that sounds pompous). We noticed on Pr1ma, the kitchen staff were less than eager to disrupt the presentation of dishes for special requests. I'm wondering if a surf and turf just doesn't look right to them if it's not surf and turf and not turf and turf as my husband orders. Are you able to order double the turf, even with the surf? I'd scarf down the lobster in that case, but seems to be a bit of culinary misadventures. 

 

Also, that Great Stirrup Cay buffet sure looks like the buffet we had on the non-Silver Cove side way back in January 2023. Wonder if that buffet has gotten worse or if Silver Cove just offers the same food. Interesting! 

[HBCcruiser]

18 minutes ago, Sailing12Away said:

Oh, and at breakfast the butler said we can't get French press coffee. She made the press and poured it into a carafe, but you can only have personal French press in the restaurant. Odd....

Huh, well that’s a new one! I am wondering why as well? Weird. Oh, LOVE your new magnet! I am glad you had a perfect day at… GSC. 
 

 

[mafig]

I'm sort of surprised about having to wait 30 minutes to be seated in the Haven restaurant.

 

Wouldn't like that.

[cruiseny4life]

32 minutes ago, mafig said:

I'm sort of surprised about having to wait 30 minutes to be seated in the Haven restaurant.

 

Wouldn't like that.

I've never seen a Haven Restaurant that doesn't have a wait from about 6:30 - 8'ish PM. Granted I've only been on five cruises, so my experience isn't even a drop in the proverbial bucket. We have only rarely waited five minutes or so, but 1) we're a two'some, and 2) we eat around 5:30 before the crowds descend.