We are NOT career cruisers. We have enjoyed our 4 cruises (1 x Carnival, 2 x Royal Caribbean and 1 x Norwegian). All in all the EPIC was a fine ship. Our 13 year old daughter had a blast with the youth group Entourage. It was difficult keeping track of her and her desire to close the place down each night. Its a very large ship and that was somewhat nerve wracking. 3 of the girls in the group lost their phones, our daughter was one, but it was found poolside and turned in.

The youth director needs to educate the kids on curfew better. They tended to just close and let the kids hang out. They need instead to firmly send the kids to their cabins. We were on the verge of filling out a missing persons report one night.

Norwegian as a phone app that for 8 bucks a phone allows shipboard texting and calling. I got this for my phone and my daughter's phone, but the voice part never worked (sorry we are having technical difficulties) and the text part sometimes worked and sometimes did not). This is a great idea that needs to be bulletproof on larger ships. Next time we will do what one set of parents did and require hourly call ins using ship phones. Read more