hondarr9

Day 3

Ok, I'm back! Sorry. Today was another sea day. This is the first cruise I have been on that started with 2 sea days. I don't know if I prefer it or not. Any day on a cruise ship is a good day as far as I'm concerned. Today began with breakfast at O'Shehans. I found this breakfast to be the most consistent on Breakaway. It's not unlike a typical breakfast you might find at your local diner. To me thats a good thing.. I found O'shehans on Epic to be the same.

Sea day means pool day right? Well thats what it meant to me, so we spent most of the day on the pool deck I'll spare the details because there arent any!

Tonight we had the Legends show, but before that we decided to try the Manhattan room for dinner. I want to disclose that we never ended up eating in the Manhattan room on the Breakaway. We really focused on the pay restaurants on that trip. For better or worse. Anyway we headed down, and were greeted almost at the elevator by a woman with hand sanitizer, who told us that there was a 30 minute wait, and that taste was wide open, you are better off going there. I was a little reluctant because I really wanted to try the Manhattan room, but everyone else seemed not to care. Off to taste we go. As we glide down the escalator I could already see a line almost to the atrium. It was much worse than Manhattan room. Right back up we went. I walk up to the same woman whom informed us of the 30 minute wait, only now (having not recognized me now was saying 60 minute wait! I said to her, three minute ago it was 30 minutes. Whats the deal? "well is really about 45" I said ok, I dont mind I really want to eat here anyway. Up to the desk we went to put our names in. A pleasant hello from the girl and then the words "table for 4? We can seat you right now."** Ok? Well at least we got a little work out walking between taste and Manhattan right? Yeah we'll go with that.

We were sat a a table for 4 right off the dance floor. We weren't far from the live music duo, which was wonderful bye the way. We were greeted by our server and I quickly realized that he was no amateur. I cant for the life of me remember his name but he was the absolute best waiter I have ever had. From what he was saying, he has been doing this a long time. He was so personable and attentive. I wanted him every night! As far as actual food goes I had the pot roast and dw had the lamb shank. My pot roast was amazing! Better that Grandmas. I tried a bit of the lamb, and its was even better! Tonights dinner was one of the best we've had on a ship. The food and music were awesome!

Before I end this segment I just want to mention that the motion in the Manhattan room was pretty bad. Even by my standards. I never belived the theory that the aft was rocky, but I might now. Thanks god for the patch that my dw and oldest dd had on.

After a after dinner drink it was off to the Legends show. I really expected nothing from this show. Not my cup of tea, but I was playing along. It started out with Stephen Tyler. I have to say he is dead on. Not only whan singing, but even when talking. Really good! Next was Katy Perry. My youngests favorite. I thought she was just ok. Next was Elvis. I really dont care for Elvis, but this guy was pretty good and my oldest dds favorite of the 3. The show was just over an hour. After they set up so you could do pictures with the impersonators. They were really friendly and seemed like they didnt mind being there.

I really cant remember what we did after that. Maybe it involved alcohol! lol

If anyone has any questions feel free to ask while I try to get this review done. My wife would say "hurry up, I'm lactating!"

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Did your kids go to the teen club?

Yes, we had to sign them up and sign wavers. Our youngest (13) used it most. They didn't use it as much as adventure ocean on RCCL, but they played ps3 and wii there and liked the staff a lot. They really enjoyed the nichelodian crew even though they are a bit old for that.

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Hi I am going on the epic next week 1\25\14. Reading all of the comments I have not read much about the cruise director or comedians, other then second city.The entertainment is usually good any comments.

 

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Yes! I forgot to mention the cruise director! Richard. We really enjoyed Richard. We've had some of the best (Richard Spacey, Ken Rush) before and he ranks right up there. Much better than "Dan the man" on Breakaway. Richard was very funny and friendly. He was everywhere! Comedians, Second City is really it. I really enjoyed them on the Breakaway, but I have to say this Troup was not as good. Not even close. I really thought they were quite awful.

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Spice h2o

Our cabin with the beds down. Snug as a bug!

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Sorry this it taking me so long. Work and life have been a little hectic since getting home. I wanted to do more than just a bullet point review. I'm finding out its hard to find the time!

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Day 2

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Today was a sea day. We are breakfast at the Garden cafe. Standard buffet fare. Ater breakfast it was off to the pool. It was quite a challenge to find any open loungers. As a matter of fact I never found one on this morning. That was ok , we were going to be in the water most of the morning anyway.

We went for the slides first. One by one we sampled all three. My favorite was the vortex toilet bowl style. My least favorite was the pink one that went through the stacks. It was dark the entire ride.

