My Epic review February 23, 2013

A little background first :) This was my sixth cruise, third on NCL, first on Epic. This was my mom's third cruise and the first-ever cruise for my two sisters and sister-in-law. We had two mini-suite balconies, 10261 and 10263...me and my sister in one room, my mom, sister and sister-in-law in the other room.

Overall, a great cruise! It was a lot of fun watching my sisters experience it all for the first time. They absolutely loved it and I think they're hooked now :) It wasn't perfect though (no cruise ever is) so I will give the positives and negatives.

Initial thoughts:

- Dining: overall, the food was good. My sisters and mom I think really enjoyed the food. I'm a vegetarian and I've never been totally impressed with the vegetarian options on any cruise I've been on. Personally, I prefer Carnival as far as the vegetarian food goes. I should note though that I don't cruise for the food...at all! I've never gained a pound on a cruise and this cruise was no different. I never even stepped foot in the buffet (I hate all buffets) and stuck mostly with the sit-down restaurants.

Taste and Manhattan Room: both pretty good. The service in both was MUCH MUCH better than my last cruise on the Pearl. I'm convinced that the crew (who mostly come from tropical climates) HATE the Alaskan cruise and the weather makes them grumpy :) Again, I wasn't totally impressed with the vegetarian options. The one vegetarian dish that stays the same every night was spaghetti or penne with marinara. REALLY??? That's the best you can come up with for vegetarians??? Some of the options on the left side of the menu (the side that changes each night) were ok but nothing was great. I liked some of the salads though and the soups were really good too. Lunch was ok too. They serve a pretty good vegetarian black bean burger and some really good Vietnamese spring rolls as an appetizer. Overall, desserts were ok but I love me some Carnival melting chocolate cake!

O'Sheehan's: We ate breakfast here a few mornings and I think we ate lunch here once. I usually only eat a dry English muffin and fruit for breakfast and so that was fine. My mom and sisters liked some of the breakfast items here but I don't think they loved anything. As far as lunch goes, they don't have any vegetarian options here at all which really SUCKS!!! They should have at least a veggie burger here.

Wasabi: I ate here for lunch one day by myself. I had the veggie roll, edamame and a bowl of rice. It was great and lite. The roll was very very good. Worth the small extra charge.

Teppanyaki: AMAZING!!! Always my favorite and definitely worth the extra fee, in my opinion. I LOVE that they have a great vegetarian option with the tofu and fresh veggies. My mom and sisters really loved their food as well (filet mignon and lobster I think). The entertainment was great as always. At the end, the chef accidentally lost control of his spatula and flung it towards my mom, knocking her drink all over her. He was extremely apologetic but my mom just laughed and didn't make a big deal about it at all.

Cirque: As far as the food goes, none of us was very impressed. It's a fixed menu so check it out before you book in case you don't like it. The vegetarian option was eggplant parmesan...I'm not generally a fan of this dish anyway. The meat option was coconut encrusted shrimp and steak I think. My mom and one sister liked it quite a bit. The other two did not like it at all. The appetizer was proscuitto (I don't know how to spell it obviously), fresh mozzarella and tomato slices. Just ok.

Svedka ice bar: We did this the second day I think. I don't think any of us would ever do it again but I'm glad we at least tried it. It was COLD...I don't think anyone stayed in there more than about 10 minutes. And none of us liked the drinks either.

Entertainment: overall, A ++++++++!!!! The entertainment on this ship is definitely it's best feature. We were all very impressed with the quality of the big shows and all of the many other options as well.

Blue Man Group: this was our first time seeing BMG and we were certainly impressed! I thought that some of the show was a bit random (the audience member at the table with them?) but it was really a great, great show. My mom and sisters went to the "Meet the guys behind the BMG" Q and A on the last sea day and they loved it and learned a lot about the guys. They loved the show so much they booked it again later in the cruise. Top notch!

