Epic Review - Haven Stateroom 16006 on November 9, 2013 - w/ dailies

[cruisecritiquer]

Good morning everyone!

 

We flew back from Miami on Saturday. I figured I better start my review now before I forget the small details that fade with time. This is my (w/ input from DH) review of the Norwegian Epic. This was our first time on the Epic or any mega-ship for that matter although we’ve cruised with Norwegian many other times. This will be a very thorough review and I hope that it is helpful. :) I may be posting on this thread over the next several days so check back frequently for updates. We have literally over 1000 pics and videos (which I won't post ALL of them obviously) but it will take me some time to upload them all and sort out what I think you'll want to see.

 

Also, I have dailies and other fliers from the cruise but I’ll have to get them scanned in, probably tomorrow and then upload them.

 

Before I begin, for those that have not been following our saga, you may want to read about DH losing his ID 5 days before the cruise at a Panthers game and how my phone was stolen 3 days before we left. We were in desperate need of a cruise by the time it got here. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1938816

 

Also, you may be interested to read that we were upsold by Jessica at the reassignment desk and for an extra $1000.00 on top of what we had originally paid for our M2-14048 cabin, we had a 2 bedroom family cabin which was fabulous. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1937806

 

Okay now to the meat and taters of our review. I'll leave it up to you to determine whether the review is balanced or whether I'm an NCL cheerleader. :p

[abbo1963]

looking forward to your review

[cruisecritiquer]

The characters:

 

DH

DW (Me)

DS - 11 years old

 

Before we went to Miami, I took my "boys" kicking and screaming to the nail salon because a pedicure is mandatory in my household if I'm going to have to look at your feet all week. They enjoyed it even if it doesn't look like it.

 

 

ON OUR WAY TO MIAMI – NOVEMBER 8, 2013

 

It’s time to go to Miami. Just one more day until I’m settled into our 2-bedroom villa blessed upon me by the upsell fairy and a 30 day loan from AMEX.

 

 

 

Travel day started out uneventful enough. We packed all of our belongings, watered, plants, all of the boring stuff and then headed to the airport. DH and I have a history of having flight-related problems when traveling together so I started to worry when we were still sitting at the gate in Charlotte, NC past our departure time. We were about 45 minutes late leaving which isn’t too bad. But, upon arrival to Miami we had not made up much of that time and there was a delay getting off the plane as well. We arrived and picked up our checked carry-ons from the AA Eagle and then headed to the baggage claim to retrieve our luggage.

 

And that’s when it began.

 

I tried to account for every little thing that might cause a hiccup in our travels. I mean after the lost ID and the stolen cell phone I was due for some peace, right? I started to worry when our flight was about 45 minutes late leaving Charlotte. Then I started to question why when we landed in Miami, we weren’t allowed off of the plane for a short time. Then when we got to baggage claim our luggage was not there. All of these things that happened made me ask “God, do you not want me to go on this cruise?” Are these signs that I should not be ignoring? We waited about 30 minutes before asking someone where our luggage might be as nothing was even coming off of the conveyer belt. They said that it had not arrived yet (for a direct flight?). 20 min later we asked again and we were told that it would be soon. 20 more minutes and we were finally told that a VIP was holding up luggage and flights. VIP? There’s only one person that can shutdown MIA Intl Airport. I figured POTUS must be there so I checked my cell phone and sure enough POTUS Obama is in MIA for a fundraiser. I don’t know why it takes POTUS so long to land and clear out but it was 2 hours after we landed before we finally had our luggage.

 

Some of you may recall me asking about taking the Metrorail to our hotel (Hampton Inn & Suites Brickell). It was still daylight hours when we arrived and although we had pretty much decided to take a taxi, we were worried about motor blockades due to POTUS’ arrival so we opted for the Metrorail. Someone said it was very convenient to the airport and our hotel. Someone must have meant that as a joke. HA HA HA :P

 

Okay. Well, if you think convenient is walking nearly 1 mile with 3 people carrying 7 pieces of luggage then yeah…it’s great. I had no idea it was that far.

