We were on the famous “strong winds hit a cruise leaving New York city” that was on the news the first week of March. Many injuries endured by passengers and entertainers: bone fractures, sprains and wounds. My husband and I were in our room with our children when it happened and no one came to check to see if everyone was ok after the incident. I thought of older passengers, maybe alone in their cabin, and hoped they were ok. My daughter almost slid off her bunk bed when the ship tipped to the side. Things did not get any better after that frightful night. We ended up not stopping at Stirrup Cay, as planned in our itinerary, but going straight to Nassau to spend 2 days. When you pay for a trip that includes 3 stops and you only do 2, you would think there would be some kind of compensation, nope! In addition, when you have an ultimate beverage package, you need to pay taxes on drinks when at port. Therefore, since we were at a port in Nassau for two full days, we had to pay extra taxes on the drinks. If we had been at Stirrup Cay and then at sea to Nassau the next day, as planned, we would have saved paying taxes. Do you think we had some kind of compensation for this? Nope! Big disappointment not visiting a private island (the most interesting stop of the cruise) and big disappointment having to pay unforeseen taxes, which do add up in the end... We have reserved the same trip next March, in 2020, but we will most certainly cancel. Even if the strong winds were a surprise and not stopping at Stirrup Cay a security measure, there could have been some kind of compensation. A message of apology from Norwegian and a rebate on a future cruise would have been highly appreciated. A travel agent on vacation on the cruise told us not to expect anything... Shows: excellent, especially Choir of Man, saw it twice. Food: delicious Read Less

My husband and I decided on a last minute cruise and had never been on NCL before. We were excited to try something besides Disney Cruise Line to compare and contrast. We waited for 45 minutes outside in line before even getting into the terminal. From the beginning to the end of the cruise 4 days later, we waited in long, long lines for everything--even to restaurants that we had reservations for. The ship's layout is horrible, and the hallways are very narrow. One day, there was a line for bingo on one side of the hall, a line for the Circus dinner show on the other side of the hall with no signs or crew to direct people to the right line in this narrow hall. Also there were people trying to walk through to get to the other side. Very unorganized with virtually minimal staff to help. The lines to get a drink (if you wanted a soda, it was the same line as the alcoholic drinks) were 20 minutes or more. I did like the Circus show and the food at that show, the comedy show and Priscilla Queen of the Desert show. The food was very average--nothing to write home about. We did go the the Cagney Steakhouse and sat there for 15 minutes or more without even being acknowledge after being seated. The food took a long time to come out, and it too was very average--I have had better steaks at Outback or any chain steak restaurants. The desserts were not good either. The rooms were very small, and the toilet and shower were situated in the most odd way. As you are entering the room, the toilet was on the right and the shower was on the left with frosted glass sliding doors. You can virtually hear the toilet flushing in the hallway. We were supposed to go to their private island on the second day, but weather prevented us from going. The customer service was really poor, and a couple of the staff members were rude and unprofessional to me. By day 2, I couldn't wait to get off that ship. We were in line to self check out at 8:00 am and waited in line for 2 1/2 hours. There were no staff explaining the wait or to calm the passengers that were really upset and angry. Another example of no communication and virtually no organization. There were passengers in line that were going to miss their 12 noon/1 o'clock flights out of Orlando. This was not a relaxing vacation. I spent 85% of the time aggravated or annoyed while I was on NCL Epic. I will never go on another cruise with Norwegian Cruise Line. We will definitely stick with Disney Cruise Line in the future. Read Less

