krj9999

We were on the Jan. 29 sailing; first time on Epic and first post-covid cruise.  Can't comment on the aft balcony issue as have never stayed in one, though assume may a challenge for many ships.  Actually didn't mind the split bathroom/shower, though the sink being separated was a bit odd.  Balcony we had on deck 8 was good sized.  Liked the additional storage space compared to many staterooms we've been in.  Elevators were spaced too far apart - we were mid ship and was a healthy walk in either direction to get to the elevators.  Fitness center was quite spacious and decent equipment.  The outdoor "track" on deck 7 being on just one side of the ship was odd.  Should note we got off to a bit of an inauspicious start as the entire ship had a brief power failure about 75 minutes before departure (fortunately we weren't in an elevator at the time).  May have delayed our sailing by 10-15 minutes (to get all the systems back up and running and prep for departure).

Didn't know in advance that stateroom service would just be once a day.  It was a pretty healthy jump in the gratuities charge considering this change; and miss not having towel animals or chocolates.  Barely saw our stateroom attendant.  Food was alright, though seemingly not as much variety as in the past.  Also limited food venue options at certain points of the day (late morning and after 9:30 pm).  And no late night buffet (or ice carvings or chocolate) on the pool deck either.  Not sure how much is lack of staffing vs. general cost-cutting.

On itinerary, we actually received a "schedule change" a few weeks prior to the cruise adjusting the St. Kitts departure time and San Juan arrival time (was 6pm departure and 7am arrival initially, which shifted to 4pm departure and 6am arrival - though we actually left St. Kitts at 5pm).  I'm guessing they needed a bit more turnaround time in San Juan than originally envisioned - which may have also caused the delayed availability of the staterooms for the OP.  Think ours opened up around 2 pm or a bit after.  We also had no significant delays in boarding on departure day (had selected 2pm, but ended up arriving at the port around noon and got through the process fairly quickly).  

Bonaire stop was certainly rushed (our first time there), and really would have preferred a longer visit during regular hours.  Not exactly much to do at 6 am when sunrise was at 7 am.  Would like to have visited Klein Bonaire, but didn't think it would be worth it for the limited time we could be there.  Understand they squeezed in a 5th port visit, but timing for both Bonaire and St. Lucia stops were not great.  We didn't get into St. Lucia until 1:15 pm and there was a huge crowd/line to get off the ship and transport to any destination.  I'd probably suggest going back to more traditional 4 stops for the Aruba route from San Juan and leave more time for each stop.

Probably wouldn't sail Epic again, unless for a unique itinerary.  And sounds like will be moving to Europe year-round later this year anyway.  Not giving up on NCL altogether at this point, but see a lot of criticisms of the new Prima class ships.  Though itinerary and pricing are likely the most critical factors.

Not sure Baltimore would be an option (bridge height getting to port).

Finally, when conditions became as bad as they did while in the low pressure system a diversion to safe harbor is always an option. Charleston, Baltimore, Cape Canaveral, and more. Pro

The website of the promoter for this college party cruise (as well as the prior week and cruise departing today) indicated a "limited number of cabins at our promotional pricing" which inferred a discount to regular pricing. But exactly how many cabins is not clear.

One of the FAQs also addressed expected proportion of college students on the ship (as well as why they don't just charter the entire ship):

<<Is the entire ship college students?

Although it will be mostly college students on board, the entire ship is not all college students. You can expect it to be about 85% college students. We had the option to charter the cruise-ship to make it all college students, but we decided against it. Why? Chartering would double the prices! Doing it this way keeps the prices low compared to if we were to charter the whole cruise-ship. Regardless, everyone on a cruise is there to party, and this has yet to be an issue.>>

They also noted private events onboard the ship (for those that booked through them). How extensive (and disruptive) these events were is unclear.

Would they be better off chartering the entire ship, yes, but obviously it is not financially attractive for them to do so.

Should NCL have advised other guests? Certainly debatable at minimum. I can empathize with the OP. I did not see a roll call for the first 2 cruises, and the few posts on the one leaving today didn't have any reference to the college aspect.

Did the college kids get a lower rate that was subsidized by raising the fares on non-college cruisers?

I think Deck 6.

It's deck 7 (same level as casino).

This past Sunday they called the 8:30 group (my group) at about 9 am; and it was about 10 am by the time we got out of customs.

