First time on NCL. Not impressed

[TopofWorld]

Couple  (59M, 53F). 8th cruise so far, 1st on NCL. 15 day TA on NCL Epic. Here is a bullet point summary (if anyone cares) and the main grievance/complaint.

Embarkation: NY port. As smooth as possible. 5 minutes to reach waiting area. 10/10.

Boarding: fast and efficient. 10/10

Ship: strange layout but who cares. You get used to it. Old but well maintained and clean. 8/10

Cabin: aft mini club suite cat. MA. Spacious with lots of storage space. Sink ridiculously small. Bathtub too high to enter. 8/10.

Room attendant: brilliant, always trying to help. 10/10.

Food: the buffet in Garden Cafe was the worst. For my taste, I found it inedible. Cold, salty, fatty etc etc. 0/10. The food in the main dining room was good, almost on par with other cruise lines, however last cruise was in 2018, so I do not know if other lines lowered the MDR quality as well. 8/10. Specialty restaurants were really good with Le Bistro being the top ranking one and the Italian coming last because the food was okay but not impressive. 9/10. The Chinese complimentary restaurant was surprisingly good (some of the dishes).

Entertaiment: plenty but lacking in quality 5/10.

Guest services: the weakest link. 0/10. The 1st day the room was freezing cold. Thermostat n9t working. Duly reported it and it was fixed. Lasted 24hours. Again reported. Again fixed. Lasted 5 hours. Reported again (BTW, caught a cold as a result) and they tried to fix it at 11PM. Next day same game, same result. Reported it again. Fixed. When going to sleep, the fan noise was so loud, it was like trying to sleep in a plane. Repairmen came again at 12 midnight. Solution: everything disconnected. No noice, no access, but at least we could sleep for the remaining 10 days. During the 5 days, guest services personnel was either indifferent or downright dismissive and rude. I repeatedly asked for a manager and she was either on a break, away, meeting....

0/10 and if I could I would give them a negative score for wasting my time standing in line.

Small details: many smaller issues that could have been avoided if NCL paid a bit more attention. Not deal breakers, but one would expect better performance. Case in point: unclear wifi instructions, late laundry service ( clothes returned after 2.5 days), inexperienced staff....Notable detail.: they sent to our room the chocolate covered strawberry. Yes, singular. A single strawberry. This made us smile.

Overall: 7/10 from me, 8/10 from the wife. In short, given the lack of recent experience with RCL (maybe they downgraded their quality as well) I can not reject NCL. But we were not impressed, and to sail with them again the price should be just right and the itinerary a gorgeous one. Just our subjective opinion.

 

 

 

[CaptainBazz]

Thanks for the honest review. Always tough when there is a problem with the room and they cannot fix it. Has happened to me twice on two different cruise lines...I still sail with them both. With your overall scores you seemed to have had a good time so don't give up on NCL yet...try a different ship.

[IrieBajan54]

TopofWorld, that's the state of affairs now in the industry. Lower standards at higher fares and service fees. Fortunately for them, the ships are packed.

[Two Wheels Only]

You did pick the ugliest ship in the fleet...🥴

[FlGoodShips]

NCL is usually top notch on service.

Whether its guest services, food, entertainment, cabins...

Please try another ship. We love the larger ships..Bliss, Encore, Joy.

Don't be a one and done.

Give them a second chance.

[MSUjohn]

@TopofWorld

NCL is noticeably downgraded pre-pandemic vs post-pandemic. You giving a score of 5/10 for entertainment seams fair. In my opinion entertainment has seen the deepest cuts.  NCL has maybe $12,200,000,000 in interest baring covid debt. As one Croatian waiter stated NCL is pinching its pennies; or as @IrieBajan54 said " that's the state of affairs now in the industry. Lower standards at higher fares and service fees." i am sure this downgrade is across the industry. I was sailed Royal Caribbean two times, both since the cruising restart and NCL seems better (for me at least).

 

NCL Epic has a well-earned reputation for having a strange layout, and the bathroom/sink is the biggest complaint of the ship. I have always had excellent customer service with NCL; that said all cruise lines are still having staffing issues. 

 

 

 

 

[MSUjohn]

12 minutes ago, Two Wheels Only said:

You did pick the ugliest ship in the fleet...🥴

but hey it is a cruise ship with an escalator! 

[casofilia]

@TopofWorld

 

You must have got a bad crew OR officers who haven't trained their staff properly.   We had 57 days on the Jade in Nov/Dec and 25 on the Jem in Apr and the Guest Services Desk staff were brilliant on both,

[ChiefMateJRK]

13 minutes ago, casofilia said:

We had 57 days on the Jade in Nov/Dec and 25 on the Jem in Apr and the Guest Services Desk staff were brilliant on both,

Yeah, but if you had taken longer cruises I'm sure the weaknesses would have become apparent. 🤣🤣

[MSUjohn]

21 minutes ago, casofilia said:

@TopofWorld

 

You must have got a bad crew OR officers who haven't trained their staff properly.   We had 57 days on the Jade in Nov/Dec and 25 on the Jem in Apr and the Guest Services Desk staff were brilliant on both,

oh, the jade is my favorite ncl ship.

[BirdTravels]

We cruise on both Royal and MCL multiple times a year. We greatly prefer NCL. But that is just us. 

