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My non-haven, non-posh Epic TA review

Indykitten

By Indykitten,
in Norwegian Cruise Line

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Indykitten

Indykitten

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Enjoying your review very much so far Indykitten. I've done the Epic once before and am headed out again on Nov. 19th. I should be finishing my packing now as a matter of fact! :rolleyes:

 

Here is that work around you were looking for:

 

Coffee Pod Replacement Filters for Coffee Pod Brewers - Make Your Own Disposable Pods - 200 Pack By Simple Cups https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A89H6X2/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_In7kybC560JTF

 

I won't need them this time, we are sailing in one of those suites complete with Nespresso machine. :D

Thanks, saved for next time!

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ggTexasGal

ggTexasGal

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Day 5

 

Went to the How to Run a Floating Hotel Q&A in the morning. Very entertaining and informative if you're interested in how the ship runs. Several people wanted to question/complain about corporate policies, itineraries, etc. I thought, "you know they just drive the ship, right?". I get it, people aren't happy about how much the internet costs or that there aren't enough cruises out of their home ports. But the captain can't really address that, now can he?

 

Discovered Spice H2O after lunch. And now I need a liver transplant. So we're not really pool people. A lot of resorts have swim up bars and we've been known to frequent those but I need some shade and Waves was too loud for us most of the time with the entertainment going on there. But Spice is in a quiet zone and the bar staff there is AMAZING. We would just sit there and watch them work (ok, and drink). They really hustle. I never thought a pool bar would feel like home but this was the bar that resonated with us. We were like Norm in Cheers. Met many friends there, adored the crew. You could find us there every day after lunch. I'm sure they were sick of us. The smoking sometimes bothered me, I do wish there were more non-smoking places outside.

 

Also discovered, I think on day 2, that most bars had Lagunitas Little Sumpin' Sumpin' in the bottle. We love craft beer, it's huge in the midwest, and we'd kind of reconciled ourselves to not being able to get any unless we went on the Escape. Finding this was a huge and pleasant surprise. Thank you, Beverage Director! Please keep stocking this. I think we drank every bottle on the ship.... Not that that kept us from from drinking cocktails and sampling all the European beers at least once. What's a vacation for, after all?

 

So I look over and we've almost missed our lunch date because my hubby is drinking fireball and cider with a Scottish couple. Ok, stumble down to O'Sheehans which is predictably packed. Find our new friends which ended up being the best part of our trip. Lovely people and really, isn't that what travel is for? I mean, that and the drinking, as indicated in the above paragraph.

 

I think we had dinner at Manhattan this night. One night in Manhattan I had a fantastic vegetarian risotto. So good that when it came time to switch dinners with hubby I didn't want to give it up. I begrudgingly did. Grabbed a cocktail and went to the see the hypnotist show. Meh. Not our thing. Others seemed to really enjoy it, though, so this was just personal preference. A few more cocktails and we were ready for bed.

 

 

I've been following since Nov. 15, but today's post just really got me chuckling! I love your sense of humor, your writing style, and the useful information that you have been providing. (I love Sally's review as well. But we won't be in any kind of suite when we go on the Epic, so I find your info more relevent to our situation.) Thank you, and Sally, for your diligent efforts.

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Indykitten

Indykitten

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I can't tell you how I look forward to your post. If we met on a cruise we would be in trouble having way to much fun. Continue to enjoy. I am going 2/4/17 on the Escape Can not wait. We went on the Getaway in May the H2o bar was our favorite. Have fun!!!

 

 

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Aww, shucks, thanks. :D I'm glad you're enjoying my little travelog. I've never written one before, but I've always found others' helpful. I'm jealous of your upcoming Escape adventure. I have a ship-crush on the Escape!

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Indykitten

Indykitten

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I love Fireball. Never had fireball and cider; sounds delicious. Great review!

So, according to the Scots, you pour your hard cider into a glass (it was Strongbow on the ship) and pour a GENEROUS shot of Fireball into it and drink. Like Autumn in a glass, baby. Also, Milan made us some shots with Fireball and other things that I don't remember.... Milk? Pineapple? My brain is pickled now. I still have flashbacks of Milan strutting through the bar, "Did someone say SHOTS?!?!?!" This is what happens when everyone has a beverage package.

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Indykitten

Indykitten

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I've been following since Nov. 15, but today's post just really got me chuckling! I love your sense of humor, your writing style, and the useful information that you have been providing. (I love Sally's review as well. But we won't be in any kind of suite when we go on the Epic, so I find your info more relevent to our situation.) Thank you, and Sally, for your diligent efforts.