 

We took like 8 escalators and 2 elevators and at least 8 of those moving sidewalks before we arrived at our destination. I have pretty good stamina but had to stop several times because I was starting to pull aggravate my shoulder from all the luggage. Thankfully, we finally arrived at the orange line to Brickell.

 

The entire time DH insisted on being the papparazzi and as you can see I obliged in the beginning...

 

 

But when he wouldn't stop snapping, I gave him the look...ladies...you know the one...

 

 

 

7 stops later (it was pretty quick) we were at the Brickell Station.

 

 

By the time we arrived, it was dark.

Edited November 18, 2013 by cruisecritiquer

[cruisecritiquer]

We hopped off the train and asked for directions to our hotel but we couldn’t actually find a way to the sidewalk (the train is kind of a story or two above the street) so after looking for a way out we pretty much repelled down an embankment with our luggage. Sorry I don’t have pictures of that. We saw the building Hampton Inn and just decided to go for it. It was me first then DS and then DH. We must have been a sight passing luggage down the hill like it was an assembly line. :o Afterwards DS and DH ran down the hill and we J-walked to 12 Street where we finally saw the Hampton Inn & Suites sign. Hallelujah. :eek:

 

At the beginning of all this we were thrilled we had a 2 hour flight with no connections. Last year we stopped in FLL and transferred to POM in the morning. We thought it was a bit of a hassle but I would have gone back to that in a minute. This 2 hour trip turned into an 8 hour trip. My suggestion – skip the train and take the taxi. I personally do not think it’s worth the hassle if you are carrying luggage….and definitely don’t fly into a city at the same time POTUS is expected to arrive.

 

We finally made it to our hotel and the check in was easy and we settled into our rooms for the night. We had planned on walking around a bit since we were in an area with lots of shopping and eateries but we were so exhausted from our travels that the only place I went was to the suite shop to get some water. We ordered pizza in from a local pizzeria, took showers and then passed out fantasizing about the days to come. Whew I’m glad we made it!

 

[KweezyCruiser]

Pedicures! I'm already loving this!

[cruisecritiquer]

EMBARKATION DAY - .November 9, 2013

 

In the morning we woke up about 8AM and ate breakfast at the hotel. We then packed up everything and took a shuttle from the hotel to the airport at 11 AM. It was $8.00 per person. We probably could have taken a taxi cheaper but it felt nice to already have something scheduled. The hotel is two miles from the port. We shared a ride with really nice people from Phoenix Arizona and then we had the pleasure of sitting with them by accident at the Cirque show.

 

When we came to the Port of Miami we gave our bags over to the workers at the port and we and our carry-ons went just inside the building through screening and to the left after the screening was the VIP check-in. It was so convenient. DS got busy planning our to do's

 

 

 

Anyway, we checked into the VIP room and it was great. DH, as many of you know, did not know we were going to be staying in the Haven so this was a complete surprise to him. We had only stayed in mini-suites (with DS) or balcony (just us) or the equivalent for other cruise lines previously. In the VIP room, they already had the dailies in that room as well as refreshments (which we didn’t use). DH didn’t ask any questions but just waited. Boy did he look confused. They took our photographs and gave us our Haven key cards and we were off just like that with another family. At one point, the person guiding us told people manning the stations along the way that we were VIP. This prompted DH to ask, “ummm babe…who is that family in front of us”. He thought perhaps they were famous and didn’t think we were the VIPs.

 

I think from the time we arrived at the port until the time we embarked and completed our tour of the Haven was probably 45 minutes. It was fabulous. I almost felt bad about cutting in front of people as we passed them in the lines. We just flew through there so fast. At one line I actually heard a gentleman say after the 8 or so of us passed him, “HEY! I’m still here!” That made me feel a bit uncomfortable because it’s not in my nature to be so dismissive of people but there was no response I could give him as I was passing so I just kept my mouth shut…saying hello didn’t seem appropriate.