[carohs]

I'd be thrown off the brand too if I'd had the same experience with guest services as you. More than anyone else, it is their responsibility to ensure your cruise enjoyment and make things right if there are issues. Negative points for asking for a manager over a repeat issue, and never getting a follow up call or anything when they were unavailable. 👎

 

I hope that if you do give NCL another chance, it goes much better. But hey, there's plenty of cruise lines out there exactly because we all have slightly different preferences. Thanks for your feedback. 

[bluesea777]

The air conditioning …. do not press the ‘snowflake’ button! I read somewhere that pressing that causes the a/c to be ice cold.

 

Before you write off the NCL, can you try another cruise on a different ship? We have been on all the NCL ships except Sky and Prima and have enjoyed our cruises. We don’t really have a favorite ship (but we’re thinking Spirit is our new favorite … this will be determined when we board her for our Alaskan cruises at the end of this month) as each ship has its own pros and cons. 
 

 

[Liljo22]

There is a reason Epic was the only ship in its class.  It’s a funky ship with lots of complaints.  I would give NCL another try on a Breakaway or Breakaway+ class ship.  Preferably the Escape or the Joy.

[RB9643]

Just now, Liljo22 said:

There is a reason Epic was the only ship in its class. 

 

I think that's the vibe. I'm sorry OP that you chose the Epic as your first NCL cruise. I would urge you to try again, on literally any other NCL ship.

 

 

[fshagan]

I think you have a really valid complaint about the air conditioning and the handling of it, and it's one that would give me pause about cruising again with them. It doesn't sound like a pre- or post-pandemic thing to me; you can always be responsive to the guest, and offer to move them if you can't resolve the issue. That should have been offered.

 

We are trying Celebrity again after having a less-than-stellar cruise with them a few years back. We're trying one of their newer ships, the Apex. I hope we don't run into the same issues we did back on the Infinity. If we do, I suspect we won't try them again.

 

If you do find an itinerary that appeals to you ask here about the ship and recent experiences on it. Usually the on-board experience with NCL is really good.

[UKstages]

7 hours ago, TopofWorld said:

BTW, caught a cold as a result...

 

sounds like a lack of attention to detail and very poor service recovery on NCL's part. you have some legitimate complaints.

 

but one doesn't catch a cold from "freezing cold" temperatures... indoors our outdoors. one catches a cold from airborne respiratory droplets or by touching contaminated surfaces or being in close contact with people who have a cold.

 

you didn't catch a cold because your room was cold. you caught a cold because you're sailing with three or four thousand of your new friends, many of whom have poor hygiene. you caught a cold because they sneezed near you or you touched the same elevator buttons they did or the same menu they did or you ran your hand down an infected bannister.

Edited May 9, 2023 by UKstages

[ChiefMateJRK]

Yep.  Caught cold because you're out in the world.  Do it more often, and your immune system will stop being such a wimp (unless you have a medical condition, which would be unfortunate).

[TopofWorld]

https://www.franciscanhealth.org/community/blog/weather-changes-make-you-sick#:~:text=For some people%2C a change,Bast said.

For the resident doctors here. So before calling someone a wimp or weird, you might consider that probably there are people out there with a weak heart, a defibrillator implanted, taking 16 pills a day and still trying to enjoy life.

I gave NCL a review based on my past cruising experiences and the experience on board the EPIC. We did have a good time, but my point was it could have been a lot better had NCL paid attention to detail. Guest services had me standing in line many times with 0 results. Detail. They left a message on my cabin phone.mpicked the headset up, pressed the envelope thingy button, and message was deleted.  Same thing next day. So I asked guest services. They simply said...oooh you need to press 3333 to listen your messages. Why not write the instruction somewhere? Am I supposed to guess? A minor detail indeed, but an issue that could have been easily avoided. Similar, lack of customer relationship management minor issues were voiced by other cruisers, way more seasoned than me. So, if writing an honest review makes me a weird wimp with a weak immune system, so be it.

[ExpatBride]

The Epic turned me off of NCL. I gave them a second chance on the Jade and they failed again, so I've moved on. I didn't like the Epic as a ship and that's on me for choosing it, but the service was not up to the usual standard and bordered on rude when I asked for things that I'd arranged ahead of time with guest services. I get that sometimes information doesn't make it to the ship, but these were basic requests that were within the crew's control given what's available on the ship.

 

I also got sick on the Epic. 

Edited May 9, 2023 by ExpatBride

[dexddd]

You had me for the most part but you got a cold from the room being cold?

 

Snowflake first thing I do when entering room.

[DCGuy64]

We sailed the Epic on a TA in December and loved it. I've said it before and I'll say it again: whether you have a good cruise or a bad cruise is entirely up to you. I do commend the OP on saying what he DID like about the cruise as well as what he didn't.

[genealogyfan]

Thanks for the review. As I say, everyone will have a different opinion about the same things, same sailing, same ship etc.  Doesn't make them wrong or right. Sorry to hear about all your issues. Good you tried Norwegian, but sorry to hear it wasn't great. At least you tried another cruiseline.

[craig01020]

Sorry to hear your cruise was less than stellar.

 

I've been on 3 Norwegian cruises post-pandemic and the food and entertainment was good on all of them.

 

The Epic is the ship I intentionally avoid. I don't think you'll regret trying a different NCL ship someday.

[redmomof4]

Mayo Clinic Q and A: Myths about catching a cold - Mayo Clinic News Network