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Review: Norwegian Epic Western Med

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thehenningscruise

thehenningscruise

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Just completed the 7-day Western Med on the Epic from Rome. We are a family of 3 who are first time cruisers and first time to Europe as well, and had a spectacular time on the Epic and were extremely impressed.

 

We stayed in Cabin 14153, which was a balcony mini-suite (large bed for the adults which seemed between a queen and king size-wise, couch that turned into a bed for our child). This worked out quite well because Floor 14 is where the kids club is, and is just one floor down from the main pool deck (Floor 15) where we spent a lot of time when not in port. Having a balcony was a HUGE plus - not only having the view and light, but also we dried bathing suits/towels out there and had coffee out there.

 

Service - excellent and we were very impressed overall. All of the staff is very nice and courteous. The staff works incredibly hard, that is plainly obvious, and I can only wonder and hope that they are paid adequately. I do not trust that NCL gives them the automatic 18% added on so we made sure to tip at every specialty restaurant and tipped our cabin steward.

 

Embarking/Disembarking - excellent and easy. The time we arrived at port to the time we were at our cabin was probably about 20-25 minutes, and the same for getting off the boat at the end. During port days, I would say about the same time, NCL really does make efforts to move the lines quickly.

 

Food/Drinks - we had the Unlimited Dining and did Le Bistro, The Modern, La Cucina, Teppenyaki and Cagneys. I wanted to write a bit here since my husband was trained as a chef in Manhattan and is extremely picky about food yet he was impressed with everything, especially Le Bistro and The Modern. He said he was shocked to see such high quality food on a cruise and I agreed. The only speciality dining we did not think was excellent was La Cucina, that was just OK, but again the other places all very very good. All other times we ate at the Garden Cafe and were very happy. Breakfast is amazing, there is nothing you could want that they did not have. Lunch/Dinner also offers many selections and we were pleased there as well. We also had the Unlimited Beverage - we are not big drinkers so perhaps not worth it for us, but it seemed worth it to many on the ship as people are drinking day and night! The lines were not long for drinks on the ship, most crowded at the pool bar but that is not surprising given it is the most crowded deck.

 

Entertainment - we saw Burn the Floor which was very entertaining, and also the NCL dance competition (hilarious! do NOT miss that!). Most nights we were quite tired from touring all day and so went to bed after dinner but there is plenty to do at night.

 

Spa - we had access and let me just say this place was SO gorgeous and relaxing and quiet even if you don't get treatments. The hot stone lounges were our favorite. There was a special halfway through the cruise where you could get 75 minutes of combined services for $139, which my husband did and enjoyed. Much cheaper than their regular prices, which are indeed very high.

 

Gym - the gym is very nice and I was impressed. I never had to wait for a machine or weights. Many people used the gym as far as I could tell.

 

Laundry - interestingly this was advertised nowhere and I only knew to ask for it through cruise critic! It is $19.95 for a bag of clothes, you can fit quite a lot in there! It is supposed to take 2 days to do - however we gave a little cash flow to make it come back one day, LOL, as we had run out of clothes!!!! On that note, you should pack 2/3 outfits a day if you are doing this cruise in hot weather. Any clothes you wear touring at port will be soaked with sweat by the time you are done and so don't plan on wearing that stuff twice.

 

Kids Club - our daughter is 6 and preferred to stay with us and do some of the ports, but she did spend about 2 of the port days here and enjoyed it. The staff seemed responsible and the kids stay there - they do not go outside/to the pool which to me is a bonus as I did not want the risk of my child being near the pool without me!

 

Cleanliness of Ship - excellent. NCL is always cleaning and there is hand sanitizer everywhere. This was important to me as I am a germ a phobe. The bathrooms near the pool did smell a bit, but I suppose that is not surprising given the foot traffic. But the ship was spotless!

 

Shore Excursions - I cannot speak to the NCL ones as we opted to "do our own thing" and incidentally found the NCL excursions expensive and as many advised on here it is cheaper to book your own or make your own agenda. We wanted to make our own schedule. This did mean we had to do a ton of research but that was fun and informative for me. See more details below.

 

Pool Deck - this was the most crowded place as expected in the summer. You do need to put your stuff on lounges by about 9 am or so if you want a spot as lounges do fill up fast. The water slides are so much fun, although the pools are quite small and very crowded so do not expect to be swimming laps or have a lot of space to yourself.

 

Food Policy - I know so many are curious about this. I cannot tell you the number of times I took food to my room. Almost every morning I would go to the buffet, load up my plate, cover it with another plate a top, and take it to our room for my child. No one said a word. I saw others doing this too.....

 

As you can see, we were very happy with the Epic. Now I will go onto what we did each day in case anyone is interested in that:

 

ROME - we arrived one day early to that we could sleep off jet lag and have some time. Stayed at a B&B in Piazza Navona area which was fun and central. To be honest, we did not love Rome. The city is very hard to find your way around, hilly, hot, especially with a small child in tow. Perhaps different other times of year.

