My sister got us into cruising. For me, the thought of being trapped in a confined space with thousands of people, battling for a seat at the buffet and sweating in a communal pool, was not my idea of a holiday.
That said, when she got me to Alaska on the Norwegian Pearl and around the Mediterranean on Norwegian Jade, I was sold. The service still felt personal, I LOVED the towel animals every night, the variety of restaurants was great and we had a ball.
So we booked on the Epic, expecting even greater things. Sadly, within a day I was having cruise nightmares again. The crowds were suffocating, the two tiny pools were packed from dawn to dusk and the lifts took forever. As a consequence I suppose of dealing with just too many people, the customer service staff seemed to have gritted teeth and went out of their way to deflect any difficult issues with a 'not my area', 'sorry mam we don't do that', or, when we complained about a rip off shore tour: 'write a letter to head office'.