Wonderful region of the world to visit, must see spots (with the exception of Nice, we were not impressed at all). The other cities were all amazing. I'm not usually impressed by cruse ships but when I walked on board the Epic I was very impressed. This ship is beautiful, and I mean beautiful. It was updated a couple of years ago and it is clean and has tons to offer. A water park for the kids, water slides for adults, rock climbing walls, out door movies, bowling alley, noodle bar, entertainment, etc. They make awesome use of the giant screen in side the ship with towel rolling, bingo, etc. I will certainly pay more attention to what the ship is that I sail in the future now that I had cruised on the Epic. I have sailed on Carnival, Princess and Viking previously. I also did a shot cruise on the NCL's Sky out of Miami, so I do have ship experience.

On this cruise you can embark in either Barcelona or Rome. Only about 600 embarked in Rome and we were in that group. It made getting a good spot on the tenders very difficult, so be warned that if you join the cruise after the majority are on you will not get on an early tender. We did not hear details on how to disembark in Rome so that was a little confusing. The people who were going into Rome as an excursion exited in one area and those disembarking went in the opposite direction and we did not hear those instruction so it made it a little hard to catch up with our shuttle.

NCL offered shuttles into the cities when needed and those were very handy, I would recommend using their shuttles in Liverno and Palma.