LIVE from the most hated ship in the NCL fleet, Epic, March 26-April 2

[spenecer]

With the loss of St. Lucia, my Freestyle Daily is now different though the GLOW party is still on Day 6.  Here is the PDF.

Freestyle daily 6.pdf

[montecarloss]

I see you are an early riser.  I have been awake since 5. Have a great day!

[spenecer]

Today’s challenge is to see how much I can drink without becoming falling down drunk. I apologize for the spelling in my posts yesterday. It is really hard to see my screen up on the sun deck. The connection to the Wi-Fi router is also only two bars and there is much more waiting for a response (and much more drinking in-between).

 

I have started today with a Venti Grande Caramel Macchiato (#1) and a trip to the gym because there isn’t any snorkeling to burn calories. 

Edited March 31, 2023 by spenecer

[CruiseAF]

I’ve found that the best seasickness / hangover cure is the SHIPEEZ patch. Truly works miracles. It’s safe for ages 3 and up and it’s 100% all natural. Bonine and rx patch is not. 

[spenecer]

Inside Cabin Review

 

I booked an inside cabin with the Free at Sea package. This meant that I was able to pick my stateroom. However, I couldn’t figure out how to pick my stateroom so I ended up with whatever random stateroom that NCL assigned to me.
 

This inside stateroom ended up on Deck 12 at the front of the ship right next to the elevators.  Since I’m not off the cruise yet, I am not posting my cabin number (but I’ve got an extra sea day, so I have time for this review).  There will also be no photos of my messy cabin but it looks just like the photos on the NCL website. 
 

There is a hallway between the elevator bank and the room so the room is fairly quiet. We do not hear noise from the elevators, only from people walking up and down the hallway in front of the room. 
 

When you enter the room, there is a little card for enabling the lights. I’m sure the designers regret not putting in a standard light switch now since the card acts as a very strange little light switch since we slap it into/out of its slot as we enter and exit the room to turn off all the lights in the cabin rather than each individual light. The toilet is to the right and the shower is to the left.  Each of these have their own light and light switch which is operated from a set of three switches by the door. The third switch operates the light above the beds which is on the other side of a red curtain separating the toilet/shower from the rest of the room. 
 

From our lovely ‘foyer’, we can see our two beds, separated into twins on either side of the cabin with the two nightstands in between the beds. The beds are against the wall. There is no room between the bed and the wall. The light is above the nightstands. There are also two lights on the back wall in the corners of the room operated by their own switches (so many switches!) that can rotated to point in any direction. There are no USB outlets by the beds.

 

The sink is on the same side as the shower. The closet is on the same side as the toilet. The closet has a mirror on one door.  This door also has baskets on the inside for storage. Opposite the baskets is the space for hanging clothing with many hangers. The other closet door hides shelves.  The closet has a light inside it that is activated by opening/closing the door. You can leave the closet open a crack so that the circuit does not complete and the closet light works as a night light glowing out the cracks in the door. 
 

The sink area has 2 lights. One light is directly above the sink and the other light is above the vanity area. Our vanity light was broken when we arrived. I reported its non-function and it was fixed (new light bulb!) on Day 6.  The sink does not have a plug and if you wear contacts like me, then I needed to sit at the vanity to put them on for fear of dropping one down the drain. 
 

There are shelves to the right of the sink which hold the mini-bar, the TV and a large empty space for the remote and anything else you want to store. The vanity light is under these shelves.  Before the vanity is a little round stool which sits out in the room because it is in front shelves with the precious, precious two outlets in the room (if you are US) or four outlets (if you brought an international adapter).  I brought a multi-port block which blocked the second outlet.  There is a hole on the vanity top to thread all the wires so they aren’t sticking out of the shelf like snakes. 
 

Under the sink is a tissue dispenser which we used generously and a hamper (probably for wet towels) but we used it to store dirty clothing. Between the hamper and the all important electrical outlet shelf are three drawers. Now, there is one more bit of storage in the sink area. The mirror above the sink opens and becomes a medicine cabinet. It has holders for cups and plenty of storage for all your toiletries. It also has bars on the shelves to keep toiletries from falling on your head when you open the cabinet. 
 

