MY Thoughts on Our Epic Cruise--3/19/23

[vacation44]

Thought I would do a quick summary of our cruise last week on the Epic.   I traveled with my husband, daughter (24), son (23) and 10 other extended family members.   

 

Embarkation:    As we wanted to purchase Posh passes, we did get to the port extra early and were in the very first group to board.   I believe we were on the ship around 11:00 a.m.   There was no traffic for us getting to the pier.   Our Uber driver said that the traffic problem has been fixed as they added another lane to the road leading up to the pier for taxis/Ubers waiting for passengers.     There were no bells and whistles in the Haven waiting area--just uncomfortable chairs, water and orange juice.  

 

Ship:     Having sailed on the Getaway, Joy and Escape, we really did miss the Boardwalk.   As we stayed in the Haven, we did not have the funny bathroom configuration.    We would sail on the Epic again if it is an itinerary that meets our needs.     The staff were wonderful, and we did not encounter any unhappy crew members.    Did hear about the black soot, but as we did not go in H2O, it did not affect us.

 

Cabin:   We stayed in a Haven two-bedroom suite.   The cabin, unfortunately, did have some issues....locks not working on doors, leaks from the refrigerator, and I think we needed an electrical engineering degree to figure out the lighting system.   I really thought there would be more room in the living room part of the cabin--it did seem very cramped, and the table only sat two and they sell the suite as a six passenger suite.    Our daughter took the second bedroom, and our son took the living room couch.  The sleeping arrangements did work fine for us; however, the coach/bed could have been a tad longer.    One morning there was an issue with the toilets on Haven Deck 17 and 1/2 of Deck 16.   Unfortunately, we were in the 1/2 of Deck 16.    Toilets were not working, and maintenance was going to every cabin that had issues.   This also left our living floor wet from the machine they brought into our room to flush out the toilets.   They had a pretty nice size blower in our cabin for two days to dry out the carpet.   

 

Butler:  Upon meeting our Butler, I just gave him a brief note on our likes regarding snacks, water and iced tea in the refrigerator and what we wanted for breakfast on our first port day in the cabin.    It was a hit with the snacks most of the time as well as keeping us stocked with water.     We had breakfast in the cabin three times and it was ok.   Once I called our Butler to tell him what we wanted for the next day and he said to fill out the form and put it outside our door.   I was taken a little back and said there was no form, and I would just like to order it from the haven menu.   He then came to my cabin and brought me a regular door tag menu and told me to fill it out.   Obviously, the form does not have the same offerings as the Haven restaurant so I just wrote what I wanted on the back of the form.   

 

Cabin Stewart:   Did a great job for us and always brought us fresh beach towels every port day.   We did leave him an additional tip.

 

Concierge:   They were absolutely wonderful, and we did utilize them a lot more than we thought we would and have previously used them.   The Head Concierge put together an additional 3 hour behind the scenes tour when I mentioned my husband and daughter would be interested.    Then one night my husband and daughter were talking to the Captain and he asked what my daughter did, and she when he found out she was a Mechanical Engineer for a power plant he asked if she would be interested in meeting the ship's Chief Engineer for a discussion and private tour!   When we saw the Concierge later that night, he already knew about it and made it happen.    He also knew we were traveling with some family outside of the Haven and did allow them to leave the ship with us at the ports as we had private excursions in three of the ports.     

 

Posh:    We were able to buy Posh passes upon boarding the ship for our family members that were not staying in the Haven.  They were $59 and for us, worth it as it was always a great meeting place and we did utilize it often.   However, we really did miss a water feature (as Vibe lovers) and they really should have more usable lounge chairs with cushions (my pet peeve with the Joy Haven sundeck).    The bar service was fantastic.     We also did use the Haven pool area and am happy to report it was not overrun by children.   The children in the Haven were all really well behaved.

 

Food:    We ate dinner in the Haven and Savor twice and once in Moderno, Teppanyaki and the Manhattan Room.    Everyone in our party thought the food was delicious and had no complaints.     We did miss the filet mignon in the Teppanyaki room.     The Manhattan Room was enforcing pants so the men in our party wore jeans so they dressed down from their usual dress shorts.  I will not comment on the women that were allowed to wear shorts.  All MDR dinners took about an hour as service was really quick.    The disappointment for us was O'Sheehan's.    The food was just not as tasty as usual, and to my horror, they had no potato chips.  They said that chips would not be available all week (the Haven had them).  Service was on the slower side once you got the attention of the wait staff.  The wings, well, for us, they are just not as good as they used to be.    And did I mention, they had no chips.   I still say bring back the mozzarella sticks.  

