Norwegian Epic Review
Rating by category
Additional details
The first part of this review is for the Gluten Free and/or those with food issues... If this does not apply to you please scroll down for the ship review....
My husband and I cruise because it is the most care free way to travel with my issues with food. For years after discovering my intolerance to gluten we did not travel because it was so difficult to coordinate meals without getting sick. Having tried several cruise lines I must say that so far Norwegian was the best. That being said, it was very difficult in the beginning to get a straight answer on how the menu would be handled. Prior to the cruise I was told that I must fill out a form indicating my issues and then an order form would be sent so certain foods would be tagged to my room number and available upon my requests. After filing the forms and waiting several weeks with no answer I called to obtain my order form. At that time I was put on hold in order to see if it could be faxed or emailed because we were only a few weeks til our sail date. When my hold time was finally over I was told that they no longer do the order forms and food items would be available on the ship. However, when I inquired as to what these consisted of they could not say. They told me the list was too long to state. When I researched on CruiseCritic I did discover that a few people still filled out the form!!! I went through several different avenues of inquiry and was told that there were no longer forms but confusion abound!!!
Upon arriving on the ship we met a gentleman at the buffet, a Matre' D named Deepak Gonsalves. This gentleman was my key to a worry free vacation. I found the best place to eat most days and nights (and afternoons) was the Garden Buffet. There were gluten free bagels, cookies, pizza, cake - all for the asking! For someone who doesn't get this fare, even at home, it was heaven!!!! And by the way the french fries and morning hash browns are gluten free (yay)! In all of the restaurants they do try to accommodate for the allergy but I found the ease of the buffet the best for our schedule. If you would like to dine at a specialty restaurant please try Moderno. The salad bar was beautiful and all of the meat skewers are gluten free and absolutely delicious!!!!
Cabin Review
Mid-Ship Balcony
Having cruised on various ships I felt that the cabins were smaller than the other balconies that I have experienced. Also, I feel that the price only reflects the other amenities of the ship. It will always be more expensive to cruise on a new ship. We did not have any trouble with flooding however further down our hall there was significant flooding due to some unknown problem. It even soaked the carpets in the hall! Thankfully we weren't caught up in this and had not problems with the functionality of our cabin. - It was very quite when all the doors were closed - so much so we missed the announcements for several things. This was a cabin with the bed by the door so we may have not had such space issues if we got one of the cabins with the bed by the balcony. All in all it did not effect us terribly. On vacation you worry less about that stuff!!!!