We brought one suitcase and two carryons which we stored empty under the beds. There is plenty of storage for us. We also agree that the inside cabin is larger than my son’s college dorm room by a third (which I call a prison cell due to the concrete walls) so very roomy for two. 

[brookie848]

10 hours ago, gotscrapz said:

Would you mind saying why? I have been all over the Caribbean, but somehow never to St. Lucia and it's somewhere I think I'd really like to go at some point. However, I recently started going to Europe and so have been focusing my money there.. but keep thinking I need another Caribbean cruise so I can go to St Lucia so I would love to hear the pros and cons.

 

Sorry for the slight hijack!

Again...this is just my opinion. Not really based on the island, but our experience there.

 

The roads in St. Lucia are pretty notorious for making people car sick. They are very hilly and twisty. If you want to get to the Pitons, I believe it is a 45-minute ride from port. A lot of people end up sick.

 

You can also take a boat to the Pitons, which is what we did on our first trip there. Rather than join the masses, we decided this was going to be our big excursion and we chartered a boat. For three of us. It was supposed to be awesome. And it was awesome...just not in the way we were hoping. It was awesomely bad.

 

Instead of getting car sick, we got sea sick. Like throwing up everywhere sea sick. And the weather...in the four to five hours on the boat, we experienced sunny and beautiful 80 degree weather and cold and rainy 60 degree weather -- the last hour was all 60 degree rainy weather. And when you are sea sick, the best option is to lay flat and look at the horizon. So, that's what we did -- shivering in the pouring rain on the catamaran netting while our stomachs rolled. Even if we wanted to go to the back of the catamaran, it was too dangerous. The boat was small and it was slippery going from front to back with only a rope between you and the Caribbean. We were stuck.

 

There were a few other "funny" things that happened, but after that day St. Lucia became an island non-grata for us. When we stopped there on our last cruise, we did get off the ship and go to Vigie Beach, but that was only because we were with someone who had never been there before, so we felt compelled to get off and do something. Next year it will just be a sea day for us. We'll be on the Viva, so we will have plenty to explore.

[GALSews]

If you want to see what cabins are available, do a fake booking. I use NCL's site. Pick the category of cabin. Their program will bring up a cabin for you. Say you want to see a different cabin. It will then bring you to another page. Sometimes you get to pick foreward, midship, and aft and pick a deck, It will show you the available cabins. When I do this, I make sure to logout before I start the process. If you don't, you'll get a message suggesting you complete your selection.

[spenecer]

11 minutes ago, GALSews said:

If you want to see what cabins are available, do a fake booking. I use NCL's site. Pick the category of cabin. Their program will bring up a cabin for you. Say you want to see a different cabin. It will then bring you to another page. Sometimes you get to pick foreward, midship, and aft and pick a deck, It will show you the available cabins. When I do this, I make sure to logout before I start the process. If you don't, you'll get a message suggesting you complete your selection.

I did eventually figure out how to see other cabins but not on the day that I first booked my trip. Thankfully, NCL randomly gave us a well-located room that isn’t under the gym or pool or above an entertainment venue. 

[spenecer]

With the extra sea day, I am back at Guest Services to pick up more seasickness medication for my daughter. It is filled with people needing to contact ‘self booked’ excursions on St. Lucia. 

[Miss_Mono]

11 hours ago, gotscrapz said:

Would you mind saying why? I have been all over the Caribbean, but somehow never to St. Lucia and it's somewhere I think I'd really like to go at some point. However, I recently started going to Europe and so have been focusing my money there.. but keep thinking I need another Caribbean cruise so I can go to St Lucia so I would love to hear the pros and cons.

 

Sorry for the slight hijack!

I thought I was the odd ball when it comes to St Lucia. However, it wasn't my favorite either. I could be biased on it though because when we were there last week, we had a segway excursion I was sure they'd cancel due to the pouring rain, but they did not! We missed the part of the "touring of the sights" on this one and got extremely soaked driving segways up a mountain and then headed to the beach (seemed a little "sketchy" area)  to sit in overcast/rain. So, I wish I had a better experience there, but, unfortunately I don't. Perhaps, if we go there again, I will try a different excursion. 