My fiancée (well, as of the last night of the cruise) and I were excited to join fifteen (15) friends on this cruise which was arranged primarily for the 40th Bday celebration of one of our friends. The embarkation process seemed smooth, not knowing what to expect as this was my first cruise, but others in our group, previous cruisers, were not as satisfied. The cabin was pretty much what we expected - everything was clean, organized and in proper working order. There were a satisfactory number of outlets, mirrors and storage spaces. My only issue with the room was the sliding door for the bathroom was awkward and loud to maneuver. The ship was clean and very attentive to hand sanitizing, although that did not prevent several members of our group from getting colds, sore throats, etc. The Public Address system on this ship was akin to Charlie Brown's teacher in a Peanuts TV special. The food on the cruise was very good! Unfortunately, the staff serving it was not! Our group often waited for water, to have our order taken, food delivered, drinks re-filled and dessert to be offered/delivered. That was definitely the consensus of our group complaint - waiting for food and drinks. Everyone in our group purchased the Unlimited Drink Package for the cruise, but waiting to have cruise staff take our orders for drinks was SLOW! The ship had too many drinking passengers and not enough bartenders to serve them. They even opened specialty drink kiosks, but lines quickly formed at those as well, making the wait for beverages just as long as at the bars. One bright light on the cruise for beverages though was Jay, the waiter at The Whiskey Bar. He was very personable and attentive! The second big disappointment was the ship's inability to dock at Great Stirrup Cay, Norwegian's private island. While the official announcement was poor water conditions and passenger safety, several members of our group had spoken to different members of the ship's entertainment who indicated that they had only docked at Great Stirrup Cay once in their last seven attempts! So if it really was bad conditions, or perhaps some financial circumstance, the $19.50 refund for port charges was hardly a compensation for missing what was a widely advertised and highly anticipated day at Great Stirrup Cay. The lack of additional activities for that non-port day made all of the other ship's activities crowded, and therefore not worth it. We tried to take solace in the beautiful weather and blue oceans, but again with more than four thousand other passengers deck chairs, hot tub and pool space was scarce. There are few words that strike fear in me, but one was added to the list during this cruise - Disembarkation! The ship was delayed in receiving port clearance for disembarkation - something that I am sure must have occurred previously with this ship, or even the cruise line itself. The process for the delayed disembarkation was complete chaos and nearly a melee! Passengers were being directed in different directions by different staff. While in line there were exit pathways that were blocked with chairs, but without any staff to enforce the non-admittance. Thus, ignorant or arrogant passengers were moving the chairs and bypassing the lengthy line of dutifully exiting passengers. At one point I was directed by ship's staff to turn to enter the next line of passengers while seconds later another staff person directed me in a different direction. As I started to comply with the second directive by ship's staff, the first ship's staff began shouting for me to come the way he had initially directed me. Patience and perseverance were the only things that kept me from being escorted off the ship by security at that point, but it was obviously extremely aggravating and very stressful! When we finally left the ship (Hallelujah) our reserved van transportation driver had already missed a subsequent pick-up as a result of the delay on the ship; we later discovered that four members of our group, who had left us early to begin the disembarkation process, were still on the ship. They were forced to make other travel arrangements to the Orlando airport. The van transport driver asked how our group had enjoyed our cruise; while not wanting to take away from the birthday celebration our responses were less than enthusiastic! The van driver stated that this was the general consensus of Norwegian cruise passengers that he has transported. He also added that the passenger pick-up process is more difficult for him with Norwegian than with Disney or Carnival ships. Having become engaged at dinner on the last night of the cruise is the only really enjoyable memory that I will take from this experience, and as for my first cruise experience, it was a huge disappointment. Read Less

We have never cruised before and this looked and sounded amazing. We flew in the morning of and out the afternoon we got back. Embarkation ad disembarkation went smoothly. Much of this ship has been renovated, some they are working on. Our Balcony stateroom was nice but every single time I went to enjoy our balcony, someone was smoking on another balcony. This was a huge disappointment as I absolutely hate smoke/fumes of any kind. I was bummed I hadn't thought of this being a possibility, I may have saved some money by not getting a balcony. Most activities on the ship cost extra money which is very unfortunate. We did enjoy ping pong which did not cost extra. The bowling is $7/game and they have a bunch of games/contests/raffles but they all seemed to cost money to try to win. We enjoyed Atlantis in Nassau. Our second stop was cancelled. They announced the morning of that the weather was too dangerous to take the tenders to the island 'as we could see' which was not the case, the weather looked absolutely gorgeous and the island looked awesome. We weren't aware prior to cruising that we would have to take a tender to get to that island and it really was never clear to us that the weather was bad. I would always rather be safe than sorry but it seemed like they were making money off of the cruisers as many activities were added for an extra fee that day. The APP was a joke. It let me make a reservation in the main dining room Manhattan for a jazz brunch for Sunday so that's what we planned on only to find out there was no such thing and to have to run to the buffet to try to get some breakfast as they were clearing all of the food away. We spoke to 7 different people and no one ever really acted like they were sorry, it was just like oh well we don't have such a thing. I was like well I didn't make it up, you can see that I made a reservation that someone else created as an option. Finally the 7th person said he would email someone in hopes that it doesn't happen to somebody else. One of the previous people stated that she had heard of it happening before. No credits or anything to try to make anyone feel better about anything else. I was hurt in the room, the tissue box holder fell out onto my knew. I called and they said they would send an ice pack right away, it never came. Our toilet was backed up at one point and I called and someone was supposed to come, the next time we were in the room a few hours later, no one had come so I called again. The main dining rooms had excellent food. The service was usually fine but most workers on the ship do not smile or say you're welcome no matter how many times we said thank you. A few did. The entertainment was not amazing. We liked a singer/piano player, Arvin. The Ice Bar is a huge rip off, $25/person to stand in an old freezer and drink two terrible drinks. The guy who sold it to us said the drinks were unlimited for an hour and the guy on the inside said it was just two drinks per person. Several times on our trip, one employee would say one thing and another would say something different. It would have been nice if everyone was on the same page. It was just my husband and I, our kids stayed home. We might cruise again but if we do it would definitely be with another cruise line. Read Less

