(Yet Another) Epic review ~ 11.26.16 Eastern Carrib. ~ got questions? Ask away!

I debated even posting upon return this week, especially since there are two other 'review' threads going for the Epic and I’m usually a lurker. However, since we had such an.... interesting trip - I figured any info I can pass along might be of value....

A little background about me - Hubs and I are early 30's have been married 9 years - We always cruise with my Aunt and Uncle – we hop between different cabin types, but always book the same cabin type as our family members. My Aunt and I have been cruising since I was a toddler - almost every year, we've got Gold or better status with a few different cruise lines.

That being said – Last week was a total blast with random *** moments thrown in for good measure. This was most certainly not the worst trip I’ve ever been on (I’ve sailed RCL’s Grandeur of the Seas and just between us, she lives up to her ‘cursed’ reputation)

The 4 of us flew from Newark, NJ to Orlando the day after Thanksgiving and arrived at MCO around 3:30 – got our bags and called the hotel shuttle. We stayed at the Doubletree – super friendly staff (used hotel points for both rooms … I travel quite a bit for work) They do have an in house restaurant, but it’s on the pricey side – so we walked across the street to Outback Steakhouse.

Hubs realized when we got back to the room that he forgot to pack deodorant – the hotel didn’t have any, and my Aunt forgot shampoo (and wouldn’t take my word for it that there were dispensers in the room) We placed a quick order with Amazon Now – they have a $20 minimum, so I grabbed a few snacks too – it was delivered within 2 hours and you can see the delivery driver as a blinking dot on the app while he’s driving (kinda creepy) I met him in the lobby with my order and there was a promo code for $10 off your first order – making our total bill with the drivers’ tip $13! Not bad for 2 hour service!

Can't wait for more!!!!

Thankyou

Embarkation Day (pt 1)

We purchased transfers through NCL directly – from Orlando airport to Port Canaveral was $35 per person each way - $140 per couple round trip – I wanted to do one way rental cars or a private transport but I was outnumbered – so we coughed up $280 for the 4 of us to take the bus.

We were told by NCL that we had to be at the airport at 10:00 am on the dot to catch the bus – Doubletree had service every 15 minutes – so we ate at the hotel buffet ($15 a person for breakfast) and then hopped on the hotel shuttle back to the airport.

Doubletree dropped us off at departures, NCL was picking us up at arrivals – just a short elevator ride one floor – easy peasy! We checked in at the NCL desk around 9:30 and were given numbers 35-38 – meaning “you might not make the first bus” …. Hmmm…. What was the point in telling us a time to be there, and then when we were 30 minutes early being told – oops, you’re too late??

So the NCL rep told us to grab seats and wait for the announcement. We waited…. And waited… 2 different Carnival busses came and went…. No announcement – until randomly about 10:30 an NCL rep (who was visibly pissed off) comes in from outside and starts yelling “Is there anyone left here waiting for Norwegian?” We were sitting right in front of her… but apparently that was their idea of an announcement…. So we told her that we were numbers 35-38 and we were told we were the second bus – she said “oh well, there are empty seats so get on!” after we got on we ended up with 4 seats all separated from each other …. 4 other people came out from I don’t know where and were told they were bumped to the second bus…. The system at the airport is visibly lacking organization and communication.

It was a 45 minute drive to the port, and our bus got stuck in traffic entering the port along with random cars / taxis. We were dropped off right at the entrance to the terminal to join the line of people waiting to enter. Again there was mass confusion from most of the guests, although I’m not sure why, be a good little sheep and follow the herd (haha) It took less than an hour to snake through the lines for the metal detectors.

Yet again we were met with confusion / lack of consistency. There were 4 metal detectors, some people were told they could not bring bottles/cases of water or soda on board. My uncle had a half finished bottle of water and a full unopened bottle of water, both of which he had to throw away (understandably) There were huge bins of confiscated water / soda.