Legends: AMAZING!!! Our acts for this cruise was Jimmy Buffet (not my favorite at all but the singer did a great job), Donna Summer and Michael Jackson. I think everyone's favorite was Jackson. WOW!!!! The performer did an amazing job and sang "Thriller", "Billy Jean" and one other song I can't remember right now. Again, this was a top notch production. NCL really knows how to do entertainment!

Second City: I bailed on this one because I'm not a huge fan of comedy shows. My sisters did not like it much at all. They didn't think it was very funny.

Comedian/magician Jeff Hobson: some really famous guy from Vegas who performed several shows during the cruise. My sisters and mom saw him three times, I saw him once. He was pretty funny and his magic was good too. Enjoyable :)

Howl at the Moon: I really LOVED this!!! I think it's basically a piano bar show (though I've never been to a piano bar before) It was two guys on piano and one guy on drums occasionally performing requests from the audience. Ok, I can't lie. Part of the reason I loved this was because they were super cute! Hee hee. It was Steve, Matt and Mr.Beefcake. But in addition to their cuteness, they were all three really good musicians and singers. The audience definitely makes or breaks the show though. On the first night we went, it was mostly an older audience, requesting songs from the 50s 60s and 70s. Ugh. The other nights I went (by myself...my mom and sisters thought it was boring) there were more requests for newer music, which I liked.

Dancing at Bliss Lounge: I'm 34 and I haven't been dancing since high school so this was one of my favorite parts of the cruise. I mostly went with my 20-something sister-in-law and we had a blast. Made me feel young again....ahhhhh...hee hee.

Cirque: This was a pretty good show. They keep you entertained during the entire meal with a lot of great acrobatics and contortionist stuff. I have to say, it's not really all that appealing to have a man or woman bending in all kinds of weird positions right in front of you while you eat but they were very good. I would probably not pay to see it again but if you're into that sort of thing, it was worth it.

Other things included lots of trivia shows (we went to one and did horribly), dancing outside at Spice H2O, movies in the atrium, movies outside at Spice H2O, etc. There were times when we were bored during the day but there was never any shortage of things to do/see at night.

Mandara Spa: Honestly, not a lot of good things to say about the spa. Definitely the staff is not very friendly here AT ALL. My mom, sisters and I all had massage appointments one morning. It was sister-in-law's first ever massage and she left with a terrible feeling about massages. Every one of our therapists spent a good chunk of time at the end trying to sell us CRAP. Mine tried to sell me some cream that supposedly breaks down the calcium deposits in my muscles. Surrrrre.

My sister-in-law's therapist, a man, spent a good ten minutes DURING her massage berating her about cellulite in her legs. She's not even the least bit overweight. He started by saying "Wow! What's this?" SIL: "I don't know...my leg?" Therapist: "No, what's this???" SIL: "My muscle?" He went on a few more times before she just asked, very frustrated, what he was talking about and that's when he went on a rant about her cellulite. Absolutely not acceptable during a massage!!! He proceeded to try and sell her anti-cellulite crap at the end but she didn't bite. I wanted her to complain but she didn't unfortunately.

I also had my hair cut in the salon and while the stylist did a GREAT job with my hair, he was a bit weird and made me somewhat uncomfortable.

Overall, D- in the spa.

The room: Again, we were in a mini-suite. I have so much to say about this!!! Overall, a beautiful room.

Space: lots of space! They've definitely designed the room to maximize space. There were two of us and we didn't use nearly all of the space.

Lights: Hated the light design. Took me a couple of days to figure it out. I get the idea of trying to save energy by requiring the room key stay in the slot near the door but it was a bit of a pain. Also, the lighting is just terrible...not nearly bright enough. It was very hard trying to put make-up on. I had to open the balcony curtains and put it on in front of the long mirror right by the balcony door. Not nearly enough strong light.

