Carnival Cruiser Considering NCL

[keijenxs]

Hello,

I've been on three carnival cruises and one royal Caribbean cruise, but I am considering the Epic for our next family cruise. What are something's I should know before booking ncl? Are there charges for shows, room service etc? Any help is greatly appreciated.

[sanger727]

Things to know. 1. If you look at recent reviews you will see that the bathroom setup is unusual and many people find it odd. There is a short hallway leading to the main section of the cabins. The shower is one one side, the toilet is on the other. They have fogged glass doors. So no traditional bathroom.

 

2. The epic is the epidomy of freestyle. Think of a floating city with restaurants and theaters instead of a normal cruise ship. There is a main theater w 2 shows (I think) that play over and over during the week, a comedy club, and a cirque style dinner/show. You should make reservations for the show times you want to guarantee your seating.

 

3. The cirque show is a specialty restaurant w a show so it does charge a fee (no other shows do), get premium seating, regular seating is obstructed view. You can use an sdp credit with an upcharge.

 

4. Room service does a free continental breakfast, every thing else incurs a service fee... think it's around $8 for the order.

 

5. Hopefully you are aware that NCL offers the free at sea booking where perks are usually included. If you get the free drinks or dining as your perk there will be a service fee for that. It's not a lot but many are surprised and disappointed that it's not truly 'free'.

 

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Edited January 1, 2017 by sanger727

[Two Wheels Only]

If you look at recent reviews you will see that the bathroom setup is unusual and many people find it odd. There is a short hallway leading to the main section of the cabins. The shower is one one side, the toilet is on the other. They have fogged glass doors. So no traditional bathroom.

 

^^ This info is specific to most staterooms on Epic. Other NCL ships have a "traditional" bathroom.

 

There are things (good and bad) about Epic that don't apply to other NCL ships.

[Son of a son of a ...]

Are you asking about NCL or Epic? We jumped from Carnival to NCL. Look at it like dating, not marriage. You should try it (NCL) - we liked the free style approach and newer ships. If you are asking about Epic, then you might want to compare the ship to others in the fleet if you have children ... while Epic is not bad, your kids might have more interest in Getaway.

[FranknBeans]

You can only go up from carnival. Been there done that and it was pitiful.

[cruise pup]

Yes to NCL. No to Epic.

[keijenxs]

Thanks for the feedback.

[keijenxs]

I meant ncl in general. However, the epic has the itinerary we want.

[Sue1260]

Yes I started cruising on carnival the I have been on Royal Caribbean which is ok and NCL is a definite step up.

[ColinIllinois]

Start out with the FAQ's on NCL.com. Lots of good info for new cruisers on the line.

 

https://www.ncl.com/faq

[mitsugirly]

We cruised with NCL exclusively up until a few years ago and tried out Carnival. We have had several cruises with Carnival and rotating back and forth with NCL. We have been on the Epic twice now (just got off her late November) and LOVE the Epic. However, she is not for everyone and very unique compared to all of the other ships in the fleet. She is definitely different.

 

HERE is my review with TONS of pictures if you are interested in having a look. :)

[sid_9169]

I float back and forth between NCL and Carnival... I like both, but NCL has been getting more of my $ lately with their included beverage package and solo cabins. While the Epic is not my favorite NCL ship, it's adequate. Although, I like the Escape and Getaway better...

[CJDepew]

We cruised with NCL exclusively up until a few years ago and tried out Carnival. We have had several cruises with Carnival and rotating back and forth with NCL. We have been on the Epic twice now (just got off her late November) and LOVE the Epic. However, she is not for everyone and very unique compared to all of the other ships in the fleet. She is definitely different.

 

HERE is my review with TONS of pictures if you are interested in having a look. :)

 

Thanks for those links in your post. We'll be on Epic in February and after doing some research it looks like Sapphire Beach is our destination in St. Thomas. I hope it's still as nice as when you visited.

[mitsugirly]

Thanks for those links in your post. We'll be on Epic in February and after doing some research it looks like Sapphire Beach is our destination in St. Thomas. I hope it's still as nice as when you visited.

 

 

You are very welcome. It was 2010 when we went to Sapphire, so I know the picture links in that review are broken. If you want to see all of them, you can find them HERE. There is another member, here on the boards (BlueWater) that goes there a lot and even stays in the Condo's there at Sapphire. So, it's reported that it's still just as nice. Check out their webcam: http://www.sapphireinthesun.com/

[Quilting_Cruiser]

If you go up to the search box and type in "Carnival" you'll get several threads where people have asked for comparisons between the two lines. Those will give you a lot of information.

 

I'm platinum on Carnival and have cruise three times on NCL with the 4th and 5th booked. The biggest difference to me was the variety of dining options. I had a dining package that allowed me to eat in specialty restaurants every evening, and loved it.The two lines are more alike than different, but for me the dining variety and not having to eat at a large table of strangers and the most appealing. :D

[Justaddvodka68]

Hello,

I've been on three carnival cruises and one royal Caribbean cruise, but I am considering the Epic for our next family cruise. What are something's I should know before booking ncl? Are there charges for shows, room service etc? Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

I wouldn't recommend the EPIC for your first NCL cruise. Had I done the Epic first, I don't think I would have come away an NCL fan.