We get through the metal detectors and an NCL rep (wearing the blue/green scarf) asks us “which deck?” #9 then she asks “which color were your luggage tags?” LIME – she points us to the line for LIME. This time I stopped her … to ask “where is the line for Silver / Gold (both hubs and uncle are silver, aunt and I are gold) She didn’t know what I was talking about. We found the Latitudes line ourselves and took it upon ourselves to use it.

We went right to the front of the line without a wait and we were called up to the agents super fast (the LIME line was quite long) I use a birth certificate / marriage license / drivers license combo to cruise because my passport is in my maiden name. The rep didn’t know how to do this, so she scanned my passport anyway (against my better judgement) so all week my documents were in my maiden name (including access to the iconcierge app)

They were already boarding and they were already done calling the groups that were waiting, so we walked right on the ship…. Well most of us… Hubs card would scan – they sent him back for a new one (we were already on the other side of security at this point, but laughing hysterically at him through the glass) He got the new card, tried again, and there was no longer a photo attached to his account. They sent him back a second time. The second time his photo was blurry so they sent him back a third time. (You can’t make this stuff up people!) I really should have video taped it – we were dying. Remember I said the whole week wasn’t BAD, just random *** moments??

Loving your report and I'm waiting for more.

Following.:)

Embarkation Day (pt 2)

We boarded the ship from the aft of deck 7 and we were immediately greeted by several staff who were just cheerfully standing around waving and greeting everyone – but there was absolutely NO organization at all! Hoards of people crowding and pushing / shoving for elevators to the 15th floor. We were immediately passed by a huge family with not one but TWO full cases of bottled water ( while we hundreds of others were made to throw ours away), they were pushing the cases of water in strollers while their toddler children were roaming free – they took the elevator that we were waiting 15 minutes for… My aunt and uncle decided to walk forward on deck 7 and then up – we said we would take the stairs and meet them there. We made it to the 12th floor on the aft stairs and they were roped off, we couldn’t go any further – the fire doors to the hallways were closed too – we HAD to wait for an elevator…. What a mess!

When we did get to the buffet there were plenty of seats open and lots of yummy food to be had – we grabbed a table and settled in – it was about 1:00 when we finally got seats upstairs. As soon as we sat down hubs and my uncle decided they wanted to start the UBP experience. I warned them after what I read on here that they would be charged tax on the ‘free’ drinks while we were still in the US – they did not believe me. I was perfectly happy with iced tea until we were out of port. But Hubs brought me back a pepsi anyway. I went to take a sip and got a whole mouth full of grenadine! Apparently hubs asked for a cherry pepsi and instead of telling him they didn’t have cherry pepsi in fountain soda they added grenadine to it he didn’t know they did this either. SUPER icky sweet – and to boot they charged us $0.19 tax – they didn’t tell him in advance about the charge and didn’t make him sign anything. No big deal – more of an ‘I told you so’ moment – and it was so funny I took a screen shot of the $0.19 on my app. But we saw dozens of younger-than-us couples with loads of empty bottles of beer – I would venture to assume quite a few people racked up a decent chunk of tax in the first several hours of their trip.

About 2:00 they gave the all clear that the staterooms were ready, but we didn’t feel like another mad elevator rush, so we hung out for a while, leisurely made our way to the rooms and immediately set off to find our muster station (again, didn’t want to deal with the elevator mess) Muster was at 3:30 and our station was in the Manhattan dining room – it was the best muster drill I’ve participated in as far as I can remember – check your name off the list with the staff member, grab a seat at a table (which surprisingly had linens on them already) and then wait with your key card face up for it to be scanned. They did not hold us up waiting for any missing passengers, but instead they held a makeup session the following morning! This was AWESOME!