Aww, thanks, glad you like it. I'll try to offend someone with upcoming Day 6. :p

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Indykitten

Indykitten

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Day 6

 

Another lazy day at sea of breakfast, reading, looking for whales, lunch, liquor. The Waves bar is usually pretty crazy but at this point they knew me by sight and when I sat down with a coffee cup they'd just top it off with Baileys automatically. Thanks, Jean-Pierre! By now I'd finished a book or two and we were hitting the library for me to get a new one. Nice place, very quiet as a library should be. Selection was adequate, check out was easy.

 

It's funny the things I'd thought we'd do on the cruise vs the things we actually did. I thought maybe we'd play trivia but that never happened. The atrium was usually CRAZY and loud.

 

I was starting to have more positive interactions with fellow guests, as well as more negative ones. We'd run into people, they'd order something interesting at the bar (like cider and Fireball), I'd enquire, they'd let me taste it.... I learned that coconut rum and orange juice > a mimosa. I'd also leaned that some people just...suck. Way too few please's, thank you's and excuse me's. Or pardon's, if you are European. I witnessed some people being incredibly rude to the the crew and this crew bent over backward with a smile on their faces. Not the best of humanity.

 

The hotel industry has a term, "Special Snowflake". It refers to member of their loyalty program with status who are overly demanding, entitled and rude. I can only assume the cruise industry has a similar term and I'm curious to know what it is. I wanted to ask a crew member but I knew they would be way too polite to tell me! Because I saw an awful lot of special snowflakes on this cruise. To put it bluntly, I saw a lot of people who wanted Cunard service at NCL prices.

 

I've always thought that travel is a valuable part of opening people's minds, exposing them to new cultures, new people, new experiences. It gives you a world view, gets you to think. When I expressed my disappointment in my fellow passengers to our new friends, they agreed but shrugged and said "But you'll get that anywhere". The problem was, I haven't gotten that anywhere else - not to this extent. The problem with cruising is that yes, you are traveling, but you can still travel in your little bubble if you want. Other than a little multi-cultural interaction with crew you can still eat the same food you eat at home, speak your language, do the same things you do at home, just on a ship. You don't even have to ever get off the ship if you don't want to. Which I know is what some people LIKE about cruising. It's comfortable. NCL (and I assume, the other lines) want you to be happy, so they go crazy trying to make sure if you can have everything just the way you like it at home.

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Indykitten

Indykitten

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Anyways, prior to the cruise I'd tried to reserve entertainment & dining as much as possible but the system is a bit clunky. They are completely separate and once you book online you can't alter until you get on the ship. When I'd reserved Priscilla and Burn the system kept giving me errors and somehow managed to book my husband but not me, even though I'd checked both boxes. So one of my first things on the ship on day 1 was to go and "fix" our reservations. No big deal, just altered some times although I wish I'd done a better job spacing them out because tonight we had both Priscilla and Moderno.

 

When they initially overlapped I just changed Moderno to a late time - 9pm - so that we'd go after the show. Our friends booked their specialty restaurants before the shows - 5:30pm. That would have stressed me out. There's a good chance dinner will run long but the show won't.

 

In short, Priscilla was amazing and fabulous! Costumes were out of this world. Vastly superior to any resort entertainment I've ever had. And honestly I can say that as a blanket statement about the entertainment on the Epic. It was excellent. We went to a few shows that were not for us - the comedian and the hypnosis show - but they weren't bad, just not our thing. And I talked to several people that were offended by Priscilla, didn't even know why NCL would have something "like that" on their ships. Sigh. Priscilla is very upfront about it not being for the easily offended. If it's not your thing, don't go. There are PLENTY of other opportunities for entertainment on this ship.

 

Off to our late night dinner at Moderno. I wish I'd starved myself all day for this. That salad bar is no joke. I would have happily had a restaurant that was just that. My only complaint was that the meat was very salty and I'm not someone who is afraid of salt. My water glass didn't get filled often enough, and there were few people dining at such a late time. Now granted, I was probably gulping down my water due to the saltiness. If our meat hadn't been over salted I would have LOVED Moderno, a bit of a shame. I would definitely give it another chance though.

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PhillyTravelBug

PhillyTravelBug

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Thoroughly enjoying your review. Norway is my main focus for the next cruise, but I would love to do a transatlantic.