After lots of stair climbing, we worked up quite an appetite. Lunch! We dried off and headed for O'Shehans. I had the Buffalo wings for an appetizer and a bacon cheeseburger. The wings were really good. Just like I remembered from the Breakaway. The burger was tasty as well. *For dessert I had the apple pie. It was just ok.

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After lunch we all showered up (which is a challenge with 4 in one room) The youngest wasn't looking too good and I decided that she needed a nap. We had Blue Man group tonight and I wanted her rested for that. While dw and her were napping I did some exploring. I set out to find the bridge observation room or, peak a boo bridge. Its on deck 13 and is well marked. I had never been on a ship with this and it was pretty cool! They had a couple computer screens in there showing navigational information and radar. I could see that we were following the Independence of the seas. The ship I was originally supposed to be on!

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Ok Blue Man time! I believe we were at the 7:00 show. **I wasn't all that excited about this show for some reason. I really didn't know what it was all about. I ended up loving it! It was very cleaver and entertaining. The only bad thing I could say about it was that the audience participants were obviously staged. I kind of insulted my intelligence. Not a big deal though.

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After the show it was time for a late dinner. We headed for Taste. We were sat right away even though it looked very busy. I had the salmon tartar for an app and a steak for dinner, rib eye I believe. *I know I know, I ordered seafood at Cagneys and steak at Taste! What was I thinking? I just wasn't in the mood for steak the night before. The salmon was delicious. The steak, meh. Not bad. *A little over cooked almost seemed steamed? I can't remember what I had for dessert.

After dinner we split up with the kids. I believe they went to entourage. We headed to the casino to donate to the NCL fund. We hit some slots and the roulette wheel. **It was a little smokey but not too bad. I found the casino on Oasis and Allure to be worse. The long day in the sun and drinking was starting to catch up with me. Off to bed around 11.

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This bathroom has a great view! Great view out that is.;)

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More! More!

 

Funny you went on the Breakaway (and also the Oasis and Allure) before the Epic!

 

We have been on the Epic 3 times (total 44 nights) and loved our time on her despite her few bad things. She has more good than bad.

 

We still haven't decided whether to return to Epic or go on other ships.

 

So, more, more!!

I hope my review isn't coming off negative. Because there was definitely more good than bad. Just trying to be honest and objective. Without a doubt, we had a blast! More to come. The rest should go quicker. This is harder than I thought!

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I believe it was around 11:30 when they called group 1. Ten minutes after that group 2. We were up! We zig zaged up the gangway and entered on deck 6 near the Epic theater. This was the first NCL cruise for our dd's so they were a little lost as we made our way toward O'Shehans. They are used to a Royal promenade layout *and , I was a bit worried that they wouldn't be impressed. I myself was noticing how familiar it seemed after just being on Breakaway.

We made our way through the casino which seemed to go on and on. It really is the largest at sea!

My youngest is quite the connisuer of pools so I decided we would go straight up to pool deck. This would also get us away from the chaos that would soon be decks 5,6,7. We took the aft elevators and got off at 15. I noticed spice h2o was right there, so we went to take a quick look. I was impressed by how much bigger it was than on Breakaway. I figured I would spend a lot of time there like I did on Breakaway. That wasn't the case.

We left spice and headed toward the main pools. N our way I noticed it seemed to be a wind tunnel in the walkway known as " the Marketplace". I figured it was just that the wind direction was perfect to cause that but as the week went on it always seemed that way.

Anyway to the pools! My youngest was so excited to see the variety of water slides. No slidedon Royal so this was a new and novel idea to her. The first thing I noticed was how bad the loungers and chairs looked on the pool deck. They look really really bad. You would think they were 20 years old! During the week we would also find out that many of them were broken too! We made our way to the pools and all I was thinking was these seem really small! *As I was thinking it youngest dd was saying it. They were comming from the Allure and although the pools are not much larger, there are more of them. As the week went on I thought they were sufficient most times and dd never really complained of it again.

Later in I would find out they are fresh water. That was a surprise to me after the saltwater pools on Breakaway.

Next we decided we should get something to eat. I vowed not to eat at the Garden cafe on embarkation day, but where did we end up? That's right. The Garden cafe. It was right there, and not too busy. So we went for it. I found it to be larger and a better layout than on Breakaway. The food was exactly the same. Good not great. About what you would expect. At least you can get a decent burger there. I'm sorry but other than Johnny Rockets, you can't get a decent burger on Royal.

After lunch we decided to just sit around the pool, grab our first drinks if the week, and wait for our cabin to be ready so we could get rid of our carry ons.

Our room was ready around 1:00. We dropped our bags and headed for the pool.