[vacation44]

3 minutes ago, Miss_Mono said:

I thought I was the odd ball when it comes to St Lucia. However, it wasn't my favorite either. I could be biased on it though because when we were there last week, we had a segway excursion I was sure they'd cancel due to the pouring rain, but they did not! We missed the part of the "touring of the sights" on this one and got extremely soaked driving segways up a mountain and then headed to the beach (seemed a little "sketchy" area)  to sit in overcast/rain. So, I wish I had a better experience there, but, unfortunately I don't. Perhaps, if we go there again, I will try a different excursion. 

For us, we all enjoyed our St Lucia stop last week--rain and all.   The 13 of us did a private excursion with Cosol Tours and we all had a wonderful time.

 

[spenecer]

It turns out that I have two Freestyle dailies for Day 6. On the left is the original set of events for St. Lucia and on the right is the new set of events for the Sea Day. They aren’t very different but the teens lost their bowling event. 

[spenecer]

The Wi-Fi has really bogged down now that the majority of the ship is awake. Internet speed is the same but the ship’s network is clogged. My Speedtest app to an off-ship server shows 6 Mbps Down and 0.5 Mbps Up with a 3% packet loss. 
 

If you eat breakfast at the Garden Cafe, there is a sign at the top of the stairs to La Cucina stating that there is extra seating below for breakfast and lunch. If you go down the stairs, you are greeted by acres of empty tables.

 

The Garden Cafe didn’t have any empty tables but there was a choice of seating down in the La Cucina area.  Definitely a good choice if you are willing to walk down some stairs with a plate in your hand.

 

I grabbed a seat by the window. 

[prov2727]

1 hour ago, vacation44 said:

For us, we all enjoyed our St Lucia stop last week--rain and all.   The 13 of us did a private excursion with Cosol Tours and we all had a wonderful time.

 

I enjoyed St. Lucia when the Epic stopped there in January 2020. I did the Historical Island Tour. I enjoyed the LaToc Battery and the governor's residence--it was the perfect spot to catch the breeze sitting on the balcony. Beautiful sites. My favorite picture of the Epic there.

 

I ended up back in St. Lucia in 2021. No cruises but I still wanted some sun and sand. Not many excursions were available in the middle of a pandemic but we did get enough people from the resort together to book the aerial tram. Our tour guide was Shabee from Love Love Love Tours and he was so much fun--one of the most interesting people you'll ever meet. We drove all over St. Lucia on the way to the tram--because we went to the wrong site first (Shabee thought we wanted to zipline)--and stopped by friends who had cacao trees and had some fresh cacao beans. Yes, some hills but that could describe several Caribbean islands.

 

https://www.facebook.com/LoveLoveLoveTours/

 

So everyone experiences it differently.

[spenecer]

Day 6, Drink #2 - Mimosa

 

I’m trying to pace myself. I’m sad (puppy dog sad) that I missed the fresh squeezed OJ this morning. 

[spenecer]

My daughter (the child of no) wanted to attend the Family Balloon Twisting Workshop. I got a French Manhattan (#3, in a rocks glass as the bartender took pity on me) to fortify myself for the experience.

It turns out, she just wants to watch the little kids fail to make balloon animals. Balloons are exploding left and right. 

[room with a view]

35 minutes ago, spenecer said:

Day 6, Drink #2 - Mimosa

 

I’m trying to pace myself. I’m sad (puppy dog sad) that I missed the fresh squeezed OJ this morning. 

Hi what is your general feeling about the ship ?  crowded lines for drinks and shows? ...thanks

 

[spenecer]

Yes, on an extra Sea Day, we make balloon animals. I deserve kudos for successfully making a poodle while drunk. 

[spenecer]

20 minutes ago, room with a view said:

Hi what is your general feeling about the ship ?  crowded lines for drinks and shows? ...thanks

 

This sailing of the Epic is full. There are a lot of people.  It is crowded. If you pick all the wrong places and times, then you will stand in line. The longest I’ve waited for a drink at the Waves Pool bar is 7 minutes. Most times, it is around two minutes. The pool deck is very full and busy on a sea day. The buffet is the same. There are lots of kids running around and you have to watch where you are going; the kids do not. I watched a lot of YouTube videos and found several places which are less crowded that require some additional walking. All of them have been quiet, more empty, and free but require a bit more effort. I’ve never stood in line for a show. I’ve never been standing room only for a show. I’ve gotten into all the specialty restaurants that I want. The only place that I’ve seen long lines in front of is Shanghai’s but the restaurant is very small.