 

Late night food options:    One night while my husband and I were sleeping, I heard a lot of noise coming from our living room.   Our adult children brought back to our cabin their cousins for food as they were all hungry and the only food option was O'Sheenhan's which they did not want to sit and wait again.  They demolished the abundance of food our Butler had left us.    They really did miss the buffet being more available for late night snackage.   This is the one cutback that seemed to be more noticed for our group.  

 

Entertainment:     The Beatles show was good, but I prefer the Beatles on the Joy.     Those of us that went to the Elton John show enjoyed it.     My husband and I feel asleep during Burn the Floor.    

 

Water:    For those that have been following on the free water thread, we did receive six waters in addition to our status water.   Originally, we were supposed to receive 24 with the promotion.   Since we had the constant filled water pitcher in our refrigerator, we had more than enough water so we survived the water crisis.

 

Ports:   

     Aruba--we rented a private catamaran and it was worth every penny

     Curacao--hired private tour company, GoneCaribe 

     St. Lucia--hired private tour company, Cosol Tours

     St. Kitts--purchased in advance day passes at the Marriot

 

In summary, we all had a wonderful time.    As I stated before in other threads, we do not always need to stay in the Haven.  Staying in the Haven did enhance our cruise and we really did appreciate all of the extra services.   We all purchased more cruise next certificates for our next extended family cruise.   

 

I have the dailies so if anyone is interested, please let me know and I will upload them.

 

 

[Seas2mountains]

Thank you for taking the time to post an excellent and helpful review. 

[wit_n_wisdom]

Was Spice H20 open again? I'm sailing on the Epic in late August/early September and was quite disappointed to hear about it closing.

[vacation44]

21 minutes ago, wit_n_wisdom said:

Was Spice H20 open again? I'm sailing on the Epic in late August/early September and was quite disappointed to hear about it closing.

Yes, Spice H20 was open.

[vacation44]

2 hours ago, Seas2mountains said:

Thank you for taking the time to post an excellent and helpful review. 

You are very welcome.   I get a lot of information from return cruisers so I thought I would give my two cents.

[vacation44]

I should also mention that most of us in our group used the NCL app for communication which we each purchased for $9.95.   In our case, it surprisingly worked great, and we all said it was a much better experience using it as it was a few years back.    We were able to hear the buzz clearly when being texted and the buzz and vibration when receiving a phone call also worked great.  For us, it was an improvement and made communication easy within our party.

[Oceansaway17]

5 hours ago, vacation44 said:

Thought I would do a quick summary of our cruise last week on the Epic.   I traveled with my husband, daughter (24), son (23) and 10 other extended family members.   

 

 

Entertainment:     The Beatles show was good, but I prefer the Beatles on the Joy.     Those of us that went to the Elton John show enjoyed it.     My husband and I feel asleep during Burn the Floor.    

 

 

Wow you actually feel asleep during "Burn the Floor".  I mean that is a noisy show.

[cruiseny4life]

6 hours ago, vacation44 said:

Water:    For those that have been following on the free water thread, we did receive six waters in addition to our status water.   Originally, we were supposed to receive 24 with the promotion.   Since we had the constant filled water pitcher in our refrigerator, we had more than enough water so we survived the water crisis.

I almost stood up to applaud this development, having participated in the other thread and observed your desire for the water you should receive. Yay! 

 

We did not receive water, nor should we have though, based on the dates of the promotion.

 

Eventually I'm going to have a moment to update my review with my thoughts on the Haven Sundeck (I didn't forget).

 

I'm so glad you had a wonderful cruise and that everyone enjoyed it, Posh and all! It's also nice to hear some positive thoughts about Epic.

[vacation44]

On 3/28/2023 at 4:56 PM, cruiseny4life said:

I almost stood up to applaud this development, having participated in the other thread and observed your desire for the water you should receive. Yay! 

 

We did not receive water, nor should we have though, based on the dates of the promotion.

 

Eventually I'm going to have a moment to update my review with my thoughts on the Haven Sundeck (I didn't forget).

 

I'm so glad you had a wonderful cruise and that everyone enjoyed it, Posh and all! It's also nice to hear some positive thoughts about Epic.