 

FLORENCE - LOVED this city! Most people on our roll call were doing Florence/Pisa so we could not find a group to share a van, and so we took a taxi to the train station and then took the 8:12 train into Florence. We made it in time for a 10-12:30 bike tour with Bike Florence, which was absolutely amazing!!! Highly recommend! After that we walked a bit and ate at Centralo Market which is like a huge gourmet marketplace we had read about, then were so tired that we went back to the ship around 3pm also by train.

 

CANNES - per many posts here, we did the one hour trolley ride which leaves right outside the port. Very fun way to see Cannes and perfect amount of time. Then we walked to Le Croissette and rented lounges at a beach club in Midi-Plage (Maema) for the rest of the day. I took off for a bit to shop on Rue d'Antibes and take pictures as Cannes is beautiful and very unique.

 

PALMA - this was the one day I did not plan for much. I thought we could go to Illetes Beach via taxi which is about 10 minutes out of Palma, however, be aware that getting BACK from some of these gorgeous/recommended beaches is an issue. Our taxi driver advised us he could take us there but be warned that us getting home might be hard. We were not the only ones to find this out the hard way. We therefore spent the day at the beach in PalmaNova (very very fun for kids!!!) where there are tons of taxis so we had no issue getting back.

 

SEA DAY - very crowded on the boat everywhere at all times. I know that is to be expected so there is no basis for me to complain truly just too many people for me. Was glad there was only one day like this.

 

BARCELONA - We walked La Rambla (main drag), through Parc de Citidella (gorgeous park), and basically just all over the city. We had no goal, just wandering, popping into shops and tapas places. Be warned lines for Picasso Museum and cable cars were very long, otherwise we probably would have attempted those. Also be warned that the walk from the ship to the center of the city is at least 1.5 miles, AND the taxi line is long. We opted to walk since we figured the taxi line was at least 45 mins.

 

NAPLES - this was the last day and we had wanted to do a NCL tour but we were so tired and did not want to get up early. So we got off the ship somewhat late (10:30). We did the HOHO bus which is about an hour or so and right outside the ship. We then shopped for a few hours (best shopping on the trip in my opinion, was Naples) and then somehow, we ended up in a strange alley way at a tiny trattoria where we had the best meal of my life!!! Funny how that happens.

 

OTHER - just wanted to leave a comment about getting off the boat in time for flights. We had a 10:30 am flight and were very worried about making it since a lot of people said it would be very, very tight. So, we did self-debarkation (which meant that we walked off with our own luggage not leaving it outside the cabin the night before) and arranged for a private car to meet us at 7:15am right at the ship gate. There was virtually no one getting off the boat at that time, zero traffic to Rome, and so we were at the airport by 8:10ish. So yes, it is true that if there were a traffic incident, things could be different, but do not let anyone tell you that a 10:30am flight is not do-able because it most certainly is if you do what we did.

 

DAILIES - I don't have a scanner sorry. The steward will leave the next day's daily on your bed (if you have do not disturb sign then he will put it outside your cabin so you can retrieve it) so there is plenty of time to plan for the next day. The day this was most valuable was Sea Day, as we picked 3 or so things we wanted to do (fruit carving, dance lesson, art and crafts with our daughter).

 

Overall, we loved the cruise and so did our daughter! Would do another cruise for sure in the future.

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thehenningscruise

thehenningscruise

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One more thing I forgot to add (as I see people ask about this a lot) is about making reservations at the specialty restaurants. When we got on board, my husband called and made all of our reservations right then and there. This indicates to me that reservations don't "sell out" before the cruise, which is an upside, and the times we got were good ones, usually between 7-8pm. The exception was Teppenyaki, which has far less seats there than the other speciality places, that they only had 6pm and so we took it. But apart from that, you should not worry that you won't get a seat at any of these places if you don't book ahead

 

The downside is that once you make a reservation you cannot change it or cancel it without a fee. Some days I wish we could have changed the times (e.g., tired after coming from port so could have used an extra hour or so) but was not a big deal.

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mkm1998

mkm1998

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Great to hear such good things about this cruise! Sailing on this exact cruise in November as part of my honeymoon. Aft-Facing Balcony reserved, excursions all paid for (we decided to stick with NCL ones as we didn't want to deal with the stress of trying to get back to the boat in time), UBP already selected as a promotion, and now just purchased the 7-Day dining package. Only things left are to pay the balance, and reserve the dinners/shows. We're also leaning towards buying some of the bottled water for the ship. I know it would be way cheaper to buy on our own, but it's one less thing to lug around when we get to port. Rather pay extra to have NCL take care of it for me.

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luv2gonow

luv2gonow

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Thanks for the review. I will be sailing this same cruise out of rome 7/29.

Doing a land tour for week before through NCL.

 

Soooo excited. sounds like it will be amazing

 

In palma....Did you taxi to Palma nova? Taxi's right out of ship and at beach to take you back? Chairs? Umbrellas? Food?

 

Cannes. Le Croisette...Nice Beach? Walk to right near film festival??

Thanks

Kerri

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mkm1998

mkm1998

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There's shops at the port terminal and you can buy just about everything after you've cleared security and about to board.......water,etc etc etc!!!!!