 

 

Once we boarded we went straight to deck 16 to the Epic Club.

 

 

I believe we boarded on deck 6. We put down our bags and were given a full tour of the Haven which is wonderful. We didn’t use most of the rooms available like POSH although it was great to know it was there.

 

Afterwards we placed our luggage in our rooms and were told our rooms would be finished by 1:30. We ate lunch in the Epic Club and then we went back to our cabins. By now I think DH was catching on although he later said he thought we had just paid a little extra for this pampering (priority embarkation and lunch). He didn’t understand what was really happening until we stepped into our stateroom. He loved it! He was totally stunned and so was DS. I think everyone is right. We may be completely spoiled now and the price of cruising just got a tad bit more expensive. LOL

 

Pics of stateroom to come....

[Sunshine101]

Yay! Loving this already!

[Hmdecor]

Will be borading the Epic at the end of the month! Looking forward to your review.

[dlynn0366]

Loving your review. I have been in the US twice at medical meetings and the POTUS happened to be there. Once at my actual hotel & I got there before all the security systems were set up.....I've never had my underwear handled by secret service before :p

[cruisecritiquer]

Our NCL Heroes and Stateroom

 

Butler: Leo – Awesome and just the nicest person you’ve ever met. We didn’t “overuse” him we don’t think but he was handy for breakfast and always very pleasant and helpful. Anyone who has Leo is a lucky ducky indeed. He is so friendly and personable and NCL is lucky to have him. Whatever he’s being paid, he deserves a raise! I will say we met Leo briefly the first day but I don’t think he actually came to our room to say hello until the second day. We didn’t really need him so it wasn’t a huge deal but it would have been nice to get a tour of our room which I will explain down thread.

 

Concierge: Ryan –We were a little frustrated because no one really communicated with us what services they offer. Once when we asked about priority disembarkation at St. Thomas we were told to do go to deck 4 by Ryan. But, when we were in the Bahamas and we went to disembark (assuming there was no priority for this because no one did anything for us in St. Thomas) it was a line like you have never seen. It literally went from one side of the ship to the other and there were so many people that they said no one else could get in line because of the fire hazard. We had excursion tickets for Atlantis so this was kind of frustrating. However, we found out about 45 minutes later that they were escorting people off of the ship so we went back upstairs so we could make it off the ship using our priority disembarkation (which we had previously been denied). Ryan’s on my naughty list for Christmas. When I asked him about the discrepancy between the first thing he told us and the last thing he told us…he said “you know where to find me”. I didn’t think that was an appropriate response and I am always extremely polite to those who are helping me so I didn’t feel like that response was warranted. I felt like he gave us to totally contradictory instructions and then held it out to be our fault because we didn’t ask a second time. . I guess Ryan sprained his ankle some time during the cruise. We found that out on disembarkation day and I do hope he feels better. That might have contributed to what I thought was an unpleasant demeanor at times.

 

Room Steward: Jennifer – She is from the Philippines but she said her family was not affected by the typhoon. She is very sweet and soft spoken. I wish I had more time to get to know her. We seem to have similar personality sans the soft spoken part. I felt like even though we had a Butler and a Concierge she really did the brunt of the work. She was always tidying up and I tried to clean up our messes even though I know it is part of her job but I tried to make sure that DS didn’t become a slacker just because he had someone to make his bed, etc. I still expected him to tidy up his room and hang up his (reusable) towels, etc.

[cruisecritiquer]

Room #: 16006 – This room was great. However, it is directly across the hall from a crew access only door where I assume the steward and everyone else comes in and out to serve the passengers. As such almost every morning and evening there was a lot of cleaning supplies stashed right in front of our door…buckets, carts, piles of towels, etc. It wasn’t a deal breaker for us and it really wasn’t that much of a bother (for me personally) but if this is something that would be obnoxious to you then you’ll want to avoid this particular room.

