We checked in just before noon, and were on the ship in no time. Our cabin was ready by 1:30 pm and we unpacked ASAP. Ginny and I were cruising with my Son Jack and his friends Jason, Nick and Joel. The Epic is a huge vessel housing 4200 or more passengers, but we understood that about 3800 were on board our cruise. Still, some cruises starting in Civitavecchia overlapped ours.

The Epic seemed to have the youngest age median of passengers that we had seen four ocean cruises and two river cruises. The entertainment is quite good and the casino is very large and seemed very busy most of the time. The ship has a lot of activities, from a rock climbing wall to huge water slide. There is an interesting pool area at the stern of the ship, deck 15 (Spice H20), where a small pool can be covered for dancing, just below a huge TV screen. Hot tubs are around the area as well, with bars. We enjoyed staying in Spice H20 instead of the main pool area, which always seemed to have music blaring away. The Epic is laid out very differently from the four other cruise ships on which we have cruised. When you first see the Epic is looks like someone took a cruise ship and stacked several more decks on top. The interior of the ship is attractive and looks new. There is a huge shopping area and gigantic chandler suspended over an interior atrium at decks 5 and 6. The fitness center is a bit hard to find and get to, but is adequate, even though it could have had more stationary bike machines.

Our cabin was a mini-suite on deck 11, which we acquired as an upgrade from a balcony. The suite was nice, with lots of storage space, but we did not care for the configuration of the toilet, shower and sink. The toilet and shower are enclosed in a translucent sliding glass door that makes it very uncomfortable for a person in either of those places when a visitor is in the cabin. Also, not having the sink in an enclosed area meant that if I awakened before my Wife, that I could not shave without turning on the light and waking her up. Read more