It's EPIC! (The ship not this review) 11-26-2016

So the Husband (and I) decided we needed to cruise again. I took one without him this spring and he was - of course - jealous. We did our homework. As he is driven partly by price and I want to see places I have not been to yet, a bargain eastern Caribbean week on the Epic met our criteria. We would go to Tortola, St Thomas and Great Stirrup Cay. These are all new ports for us.

Our previous ports have been Nassau, Freeport, and Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas, Key West (where we did not get off the ship due to having recently traveled there,) Grand Cayman, we drove by Jamaica but could not stop due to seas, have been south for Aruba and Curacao, and trips to the west to Roatan, Honduras, Belize City, and finally in Mexico: Playa del Carmen; Mahahual (Costa Maya); and Cozumel.

Our trips have been spread over years, beginning in 1987. Our first cruise actually was a room with a bathroom, a porthole and two bunk beds – four berths total. We were with another honeymooning couple. Our second cruise was bunk berths, but only two as we were alone. Since then we have sailed modern ships and had more normal sleeping arrangements. We have sailed with different family members, but usually cruises are just the two of us. We have two adult children.

My last cruises have been repeats of ports and last year we repeated a ship for the first time – the NCL Star. I was very excited for BVI, US VI, GSC and the Epic.

I know Mitsugirly just did a very thorough review of this same itinerary. My review of her review is that it is awesome and loaded with pictures to boot. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2424900

Hopefully my notes will have value for some readers, but I bow before her greatness.

I’ll get this done as quickly as I can. I am still trying to piece together some of the days. I did not take the notes I intended, we met some really fun people via Cruise Critic with whom we played nicely, and then there was this Pub Crawl :eek:…….. (Thanks a lot Oliver :rolleyes:)

~ Chris

p.s. Be gentle with me as you would a kitten. I am new at this review thingie.

I’m looking forward to the rest of your review. I could read trip reports from CC members all day, every day, especially when it’s a ship I’ll soon be on.

Yay! Another Epic review! Looking forward to reading more - I'll be sailing on her in 47 days. :)

Nice start, looking forward to more.:)

Can't wait to hear all about it

Our pre cruise schedule for most cruises is the same.

• Find a house/animal sitter.

• Pack at one in the morning the day of and drive to the port.

This works for all Florida ports from our central location. If we are headed to Ft Lauderdale or Miami we might go from packing straight to the road, but usually I get a couple hours sleep.

Repeat after me

For husband on time means at least 15 minutes before and, well, let us just say that’s not true for me. It can get a little tense up until I show him the documents at the same time as we are both sitting in the car. There is something magical about pulling out of the driveway. Scrooge turns into Santa and happiness falls over the driver. As the passenger, I sulk for a while because in my mind I am the one who was being ill-treated. After a short while, my bitterness falls away and now we are both in the mood for some vacation.

We had to make a brief stop to print our door sign, as our color printer was not working. Then we made a Beeline to the port on 528. For us old Floridians that’s Beeline, not Beachline.

We use Park N Cruise for our Port Canaveral parking. That is the one with the old Quonset hut in which you wait for shuttle pickup to go the port. Back in the olden days, you used to drive thru the building, stop and unload your luggage. It’s too busy for that now, and they need the hut to queue up people in the shade so we are not fainting all over the lot. We had our reservations out, drove up, dropped off me and the luggage, and my personal now-Santa parked the car. We were there a little before 10:00. I had a terminal check in time block of 09:30 to 10:00, but the stop for printing set us back a few. We took care of paperwork and lined up.

There was one line for Carnival Sunshine, one for NCL Epic and one for Disney Fantasy. Seems organized. Then we waited. No shuttles had taken people over to the port yet that morning. Shuttles started arriving. One came for Carnival. One came for Epic. We were second in line for the next Epic shuttle. Then we waited. And waited. And bloody waited. One came for Carnival. We waited. And waited some f*&$r~! more. The poor staff kept reassuring us that the port traffic was backed up. The traffic coming in was conflicting with the traffic going out. The porters at the terminal don’t do any work. The cars were backed up to the Beeline. Yada yada yada. I think we may have been there over an hour before we loaded up. The line was out the back of the hut. I don’t know how the poor Disney people fared because I never saw a shuttle load for them. Our queue companions were fine as we were all psyched for our cruise, it was still relatively early, and it was not a hot morning. I hate being in line with cranky people.

Our shuttle worked its way over to the terminal. The backup was real. What should have been a 5-10 minute ride took about a half hour. The shuttles have to pay every time the port is entered and not all toll gates were open. Parking and shuttles pass thru the same gates. Park N Cruise drivers pay the toll, not the company so the driver cannot use the transponder booth.