I will start by saying that our cabin steward BJ was amazing! We had a great view from our AFT balcony stateroom. But overall the communication on the ship was poor. Unless they were trying to sell you something. Here is a list of what we did not like. 1. To get a drink in many cases take 45 minutes or more. This was true all over the ship for the entire cruise. 2. Getting to eat dinner could be a 1.5-hour wait in places. When we had reservations it was right on the money time wise. 3. There was NO information given on dis-embarcation to us at all. Our Steward told us to have our bags out before midnight for pick up. We did not see anyone set bags out in our area so we called the operator and she said that we should have had our bags out by 11:00 but that she would have someone come and get our bags. When we got up the next morning we found that our bags were still outside the door. 4. We went down with our bags when we were told we could. When we got off the elevator at 8:35 we were faced with a sea of people and lines everywhere with no rhyme or reason. We join in a line that was formed facing aft. After standing there for around an hour of not moving at all we were told by a staff member that the entire line needed to turn and head the other direction putting everyone who joined the line after us in front of us. As we are waiting for our time to come you could hear them still calling the people who had their bags picked up the night before. Which added to the confusion and mayhem. I was very concerned at several points because tempers were high and people started cutting in line and pushing people out of the way. I really thought that it could turn into a huge brawl. Luckily cooler heads prevailed. When they sent us that direction they sent us down an escalator with our bags and while we're heading down the traffic in front came to a complete stop because there was no more room. This was VERY dangerous! Thankfully a gentleman that was already off of the escalator reached over and stopped the escalator with the emergency stop button. We saw very little staff and what we did see were rushing through as quickly as possible. After everything was said and done we finally got off of the ship after 11:30. Read Less

A group of us that are Super fans from NFL teams chose to cruise to the Bahamas, Over all the experience was not great. Food was decent, but service was slow or non existent. Ship was clean but the crew did not seem friendly and seemed disinterested, They did not make you feel welcome. This did not include everyone, just the majority. We did find some that seemed to have fun and made you feel special. Our steward never seemed to materialize but the room was clean and presentable. This was just a very disappointing cruise. Food was as I said decent, Osheehans was our favorite. The buffet was goos as well and the Shanghai Noodle Bar was also one of our favorites. Debarkation was horrendous. No organization and there was major chaos. At this time I would not recommend Norwegian Cruise Lines and our plan is we will not be cruising with them again. I have been on 2 Carnival Ships, 1 Princess and 1 Royal Caribbean, All of those I would recommend. Read Less