Thank you.   Everyone really enjoyed themselves with not too much complaining.   While the Epic is certainly not my favorite ship, we enjoyed the ship.   We also thought the Haven was a much better experience on the Epic than the Joy.   

 

Looking forward to reading your finished review and what is up next for you and your husband.

[vacation44]

Also forgot to mention that we were credited back during our sailing of port charges of $10.86 a person.  

[laudergayle]

Yay that you were able to score the Posh passes for those outside The Haven.  And, happy to hear you enjoyed the cruise as much as we enjoyed ours a few weeks earlier.  We sail on Prima in a few weeks…and based on the reviews we can’t wait to form our own opinion.  Seems like Prima and Epic have similar reviews…it’s either Fun or Awful.  Lol.  

[DCGuy64]

5 hours ago, vacation44 said:

Also forgot to mention that we were credited back during our sailing of port charges of $10.86 a person.  

I also want to thank you for taking the time to write such a thorough and comprehensive review. We sailed the Epic in December and really enjoyed it, including the $9.95 communication tool that helped me and my wife locate one another. Thanks again!

[vacation44]

3 hours ago, laudergayle said:

Yay that you were able to score the Posh passes for those outside The Haven.  And, happy to hear you enjoyed the cruise as much as we enjoyed ours a few weeks earlier.  We sail on Prima in a few weeks…and based on the reviews we can’t wait to form our own opinion.  Seems like Prima and Epic have similar reviews…it’s either Fun or Awful.  Lol.  

Thank you, again, for all of your help with information a few weeks ago.    

 

We were the first ones in the terminal; but not the first ones in for check-in as about 20 people jumped ahead of us.   We walked extremely fast to Guest Relations and were first in line.  Literally within seconds, the non-Haven guests ran on line and the passes were gone immediately.   We asked for seven, the next family asked for 14.   They were only allowed 13 and somehow another family were given four which made four unavailable to the family that wanted 14.  In the interim many passengers were being told there were no more passes available.    After about ten minutes, the family that wanted 14, passed on them as there were only nine available at this time.   So then the next group of passengers received passes, but in theory, they should of went to the passengers that were told they were sold out previously.    Since I was paying for all the additional passes, they did not have any issues with everyone being present.   

[Miss_Mono]

2 minutes ago, vacation44 said:

Thank you, again, for all of your help with information a few weeks ago.    

 

We were the first ones in the terminal; but not the first ones in for check-in as about 20 people jumped ahead of us.   We walked extremely fast to Guest Relations and were first in line.  Literally within seconds, the non-Haven guests ran on line and the passes were gone immediately.   We asked for seven, the next family asked for 14.   They were only allowed 13 and somehow another family were given four which made four unavailable to the family that wanted 14.  In the interim many passengers were being told there were no more passes available.    After about ten minutes, the family that wanted 14, passed on them as there were only nine available at this time.   So then the next group of passengers received passes, but in theory, they should of went to the passengers that were told they were sold out previously.    Since I was paying for all the additional passes, they did not have any issues with everyone being present.   

I was one of the lucky passengers that was able to score passes after you, and so glad i did! Very worth it. Just wish there was more loungers and more shade sometimes. Having our own space, bathrooms, and bar/bartenders made it for me. 

[vacation44]

46 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

I also want to thank you for taking the time to write such a thorough and comprehensive review. We sailed the Epic in December and really enjoyed it, including the $9.95 communication tool that helped me and my wife locate one another. Thanks again!

You are very welcome and we, too, were very happy the $9.95 communication tool worked great this time.   It was wonderful hearing at night from the young adults in our group inviting us to the bar/club they were in after the older folks saw a show.  

[vacation44]

1 minute ago, Miss_Mono said:

I was one of the lucky passengers that was able to score passes after you, and so glad i did! Very worth it. Just wish there was more loungers and more shade sometimes. Having our own space, bathrooms, and bar/bartenders made it for me. 

I agree to all!  They need to find a way to secure lounger pads to the double loungers.    Not having lounger pads on them eliminates half of the lounges.  

 

Hope you also had a wonderful time as we did.

[CotonMommy]

I also was able to get posh passes and honestly, used them very minimally.  I have enjoyed the vibe on other ships but Posh did not have enough loungers.  I was able to find poolside chairs daily and bar service was great on the pool deck.  

Overall, the cruise was wonderful because of the crew!!!!  They were top notch!