Once at the new terminal 10 drop off you do the following. The driver pulls in to a slot surrounded by luggage carts. The parking slots surround a large oval with a pedestrian area in the center. The luggage is unloaded. (Contrary to what the PnC people were saying, the porters did help unload the vehicle.) The passengers are unloaded after the bags. Then the porters ask you to make sure your bags are present. You tip the hard-working muscle-bound luggage handlers. You tip your driver. You assume your bags will be put on a cart and towed to the ship. You walk up the oval to escalators and you are routed to security screening. (I will spend some more time with Park N Cruise at debarkation.)

Once we made it through the debacle of getting to the terminal, we had the easiest screening and check in ever. Security checked our boarding passes and made fun of our passport photos. Many X-ray-vision-screening stations were open and the line was controlled, so you were directed to the next station with only one party waiting. Less chance of getting in that one bad lane that I always pick at the grocery. We would have cruised right in but Ken kept beeping in the walk thru. He went into the machine three times and I think they were getting ready to strip search him, or at least give him a good frisk when he remembered the magnets in his cargo short pocket. Oopsie. Bad Santa.

Thru security we were now prepared to get into a long line for check-in. I grabbed the heath forms and followed Bad Santa without looking up, as I was digging for a pen in the purse where everything disappears. He stops in front of me and surprise! we are at the counter. No line. Never have I ever walked right up to the counter, especially at noonish. (I don’t know exactly what time it was but it was about noonish after all that mucking about with shuttles.) Staff knew what they were doing and in no time we had our card keys printed with the magic letters UBP.

Time to walk the plank….I mean gangway.

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Trying to determine if I can share photos in a post from Google photos

So far it's not working.

Nice start. Will be following along.

Lol. My hubbie and I need that chant. We always work too long the day before leaving and he ends up working on his computer up until the time the kids and I are waiting in the car! It makes everyone grumpy until a few miles down the road.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Forums mobile app

One of these days, we will not be talking to each other thru gritted teeth behind forced smiles.

:LOL Happens to us also, and soon fades to smiles. I blame my stress on ours.

Yay! Another Epic review! Looking forward to reading more - I'll be sailing on her in 47 days. :)

Missing out meeting you by a few weeks! We are on the Epic on 12/17!

I can't find a way to share a link to embed Google Photos and I am not opening a new file sharing account tonight so I will just upload these pictures. You do not want to see them up close anyway.

1 Getting ready to cruise

2 At the Park N Cruise

3 & 4 on the gangway

Staff was awaiting us as we stepped from the gangway onto the ship’s shuffleboard deck, but they were a quiet group. No leis, champagne, confetti. I guess I’m in the wrong century and/or hemisphere. We proceeded to meekly follow non-verbal directions and stepped thru the bulkhead to the interior of deck 7. Having boarded many ships with Carnival’s flamboyant décor I was a bit underwhelmed. We boarded at the entrance to Bliss Ultra Lounge and right by a set of public restrooms. Ken however was thrilled to be right there and promptly inspected the facilities. I spent time inspecting some of the hanging chains at Bliss. Could be useful on sea days.

I knew Taste was somewhere below us and wanted to eat there. So we headed down a floor and started looking for the escalator. As we walked through O’Sheehans I was afraid my husband would want to stop to eat. He is a fan of Shenanigans (what we call the big O’) and their chicken wings. But I wanted something quieter. ( I, I, I, me, me, me)

First we had to stop at the Atrium Bar and get something to clink together. May I recommend an old-fashioned where the fruit is muddled and the whiskey is Honey Jack.

I have no food porn pictures but I can remember the Taste meal. It’s the only dining room lunch we had all week. Ken had a spring roll and the lamb entrée. I had a Caesar salad and asked for the Pho soup as my entrée. All were delicious.

Cabins were ready shortly after we left the restaurant.

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People should always have a cabin story; if nothing else I want to know why you picked your location.

As I said, Santa sails on price. Around June he found this cruise at $499 for an inside including the UBP and jumped all over it – after six agonizing days of spreadsheet analysis comparing this to other cruises.

We selected cabin 12306. This is the last inside cabin on the port side of deck – you guessed it – 12. Now many people would find this cabin undesirable. It’s a long walk back to a little rectangle, being taunted by balcony doors the entire way. But it had some plusses.

• First it’s a long walk; I need to burn as many calories as I can.
  
• Next deck 12 is a nice midpoint floor wise. I can go up or down easily using the stairs, and again – exercise.
  
• It should be quiet. I am surrounded above and below and around by cabins. And not many people will wander down the corridor.
  