We did sail with over 4600 pax.

I was also on the March 5 sailing, and will offer my observations (first time on a megaship).

- The Vibe Beach Club, IMHO, takes up entirely too much space and may be worth every penny to those that get to use, but makes things so much more crowded for those that don't on sea days.

- The ship sailed with over 4,600 passengers (lots of Canadian families on spring break), so I'm assuming may have been a bit more people than some other weeks may see. I will agree the ship seemed crowded at times (especially pool area on sea days).

- Our front-facing oceanview room (#12100) was spacious enough, but we encountered noise issues (not sure of cause) which was disappointing and made sleeping more challenging.

- Fitness center; thought I counted 18 or 20 treadmills and didn't notice as many out of order. The separate weight room area was very compact and I was not impressed by the equipment (and a couple machines were out of order).

- Food; mostly satisfied with, desserts were richer than we have experienced in recent years on other cruise lines. Most disappointing meal was my porterhouse steak at Cagney's. The steak at Teppanyaki was much more tasty. [we took the 3 SDP incentive along with prepaid gratuities]

- Garden café; was ok. Could have used a bit more variety in lunch meats and surprised not to see any pre-made mixed green salads or grab-and-go deli sandwiches (like we've seen elsewhere). Hated the plastic guards that you had to flip up to get the desserts and fruits (poor design; especially for the bottom shelf).

- I will concur that service level left something to be desired. As in, in many cases it was self-service. Didn't see any staff in garden café providing assistance with drinks; or soliciting alcoholic or non-alcoholic drinks. Nor did I see anyone come by in the casino when I was there. Perhaps partly a function of the UBP promotions to discourage consumption; I don't know.

- Cabin service and Latitudes; didn't see our steward the first couple days and he missed our silver status flyer (finally went down to cruisenext desk to inquire regarding). Never saw an invitation or message to attend the special Latitudes event. So didn't feel very valued as a return cruiser.

- Specialty dining and reservations; we had pre-booked 2 of our 3 about a month before the cruise. The third (Cagney's) wasn't available for day/time we wanted when I booked the others; so went down and reserved on-board right after we boarded the ship Sunday without any problem. Cagney's and Le Bistro were not completely full when we ate; Teppanyaki appeared to be for the most part.

- Shows and reservation system; new experience for me and in my view was not explained very well; nor were venues consistent in whether reservation were needed or not (and they could better note in the daily guide which activities need reservations). We booked one show (Burn the Floor) that we ended up not going to (though we did see them at the welcome show); but went to one comedy show in Headliners without reservations the first night (though the seats in Headliners are far from comfortable). And to be honest, I was very surprised how small the main theater was for such a large ship.

- Embarkation; we arrived around 11 am, quickly got checked in. But when we got to the departure lounge no seats available in our area. We had a group 14 boarding, and would say we got on-board right after noon. But didn't see anyone handing out champagne or another drink option once we boarded (which we've usually experienced elsewhere). So not overly welcoming.

- Disembarkation; agree absolutely chaotic. NCL seemed to blame port authority for a new process depending on country of passport (separate exit points) but not having sailed on Getaway before I can't comment on validity. Will say that once we got off the ship, we had a small delay to go down the escalator but got bags quickly and through customs/immigration without delay (no line to speak of). But, unless you lined up early for self-disembarkation, you likely experienced delays on the ship. Maybe some of the delay was too many people struggling with luggage trying to self-disembark which slowed down getting through the 2 card scanning machines; I honestly don't know (maybe NCL would be better off limiting the amount of luggage allowed to self-disembark?). But certainly more and more people are opting for self-disembark IMHO. Will say our departure group was scheduled for 8:30 and got called around 9. I believe we finally got off the ship around 9:40 or 9:45 (we were on the Alamo bus to the airport just after 10). I tried to find the end of the line when the group before ours was called, which was in the forward elevator area (that was jammed solid with people). The elevator area was still full of people when they called our group! What was the point? Once out of the elevator area we slowly moved forward in line past O'Sheehans to the atrium then through the casino before we looped back forward towards the exit.

- The outdoor walking/jogging track is poorly designed and not very functional when the rock-climbing wall was open (and also not correctly marked as no way was it 8 laps for a mile - probably more like 9).

- Casual dress; agree a bit odd to see t-shirts (or sports jerseys) and shorts in the main dining rooms, but doesn't bother me a lot.

