The Epic ship has been an epic disappointment. After a ton of research, time and talking to other cruise going friends and an NCL rep, we finally decided to plan our honeymoon with NCL. We were very excited about this trip, planning and saving our money to make this happen even before we put a deposit down, so you can see we came in with a positive and excited mindset that got systematically crushed by your ship and staff.

Our day started fine, the flights and transportation to the airport uneventful and nothing special. We got through the port and check-in and into our room without anything to note happening. This was a good start in our books. However, this was where everything took a turn for the worse. We quickly realized how inadequate the beverage package we got was and called the operator to see if we can upgrade to the Premium Plus Beverage Package. They told us we can go to any bar to upgrade it. I asked them if they can do it right there over the phone since they already have my credit card information. They said no. This struck us as odd. We went to the nearest bar and they told us we had to go to yet another bar. Eventually, after visiting several bars, we arrived at the Atrium on the 5th deck where we were blatantly ignored for 10-15 minutes and were told to go to YET ANOTHER place to sign up for this premium plus package. So we go down to a table near the Le Bistro and we go buy this upgrade. However, we cannot buy the premium plus package here we just get a piece of paper saying we are going to buy it. Surprise! Yet another waste of time but we are committed to having a blast and this minor event will not hold us back. So we go to the Guest Services line now which was extremely long. After waiting in line for over an hour, we finally see the end in sight. I love wasting my precious time on our honeymoon to get mislead and waiting in lines. There were about 5 more parties ahead of us when the ship's intercom notified us we had a ship safety presentation that will be conducted soon and we had to go to our designated rally point. We stayed in line but were quickly told we had to leave the line and go right away. Ok, fine, can we get a number or something that reserved our place in line? We waited over an hour just to get denied any resolution. They blatantly made it clear they did not care and told all of us to leave. I asked them to just charge my card and be done with it but again no, we had to come back later. By now the tension, frustration, and anger among the passengers were quite visible to us, adding to our discomfort. We have not even left port yet and the people were unhappy wherever we went. We went to our rally point, where things continued to get worst. Our rally point was the Manhattan Room which for whatever reason was closed. So we had this large group of people (all the 'J' people) just waiting outside the rally point. Clear and obvious frustration was on everyone's faces as we waited 10 or so minutes to enter. Finally the doors open and we had to endure the pushing and cursing of over a hundred people trying to get to the rally point but could not due to the terrible funneling of the doorway. My poor wife had to deal with rude and angry people pushing her and stepping on her feet this whole time and to add to this the heat was near unbearable. I was not even sure the ship even had A/C at this point. To be brutally honest, I've been to airports in Afghanistan that was more comfortable in terms of people and organization. This is no honeymoon I want to be on and my wife agrees. Once we finally checked in and found someplace to sit we had to wait an additional 30 odd minutes for the presentation to even start. I told my wife that we should get our money back and just get off this ship. We did not even want to be there anymore. So I asked someone who I can talk to about that. I was told to talk to Guest Service. Deflated we went back to sit down and wait for the safety brief to start. Once it was over we had to fight our way to get out of this dining room and rush to get back into the Guest Service line.

By this point, I will like to point out that Carnival by far outperforms NCL at this point. We had no trouble at all with Carnival and the whole experience was pleasant from start to end. If they had a cruise that we wanted for the timeframe we wanted to go we would not have looked at any other cruise. Since that was not the case we did our due diligence and NCL seemed to be the best option. People spoke highly of NCL cruises and again I want to emphasize we were so excited about this cruise and our honeymoon! We do not have any brand loyalty yet and we are open-minded about all cruise lines at this point! Read more