Norwegian Epic Review
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I've been using cruise critic for several years now when deciding on cruises to pick. The entries have been so helpful that I felt compelled to contribute with our recent experience on the maiden voyage of the new Norwegian Epic. I'll start off to say that we had an amazing time and our expectations were exceeded in almost every way. I've included a link to a slideshow/video that I took with my new iPhone 4 at the end of this post if you want to jump there first. I've read a few of the other first reviews for the Epic and was sorry to hear that someone had such a bad experience on the same cruise that was the one of the best family vacations of our life.
This was our 8th family cruise. My wife and I are in our mid-40's and kids are now 9 and 12. We've previously sailed on Disney (eastern and western Caribbean), Royal (eastern Caribbean), NCL (Alaska) and most recently on Viking River Cruises in Southern France and have stayed in a wide variety of staterooms from the tiniest inside rooms to the balconies to the suites. For the Epic, we decided to splurge on the Courtyard Villa Suite which, according to some of the reviews on the smaller rooms, was a great idea.
As with most of our cruises, we flew in the day prior and stayed at the Embassy Suites. The kids love the Miami Embassy which has a nice pool, good free breakfast and spacious suites. The airport shuttle is quick and easy and the taxi to the cruise ship was only $24 versus the $40 it would have cost us on the port shuttle. Arriving at the port around 1pm, we were easily directed to the B terminal and then into the VIP lounge for check-in. We were treated like VIP's with snacks for the kids, a very brief overview of the ship and within 5 minutes, we were being escorted by our butler through a private elevator directly to our rooms on the ship. Although the terminal didn't seem too crowded, this was definitely the best check-in experience we've had and probably saved us at least 30 minutes of waiting to get on the ship and another hour or so to get into our stateroom.