 

The beds are comfortable and DH took advantage of the pillow menu. The three flat screen tv’s are great but I really think there should be a DVD player in the second bedroom as well. It was nothing terrible just something DS mentioned that he would like to be able to watch a movie in his own quarters before going to bed for the evening.

 

DH trying out his new tub. He's usually too big to fit into tubs but he tried it out anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

Balcony shot..

 

 

 

We didn’t receive a tour of our stateroom so we had to teach ourselves how to use the mood-lights and those confused me until the day I left. I never figured out how to use the shower head attached to the garden tub. I probably would have used it more frequently had I known how to use it. I would have asked about it but I never thought about it until I was looking at it again. I have a garden tub at home and I think I’ve used it 4 times in the 3 years since the house was built so tried to take advantage of this one since well….we paid for it. It took two nights before I realized you can turn the backlight off on the phone next to the bed instead of covering it up with a towel! I finally saw the little light bulb in the top right corner and put one and one together.

 

The door that shut between the master bedroom and the living room had a terrible awful horrible squeaking sound. We called the concierge about this and they were supposed to send a carpenter to fix it. We got a call later that it was fixed but I don’t know what he fixed because that thing still sounded like nails on a chalk board the entire time. It was loud and truly terrible. It was so bad that was just closed it or opened it as fast as we could so we didn’t have to take the prolonged agony. No one ever did come to fix it.

 

The balcony is in a great location. It’s one of the only places on the ship where you look straight down into the ocean. There are no lifeboats under our room. We spent a decent amount of time as this ship makes it a tad bit more difficult to connect with the ocean than other ships so we really appreciated our balcony on this ship.

 

Our room was on the starboard side as well so faced the Bay in Miami and had some pretty great views in St. Maarten and St. Thomas as well although I understand the captain can pretty much park her however he wants. I thought it was absolutely amazing he could turn Epic around on a dime and back her into a port. What a task!

[cruisecritiquer]

More pics...less typing...

 

Look how big this shower head is...we need one this size at home...

 

 

A lot easier to wash your fanny when you have fanny jets shooting out of the wall.

 

 

Trying to take it all in...

 

 

 

DS' quarters and bathroom...

 

 

 

[cruisecritiquer]

I'm going through these photos on shutterly and some of them are out of order so I'll be bouncing around a bit and I apologize for that.

 

Back to the master bath...

 

 

 

After we checked out our stateroom we were off to explore the ship....

 

 

This is where they send you when you misbehave on the ship.

 

 

 

DH had to get a little ball in on the court...

 

 

[cruisecritiquer]

 

 

Since DH is injury prone in his old age...I didnt let this go on too long. ;) I can't have him in the infirmary the first day on the ship.

 

http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47a3cf39b3127ccef4f03ef301fe00000030O00AbMnLls5bs24Pbz4I/cC/f%3D0/ls%3D00703796992620131118134152399.JPG/ps%3D50/r%3D0/rx%3D720/ry%3D480/

[cruisecritiquer]

A little intermission to complain about the laundry...

 

LAUNDRY

 

Maybe this is something that went away but on all of our cruises we have had a laundry special where you can fill up a bag and have them washed for $25.00 about midway through the cruise. We didn’t see anything like that this time and the regular prices were so high that I washed out several pair of underwear and some tshirts (for DS) in the sink to get him through the week. He was changing a lot because he was putting on new underwear every time he finished swimming so I’ll pack more carefully for that next time.

[cruisecritiquer]

Leaving Miami it was rather cloudy and dreary but we did our best to enjoy the sailaway which was basically rained out.

 

 

 

During sailaway I briefly met some of the CC members and they gave me my beads. I was very happy to finally meet everyone!

 

I think we were escorted out by jet skiis. I've never seen that one before...

