Epic review 12/14-12/21

[sanger727]

Pre-Cruise: We flew in the day before and use SAS transportation to get from the Fort Lauderdale Airport to the B2 Miami downtown hotel. Service worked well, quick pick up, direct shuttle. Highly recommend them. The B2 Miami was fine, the elevator was very slow and insufficient for the number of guests and floors they had. But the location was awesome and the price was fair. You can walk across the street for a park/shopping/dining area. Don’t book the shuttle they advertise on their website for $10 pp, as we were checking out they were rounding up guests to fill up a shuttle that they were offering for $6 pp.

Embarkation: We got to the port shortly after 10 and were able to walk through security and the check in process and get up to the waiting room. We were in group 6 I think, and we boarded around 11:45-12. We went up to the buffet since it wasn’t too busy yet and then went down to guest services around 1 to book the “behind the scenes tour”. We did not book the posh pass, but someone next to us in line did, so it was still available at 1.

Ship: We really enjoyed the ship and all the things it had to offer. We essentially had 4 sea days since we got off at the Bahamas for an hour and hated it so got back on. We use the water slides, the rock wall, and saw the blue man group, the cirque dinner show, legends, howl at the moon, and 3 second city shows. The entertainment was outstanding and we had very few times where there was nothing to do. Legends was probably my favorite show, but that was due to the fact that the Steven Tyler impersonator is AWESOME and we had seen blue man group a few times before. For the cirque show, get there early, maybe an hour to an hour fifteen before show, because you want to sit at the front of the one of the floor tables, and suites guests get in before anyone else; So you need to be very close to the front to have the best seating. It is definitely worth the $10 to get the premium seating. The standard seating is under the balcony, I don’t think you could see all of the aerial acts from there. We had an inside room on the 10th floor near the front, and it was perfectly fine for our needs. The food was fine, similar to a chain restaurant. We went to two specialty restaurants, the cirque show and moderno (just because I had never been to a Brazilian steakhouse and the one at home is $40 a person versus the $20 on the ship). The food in the specialty restaurants was fine, but certainly no better than the main dining room, IMO.

[sanger727]

St. Maarten: We took the Bob Cass tour here. It was really good, but unfortunately it rained a good portion of the day. The tour still went on, but it was somewhat painful to get rained on in a speedboat, so that took away from the experience. We also missed out on one of the normal snorkeling spots due to rough water, but they took us to an alternate spot. Maho beach was the best spot, got to see the planes take off and land without being pelting with sand like the people on the beach. Would recommend this tour, it was a lot of fun and on a sunny day would be awesome.

 

St. Thomas: We took the Champagne Catamaran to St. John through Norweigan. It was a great tour too. Snorkeling in St. John is the best snorkeling we have ever seen and the ship wasn’t over-crowded. The tour operates were really focused on everyone having a good time.

 

Nassau: We hated this stop. I downloaded a walking tour from a travel guide but as we got away from the tourist area we didn’t feel safe being on our own so went back to the shopping area. We went to the straw market, but it was so overcrowded, and the vendors were so pushy, we didn’t even go in. Everywhere we went all the vendors were super pushy and made it unpleasant to even walk around. People were following us down the street and trying to push things into our hands. We had a chuckle when we walked back to the ship because a group who looked really confused was being led away by one person advertising a tour while another girl chased them down yelling that she had already gotten them. Just overall an unpleasant stop and wouldn’t get off the ship next time without a tour planned.

 

Overall we had a great time and would definitely recommend this ship and Norwegian in the future, just hope they pick a new itinerary for a future year because I wouldn’t repeat this one.

[sanger727]

That's the review I copy and pasted from the review section that I'm posting, but just wanted to add a few other thoughts.

 

Going in to this trip I had read a lot of negative reviews so was definately looking for this issues on the boat to see how bad they really were. The top ones I remember reading were 1. boat rocks badly, 2. over crowded buffet, 3. second city shows are bad, 4. elevators are too slow, 5. casino is too smokey.

 

1. yes, the boat rocks alot!! I remember feeling more motion more often than on any of the other ships we have been on. That being said, I use the patch because I'm very prone to motion sickness, and for the most part, that worked for me. I feel a little off the first couple days, but did get used to it by the end of the week. One interesting incident though, I was on the pool deck one morning drinking coffee, and a very strange sensation happened. I would compare it to being on one of those viking ship rides and being on the first wave back and forth. It was a very distinct rise and lower of each side of the ship, but not to the point where it felt unsafe. Later the captain came on and said that we listed 2.5 degrees due to a problem with the stabilizers. This was only a couple weeks after the report of the 5% list, so maybe there's an issue.

 

2. I really like the buffet. I've read people say that it's a super long line and other people say that the stations are supposed to be individual and people are lining up wrong. Well, the problem to me is the stations are too close together, when the cold station line mergers into the hot station line, it turns into one long cafeteria style line and no one wants to jump in and just get what they want when there is a gap. But, if you look around a bit, there's plenty of repetition and stations in other areas so i never felt like I had to wait in a long line to get a food and I thought the food was better than other buffet's I've had.

[sanger727]

3. We went to 3 of the second city shows. I thought there improv was much better than their skits, so we went to 2 of their all improv shows; a family one and an adult one, and they were pretty good; but I still prefer stand up comedy so would have been nice if they changed it up every once in a while

 

4. I didn't see a problem with the elevators unless you are either disabled or too lazy to use the stairs for a couple levels. yes, if you try to take the elevator right after a show gets out, you can either wait or take the stairs. But during the day, they weren't a problem. The problem to me is the people that take the elevators for 1 or 2 levels.

 

5. I hate hate hate being exposed to cigarette smoke. You do have to walk through the casino from time to time, but they have smoke eaters, and I was never bothered enough by the smoke we caught walking through to find an alternate route.

 

Overall, just my opinion, some of the people writing all the negative reviews are 1. seeking out cruise critic just cause they had a crappy time and want to tell everyone. 2. loyal to another line and want to tell everyone why their line is soooo much better than norweigan, or 3. complainers that can complain in any circumstance.

 

We had a great time on our cruise and liked the ship alot. Our two complaints would be that there were too many kids for our liking and around dinner and show time, it was crowded walking around the public areas. But for the price we paid for the cruise, we didn't expect to be treated like kings and queens and we were more than willing to accept a few bumps for all the services the ship offered.

[jdvmd]

Glad you had a great time!

[DDD06]

OP, FYI, the Epic will start sailing a Western Caribbean itinerary in February. The Getaway will be "taking over" the Eastern Caribbean route.

[abbo1963]

Thank u for a fair honest review glad u had a good time

[3DBeach]

Thanks for sharing.

We were on a few weeks ago (the week with the 5 degree listing lol) and wanted to book the Bob Cass tour but waited too long and it was sold out. Glad you enjoyed the Epic and I agree the Steven Tyler impersonator was AWESOME!!

[Kylie]

Thanks for the good review - nice to hear some positive things. I'm sure we'll have a good time on the ship!

[BlueJai]

Thanks for taking the time to share. Sounds like you had a great time and it is so nice to read the positives!

[anandaindonesia]

Thank you for sharing.

Glad to hear how you have enjoyed the Epic.

 

Keep cruising!

[HowardK]

Hello, you almost felt as though you were at an Aerosmith concert! (I ended up seeing them twice in 2012, was on the Epic 2011).

I really liked the ship and would go on it again.

[Cloudyrain]

Just another thank you for posting a fair and honest review and for addressing the popular areas that complainers target :)