Bathroom: I'm firmly in the camp of HATING the bathroom layout. I don't like that you can't just open a door, turn a light on and not disturb your cabin mate while using the shower or toilet. Instead, all of it is only separated by a curtain so if they're sleeping, it's very hard not to disturb them. Also hated that you can see what's going on in the shower and toilet area. Yeah, the glass doors are clouded but you can still see A LOT!

Beds: probably the least comfortable of any cruise I've been on. Because they are rounded at the top, the pillow does not make it to the top of the mattress. I'm 5'10" and the bed is definitely too short. My feet hung off. Also, there was hardly any separation between the beds. On Carnival, there is a good 2 feet of separation between the beds. On Epic, there was maybe 5 inches? I could easily reach over and cuddle with my sister if I wanted. It was fun to reach over and bug her but the bed design is just terrible. And my poor SIL had to sleep on that stupid rounded couch! She definitely thought it was uncomfortable.

Ports: I think I'm just not a big fan of the Caribbean as a whole. The whole area is so impoverished and run down. The weather was mostly good for us though a bit cool and cloudy on our Nassau day.

St.Martin: definitely our least favorite port. It is a very run-down country, sadly. Apparently there is nothing but tourism here and they were pretty hard-hit by hurricanes in recent years. We caught a water taxi over to the main shopping area for $7 round trip/ each. I didn't find anything to buy but my sister did. We then took the water taxi back to the port area and caught a taxi over to Orient beach ($6 each person, each way) which was horrible!!! I never wanted to go to Orient. I wanted a less crowded, more remote beach but my sisters wanted something with "stuff" around it. It was a dirty, crowded, cold beach.

St. Thomas: Definitely our favorite port of the three. We first took a taxi bus over to the Charlotte/Amelie? area to do some shopping. Much better shopping here and the area was kinda cute/quaint. It was not nearly as run-down here (maybe because it's U.S. ?). We did the turtle cove snorkel excursion through NCL here and it was AMAZING!!! We took the Cat over (great, great crew and boat) to some sanctuary near an island (about a 45 minute trip I think) where we did some awesome snorkeling. We saw juvenile sea turtles feeding on the sea grass at the bottom and snorkeled at a nearby reef as well. The rum punch was flowing on the trip back. My mom and sisters had a grand ole time with that punch. I did not partake. Great excursion...highly recommend it!

Nassau: Ugh. Terrible, run-down port. We did the Blue Lagoon excursion (very similar to the Las Caletas excursion over in Puerto Vallerta). Hop on a water ferry for a 40 min ride over to the Blue Lagoon. Beautiful water over here. Lots of water activities but the water was too cold for us on that day. They also provide a lunch (with a veggie burger option). There's a small gift shop, snorkeling, dolphin encounter (HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE....I'm very much against these dolphin encounters!), hammocks, etc...It was a nice enough excursion but not very long (we were there less than 2 hours I think). Overall, didn't like Nassau at all.

Miscellaneous:

-- We don't gamble so I don't have much to say about the Casino. It was very annoying that it's right in the middle of deck 6 and you have to walk through it to get to most things. Hated having to walk through the smoke...you can definitely smell it. I wish cruise ships would just find a corner on some low deck and stick the Casino there.

-- Could not believe how un-crowded the ship felt. I think it was a pretty full cruise but I never felt like there were 4,000 other people around (except maybe the very first day). They did a great job of overall layout.

-- HATED not having a wrap-around promenade deck. There is an outdoor space to walk around deck 6 I think, maybe 7?, but it's where the lifeboats are so it's not as though you have a great view of the ocean.

-- Overall, I definitely felt more separated from the sea on this boat and that was a bit of a bummer. It would be nice to have more windows looking out to the ocean.

-- Not a lot of good spaces to read a book inside. I found a window seat by O'Sheehan's that was good except that it wasn't quiet and it wasn't very comfortable. Also found a comfy couch over by the cigar bar at Malting's bar I think. That was really comfortable until some passenger asked me to leave because they were about to start a Martini tasting. Other than that, not a lot of good reading spaces which was a bummer because I love reading on my cruises.