We were originally booked on this itinerary on the NCL Spirit in an outside room with a $200 obc (promo from almost 2 years ago where for one weekend NCL did a $200 obc for any room sale), but things we re-arranged and we were moved to the Epic to a balcony (epic doesn’t have outsides), price matched and given an extra $50 obc, but we were booked without the UBP – Prices started dropping a few months before payoff and the difference between the price we were matched at and a mini suite was $700 total, we called in and paid the difference to switch to a mini suite, we lost our $200 obc, but kept the $50 from ship changes beyond our control and chose UBP and gratuities – considering that the soda package we were going to buy is $60 ish – the $99 for the UBP wasn’t a bad deal. And the $200 obc and free gratuities basically cancelled each other out. Both of us upgraded to the mini suites – MD category and we had 1 room between us. Rooms 9257 & 9261 – right near the aft elevators!

Very grateful we decided to upgrade to mini suites (keyword mini) even in a mini suite there wasn’t enough floor space to lay a suitcase flat on the carpet – in any other ship this room would have been a standard balcony. We were fully aware of the bathroom layout – but seeing it in a photo and seeing it in person are two totally different animals. It’s very awkward to say the least. The rubber material flooring of the toilet stall and the shower stall gave as you walked on it – which made me a little uneasy, I weigh 130 lbs and the floor felt like it was giving under my weight…. The wavy bed had my feet hanging off on more than one occasion during the night – and I’m only 5’ 6’’ – everything was small / short – but nothing so bad to make us never want to sail her again.

Hubs had the room decorated for my birthday – but the cake wasn’t there – no big deal, it’s been late before (my birthday and cheap(er) cruise dates tend to overlap frequently) So off to dinner!

I made reservations for the 4 of us for the Manhattan room for 5:30, but our luggage hadn’t arrived yet, so we went in our shorts fully expecting to be turned away for lack of long pants. Apparently the restaurants open at 5:30 each night, and there was a huge line – reservations didn’t matter – be a good little sheep and get in line (which we did).

We were on the TA that brought the Epic to Port Canaveral. We will be doing another cruise on her in February. We're very much interested in what you're saying and looking forward to the rest. We're particularly interested in what time everyone has to be off the ship by on disembarkation day, if you wouldn't mind including that, please. Thank you, Marcia

I'm loving all these reviews of the Epic! Thank you for taking the time

We're particularly interested in what time everyone has to be off the ship by on disembarkation day, if you wouldn't mind including that, please.

We had a 1:20 flight, using NCL's transport we were "scheduled" to disembark at 9 am to catch the bus to the airport - we were the second color called and then called us at 8:30 ish. But by 8:15 the room steward was knocking asking us to please go find a public area to sit in - which was rather early, but we gladly complied with his request

Great review so far! :)

Great review. More please...

Embarkation Day (pt 3)

We were seated fairly quickly, but the entire restaurant was seated at the exact same time – the poor waitstaff! They were hustling to the best of their ability. Apparently the muster drill people made quite a mess, they were busy changing linens and setting out place settings – I cannot imagine a whole restaurant full of people sitting down all at the same exact time, most of whom were quite grumpy. Including a very nasty older woman who insisted that her family of 10 get seats by the windows (which were all tables for 2)

** Dear NCL passengers, you signed up for FREESTYLE cruising – chillax and go with the flow! **

When our waiter got around to us to take our order he immediately started with the food (no drinks, no liquor/wine) – normally there are bus staff for this – but our poor waiter didn’t have one (she showed up later, and we saw her several more times at the buffet, so I think she was busy upstairs) We ordered our appetizers and main courses and I made it a point to specifically ask the waiter “no onions please, I’m allergic”

This was the straw that broke the poor waiter’s back – I STILL feel guilty a week later… he stopped in his tracks “what do you mean you have an allergy?” (his face was so upset I’ll probably never forget it) I explained that while I’m not anaphylactic, I get hives from onions. “You have to pre-order when you have an allergy! Didn’t your travel agent tell you?” why no… because I don’t have a travel agent – I book my own travel, and NCL has assigned us 4 different PCC’s from the time this trip was booked until the day we sailed.