 

[cruisecritiquer]

The Lavazza capaccino machine in our stateroom was fabulous and the perfect solution to a dreary sailaway.

 

 

 

DH's first meal...he said he was going to work out every day and eat healthy. Let's see...

 

 

Chandelier in the atrium...

 

 

Haven Courtyard...

 

[cruisecritiquer]

We call J the flash because in most pics he's always a blurr as he never stops moving around...

 

 

 

Random pics at different venues...here DH was waiting for the Cruise Critic Cabin Crawl to start...

 

 

And I was pretending to be a Diva while we waited....

 

 

Some of our Roll Call Peeps.

 

[cruisecritiquer]

I love the little oyster pods (not sure what to call them) in the courtyard. I could sleep on those for hours and hours.

 

 

 

[cruisecritiquer]

Our first treats...

 

 

 

A BRIEF WORD ON THE DINING VENUES

 

Epic Club – I only had the fish and I can’t even remember what kind it was other than it was breaded but it was very good and this was actually the only lunch meal we had there on embarkation day. We ate breakfast there twice but afterwards we decided it was more convenient to just have it delivered to our stateroom. One thing I’ve learned about “the suite life” is that their plates are very small portions. We aren’t hogs or anything but I found myself still kind of hungry after my Epic Club meals. I could have asked for more but didn’t want to waste time sitting in a restaurant all day.

 

Manhattan Room – We ate here twice – once with DS and once without DS. We really enjoyed the live band but it is an enormous restaurant so you cannot be in a hurry when you eat here. I ordered a pot roast the first night and a New York Strip steak the second night. Everything we had was delicious. I really liked this dessert that looked like a parfait but it tasted more like Mexican rice pudding mixed with fruit although I can’t really recall the actual name of it.

 

Taste – All of our entertainment started at 7PM with the exception of Cirque Dreams at 9 PM. We came here for dinner but didn’t make it past the starters because it was taking so much time. We went to taste around 5PM but our concierge said that we should be upstairs at 6:10PM in order to take advantage of priority seating so it kind of made it a tight squeeze. We didn’t know about this 6:10 time until we were already on our way to Taste or we would have gone earlier. All I had here was the French onion soup. It had a soggy piece of toast at the bottom. I’ve always had French onion soup with a puff pastry so this was a change for me. It was kind of bland and not my favorite thing but my son’s appetizer the mushroom quesadilla was adequate.

 

Garden Café – I know the Garden Café gets a bad rap because it’s usually kind of chaotic in there and it is kind of like dining at a trough at times rather than at a restaurant but this worked for my family because it was “almost” always open when we needed to grab something fast. It’s not that the Garden Café is terrible. It’s just that some adults don’t mind their matters which can make it kind of difficult to navigate. Once again those 7 PM entertainment times kind of resulted in our choosing the Garden Café more than I anticipated. I ate a lot of salad from here and crepes which I heard about on this Board. Oh my…I loved them. I will be making some crepes at home with the Chantilly cream. If you haven’t tried these, you are really missing out. It was probably the best dessert they had available. I can’t believe so many cruises and I never knew about the crepes!

 

Pizza Delivery – This pizza is pretty good. It’s better than your typical pizza chain but I’ve had better at a pizzeria. Of course anything called pizza is a hit with DS so this was fine for one evening in the room watching a family movie. It was worth the $5 charge.

 

Moderno – We ate at Moderno on our last evening. I was not on a diet during the cruise but I did watch what I ate. I did not eat any pasta and I had maybe 2 pretzel rolls. They would be better warm but they were still delicious! I saved most of my carbohydrates for the crepes but that last night I just let it all hang loose. I ate everything I could get my hands on. That turned out to be a bad idea right before Moderno. I went with an already full stomach and I sampled 4 of their meat items and it was a wrap. The beans and rice were okay. The fried bananas were not my thing so I honestly did not try them. The texture is not something that would have sat nicely with me. I did enjoy all of the meat selections and wish we had eaten here first. This is a low carber’s mecca so if you are on Atkin’s or some other low carb diet, you’ll be in heaven! The salad bar was not exactly what I was expecting but it had some decent offerings and was a good appetizer before a VERY filling meal. As some of you already know, Moderno kind of operates like a Bubba Gump Shrimp. They have a “sign” that you flip over if you want more food. Green for go and Red for stop. We forgot to turn our sign over for a while and kept wondering why they were trying to feed us to death but after DH finally remembered about our signs, it was a lot more manageable.