-- Pool area: We only really went up to deck 15 one day. My one sister, SIL and I all went on the slides (very fun!) but it was nearly impossible to find a lounge chair anywhere!!! We weren't even looking for a space near the pool! I've never had a hard time finding a chair before on any of my cruises. Usually you can at least find something far from the pool. Not on the Epic!!!!

-- Haven: We obviously didn't stay in the Haven area but I do have an opinion about it! HATED that it's in the front of the ship, blocking any decent views of the forward area for all the lowly non-Haven people. On the sail away, you're stuck looking off the sides of the ship because there is no access for non-Haven people to look out the front of the ship. This really sucked. Hate this about the ship design.

Ok, I think that's it. It was not my favorite ship in a lot of ways but I would definitely sail it again. Also, not crazy about the Caribbean. Even though the water is not as warm, I think I actually like the Mexican Riviera better. Never though I would but I do. I think I'd like the check out the Southern Caribbean to see how it compares. I know my kids would love the warm water and soft sand so I may end up doing the E.Caribbean again. We'll see.

Any questions, feel free to ask :)

Good review, thanks!

Some have had great success telling the folks at the spa to NOT try to sell them anything before going in. They seem to abide by this request

Some terrific info and great to read a balanced review. Thanks so much

First cruise with NCL my DM and I had the same type of dealings at the spa. Very annoying to take a relaxing moment and aggrivate the crap our of someone. So... next cruise we did say up front that we do not want to be sold anything -regardless if they think we need it. That if during our massage at any time they try to sell us on a product we will leave and dispute and massage charges. We just want a relaxing massage. That worked.

Some have had great success telling the folks at the spa to NOT try to sell them anything before going in. They seem to abide by this request

I've been doing that for years on every cruise line, and it does work.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the Epic.

Thanks for your review of the Epic! I cant wait for my turn:)

Thanks for your review, especially after reading that other one that's floating around out there..... We're on the Epic this Saturday, so I appreciate your feedback :)

Hi, thanks for the review. I'll be staying in cabin 10261 soon and was wondering if the balcony is fully covered? Thanks for any info you can give me.

Thank you for your review. I'm stuck on the fence about trying the Epic.

Heh, I was on the same ship and I am also a vegetarian. I really liked the vegetarian options. I found alot to eat at the buffet, especially the sauteed mushrooms (hopefully not sauteed in animal fat) which I put on the pizza. Regarding the casino, I read somewhere that it was a Vegas cruise on sea and we are casino goers so it was one of the main reasons I booked the ship, lol. I agree though, if your not into casinos that could be a problem. The last night I couldn't even get a machine it was so packed. I also agree about the lack of ocean views. Thanks for the review!!

Hi, thanks for the review. I'll be staying in cabin 10261 soon and was wondering if the balcony is fully covered? Thanks for any info you can give me.

It is fully covered above...not blocked at all in the front though (unlike a cove balcony). It's a very nicely appointed room with a few minor problems :) You will have a lot of fun!

Thank you for your review. I'm stuck on the fence about trying the Epic.

Yeah, it wasn't a tough call for me...sisters and mom picked a ship and date and I happily went along. As I said, I would definitely go on it again but it was not my favorite ship. It definitely had the best entertainment options of any ship I've been on and I think that's the main reason I would sail on it again. The quality and quantity of things to do outweighed the negatives for me :)

Great review

In 2010 we also did Blue Lagoon Beach break and it was the worst excursion ever. I agree with you about the time. 2 hours is crazy. Could not agree with you more about those Dolphin swims too.

thanks for sharing! I agree about Howl at the Moon - my favorite!

The Haven is not the whole front of the ship. Deck 18 has a public area opposite of Haven. I am sorry you did not know about it. We enjoy amazing views off the front on the ship during our docking in the Bahamas