Now – I fully understand how a kitchen with 4,000+ passengers works, meals are pre-plated and the waiters can just grab and go. When someone has an allergy this throws a wrench in the works. But I was not asking for special treatment – if what I ordered has onions, let me know and I would gladly pick something else (there is always a plain ‘ole steak on the menu) I told the waiter, “if it has onions don’t worry, I’ll have the steak instead” I prefer to eat a meal the way the chef expected it to be eaten. I ordered fried mushrooms for an app and bacon wrapped shrimp for dinner.

A few minutes go by and the woman who was helping our waiter bus tables came out to tell me that the shrimp sauce had onions, so she ordered it for me dry. (eww) but C’est la vie – she took our drink orders and called over a bar staff to get us some wine. My aunt asked for something sweet – he suggested a moscato and she loved it (apparently I have to take her drinking more often) I stuck with a Riesling and to be honest I have no idea what the guys got.

Out came our appetizers and the mushroom plate had a sauce in the middle that was visibly full of chives (apparently when dealing with language barriers onions and chives are two different things, noted this for later) but since the sauce wasn’t touching the mushrooms and I’m not allergic to the point of any cross contamination I dove in and they were wonderful!

Hubs and my uncle got Caesar salads – note to self – READ all of the fine print underneath the name of the item you are ordering – the Caesar salad comes with WHOLE anchovies on top (not just in the dressing) apparently the boys liked it though – by the time they told me it was on there I only got 1 fishy in my picture

During dessert the waiter brought over the menu for the next night so that I could pre-order an allergy safe choice. No one seemed to understand that I didn’t want a specially cooked plate, I just wanted to know WHAT the ingredients were so I could make an informed decision – I’m a foodie by heart – I want to taste the meal the way it was supposed to be presented. But I caved and asked for the Salmon meal – the waiter took my room number and told me that the two restaurants use the same kitchen, so whichever we were at my meal would ‘find me’

The casino was packed, so we walked through to check out the machine selection – stood in line to get new lucky cards (I forgot ours at home) only to find out that you can now use your room key OR a lucky card. We decided to be safe and still use the lucky cards – with my ‘luck’ I’d forget my room key in a slot machine! The casino has a snack area which was stocked with cookies – yumm – grabbed a few of those and headed back to the room for the night.

Back to the room and still no birthday cake - fine by me - I found cookies... but Hubs was a little annoyed

2 Days @ Sea

I didn’t take specific notes during the trip – so I’m combining the sea days together.

Ran into our room steward early in the morning – he asked if he could come in and show us all of the room features (very Haven-esque) We sailed in a Haven on the Pearl a few years ago and man oh man were we shocked back into ‘normal’ life this time around! But our main man Jade was awesome – he showed us all of the little tricks about the lights around the sink being under the cabinet – how to turn the lights on the phone screen off – he even gave us a sticky note to cover up the air conditioning light (it was bright and right over the bed)

Hubs and I are techie people – but for the life of us we couldn’t figure out where on the TV or the app it showed our current reservations – sometime between days 2 and 3 I realized they were on the bottom of my edocs – so I ended up making everyone take a picture with their phone so we could have them handy!

Sunday we had reservations for Taste – but when we got up in the morning the little cards on the buffet tables said that the buffet theme for the evening was “seafood” yumm. So hubs and I set off to try to figure out how to cancel our reservations for dinner. We tried going to the hostess station at the restaurant – they said we had to go to guest services. Went to guest services – they told us there was a person with a laptop in the hall between the atrium and the photo gallery. Finally found the reservation person/podium and that person told us they only handle specialty restaurants and not main dining. Went back to the room and called the restaurant line from the phone – they told us “just don’t show up” well – but what about my ‘special’ allergy dinner? I didn’t want someone making it if I wasn’t showing up – I was told it wouldn’t be prepared until I swiped my room key to enter the dining room.