 

The behavior of most humans I find often disappointing. We save for these vacations to relax and have fun; why do people have to act like asses on a vacation? The crew works incredibly hard cruise after cruise. Unless something is blatantly wrong, I can get over the small stuff. I wish everyone else had that mentality.

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SquishTheWhale

SquishTheWhale

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In short, Priscilla was amazing and fabulous! Costumes were out of this world. Vastly superior to any resort entertainment I've ever had. And honestly I can say that as a blanket statement about the entertainment on the Epic. It was excellent. We went to a few shows that were not for us - the comedian and the hypnosis show - but they weren't bad, just not our thing. And I talked to several people that were offended by Priscilla, didn't even know why NCL would have something "like that" on their ships. Sigh. Priscilla is very upfront about it not being for the easily offended. If it's not your thing, don't go. There are PLENTY of other opportunities for entertainment on this ship.

 

If other passengers struck up conversation with me onboard I actually found the subject of Priscilla very useful- bring it up immediately and if their reaction is 'I find it personally offensive how dare they have a show like that' then I knew straight away they weren't the type of people I wanted to talk to! Like the family I spoke to who 'didn't want anything to do with them gays' :eek:

 

I agree about the trivia in the atrium- it's so crowded in there and there's never a chance of getting a chair. I don't know why they don't utilise Bliss more during the day, they did one dance class in there for us and it was sooooooo much better

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RanchoDeluxe

RanchoDeluxe

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If other passengers struck up conversation with me onboard I actually found the subject of Priscilla very useful- bring it up immediately and if their reaction is 'I find it personally offensive how dare they have a show like that' then I knew straight away they weren't the type of people I wanted to talk to! Like the family I spoke to who 'didn't want anything to do with them gays' :eek:

 

 

Brillant Squish! I will use the Priscilla tactic on my upcoming EPIC journey.

 

 

Now are you naturally violent - do you want to squish all whales or, like Moby Dick, is there one whale in particular you need to squish? :D

I am leaning toward you just wanting to be one with whales since your name does not end with an exclamation point.

 

.

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SquishTheWhale

SquishTheWhale

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Brillant Squish! I will use the Priscilla tactic on my upcoming EPIC journey.

 

 

Now are you naturally violent - do you want to squish all whales or, like Moby Dick, is there one whale in particular you need to squish? :D

I am leaning toward you just wanting to be one with whales since your name does not end with an exclamation point.

 

.

 

Ahh now my name might suggest I'm into whale genocide, but actually I'm a whale called Squish (as in the type that jumps out of the water and squishes little fishing boats) :D

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Froggitt

Froggitt

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I heard lots of complaints about the weird cabin design. It was ok. Separate shower and toilet was a bit weird. Would have preferred a proper door instead of pooping in a telephone booth. For couples I think it's fine but I could see how it would be awkward for others or difficult with more than 2 in a room. Separate sink seemed totally normal to me as that's how almost every hotel room in the US does it.

We had a balcony. If anyone's interested, Europe to USA T/A, starboard cabin balcony is shaded most of the time, port cabin balcony is sunny most of the time.

 

It's not good when Mrs Frog is tucked up in bed, and I'm rolling in from the casino late. Brushing my teeth pretty much next to her, then using the toilet sounding like BANG WHOOOOOOOOOOSH.

 

Also it wasn't possible for one person to pass the other person to get to the balcony without them sitting on the bed or the sofa.

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Indykitten

Indykitten

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Day 7

 

Due to too much salted restaurant food, too little exercise, and *cough* possibly too many fruity cocktails, I was dismayed when my feet and ankles swelled up like Miss Piggy's. Unfortunately that meant the end of dress sandals at dinner, because I could literally not squeeze my fat sausage feet into them! Now I was a proper hillbilly, going to dinner in a dress and flip flops. Oh well.

 

So it was this day, or another, whatever, I told you they'd start to blur together, that we decided we needed some exercise. Put on our workout clothes and hit deck 7 for the jogging track. I swear those yoga pants fit when we left home! But my feet weren't the only part of me getting puffy. The jogging track is on the lifeboat deck, so it's open air but little sea view. And it doesn't go all the way around the ship, it's just up and back down, very narrow on one side of the ship. Shuffleboard deck on the other side. It was fine, we did 3 or 4 miles of walking and felt much better.