[brookie848]

5 hours ago, GALSews said:

If you want to see what cabins are available, do a fake booking. I use NCL's site. Pick the category of cabin. Their program will bring up a cabin for you. Say you want to see a different cabin. It will then bring you to another page. Sometimes you get to pick foreward, midship, and aft and pick a deck, It will show you the available cabins. When I do this, I make sure to logout before I start the process. If you don't, you'll get a message suggesting you complete your selection.

I believe this still won't let you see all the available cabins. I think NCL only loads a certain amount in each category to show as available. If you want a particular cabin, your best bet is to call. That's our preference.

[spenecer]

On 3/29/2023 at 9:50 AM, spenecer said:

As a followup, I paid $179 for my spa treatment which is the same price as a port day special. I’m fairly certain that this was not the ‘special’ price given by the manager but the time to dispute the charge would have been before I signed the receipt so it is too late now. Getting a massage while drunk, don’t do it if you intend to argue about cost. 

So, I went today for another massage because Sea Day (and we all got a $50 credit to spend at the spa) and I asked about the $179 charge and I was told that the $149 did not include the service charge of $30.  So basically, tip is included so don’t tip twice like I did unless you think your masseuse did a great job. 

Edited March 31, 2023 by spenecer

[coscab]

17 hours ago, gotscrapz said:

Would you mind saying why? I have been all over the Caribbean, but somehow never to St. Lucia and it's somewhere I think I'd really like to go at some point. However, I recently started going to Europe and so have been focusing my money there.. but keep thinking I need another Caribbean cruise so I can go to St Lucia so I would love to hear the pros and cons.

 

Sorry for the slight hijack!

Sorry in advance for answering the hijack but here is my 2 cents.

I am always looking for an itinerary that includes St Lucia, we took a speed boat to snorkel at the Pitons, it was one of the most memorable cruise days we've had, right up there with the panama canal, we hope to go back someday. 

[room with a view]

1 hour ago, spenecer said:

This sailing of the Epic is full. There are a lot of people.  It is crowded. If you pick all the wrong places and times, then you will stand in line. The longest I’ve waited for a drink at the Waves Pool bar is 7 minutes. Most times, it is around two minutes. The pool deck is very full and busy on a sea day. The buffet is the same. There are lots of kids running around and you have to watch where you are going; the kids do not. I watched a lot of YouTube videos and found several places which are less crowded that require some additional walking. All of them have been quiet, more empty, and free but require a bit more effort. I’ve never stood in line for a show. I’ve never been standing room only for a show. I’ve gotten into all the specialty restaurants that I want. The only place that I’ve seen long lines in front of is Shanghai’s but the restaurant is very small.

Thanks for the info. - we are considering Christmas/New Year on the Epic .Guess it will be crowded.

I will check out You Tube...where is your favourite less crowded/quiet/empty ?

 

We have been on the Spirit/Jade/ Sun and haven't seen (or drank) your selection of drinks ...either the Epic has a greater selection or we had our eyes shut !!!

[spenecer]

31 minutes ago, room with a view said:

Thanks for the info. - we are considering Christmas/New Year on the Epic .Guess it will be crowded.

I will check out You Tube...where is your favourite less crowded/quiet/empty ?

 

We have been on the Spirit/Jade/ Sun and haven't seen (or drank) your selection of drinks ...either the Epic has a greater selection or we had our eyes shut !!!

I like the Quiet Sundeck on 18. It is above the Haven and next to Posh Beach Club. If Posh isn’t very busy, the waiters from there will come out the crew door on the side of Posh and take drink orders from people on the Quiet Sundeck. As the highest deck, it is very windy. 
 

Most of the cocktails I have gotten, I have either seen people walking around with in their hand or are listed in the bar menus. 

[CruisnHallelujahs]

Enjoying your cocktail pictures.  My new favorite from last cruise is the Rye and Rum Sour in Maltings.  Second favorite that I asked to be made was a Green tea cocktail (shot over ice).