This was the theme of the week – understandably there was a huge staff change when the ship arrived in PC 2 weeks prior – lots of staff who were trying really hard but just didn’t have answers (yet)

I really sincerely hope that I was given correct advice – because we “just didn’t show up” for dinner at Taste.

While looking through the shore excursion paperwork Hubs noticed that they were selling Large cabanas for GSC for $318 – ahem…. We prepaid $499! *insert fuming angry face here* I called the shore excursion desk and got a recording that they were busy please come in person. (I’m really not sure WHY there are phones in the room – most departments didn’t answer) I walked down, waited in line and was told they couldn’t do anything…that’s a HUGE price difference! $181 – After a little back and forth the woman at the shore ex desk decided that she might be able to cancel and rebook it. Which worked perfectly – we ended up with a $181 credit (and I now owed my aunt $90 – but she gladly took cash)

At one point either Sunday or Monday hubs ordered a drink from H2O and asked for it to be in a collectors’ cup – the menu specifically had an asterisk next to the cup stating “not included in UBP” and a price of $6.00 – they gave him a receipt to sign for the cup which he threw in his pocket.

Checking our app some time later, I asked him what he bought for $9.95 from H20 – he said “I bought a cup for $6” and pulled out the receipt “Coconut Monkey - $9.95” this was not the drink he ordered… hmm… So during the course of our travels we stopped at guest services, they pulled up our account and told us “that charge was for a souvenir cup” We tried with no luck to explain that yes, we know we bought a cup, but the price listed was $6 and not $9.95. Guest services says there is nothing they can do, we had to take the cup and the receipt back to the bar that made the error and have them fix it. Now we are young, but the Epic is a mighty ship – this back and forth stuff was starting to get a tad annoying.

End of day 2 and still no cake…

Monday was also at sea the weather was beautiful and we had smooth sailing, however I normally wear the Scopolamine patch – this particular trip when I asked my doctor for a refill of patches she sent them into the pharmacy and we got talking about the trip. I mentioned that I was excited to try the UBP for the first time – normally we can take or leave the alcohol and at $15 a piece we normally don’t bother. At which point my doctor makes me SWEAR to her that I won’t use the patches and drink… Not sure why I saw tons of other cruisers with them on drinking, but since I trust her I followed her instructions – I packed the patches and Dramamine pills and the wrist bands and I figured I would see how bad it got – it’s been years since I cruised without a patch. Well by day 2 at sea I was just a tad green – I took a Dramamine and headed to bed – not sure where hubs and the family ate, but I know he tried to cancel our reservations for Pricilla and was told the same thing “just don’t show up”

Gratefully – end of day 3 and still no cake

Ghinderliter,

We were on the same cruise as you and had the same issue with the GSC cabanas. I had booked a small one, and due to the recent online price hike I had paid $549!!! Eeek! We were lucky enough to be in the Haven this cruise, so the concierge took care of it. Of course I had booked it, but my mum submitted her credit card for the three of us on the cruise, so she got the $549 credit then the $299 charge which got pretty confusing. But yes, hello $250 savings!

I think the problem is that the ship doesn't have updated print outs with the current online price, but hey our gain for once.

The cabana was great, but the recent renos on them meant that the picture online of what you get did not match the reality. You don't get 4 loungers and table and chairs, but one lounger and a long sofa and padded chair. But we brought up a few of the beach loungers and that worked out.

We had a great cruise, but gotta say the billing/account issues we seemed to have all cruise were frustrating. We ended up still needing a small credit on a Cirque Dreams billing issue (same deal as cabanas, different price quoted online to ship printouts) but after all the credits and rebills, we just gave up and let sleeping dogs lie.

Cheers,

Jo

At GSC can you just rent a couple lounge chairs with umbrella?

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At GSC can you just rent a couple lounge chairs with umbrella?