 

Thanks but I'm sailing the exact same cruise as this one. I.E. I'm boarding from Rome.

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thehenningscruise

thehenningscruise

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Kerri -

 

Yes, we did taxi right to PalmaNova (20 euros). And taxis lined up to go home just waiting as well. There are umbrellas and chairs to rent and there is plenty of food nearby. As many people had alerted me to, there is a small grocery store right across the street selling cold drinks/snack items. Since Palma is a half day (get off boat at 2pm) we had already eaten lunch so didn't need a regular meal, though again plenty of places right there.

 

In Cannes, the film festival red carpet is on Le Croissette, we went past it on the Petit Train ride, it seemed to be to be on the eastern end of Le Croissette. We opted to do one of the more low key beaches which was about half mile the other way on Le Croissette after we got off the train, though certainly all of the beaches are gorgeous. You cannot go wrong in picking a beach, the difference I perceived is that some of the beaches will have more expensive rental lounges than others. At Maema, we paid 32 euros for 2 lounges/1 umbrella which seemed very reasonable to us being that we were there a good part of the day.

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bmwman

bmwman

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One more thing I forgot to add (as I see people ask about this a lot) is about making reservations at the specialty restaurants. When we got on board, my husband called and made all of our reservations right then and there. This indicates to me that reservations don't "sell out" before the cruise, which is an upside, and the times we got were good ones, usually between 7-8pm. The exception was Teppenyaki, which has far less seats there than the other speciality places, that they only had 6pm and so we took it. But apart from that, you should not worry that you won't get a seat at any of these places if you don't book ahead

 

The downside is that once you make a reservation you cannot change it or cancel it without a fee. Some days I wish we could have changed the times (e.g., tired after coming from port so could have used an extra hour or so) but was not a big deal.

 

In Europe generally you will find that people do not eat until 8:30 and the Spanish not until 10:00 so getting a 7-8 sitting would be easy on Epic:)

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suron

suron

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Hi I'm heading for my first solo holiday and first cruise on 2nd Aug on Norwegian Epic from Barcelona. Any tips from fellow solo travellers in their 20's/30's/40's? I've no idea what to expect. Nervous.

 

Although I am not in the age groups you mention thought I would let you know that I was on Epic from Barcelona last June and there were lots of solo travellers - all age groups from those in their 20's to others like me in their 70's. We all met up in the Studio Lounge and thanks to an excellent crew member assigned to the solo travellers we had a fantastic time. The young folk certainly took care of us oldies but we certainly managed to keep pace with them at the H2O late night party!! I am still in contact with several of the solos I met and in fact will be meeting a couple of them on Epic again when I take the Christmas cruise on 19th Dec from Barcelona around the Canaries.

 

I wrote a review of my cruise which can be found at:

 

http://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=257253

 

This may be of help to you.

 

Good Luck with your plans

 

Suzanne (Bristol, UK)

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suron

suron

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Thanks for your review. Did you pre-book Burn The Floor, and do you remember what time the show was? Just trying to work dinner reservations around show times.

 

Burn the Floor was not on the ship last June. I think you will find that you can book entertainment 90 days prior to sailing. You will get options for show times (e.g. Blue Man Group had shows at 7.30 and 9.30 pm) so you can arrange dinner reservations to allow you time to see the shows.

 

Glad you liked the review.

 

Good Luck with your plans

 

Suzanne

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joedel

joedel

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In Europe generally you will find that people do not eat until 8:30 and the Spanish not until 10:00 so getting a 7-8 sitting would be easy on Epic:)

 

 

I just made all of our reservations for 7 nights no problem cagneys twice Le bistro twice teppenaki twice and moderno once

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joehick

joehick

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Although I am not in the age groups you mention thought I would let you know that I was on Epic from Barcelona last June and there were lots of solo travellers - all age groups from those in their 20's to others like me in their 70's. We all met up in the Studio Lounge and thanks to an excellent crew member assigned to the solo travellers we had a fantastic time. The young folk certainly took care of us oldies but we certainly managed to keep pace with them at the H2O late night party!! I am still in contact with several of the solos I met and in fact will be meeting a couple of them on Epic again when I take the Christmas cruise on 19th Dec from Barcelona around the Canaries.

 

I wrote a review of my cruise which can be found at:

 

http://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=257253

 

This may be of help to you.

 

Good Luck with your plans

 

Suzanne (Bristol, UK)

 

Going next June. How was the weather when you went? Hot, cold?

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mfantasia

mfantasia

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Going next June. How was the weather when you went? Hot, cold?

 

I did the same itinerary in Jul 5. It is Hot and Humid. Barcelona, Rome, Naples and Florence were 100°F, they claimed having a heat wave. No rain, beautiful blue skies. Cannes and Palma were hot as well, but because we went to the beach, we didn't suffer as much as in the other cities. In Naples, we went to Capri and was very nice while touring around the island in a boat, but as soon we went to Capri Town, we felt the heat, very hot. I assume that June will be better, but plan for Hot days.

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