 

Read the EPIC reviews first. It's a large ship, with mostly interior common spaces. We weird casino layout. Which casino layers don't favor and non-smoking passengers don't like either, because the casino is open to the decks above and the smoke wafts up.

 

The bathrooms in the cabins are different. There's no promenade deck, and few good places to gather where you have nice ocean views. I felt like I was in a large resort and not even on the water.

 

This is the only ship that is of this design. Epic - seems people either love it or hate it - but I come away from it feeling that if you like cruising and water and boats, you don't love the Epic - if you'd rather forget you're at sea - The Epic is perfect for you.

[SUSIEK]

You can only go up from carnival. Been there done that and it was pitiful.

 

Curious.... what ship were you on?

[momof3cruisers]

I meant ncl in general. However, the epic has the itinerary we want.

 

Charge for room service, no coffee or bottled water in the beverage package, but no limit on the number of alcoholic beverages either. Better options IMO for 24 hour food with OSheehans. (I might have killed that spelling.) Seems like the buffets may have more flexible hours too.

 

Haven't been on NCL for awhile but these are the things I have noted in planning for our upcoming trip.

[NHL Philly Fan]

Hello,

I've been on three carnival cruises and one royal Caribbean cruise, but I am considering the Epic for our next family cruise. What are something's I should know before booking ncl? Are there charges for shows, room service etc? Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

 

Sailing CCL and then next going to NCL is like having dinner at McDonalds and then next going to eat at Ruths Chris.

[NHL Philly Fan]

You can only go up from carnival. Been there done that and it was pitiful.

 

+1000

 

Our only CCL cruise was a casino freebie. ON the last day we got a certificate in our cabin for another freebie. We left it in the cabin since free was over priced for CCL.

[Visigoth]

I think NCL is the better line and the Epic is not their finest effort.

[Hendricks Clan]

Sailing CCL and then next going to NCL is like having dinner at McDonalds and then next going to eat at Ruths Chris.

 

Agreed! We sailed exclusively on CCL. We became Platinum, and even purchased the ill fated Carnival Vacation Club. We wanted to take a last minute cruise a few years ago. Carnival had no balconies available so we booked the NCL Star last minute...long story short we haven't looked back. We did return to CCL in 2014, due to NCL's insane prices that year. It was a horrible decision. The Valor was in terrible condition, food was subpar, and the entertainment was the same as it was in 2004. Love NCL for the entertainment and dinning options. Not to mention the new ships are phenomenal.

[Cully1953]

We sailed on the Epic in early November 2015, just after the refit. We were on Carnival Vista in late September '16 and thoroughly enjoyed both cruises.

 

We are from the UK so our opinion is from a British perspective. There were some things we preferred the Epic for and other things the Vista came out tops for us. I will try to explain the things we liked below.

 

Embarkation/Disembarkation. The Epic was the winner for us regarding embarkation, we arrived at Barcelona port at about 11.30 and by 12.15 we were in the buffet restaurant enjoying our lunch, we did not have priority boarding. When we arrived to board the Vista, also in Barcelona, there was a huge queue just to drop off our cases, once we had done that the boarding process took us about 20 minutes. We did have priority boarding for this cruise. To be fair to the Vista the reason for the large queues was that the ship had a minor engine problem and arrived at Barcelona 2 hours late, Carnival did email us to advise that we should arrive at the port 2 hours later than our check in time, but as we don't bother with the internet while on holiday, we didn't get the message until we got home. Disembarkation for both cruises was about the same.

 

Food. This is quite a subjective thing and we enjoyed the meals on both ships. I must add that we preferred the dining experience more on the Vista to that on the Epic, the reason for this is we were lucky to have the same MDR servers on Vista each night and they were excellent.

 

Entertainment. We preferred the Epic's entertainment to that on the Vista. Vista has the Imax cinema instead of the theatre on Epic, and on holiday we would much rather see a live show than a movie in the evenings. Overall we thought that the entertainment on the Epic was much better than the Vista's.

 

Crew & fellow passengers. Vista wins this one, all the crew and the vast majority of our fellow passengers we very friendly. The crew on Epic were polite and efficient but most of them seemed a bit too busy to interact fully with the guests. The Epic also seemed to have about 25% of it's passengers from Eastern Asian countries, so I suppose that the language differences had some bearing on that.

 

To summarise, we both enjoyed the 2 cruises immensely and would cruise on either in a heartbeat, in fact we are booked back on the Epic in June of this year and will also be looking at the new Carnival ship Horizon's itinerary for 2018 with great interest.

 

Hope that this has been helpful. Best wishes Paul & Tricia

[Quilting_Cruiser]

Sailing CCL and then next going to NCL is like having dinner at McDonalds and then next going to eat at Ruths Chris.

 

 

While I respect your opinion, mine is very different. IMO, sailing CCL and then NCL is like having dinner at McDonald's and next going to eat at a McDonald's down the street. They're far more alike than they are different.

Edited January 5, 2017 by Quilting_Cruiser

[dacsmom]

I switch between RCI and Carnival. I am trying NCL for the first time in March. I think all lines have both good and bad qualities, but I love cruising and find something enjoyable on each ship. I feel bad for those who turn up their noses at other lines, they just may miss out on a wonderful vacation. I will probably never reach the top tier on any line since I am not loyal to one, but I am having a wonderful time trying. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and if one line turns you off just move on to another until you find a good fit.