• It was right outside the secret staircase – so I could access fresh air and a view fairly quickly.
  

I had convinced myself that these were valid and true points and was ready to settle into my little nappy hideaway. Nothing like sleeping in the dark interior cabins.

Then I started reading up on Epic on Cruise Critic. We had done some preliminary work before booking so I knew about the wave rooms and the special closeness the bathrooms offered a couple. Well the interiors do not wave and as I mentioned earlier, my DH is not afraid of public restrooms. But there was more: traffic bottleneck issues; the pool deck is choppy; too much smoke in the interior from the casino; only two sets of elevators; the ugly protruding forehead above the bow; no promenade deck; 4100 passengers.; a hotel feel – no sense of being at sea.

Perhaps the secret staircase would not be enough. :eek:

I kept reading CC and discovered the Upsell department. About one week before our sail date I did a mock booking and found the types of cabins that were available. Oooooh! Lots of spa balconies. I called and said I was interested in upselling to a balcony. The first agent told me that they did not start on the upsell until three days before the cruise so call back then. So I waited……. 45 minutes. My second agent offered me a balcony upgrade for $300 - $150 per person. I told her that was interesting, but I would have to ask my husband as he was out squeezing nickels. We made some small talk about cheapness vs frugality and I drove the conversation over to spa balconies. Were any of those available? As it turned out I could have a Spa balcony for $500 – that would be only $71 dollars additional per person.

Now I had not talked to DH about this and debated doing so, but I went ahead and made the change. If he became Mad Santa so be it. He, and now you all, dear readers, already think I cannot do math so he may question my logic, and I did not have the time to explain. After a quick look at the deck plans I selected 14119, with the wavy bed by the window, not the water closet.

Now let me explain why this cabin only cost $71 more per person, not $250. I had already purchased two Thermal Suite passes for the week at a cost of $358. I would pay $500, but receive the $358 back making my net increase $142 – or $71 per person. Well worth it for a Spaaaaah balcony, with the Thermal Suite included.

Santa said I was nice not naughty. ;) :D

 

Now let me explain why this cabin only cost $71 more per person, not $250. I had already purchased two Thermal Suite passes for the week at a cost of $358. I would pay $500, but receive the $358 back making my net increase $142 – or $71 per person. Well worth it for a Spaaaaah balcony, with the Thermal Suite included.

 

Santa said I was nice not naughty. ;) :D

Oh my am I jealous now! I wanted a spa room SO bad - but hubs isn't a spa person, and I knew I wouldn't use the spa pass to its fullest without company - heck, hubs doesn't even get a haircut alone - he makes me go with him

Very nice upgrade! So he was a very happy Santa indeed!

Thanks for the welcomes. I will not let this review drop, but as others have said it does take a little while.

Oh my am I jealous now! I wanted a spa room SO bad - but hubs isn't a spa person, and I knew I wouldn't use the spa pass to its fullest without company - heck, hubs doesn't even get a haircut alone - he makes me go with him

Very nice upgrade! So he was a very happy Santa indeed!

We first did the thermal suite on the Star a year ago. I will not book it on all cruises, but it is the boss on Epic.

Thanks for the report.

It’s 2 ish and we’re in cabin 14119. It’s midship, not near anything. No rooms across the hall because the fitness center is located there. To be honest I don’t see a difference between the regular balcony cabins and the spa-aah! version. Décor not really different. I did get some nice soap, shampoo, conditioner and body lotion, but it was never replenished. I thought maybe the towel animals would be leaner and fitter, but they were no different.

If it were not for the balcony, I think I may prefer an inside cabin on this ship. I loathe the wave cabin. Thanks to the curve, there is almost no place two people can pass. Unpacking and packing could only be done by one person. But the storage is worth writing about.

If you know where to look there is plenty of storage. Let’s review for newbies: Walking into the cabin my shower and cabinets are on the right, water closet, couch and bed are on the left. Staying on the right side, above the sink is a medicine cabinet. Below there is a drawer and a basket for wet towels. Towels and washcloths are stored on shelves. Because my wave cabin bed is by the window, I have my full size closet right past the sink. This is the best set up because the closet wall creates an enclosed area for the sink which reduces the splash zone. Past the closet the counter top resumes. Above the counter are enclosed shelves which include the safe (keypad, not mag stripe card needed.) Below is a full minibar cooler. There is a mirror/vanity with the hair dryer. Then a little under counter door that opens and there are electric plugs. That’s right plugS – plural – as in two American plugs. Was very nice since I forgot my little $2 three plug extender thingy. Next under the counter are two doors that swing out and each door has a wire basket. We just crammed things in the from time to time. No real logic to it and not best use of space. Finally there are three drawers under the counter top and a shallow closet above. Be aware, these are not nice deep drawers, they are like 6 inches deep and about two feet wide. Great for underwear and rolled up clothes. You hit the balcony door and you are done with right side of the cabin. This is all the obvious to the eye storage.

