Norwegian EPIC or Carnival DREAM... Please Share

We are trying to decide between the Carnival Dream and Norwegian Epic. Please help!!! Sorry for the long descriptive post too.

- Some background info: Both cruises are 7 nights.

- We can get a Mini Suite deck 9 mid ship on the Epic for $250 more pp as a Balcony on Dream

- Dream cove balconies are sold out

- Epic is a Christmas itinerary. Dream is an October itinerary. For Dream, Daughter will have to miss 3 days of school and hubby will need to find back-up professor for 1 class.

- Equivalent Christmas itinerary on Dream will cost $600 pp more than Epic.

- We have a preteen and a toddler daughter. We are mostly easy cruisers. I have done 7 or so on Carnival, 2 on Disney, 1 Eurodam (Bad experience. Never again will cruise Holland America).

- All four of us love good quality tasty foods. Big fish eaters except older daughter who eats steak daily on cruises.

- We prefer not to pay extra for meals. We will if need be.

- Overall, we like good quality living but not at all materialistic. We've done some cruises and spent $0 on board. We also don't skimp but just not much into consumerism.

- We neither drink nor smoke. Mom is asthmatic so smoke is an issue. We are not big on wild entertainment but love a good laugh!!

- We rarely drink sodas

- It is going to be my 40th birthday celebration cruise

Thanks in advance for your recommendation or experience on either!!!

Christmas cruises are always going to be more crowded. This means the pool and youth program will be at maximum capacity. It will be a festive mood onboard but crowded. I do like NCL though. The square feet of a mini suite on Epic is probably equivalent to a balcony on dream.

I probably wouldn't do the October cruise because your daughter will have to miss school and this may cause her some stress.

While I truly believe that it's hard to have a bad time on any cruise or ship...this is just MY opinion. Ships, food, entertainment and so on is completely subjective.

I have been on both the Epic and the Dream. I loved both! However, if I had to pick one or the other, my pick would be the Epic. The entertainment was just out of this world...or "Epic" should I say. There was so much to do and the ship was so beautiful. The Dream is a big ship as well and very beautiful, but I still liked the Epic better.

I did a very short review of the Epic in my signature line (since I wasn't as too "extensive" with my pictures and reviews back then) and there's also a VERY extensive, photo heavy review of the Dream as well in my signature. You are more than welcome to read those and if you have any specific questions, I'd be more than happy to help you if I can (or some of these other fine people on here can as well). :)

If you are planning on using the kids club with a toddler who naps, you might want to avoid NCL. Their kids club is closed from 12-2, and again from 5-7 on sea days. We traveled on HAL last fall which had similar hours, and it was always a problem - my son napped until 3:30, and the kids club closed at 4, and he was always upset when he woke up from his nap and wanted to go to the kids club. HAL is geared more towards older cruisers, so I can understand their kids club having more restrictive hours, but it seems strange that a cruise line like NCL that appears to be geared towards families would choose these hours. I can understand if NCL wanted to use the hours of Princesses kids club - it is closed for an hour at lunch and dinner, to ensure the parents actually feed their kids, but to be closed for two hours at a time is hard on families with toddlers who nap.

Thanks a lot folks. I really appreciate the tips and reviews.

We usually don't use the kids club much, although we may use it more on a 7-nighter.

Bummer, I just found that we could easily have neighbors that smoke on their balcony on the EPIC. will be a huge issue for us. Looks like we wont be able to do the Epic for that reason.

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=256618

Carnival just improved their smoking policy too, so a little more attractive at this point.

Please share more feedback. Decision. Decision. Decision!

Thanks in advance! Just dont want to repeat our HAL Eurodam experience.

Eurodam summary -- Mighty fat bug on our bed day of embarkation, room dusty and dingy, food not very good, hall ways stinking throughout cruise due to several cabins with bad toilets, safe not available to use until day 2, service issues left over a day (if the toilet had an issue, you were told to use the public amenities! and obviously, that floor had more than 8 cabins with toilet issues throughout the cruise), unhappy stewards, not very helpful staff...all resulting in MANY not very happy cruisers... HAL indeed managed to ruin that vacation so much that I am now afraid of a repeat on any future cruises.

Actually, I need to do a review of the Eurodam sailing here soon.

Please help me with this next cruise. EPIC or DREAM?! Am I unnecessarily worried? Feel free to tell me so... no hurt feelings :-)

There is a fairly active thread over on the NCL board that says that on Wednesday NCL will be announcing no more balcony smoking effective 11/1/14, so I'd wait until then to be sure before you make a decision based on smoking policy.

We didn't much use our balcony on the Getaway a month ago because of the smokers next door. Will be happy to see this change.

This is great to know, thank you. Will definitely be watching for the Wednesday announcement!!