This was our first cruise and after doing a lot of research decided to give the Epic a try. After reading many reviews of other cruisers I was a little nervous to even take a cruise. We are a family of four - with a 12 and 11 year old. I must say I'm glad we chose to do Christmas on the Epic! Since it was our first cruise and we didn't totally know what to expect - we made most reservations in advance. By reading many of the other reviews I felt very prepared for the cruise and all of the pros and cons of the ship. We had a 3-night specialty dining package and a soda package. We did not spend any time at the bars, other than our occasional trip to get a Pepsi.

We had no trouble with embarkation. We stayed in Cocoa Beach the night before and arrived early to the port. We had very little lines to wait in and got through with no trouble. The embarkation was delayed a bit and we were not able to get on the ship until about noon, but the time passed by pretty quickly. Once on the ship we took some time to find our way around and while the hallways are a bit tricky at times, once you figured it out it was fairly easy to navigate. We stayed in a family cabin on deck 14 (14022) and while the room was pretty small and tight for 4 people - we found it manageable for the week. We were not in the room very often anyway. Bismark, our cabin steward was very attentive. We loved him and the towel animals he left each night. Each time we called - for little things - they were always fixed before the next time we were back in our room.

One of the only cons we had while on the ship was the Splash Academy. Our kids - 12 and 11 - were not fans of the experience. They went a couple of times, but due to their ages they found the activities to be a little boring and too structured. They did enjoy the times when they were allowed to go to the teen club for a few hours. They spent most of their time outside of splash academy. They will let them check themselves in and out at their ages - which works out pretty well, except one night my daughter could not check out because they had somehow let another child out with her ship card. With all of the security they have in place - they should pay more attention to it as that should not have happened. Guest services was very helpful and printed her a new one, but it was a hassle to have to go down and get it fixed. I found out how to get it fixed by another passenger who was there at the same time. The staff could not tell me what I needed to do. Read more