 

 

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Loungers alone are free - loungers under a clam shell are somewhere in the $30-$50 range I think.... it depends on the ship You'll see lots of the blue clam shells when I find the GSC pictures

Thank you![emoji950][emoji950][emoji950][emoji950][emoji950]

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Tortola – BVI

In our room the night before we got a card stating that overnight the ships’ time would be moving forward 1 hour as we went further east – Hubs and I both have Iphones that we use for everything (including the alarm clock) I set mine ahead manually – by turning off ‘automatically detect time zone’ and picking “road town, bvi” – hubs did not… and sometime in the middle of the night his phone set to UTC time (luckily we didn't rely on his phone and weren’t taking a tour or we would have been late).

We were told we would be docking at 8 am, so we ordered continental breakfast the night before (using the hang tag in the room service menu) which was free, and got some pastries and fruit delivered – we picked between 7-7:30, they called at 6:30 to tell us the waiter was on his way and he got there at 6:45 right while hubs was in the shower!

Speaking of the bathroom facilities – sometime during the sea days our room steward took down the curtain that divides the bathroom from the bedroom – not quite sure why, but it was gone for 2-3 days and then magically reappeared – no idea why, it didn’t seem broken or dirty? Either way, hubs and I had lots of close personal bonding time.

Hubs starting complaining about a sore mouth/tooth when we woke up – he has gotten several blocked salivary glands before from airplane travel so he grabbed a few hard candies that we brought from home to suck on to try to fix the problem.

They announced that we were cleared by customs right around 8 am and hubby couldn’t wait to go ashore. He’s never been to BVI or St Thomas and he picked the itinerary. As a general rule he likes to explore an island himself first, and then if we end up going back he will take an excursion.

We headed down to deck 4 via the stairs only to find out that nope – you need to take the elevator – luckily it was super early and not that busy yet.

On the way out they had a person selling 1 litres of water – and a big sign saying 6 bottles $22.95… we prepaid for those too - $27.95 ~ I was *not* standing in the guest services line AGAIN for yet another price issue. They also handed us maps on the way down the gangway.

None of the shops within the ships’ fence were open when we got off – so we decided we would do the town first and work our way back. The taxis were $8 per person each way – but the taxi crew kept telling passengers “7 minute walk, or short taxi ride” Hubby and I are in decent shape so we figured hey – lets walk there and maybe taxi back. Ha! There are no signs ANYWHERE that give any kind of decent directions. I have never been to Tortola either – so after leaving the gates of the ship area we followed the masses for a while, stopped in a few shops here and there – and found that almost every store was closed so early in the morning.

We were in port with another ship – the Viking Star – when we were walking for a few blocks we got to a roundabout – we pull out the map that we were handed on the gangway – and it’s a map of the 5-10 stores inside the ship fence! What a waste of paper! No clue which direction to walk.

We spot another couple from the Viking ship with a better map than ours looking equally lost. They stopped a police officer and asked for a certain street name, and then said “shopping” (the couple had pretty thick accents) He pointed them to the left, so we followed too! *Mistake #1* After a couple more blocks we hit a second round about – this time the couple stops a high schooler in a school uniform – points to their map and says “shopping” and she points them the right way – so again we followed *Mistake #2* The third set of cross roads they stopped yet another high schooler, then a fourth time they ask yet another police officer – this time they say “Botanical Garden?” - which was right around the corner…. Well don’t we feel dumb – we just walked a mile and a half in the wrong direction – tried to get hubs to go see the garden, he wasn’t interested.

We backtracked to the same police officer – asked about shopping, only to be told we were nowhere near close – so we asked the quickest way back to the ship – two turns later we apparently did a huge circle – 3 miles according to my phones’ pedometer.

At this point hubby didn’t even want to bother with the shopping in town – we were both hot and his mouth hurt, it was an hour or so later and most shops were still not open so we retreated back to the fenced in ship shops.

