Norwegian Epic Review
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We are a couple in our 50s sailing for the first time on Norwegian. We've been on twenty something cruises, primarily with Celebrity, Royal Caribbean, and Princess. More recently we have been Celebrity loyalists. We booked this cruise for a chance to stay in the Haven, and for the most part, it didn't disappoint. There were pros and cons with most of the cons being our cabin location.
Embarkation: We live local to Port Canaveral and so decided to arrive around 11. The entrance to the parking area was very disorganized. This is due to the fact that to park or to drop off passengers, you have to drive through the parking garage. If you're parking at the port, they want you to pre-pay, but if all you're doing is dropping off you go through the same set of gates. Although there are automated machines and gates, you have to stop and give your cc to an attendant who runs it through a manual machine. It takes about 2 or 3 minutes to process, but multiply that by 100s of cars and you have a traffic jam. Not to mention those dropping off and then parking have to make a left turn into the two backed up lanes of cards waiting to prepay. Pretty much a mess. It took us longer to get into the parking area than it did to check into the ship.
Next step, boarding. The check in building is not big enough to house the number of passengers boarding the Epic. So you have to wait downstairs until enough people have gotten through security to let more people in. Being in the Haven, we had priority boarding, but we couldn't get to that until we got in the building, which meant a 15 minute wait outside. Fortunately, the weather was nice. Once inside, we found the priority boarding area and were checked in and on the ship in less than 15 minutes. The Haven has a dedicated check in area which made the process very quick.
Cabin Review
Courtyard Villa with Balcony
Our cabin was 16027, a 2 bedroom Garden Villa on deck 16. It is a beautiful looking cabin but in a terrible location. My strategy had been to book a cabin not directly in the Haven Courtyard to avoid noise from any kids who might be in the pool area. What I missed in the deck plans is that this cabin is directly across from a crew access door that begins slamming, oh, right around 2 AM and continues into the morning. Needless to say, sleep came from exhaustion and not from comfort. Word to the wise, don't ever choose this cabin (or the ones on either side for that matter, 16025 and 16029) if you have any sensitivity to noise. The cabin also had a mysterious indentation in the carpet next to the balcony that remained wet throughout the cruise, despite the attempts of maintenance to dry it out. There is obviously some type of leak below the carpet causing the floor to slowly collapse. As a result, the room smelled moldy as well. Like I said, beautiful looking but not a great cabin at all given the expense of the Haven. the balcony was small, but adequate. If it didn't include having to listen to the pool band music, it might have been a quiet place to sit.