I skipped over the fact that on our way up to the pool deck we stopped and made a reservation for Cagneys at 8:30 that night.

After our swim we went back to our room to do showers. This is where the Epic bathroom set up really slapped us in the face. I really, really, really, don't know how they let this happen! It's terrible. I knew about it. Thought I ready for it, but it still hit hard. As the week went on we did adapt to it somewhat. Maybe with 2 people I would do it again. Na, probably not!

It was 7:00 now and I could see it in the faces of our dd's that we were losing them. Lots of yawns and watery eyes. Our early bedtime the night before hadn't done the trick. Not sure why. Maybe it was just all the travel. *I am the old one. I didn't understand. I made an executive decision to try to get into Cagneys early. We headed down and were able to get right in despite how booked it supposedly it was when we made the initial reservation. It was dead. Only 3 tables had diners. Our server was very nice. Tge kids were zombies. We all ordered. I got the lobster and shrimp over pasta. Dw had a filet and lobster tail for a $10 up charge. The kids each ordered a filet. What seemed like an eternity went by before we got the main course. When it came the kids each took one bite and said they weren't hungry. I was agrivated and suggested they just go to the cabin and go to bed. They took my suggestion. We carried on without them and enjoyed our meals. Our server felt bad that they weren't feeling well so she packaged up some dessert for them. It didn't make me feel any better after watching $60 worth of steak get thrown away, but it was a nice gesture.

After dinner dw and I decided to check out the casino. It was busy but being so large there was room to move about. I found it to be a little smokey, but much less so than on Breakaway. It would be that way all week. We didn't win anything, but didn't loose too much either. We grabbed a couple drinks and explored some more. We hit up some of the shops just to browse. The shops are layed out much different than on Breakaway. Even in a whole different area of the ship. *My eyes were growing heavy after the busy day and a few drinks, so it was off to bed.

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Sorry to tease, but this may be all for today. I know I should have completed it before posting but I figured now I have no choice but to finish it!

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Here is what we left behind...

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This is my first review please bare with me:) I have enjoyed reading many a review on cc and I figure now is the time for me to give it a shot. Here it goes.

Let me start with some background. This trip was for my 40th birthday and originally was just dw and I on RCCL Independence of the seas 8 night. As final payment got closer I decided that I really wanted to spend my birthday with our 2 dd's (13&17) as well. I looked in to just adding them to that cruise, but our budget wasn't going to allow for that. Not by a long shot.

*****I should probably let you know my previous cruses to put things in perspective. I have been on Oasis of the seas, Allure of the seas, and NCL Breakaway. My most recent being Breakaway back in October. That cruise was my first on NCL and what brought me to consider Epic. After a lot research and number crunching it ended up being $200 less for the 4 of us, as it would have been for the 2 of us on Indy. I want to be sure however to let you know that we would all 4 be in one b5 family balcony cabin. I knew it was going to be tight, but I was willing to sacrifice comfort to have everyone there.

Travel day January 3rd

We live in Western New York and you might remember that there was a blizzard in the northeast the day before we were to leave. We had an early flight in to FLL so with the weather and all we set out to the airport at 4:30 am. The plows hadn't even been down our street since the storm. I would say we had 20 inches at that point. I will post a picture below of what that looked like.

After a slow scary ride we arrived at the airport. I checked the board and believe it or not our flight was still on time! We breezed through security and boarded the plane about a half hour later. After being de-iced twice. We were off! We made a connecting flight in Baltimore that was an hour and a half late so that meant a late arrival in to FLL where we had arranged transportation to Miami through SAS. We collected our luggage and contacted SAS. They had been tracking our flight all the way and were already at the airport! I have to say SAS was great. After a short 25 minute ride we arrived at our hotel

We stayed at the Intercontinental Miami. It was really too nice of a hotel for just an overnight, but we wanted to stay near the port, and was the only place we could get in to when booking. Turns out the reason why is the Orange Bowl was happening that weekend, so hotels were full (and expensive!). Our room was on the concierge level. 26th floor I believe. We had access to the concierge lounge but really didn't take advantage other than a light breakfast.

After settling in we decided to venture out to shops on the water (can't recall the official name) to browse and get something for dinner. After a so so late dinner at Bubba Gumps we did some shopping and decided to turn in early so we would be rested for embarkation day. Only two if us however got enough rest. More on that later.

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Embarkation day

We left the room around 10am, caught a cab outside the hotel. The cab driver said it was too early to go to the port, and suggested he take us around the city. I politely declined. I like getting to the port early, and I knew it was not too early. On we went. The ride was short and only about $8. We dropped our luggage ,tipped the porter, and proceeded in to the terminal. There was a small line formed at the security checkpoint, maybe 25 people ahead of us. They started scanning people just as we arrived. We checked in and were given group 2 for boarding. *

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Done Oasis, Allure, Epic, and Breakaway. I enjoyed all of them. You just really can't beat Oasis and Allure for entertainment and an overall wow factor.

