We sailed on the March 3rd sailing in a 2 bedroom courtyard Villa on Deck 17. Armando was our butler, and Ruth was our concierge. We cruised with my 30-yr old sister, 34-yr old brother-in-law, myself, 21-yr old male, my mother mid-50s, and my niece 2-yrs old, and my nephew, 3-yrs old.

We stayed at the Mandarin Oriental in one of their 2 Bedroom Dynasty suites and used the hotels car service to drive us to the port. The Mandarin was wonderful, and it had the first affordable 5-star hotel restaurant with good food. The balcony was literally the size of our Villa on the Epic, so be careful they spoil you at MOs. We also spent a good majority of our night at a Skybox at LIV, and had a wonderful time as well there. Make sure you reserve a table in advance though, and be aware of the steep table minimums. If you are into nightclubs, I highly recommend a visit to the mecca of all nightclubs (it was consistently rated by Askmen as the number 1 or 2 club in the world).

Let me start out by saying the Villa experience is wonderful. Everything is done with priority, priority elevators, priority show seating, priority reservations, everything. I had food delivered to wherever I was on the ship, using the supplied wireless ship phone, with the concierge and butler programmed in (note you can get an additional one of these if you agree to a $800 deposit, which they didn't authorize on our credit card and we were not charged upon return of the phone). Read more