Norwegian Epic Review
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Embarkation: Opened up at 12 Noon. We arrived at the terminal shortly after 12 and there was a short line. We were on the ship within an hour. Since we are Latitudes members our line was slightly shorter, but neither line was long. One nice thing is that the Taste dining room was open for lunch. This was much better than the "traditional" embarkation buffet on you see on most cruise lines. FYI -- You can get a cab for $24 (TOTAL -- no matter how many passengers you have) from the airport to the port. Most "shuttles" wanted $10-15 per person, which ends up costing more than a cab if you have a family. So why bother with a shuttle. It is only a 15-20 minute ride.
Cabin: We had a balcony cabin (14032). This cabin has a larger than normal balcony. I liked the curved walls of the cabin. It provided extra storage behind the sofa back cushions and also above the bed (in the curved area right above you). You won't see this unless you know it's there. I had read about the bathrooms and LOVED the layout. For starters the shower is a usable size. Not a closet like on other ships. Plus since the areas are separated, one person can shower while one uses the toilet. The glass on both the shower and toilet area provided plenty of privacy. If you need more, just pull the curtain closed. Not an issue at all and I found it to be far superior to any other cruise ship bathroom I have ever used. The sink is in its own area, and had no "splashing" issues others have mentioned. Another advantage of our cabin was that the hallways on deck 14 are split up. So the only people in our corridor were the 30 or so cabins in that area. No cross traffic, or elevator or stair traffic like in other places.
Dining rooms: There are 2 dining rooms on board. Taste and Manhattan. They both have the same exact menu, the only difference is that Taste is casual all day long, in Manhattan you need pants and collared shirt for dinner. We go casual, so we only ate at Taste. I especially liked the free style cruising. You eat whenever you want and there was never a line to get in since everyone is spaced out better. The food in Taste dining room was consistently very good and even excellent on some nights. The breakfast and lunch menus are fixed for the entire cruise, but the dinner menu changes daily.