- Internet and TV; didn't use the internet at all but the cruisenext rep indicated that the internet was fairly slow on this cruise, and we frequently had short-duration poor or no signal disruptions for the few actual TV channels available onboard.

- Towel policy and reserving deck loungers. These go together in the sense that now with NCL charging a fee for missing towels staff can't remove towels from loungers not being utilized. We saw prime loungers by the pool "reserved" early in the day go unoccupied for multiple hours. We saw 2 towels reserving 4 loungers by clipping them along the top. And one night we had to track down our room steward as he not brought back fresh pool towels from the used ones we had left in the room (and certainly didn't want to get dinged $50 for 2 towels). There has to be a better system (RFID tagged towels?).

- We did not opt to make a cruisenext deposit. Not saying we won't cruise NCL again; but not totally enthused about everything especially for the megaships. Maybe if there's an itinerary that is unique and of interest to us.

- No late-night chocolate or midnight buffet? No sea day poolside cook-out? Not sure if a function of ship size, and/or just cost-cutting.

- But did appreciate the cupcake delivered to our stateroom on my wife's birthday (along with the special cake and happy birthday serenade in Le Bistro).

As far as ports go:

- Roatan; had pre-arranged a beach excursion to West Bay (Paradise Beach Hotel) primarily for snorkeling that did not live up to expectations (regarding nickel and diming, I will note that RCL's Taybana Beach Break is ~$20 per person less than NCL is charging for similar excursion).

- Harvest Caye; not really sure if they were honest about wind being the issue in not being able to port as it appeared like we were stirring up a lot of sand (not sure if we actually ran aground or not but assume must have been close). Certainly was disappointing as it was the only scheduled port we had not been to before (would be interested to know if other NCL cruises are also needing to skip the stop or not). The next day I saw a $30 per person credit show up on the account statement, I'm assuming related to port fees primarily (didn't hear or see any mention of this and had I not checked the account statement I may not have realized we even received a credit prior to the final printout at the end of the cruise).

- Costa Maya: took taxi to Tropicante and spent time on the beach there, by far the cheapest of our 3 beach outings in port. Will also note there was free wifi in the port area.

- Cozumel; took taxi to Paradise Beach and spent time on the beach and in pool there, by far the best internet connection we had of the 3 beach outings.

Sailing on Getaway on Sunday. Booked 2 of my 3 promo SDP meals about a month prior to departure date. Wanted to book the 3rd for Cagney's, but table for 2 wasn't available except for really late time (9 or 9:30) - though tables for more people were available at earlier times.

Plan to try to book onboard ASAP once we board. Hopefully will be successful.

For Paradise, try the form on the roatanbeachclub.com website. They offer a package with lunch and transportation for $40/person (also bookable thru viator, which is the route I took). I've had challenges trying to email them too (ended up using the hotel reservations email), but they did finally get back to me about what/where to look coming off the ship. We'll be there in just over a week.

We are having a difficult time contacting resorts about day passes. Is anyone else having this problem? I can't get an answer (by phone or by email) from Infinity Bay or Paradise Beach. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Port fees are a bit high though - nearly $300.

And those are guarantee cabins (no incentive), though other categories are not too much higher.

Also saw some relatively inexpensive February routes as well.

Matthew might make the return to FL quite interesting. Maybe a good thing you weren't able to book this cruise.

AAAUUUUGH!

 

This is killing me! I really want to book this, but I have stuff that has to get done next week.

 

It would be $534.00 with taxes, fees and pre-paid gratuities so using two Cruise Next certificates it would be $34 out of pocket.

 

The timing is just one week off.

We were on the Feb. 1st sailing on Adventure, and were disappointed with WJ.

Some was taste or quality related. My wife didn't care for the sushi at all the one night we had dinner there. Breakfast waffles/French toast were hard. Hardboiled eggs sometimes undercooked.

Some was lack of variety, like the desserts being the same all the time (I saw a review that called the food monotonous which I would agree with to some degree). And some items didn't get put out for lunch until about 2pm seemingly (like tuna salad and egg salad). I didn't see a wrap the entire time onboard. Lines for the egg station were usually quite long.

We hadn't sailed on RCL for some time; compared to our cruise last year on NCL where the café had freshly prepared pasta, a sandwich station, and more ethnic options, WJ seemed to really pale in comparison.