 

The Great Outdoors Café – Isn’t this really just an extension of the garden café? I’ve always thought so. As such, just see my review above for the Garden Café.

 

O’Sheehans – This is another restaurant we had to walk out of. We had wings as appetizers which were tasty but not that buffalo-y and I tried the pot pie at the suggestion of many here. They only gave me the pot pie innards. I didn’t have a crust so it was more like a stew. Everything was extremely tasty though. However, O’Sheehans during a football game….well just an all-around bad idea if you are there to eat. Service took forever and although we ordered dessert we couldn’t wait around for it because it was taking so long. It probably took 30 minutes for someone to just take our order. A lady who we sat close to upon arriving warned us about the wait. It was probably another 30 minutes before we had our entrée so we skipped out on dessert. Instead we just ran up to the Garden Café to grab our mandatory crepes.

 

Room Service –My morning breakfast consisted of crab cakes eggs benedict, scrambled eggs, French toast (some mornings), sausage, (in small portions) and DH loved the French toast, fresh fruit, and egg whites. We ordered morning room service every day except the first two days. Once we finally realize how much easier it was to just have breakfast in our cabins, that’s all we wanted to do. A note is that I “wrote things in” on the list that weren’t there and they still brought them to me so I was very happy about that. Our order although kind of complicated at times was always exactly right. They did a great job with that!

 

Spiegel Tent – This is separate from the review of the entertainment. The food was okay…mediocre but certainly edible. I gave my coconut shrimp to DS so I didn’t try it but he said it was delicious. I ate the steak (can’t remember the cut after Moderno) and also the double baked potato. It wasn’t anything to say wow…I’d go back just for the food but it was a good meal to go along with the entertainment. I was actually looking forward to the dessert but the Cirque guy in the rubber ducky tub act dripped considerably on my dessert from one of those trapeze swings so….I didn’t bother eating it. Too bad.

 

We missed Le Bistro and I really wanted to try it. The reservations were taken that we would have needed in order to catch our entertainment on time so this will have to wait for next time. Not even our concierge could get us in on time.

 

I ran into a couple of vegans that were very unhappy. They said it was VERY difficult to find edible foods on this ship that weren’t made with animal bi-products, etc. They were sick of salads and baked potatoes so you may want to check into this if you are vegan. I felt bad for them as meat is a big part of cruising and I don’t think they were adequately prepared for the food offerings or perhaps they just didn’t speak up about what they wanted. I did a Daniel Fast once and it was very difficult even with all the offerings at a grocery store so I can’t imagine what it would be like to try that on a cruise ship.

[Overdue4cruise]

Great review so far ! Fantasizing about that fanny jet lol ..:D:D

 

More please

[cruisecritiquer]

At Taste...(one of the main dining rooms)

 

 

Headliners...

 

 

Fat Catz...

 

 

[cruisecritiquer]

 

 

I am not a gambler...I don't even like to lose pennies so I happily did the slots with DH's money and lost all of it. :p

[cruisecritiquer]

Breakfast room service...

 

 

 

 

The pools were small but not really that crowded...

 

 

When we had a special event...entertainment or dining we got to take the "secret" elevators down with our concierge. I loved that! :D

 

[cruisecritiquer]

Do you see the Blue Man?

 

 

I'm not a stripper but DH thought the pool showers looked like a great stripper cage so I posed in here for him a bit...:p

 

 

 

Our first critter...