We chose this cruise for the 2 ports in 4 days due to time constraints and to try one of NCL "larger ships" unfortunately the layout of the top deck (lido) is crammed, pools are small, the pool in the adult only did not even open on the sea day. Dining was very plain, the food was never changing at main dining and buffet. Both were just acceptable, not notworthy and I find it hard to understand how anyone could say the dining on this ship is outstanding. No choice for upgrades at the main dining rooms and not a lobster on any menu. Teppanyaki and sushi were very good, however, Cagney steakhouse was not better than anything I have had in main dining rooms on other ships. 105 minute wait for room service for cold pizza, undercooked grilled cheese and stale chips. I was never approached by waitstaff on deck for drinks; only able to wave down after several tries, then wait just as long as when I would get in line myself. The 30-50min. wait for drink service at both bars or by waitstaff on deck is unacceptable. I feel this is definitely due to the all included drink/gratuity package and will gladly pay for good service and drinks on my future cruises. From the time of emabarkation throughout the cruise the staff was unfriendly and most times projected unhappiness in addressing questions, concerns or plain hospitality. At the start, staff directed us to the wrong window then rudely orders us to move to another window, then blamed the other staff "stating she always sends people to wrong place" if so then why not address it instead of continuing to project errors over and over. Photographers were amature and did not even bother to tell us when bra straps were showing before taking pictures and we really are not happy with the unfriendly staff at the studio that were rude when we did not want all of the unprofessional looking poses that were taken, of course we still purchased some because we always do. Whenever asking staff questions around the ship most staff claimed they did not understand; the blank look of none caring was always present, never engaging. The second stop of cruise was canceled due to "weather" However after speaking with many other unhappy cruisers it was found out that the private island stop is almost always canceled, we would never have booked had we known. On the plus side, the entertainment including Howl at the moon, Priscilla queen of the desert and the band at the Cavern were all very good. Comedy show was fair. We did appreciate the cleanliness and abundance of available hand sanitizer stations. The best part was fast disembarkation. The room that we had was not what we had been shown upon reservation - it was supposed to be a large deck, never were we advised it would be all enclosed except window. The room is very odd in no privacy in bathroom or shower just frosted glass and sink in living quarter. We really wanted to enjoy this cruse but with all the fails, will never consider NCL again nor recommend. Read Less

My sister in law and brother treated my husband and myself to this cruise, we were. Ot told about the trailer park boys and there groupies being in the ship. They had multiple restraints and lounges closed for private events. We were not able to go to the island due to weather they said, we went to Freeport which was awful they stayed from three oclock to eight o'clock. We lost out on our excursions. I was not impressed with the buffet Nd I didnt even know who my steward was . The safe broke.. should I go on. The bed was hard no room to get into the bed . The noise was out of control could not sleep.i think they need to offer something to the passengers that were not with the trailer park boys since we lost out on alot of experiences. Oh and the pot smoking was out of control. Read Less

Let me start my rant with the staff was very good and fun to be around. The ship (in my opinion) is built very strong. After enduring the major list from a major blast of wind was able to be righted much to my surprise and she didn’t seem to take much damage for i feel was an unrecoverable port side list. NCL did not handle this to my satisfaction in that we didn’t receive any Comp or even and apology. In conjunction with that, that ship MUST be outfitted with life jackets in every state room for safety reasons. Heck even the unsinkable Titanic sank! Bed bugs seem to have been lingering and food poisoning from the restaurant “savor” didn’t make a fun trip. Missing there private island was also a real bummer, but that seems to be stand issues for NCL! I understand weather can not be controlled however the way passengers are accommodated is entirely in the hands of the crew/captain and more importantly the company. This was our very first cruise and our very last! Thank you Read Less

First day out we encountered severe wind gusts up to 115 MPH which caused our ship to tilt to a 45 degree angle. Scary yes, but even more alarming the lack of an acceptable explanation from the ship's captain. Injuries were sustained, property destroyed and or broken, and the only explanation "we encountered a severe wind gust". It was like explain nothing and hope no-one asks as the captain's approach. Passengers had to wait till the first port call to hear the details of our experience from outside reporting venues. Lack of communications in a situation such as ours only fires up anxiety and fear; this being the only area our captain was successful at... Aside from that the buffet meals were nothing more than truck stop quality; big disappointment. The bars were not consistent in the quality of drinks offered; some were spot on, some were poor. The same can be said of the wait staff. My TV was non functional for three days. After repeated calls a tech arrived only to find the problem was a loose wire. On a positive note the ship was presented in a clean state and offered a nice variety of activities, the ship was easy to navigate because of posting, and embarking and disembarking the ship was easily done. My gut feeling though is - never again on the cruise ship Escape. The ship needs a new captain, new hotel manager, and the existing chef to step up to the plate a tad more. Read Less