 

Time to eat and start drinking again. Obviously. I think we caught lunch at Shanghai's this day. It was very busy, noodle bar was packed, never did get to eat there. I recommend making a reservation there if you want to eat. We sat at a shared table with some lovely Canadians. Food was good but not great, portions were small to normal, although I think at some point I'd completely lost track of what a normal portion is supposed to be. Thanks, Obama. I got the orange beef, hubby got the fried rice and we switched halfway through. Both were very good. He'd ordered a spring roll for an app and I'd ordered the salad. There was some type of snafu and we'd been told that the spring rolls had gotten delayed and we'd get our main dishes first. Sure, no problem. I never got my salad but toward the end of our meal spring rolls showed up and there was one for me. If we had to do it again I think we'd skip the apps (or maybe try for that salad again, or soup) and order 3 entrees to split between the two of us.

 

Back up to Spice H2O to enjoy some quality time with our favorite bartenders, Jovana and Milan. Honestly, the whole bar staff there is amazing.

 

Dinner was at Teppanyaki, keeping an Asian theme for the day, apparently. I've been to lots of these type restaurants before - at home, and at resorts in Jamaica and in Mexico. The show was pretty good but this obviously depends on your particular chef. Food was excellent and well-prepared. We both had the surf and turf, which is filet and shirmp here. And plenty more of the shaku shaku cocktails we'd had before at Wasabi. Yummy.

 

Had a drink or two with friends in Shakers. Shakers and Maltings are right next to each other, kind of share some seating. Shakers often has piano music and Maltings often has guitar. Personally I feel they're too close together to be having conflicting music at the same time. Hubs had a bit of headache so we called it an early night and retired to our cabin to chill out on the balcony. Slept with light socks on and my feet propped up on the extra pillows to try and get the swelling to go down. Seemed to help a bit.

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fredflint

fredflint

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No, the coffeemaker in the poor people's cabins is a single cup that uses a pre-filled round pillow-looking pod of coffee grounds. Not like a Keurig cup and a normal filter wouldn't work. Maybe someone here has figured out a workaround??? I have faith in you, Cruise Critic-ers. If someone has reverse engineered a solution, they've posted about it here.

 

 

I think these would work?

 

https://www.amazon.com/Ecopad-Refillable-Coffee-Filter-Classic/dp/B0007INM5A

 

814C-rhBoUL._SL1500_.jpg

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Indykitten

Indykitten

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Day 8

 

We didn't see much wildlife in the middle of the Atlantic except for the flying fish. Tons of flying fish. Hubby saw an albatross a couple times as well.

 

More walking on the jogging track this morning. Some friends invited us to play shuffleboard with them. I thought, "I watched two whole episodes of the Love Boat to prep for this cruise. I've GOT THAS." No. No, I did not. Learned I sucked at shuffleboard or maybe it's just harder than it looks. Let's go with that.

 

Took a shower of shame and then hit Spice H2O again. Made some plans with a new friend to hit up the water slides the next day. Had an unwittingly late dinner scheduled for the day so stayed a little late in the bar. Might have been the day I had to have an "emergency burger". Told you I'd been getting my veggies in at lunch, right? Well, guess what, a salad and bowl of pho was no match for the amount of booze I was putting down. Thankfully there's food available within stumbling distance of almost every bar on this ship. Didn't even have to navigate stairs. Score.

 

One afternoon (This one? Maybe? I should have kept notes) there was a brief rain shower and after it ended you could see a beautiful rainbow off the stern of the ship. Pretty cool. Next cruise I will take more pics and better notes. I just enjoyed carrying nothing but my card with me this time.

 

Dinner at Cirque tonight. Fantastic show. Several people said it was even better than on other ships that they'd been on. Dinner was good. Temp maybe slightly off but difficult to pull off when you're serving 100 people at once. And quite possibly my fault. I was so engrossed in the show I didn't want to look down at my plate to eat! Matador cocktail was also top notch. You're sensing a pattern here, no? For some reason they had condensed our Cirque dinners from 7:30 and 9:30 to one 8:30 show. Perhaps not enough people made reservations to warrant two shows that night? Seems odd on a ship of 3700 guests. But most of the people on the ship had already done many previous cruises and had likely seen it before.

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Indykitten

Indykitten

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Indykitten- Your a very nice person and anyone would love to chat & have a few drinks with you.:)

Loving every word of your review keep it coming and thank you for sharing with all of us.

Aww, thanks. I would love to have a few drinks with you, too! Maybe another cruise!

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