Turn to the opposite wall and look up above the bed in the wavy wood trim. It you can reach it, the last section opens. Now walk up the cabin to the couch. There is a lot of hidden storage in the couch. The back cushions are hinged and the entire back of the couch opens. Under the couch seating are two large drawers. Since we drive over we bring way, way, way too much stuff and we had more than enough room. Once we shoved the massive suitcases under the bed we never looked at them again. Usually we are putting our dirty laundry in the suitcases as the week passes.

The balcony was standard and I thought it was quite nice. Two chairs and a table. Plenty of room and privacy. Because these cabins are on one of the ships bulges, you do not have a direct look down to the cabins on deck 8. Many of those deck 8 cabins are in full view of the higher decks.

The shower and water closet are everything you have heard. And you can hear everything. Size was ok for me and I am not skinny. However I would not recommend this for a very obese person. I have friends who would be uncomfortable in the available space in both shower and toilet. (on the Star DH and I could shower together it was so roomy.)

The indirect lighting is nice except for when I wanted to put on my face. Horrible lighting for that. Nice reading lamps in bed.

I have no pictures; there are thousands on the web.

After exploring the cabin, we still had nothing to put away, so off we went to wander the ship. We have nothing planned until after muster. First stop is on our floor - the Spaaaah! But they won’t let us go see the Thermal Suite before 5 unless we are on a tour. Really.? So we get our stickers and head back downstairs to find a bar before muster.

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Enjoying your review. Looking forward to more.

Fun review, excited to read more!

Missing out meeting you by a few weeks! We are on the Epic on 12/17!

Well darn! Maybe next time - although I don't know when our next one is currently. We're looking at cancelling our Breakaway one and doing a transatlantic instead. Decisions, decisions! :) Hope you have a wonderful cruise on the Epic!

OP - what a great upgrade deal! Looking forward to reading more about your Epic experience.

argh! fighting photos

Before we headed out of the room I took a picture from the balcony of the other ships in port: Disney Fantasy and Carnival Sunshine.

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Muster is scheduled for 3:30. We had muster station F-1 which is at Maltings Whiskey bar. Sounded promising, but when we arrived at 3:00 they had just shut down. No drinks, or drunks, allowed at muster. We bellied up to the bar anyway so that when it reopened we would have prime seats. I saw the crewmember with a clipboard, went over and checked us both in. They did not swipe our cards, just checked us off a roster.

Muster went fairly quickly, but had an itty bitty slow down when we had an elderly lady who either fell down or fell off one of the high stools. Poor dear was mortified, and was trying her best to get people to just leave her alone. Everyone wanted to help. She was behind me so I respected her wishes and did not turn around to gawk. A special squad was called to give her a hand and I am pleased to say it sounded like she was okay, just shaken. After muster we waited for the bar to open, ordered two drinks and got ourselves up to Spice H20 for sail away.

A cruise critic member named Callimero (Oliver) suggested a sail away gathering at Spice H20 bar. As we have done before members of the roll call wore beads so we could find each other. We wore beads with Pirate medallions, but brought extra beads.

In her senior year of high school our daughter (DD) went with a trusted family to Mardi Gras. They went to Baton Rouge and Mobile. DD is very attractive and the Baton Rouge parade had a lot of college age participants. She came home with 2 suitcase sized bags of beads, and a couple of spears. I still don’t know what to do with the spears, but we take a baggie of beads when we go places where people may need them. Does anyone know why there were spears given out?

Here’s DCL Sailing away

And Carnival sneaking past

We had a great time at sail away. Met Oliver and lots of other new people. It was a co-mingling of Cruise Critic and non CC people on the deck but everyone was there to have a good time. We handed out most of the beads and refused to take home the leftovers. I wish I had a few names to put with more people. There was a group of three that had novelties, a gentleman traveling with two ladies. I think he was with a company that imported or manufactured novelties. I now have a funky jelly ring that flashes when you push a button and a parrot pin that also flashes. The poor lady who gave me the parrot pin must have questioned her decision at first because I just screamed! I am a Parrothead and cannot wait to wear this at my next concert. We also had a Santa (T-shirt santa costume) with three ladies wearing HO-HO-HO shirts. Then a competing Santa appeared and there was some smack-talk.

Behind us was a beautiful sunset over Florida as we headed east out of the port.