A quick stop at Cariloha to get hubby a bamboo shirt that said “tortola” (he’s apparently starting a collection of them) and a small Del-Sol sword for my nephew and we were ready to call it quits and find lunch. Total time on the island - 2.5 hours :rolleyes:

Spent the afternoon relaxing (hubby’s mouth was still sore) and reading my book in the room, at which point hubs decides to find out where the cake was. He sorted through the stack of papers that were on the bed when we first arrived to see if maybe he ordered it to be delivered on my actual birthday instead of on day 1 – when he finally found the card with the “happy birthday” note on it there was a teeny tiny little tear off portion that said “Bring this certificate to the restaurant of your choice on the night of your celebration for your cake” AH HA!

Ended up seeing the ships’ doctor that night for some antibiotics – the salivary stone was stuck and caused an infection in hubby’s cheek. First time we ever needed to use those facilities – super fast, super friendly $289 for the visit and the meds – the staff told us they would deliver the paperwork to submit to our health insurance to our room the next morning after the doctor was done documenting in their electronic records system.

Sorry to hear about your husband’s issue with a blocked salivary gland. Were the hard candies your husband sucked on the sour variety? It’s the sour flavor that will clear a salivary gland the quickest. I find the sour lemon drops work best for me.

Sorry to hear about your husband’s issue with a blocked salivary gland. Were the hard candies your husband sucked on the sour variety? It’s the sour flavor that will clear a salivary gland the quickest. I find the sour lemon drops work best for me.

We did have sour candies - but with no luck - however the onboard doctor recommended just using a lemon wedge.... while gross - it worked

St Thomas – USVI

The next morning was a stop at St Thomas – my aunt and uncle do not get off the ship.ever.period. So Hubs and I were on our own again! This time we were supposed to dock at 7:30 – so hubby ordered the room service for even earlier *insert eye roll here* the time change and I were not getting along to begin with and I tried to use Tortola as an example that just because we’re docked doesn’t mean the town is up and things are open. But 7:30 came, the ship was cleared and off we went! We docked at Havensight Port along with the Holland America Oosterdam, and eventually we were also joined by the Regal Princess

St Thomas was signed and marked wonderfully! Being a US island they have gotten significantly more Americanized since my last visit! (during our taxi ride we passed both Wendy’s and Hooters) There was a walkway with arrows and clearly marked signs “shopping” and “taxis” – and you could see the butterfly gardens from the ship – walking distance there too.

Same as the day before, the shops near the ship were all closed – so we headed towards the taxi stand first. We asked to go ‘downtown’ and the taxi dispatcher pointed us to one of the open air jeeps – the driver states “no sir, I’m taking these folks sightseeing” (pointing to the 12+ people already in the jeep) We told the dispatcher we would wait for another taxi – NO – get in this one the driver WILL take you downtown on her way ‘sightseeing’ – she was very mad to say the least and dropped us off several blocks away from where she was supposed to drop us.

All of the ‘downtown’ stores open at 9:00 – it was 7:45 – score an ‘I told you so’ for Gloria! We wandered down to the water, found a nice bench area and enjoyed the scenery for a while – which included watching a particular momma Calico try to catch a whole chicken (no worries, she was being fed by a shop owner…the chicken hunt was just for sport)

Much to hubby’s disappointment (and mine too for that matter) 99% of the downtown shopping was jewelry and liquor – None of the stores were the same price as the ship – they were all more expensive. I found one store with Victoria’s Secret perfume – for kicks I asked the price - $25 – the exact same shelf price it is at home. And the jewelry shopping was not the same as other islands we’ve visited – no room for negotiation at all. Grand Cayman & Mexico ports tend to give extra discounts for cash transactions etc – not in St Thomas. Hubby found an Invitica watch he liked in one of the shops near the ship, but all week the ship was touting that they are the cheapest anywhere – and that they would price match if they weren’t – so we held off purchasing anything in St Thomas. Except of course – for a trip to Cariloha…. The St Thomas store was running a special 2 tshirts, 2 pairs of underwear and 2 pairs of socks for $99 – considering that the tshirts alone are $34 this was a very decent offer – and I now own my very first bamboo shirt….

