Norwegian Epic Review

4.5 / 5.0
4,409 reviews

Efficient systems but a very crowded ship.

Review for the Western Mediterranean Cruise on Norwegian Epic
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belfastlady
First Time Cruiser • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Aug 2012

This was my first ever cruise, taken with my teenage children. Pre-booking excursions was efficient. We flew to Barcelona and stayed there two nights (booked independently) and took a taxi to the ship late Sunday morning. The check in was swift - our baggage was taken immediately and we got on board in a few minutes, although we could not access our cabin immediately. The cabin itself looked attractive and had plenty of storage but once we began to use it, we found it terribly cramped. I liked the balcony and occasionally sat outside, especially when leaving ports, however most of the time it smelt dreadfully of cooking and our clothes smelt after sitting out there. I did not really mind the bathroom layout - the curtain provided sufficient privacy. On our fourth day when we returned from a morning excursion the glass shower panel exploded into a million pieces for no obvious reason - I was standing beside it with bare feet and cut my feet and hands slightly - luckily my children were not close to it. I rang the emergency number and they rang me back - it took quite a few minutes for someone to come to help. I was treated in the medical centre but wasn't really hurt. They replaced the panel about 4 hours later and we were given a voucher for dinner in one of the speciality restaurants. We did find pieces of glass throughout the cabin during the next few days.

The food was okay - the Garden Cafe was always too busy, you had to search for a table and then one person keep the seats while the others got the food. We ate in Taste several times and found the food acceptable, my son found it difficult to find food he liked and had the courses nearly every day. The day we went to Cagneys he found it awful as he is not a big meat eater. I found La Cucina rather bland, I had Calamari and Seafood Risotto - both uninteresting.

We had room service a couple of times, which was okay, although breakfast often was not what we ordered. The excursions we went on were well organised and quite enjoyable, but terribly expensive, especially having to pay for my children as adults. I found the ship terribly American, which I had not expected. It was annoying to go to the ATMs onboard to get cash to go ashore and find they only dispensed dollars. We went to a few shows and enjoyed some of them. We didnt use the pools, we are all swimmers and the pools were too small and full of people, and the pool deck was horribly crowded all the time and there were towels on all the sunbeds all the time. The kids said the slides were tame, they did use the climbing wall, and went bowling and the enjoyed the teen lounge and activities.

Cabin Review

Good view, not overlooked, smelt of food most of the time. Too small for three people. Water splashes out of the sink.

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