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Ok, I got the cruise for just port charges and taxes thanks to a casino gift so I went with an open mind. But I won't do it again...not for me. There were some positives but not enough.

Embarkation: with all flight delays, we were there at 3pm amd on the ship by 3:10....luggage (and rum runners) were there shortly after

Food: pay restaurants were GREAT! Cagneys, Moderno, le bistro, la Cucina and Teppanyaki! Would do them again! Dining room service in taste was HORRIBLE! Many people had "forgotten" apps or soups or salad...me included. Forget trying to get water or soda. Buffet was same as every other cruise line, no complaints. We liked the special burgers on the outside deck.

Entertainment: FAIL....we were bored! Blue man group was not fun, Legends was AWESOME though, second city (late show) was ok...dualing pianos were hit or miss depending on crowd. But we had the best time at the waves bar with our fav servers! They were a blast.

 

Now, we had 5 bar servers at waves bar that were AWESOME (best I've ever had), 1 in the casino (had a house drink card in our room waiting I didn't know about) and our room steward were the only exceptional staff we had. Sorry but I'm being honest about this cruise (just got off today). Motion was HORRIBLE and I never get sick. I love the promenade on Royal ships...I felt too closed in on Epic. The worst taste in my mouth was debarktation. THE WORST on any ship. 45 min to get an elevator down...30 min winding to get off ship... We did have an inside room on deck 12 and it really wasn't bad. I know it's different cruises for different folks and I'm sure lots of you love NCL and that's great. I'm glad I got a "free" cruise to at least give them a shot.

Sorry to hear you didn't enjoy your trip. I was on this sailing as well. I am also a royal loyalist. I can't say that the Epic itself was perfect, but I didn't have as miserable time as you did. I didn't think that the movement was bad at all. I felt more on Allure. How can you say Blue Man group was not fun??? I wasn't that excited to go to that show but I was pleasantly surprised. I also thought the crew was very friendly for the most part. I wouldn't run to the Epic again anytime soon, but that's mostly because of the bathroom situation. I preferred Breakaway it's like a refined version of Epic. Different strokes I guess.

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Leaving on Saturday. I'll give you a report when I get back. Hopefully nothing to report!

 

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Well, I'm just back from Epic today and, I am happy to report that there was no more movement than any other ship I've been on. (which includes Oasis, Allure, and Breakaway). We had some windy conditions and you could feel it, but nothing crazy by any means.

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I sailed Epic in 2010 in the spring and one of the I remember was that I never felt any movement. I loved to feel a little movement especially at night. Im reading alot of reviews that are talking of ALOT of movement not to mention the Listing that occurred a few weeks back. Just wondering what has changed? Is it the time of year? I will be on Epic the 9th of February and while I enjoy the movement I dont want to feel seasick. Any insights from those who know about this???

Leaving on Saturday. I'll give you a report when I get back. Hopefully nothing to report!

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Why doesn't she want to go? That ship looks incredible. Hopefully, she will change her mind.

Congrats on your cruise and happy birthday!

Her dh passed away suddenly a year and a half ago and she says she's not ready for a vacation,maybe in a couple more years. I disagree, knowing how suddenly things can change. Thanks for the birthday wishes! 6 days til Epic!

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We gave my mil a cruise next Nov on Regal Princess. (Traveling with us) Two days later she told us she doesn't want to go:what:

On a better note I received a cruise on Epic for my 40th and its 8 days from now!

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Been on Breakaway, Oasis and Allure. Loved all of them but entertainment goes to RCCL hands down. If you haven't been yet then you have, HAVE, HAVE to do the Allure. Amazing.

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Now I am scared. We are leaving to sail Epic next week. That type

of listing makes me very worried.

I'm sure anything that major must have been a random event. Doubtful it would happen again anytime soon.

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I've been seeing a lot of reports of major movement on Epic lately. I wonder if the stabilizer problems are an ongoing issue. Getting a little nervous about our January sailing. I don't mind the movement but the rest of the fam would not be amused.

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NCL requires that all adults in the same cabin or payment method purchase the package. All pertinent information is on NCL.com.

Thanks. I figured it would be there. I guess I was more curious to see if anyone had heard any rumblings of them changing that rule.

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Do they still require that everyone over 21 in a cabin purchase it, if only one wants it? I would totally consider this or the UBP if that was the case. My wife barely has a drink per day. I read that Royal got rid of that requirement.

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