All aboard was 1:30 and there were 6-7 people late (or just not checked back in correctly) after several announcements we were eventually on our way – we were the first ship out of port and used a harbor pilot on the way out of port and the Princess ship played its horn for us (the love boat theme song) SO COOL – first time I’ve ever heard a princess ships’ horn! We were nose to nose with the princess ship and the Oosterdam was right behind us – so we used the side engines to move out from the middle – I love the bigger ship – such fun new technology – I need that ability when I parallel park at home.

We passed the other dock on our way back out to sea – with the telephoto lens on my camera I was able to spot one of the Oasis/Allure RCCL ships – but I couldn’t identify the ship next to her. Normally I look up ‘who’s in port with me’ in advance because we like to scope out other ships – but I totally forgot this time. Turns out it was the Oasis of the Seas (left) and the Queen Mary 2 (right)

We were scheduled for Moderno that evening, but my wonderful sister passed along her cold to me on Thanksgiving and that along with the heat / slight sunburn and lack of patches had me green again. The three of them went without me while I caught up on sleep – they loved it! And around 9:30 when hubs got back we went to O’sheehans to grab me something to eat. The waitress was super nice and she was able to get me a Chipotle chicken sandwich without any of the Jalapenos or spicy mayo (aka a chicken sandwich with cheese) and fries – perfectly bland and it hit the spot.

While we were sitting in O’sheehans the shopping consultant announced that tonight was a sale on Inviticia watches (hahaha) so we headed up to the shops to check it out – hubby found the exact same watch he was looking at in the morning for $20 less than in port!

(yet another) Sea Day – My Birthday! (pt 1)

Hubs’ doctor bill arrived in the room the night after he was seen and to my horror – no codes that I needed for submitting the visit to our insurance (long story short, I teach medical billing and medical documentation software for a living) So I figured we would stop back to the medical center to get the paperwork I needed for when we got home. We ended up sleeping in and missed the morning clinic hours (8:30-9:00) so we had to catch the 6:00-7:30 time.

On our way to breakfast we cut through the casino and noticed that the quarter pusher machines were refilled with goodies and there was an open seat! Hubs isn’t a huge fan, but hey – it was my birthday! So he went to get me tokens while I stalked out my seat and plan of attack. He brought back $20 worth of tokens and I started slowly timing my quarter drops to push the coins forward – once he saw this was a ‘strategy’ type game he decided he wanted to play too – so we were taking turns dropping tokens. We spent a good hour playing *note to self, play on a sea day, the boat rocking was helping us* We ended up with 2 chips for bottles of champagne and a dice keychain! This brought back so many memories – my grandfather used to win/buy us these when we were little ~ I love my $20 keychain <3

Ended up playing so long we missed breakfast, so we figured we would grab the bottles of champagne and take them back to the room while we waited for lunch to start

Met up with Jade our room steward in the hallway – carrying a bottle of champagne in each hand at 11 am **no shame** He cracked a few jokes about what happens on the Epic …. And then hey it’s your birthday! (he knew the exact day, I was impressed) he followed us back to the room to say “surprise” I had your cake sent up today! Hahahahaha – Jade is the person who changed the delivery day from what hubs picked??

He left enough plates and silverware for all 4 of us in the room ~ I was really impressed at his level of personalization all week – service I’ve only seen in suites previously in a regular room. He would often know that my aunt/uncle just left – or that they said they were going to xyz – he was like a human sticky note! He was also had some of the most unique towel critters I’ve ever seen – not the ‘normal’ ones

On the nights I wasn’t feeling well and he didn’t turn down the room Jade gave me a towel critter in the morning instead! He didn’t miss a single day!

Thanks for the review.

We were shipmates. I am enjoying your review! Thanks for taking the time.

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