When my husband & I chose NCL Epic for our January cruise, we chose the ship, not the destination. We had been to all 3 ports numerous times, but had not sailed with NCL since Hawaii and had never sailed on this large of a ship. Knowing I preferred a smaller ship, I was concerned, but really loved all the Epic had to offer. Let me start with saying that this was the best ship for entertainment that I have ever sailed. Blue Man Group & Legends in Concert were both wonderful. You do need to make your reservations for the night/time of the show you want to attend, but there is NO ADDITIONAL cost for either of these. We had seen both shows previously in Las Vegas, but enjoyed them here just as much if not more. One note, Legends only showcases 3 artists. In previous shows we had seen up to 10 impersonators. We chose not to pay extra for the Cirque du Soleil dinner show as we have seen multiple Cirque performances in the past. Howl At The Moon was great fun, but packed every evening. My personal favorite club was Fat Cats Jazz & Blues Club. This club was never crowded and the music was fantastic! At first impression, our inside cabin made us both take a step back and ask what we had done booking this stateroom. It is VERY small and we were surprised to find both the sink and the shower right in the room. Since there was nothing available for upgrade, we decied to make the most of it. There was a surprising amount of storage and we had room to put everything in it's place. There is, however, no privacy at all. Had we been traveling with another family member or a friend, there would definitely have been a problem. We had heard negative comments about service on NCL in general, but we found all service to be excellent and regularly saw and talked to our room steward. Not a fan of open dining, I have to admit that we always received excellent service and never had to wait at either of the main dining rooms to be seated. We were surprised to learn, though, that the menu's do not change on a daily basis. Only a Chefs Daily Special changes. If you do not utilize the specialty restaurants, (and pay the additional costs for them!), dinnertime would become very boring. Also, NCL does not seat you with other guests, so if you like to meet your fellow passengers, it won't happen in the dining rooms. We found that we spent more than average on this ship, mostly due to the specialty restaurant fees.

One last comment...Norwegian's tag line is "Freestyle Cruising"; do what you want when you want. That sounds good in theory but isn't really true. Reservations are required for specialty restaurants, for the shows, for some day events, (ex: wine tasting), etc. We actually felt that we were more, not less, "free". With all that said, I admit to being very, pleasantly surprised at NCL. I had a negative opinion going in, and came home looking forward to our next NCL cruise, (which we purchased a pre-paid deposit on ship).