Europe - Western Mediterranean Cruise Reviews

Visit my blog to find out more about the Norwegian Epic Mediterranean cruise I did in May 2017. https://mytravelexperienceonline.wordpress.com

havent cruised in a while was pleasantly surprised with the total overall ease of the whole experience.  Would of gotten 5 stars if not for the beverage program and not as many onboard activities for returning excursion users.  Loved the sit down dining and the service from everyone onboard. Buffet was a zoo most of the time.  

We took this cruise to celebrate our 22nd wedding anniversary.  Neither of us had ever been to Europe and thought it was time.  The Epic is a beautiful ship but I had a few issues, 1. Our room was kinda tight, 2. Neither of us are smokers so it presented a challenge at times and 3. Too many ports but not enough time to enjoy them and 4. The ship was so big I kept getting turned around...  We had dinner in several of the specialty restaurants (3 free dinners in a package) we liked Cagneys the best.  Our steward Roman was great and very helpful.  We purchased the unlimited internet package which came in handy due to the limited tv channels available, but my husband for some reason could not log-on so we had to share my laptop, of course they gave us a refund for his portion $209 (ouch).  We enjoyed our excursions except for "Rome and the Colosseum", our tour guide Flavia could not speak English well enough for us to understand her, she lost people and took us thru sketchy parts of the city like a dark busy tunnel... and we damn near missed getting back to the ship in time because she lost two people at the St. Peter's Basillica and spent 30 minutes past the deadline trying to find them!  My husband and I really liked Florence and Cannes/Nice and are considering spending a summer there once he retires.... So in closing I want to say that no cruise is ever perfect so just take things with a grain of salt and just try to enjoy yourself as best you can! 

The itinerary was great. This is my second time on the EPIC. The first time was to the Caribbean and now to Europe. Both times it has been an awesome trip. The crew and the ship are great. We stayed at the Haven, which makes your trip even better. The stops at Rome,Naples and Florence were awesome. Also liked Palma de Mayorca. We almost stayed on the ship for Palmas but decided to check it out and glad we did. The beach there was awesome. Actually thinking of doing this trip again next year.

Was a great first time cruise, the food and drink was excellent, the staff were good one or two grumpy ones, but the way some passengers treated them you could understand why, getting off the ship early every morning for excursion is tiering, be nice to have more time, would definitely sale again on epic, nxt time miss excursion and just walk off and enjoy port towns 👍🏻👍🏻

Services in wind jammer staff and entertainment around the pool. Room attendant excellent and very helpful. Plenty of things to do shows very entertaining. Brilliant all round. Our room assistant Winsom was brilliant always kept our room serviced to the highest standard. 

Among the shore excursions the ROMA and StPeter excursion was fabulous, thanks to the guides that were accompaniing us (ENG speaking), no matter that there were. 

The Sardegna Cagliary excursion of Olive and Wine was pretty weak. The visited sites (olive farm and winary ) were interesting, but the young lady guides were pretty uncompetent.

The Ship itself - COSTA PACIFICA- is pretty good, though little bit more shabby than the Fascionosa (we were cruising in 2016 with). The serving staff were kind and very pleasant.

The food on the ship was realy not so tasty. The Breakfas variety was good according to expectations, but the coffe served were blaaaah (hot and tasteless). We were avoiding the the lunch on deck 9- because of huge mass production and mass-tasty- we often had lunch on the shore. The dinner menu seemed well planned, but the cooking was worse than in Fascionosa last year.

We had Samsara Room reservation- and could not realy make advantage of the free spa entrance, as the hot tub and hot saunas has not so much advantage on hot summer days. 

The drink package "Brindiamo" covered fully our expectations. We are not coctail fans, but prefer more than 1 bottle wine/day , coffee and water. 

The ship is beautiful but because we took so many long day tours we sadly didn't get to take advantage of all they offered.

There were 3 of us, childhood friends, so we upgraded to a large suite.  The extra room was nice but there was no way to use a hair dryer in either the 1/2 bath or the larger shower room.  This made it difficult for 3 of us to get ready each morning. Our balcony was always totally wet each morning so we weren't able to enjoy breakfast outside.  Had we not been leaving to go on tours so early, we would have been able to use the balcony more.  The room, while spacious, was a bit of a traffic jam around the closet doors and entry to the shower area.  The MANY perks that came along with the suite were very nice especially the laundry service and special dinner and breakfast. We received 2 full bar set- ups but since we don't drink hard liquor we traded them for 1 bottle of wine. That seemed a bit unfair as we had to include all our soda and water in the trade.

The restaurants were very good.  The Crown Grill was our favorite and the staff there was terrific. Our dinner was outstanding and we also enjoyed having breakfast there any day we could. Unfortunately, the French restaurant, La Mer, was a big disappointment as the meal was not at the level we expected for the additional $35 charge - they wanted to charge us extra for standard water - REALLY!

The cappuccinos were excellent so be sure to buy a Coffee Card.

I have cruised on Princess often and will again especially on cruises where I have more time to spend aboard.

I had a terrible trip,rude people awful food unbelievable bad service.

and over charged for everything. After 4 days of enduring all of this I 

demanded to disembark in Toulon France! I only got to use an elevator once they took forever and when they did come the elevator was full? Over 4 thousand people busy chaos everywhere. After getting of in Toulon France I had a wonderful vacation.

I will never go on a cruise again!

Favourite port Barcelona, so much to do. Malaga was a great venue closely followed by Cartagena and La Spezia. Downside was having to pay for shuttle buses  in three ports. Surely this should be included in the price we pay, cruises don't come cheap these days. Celebrity charged in Barcelona last year(5 dollars) and also Marseille(19 ! yes 19 dollars !!!) not fair even though the port is a15 minute ride from the town centre. Otherwise normal Celebrity class shows all over the ship.Food, service and entertainment excellent although speciality dining very expensive as good as it was. Would still recommend this cruise but if you do enjoy the odd drink you'll definately need at least a classic beverage package.

Celebrity is undoubtedly a premium Cruise Line and we have done several trips with them, ship is very clean shows wonderful food excellent staff attentive 

it it seems though that they are cutting back and as we chose Aqua Class we found it to be below what we have experienced before, choice on menu cut, choice of wines cut and staff a little short.

We had Aqua Class room 1544 nice room wrong side of the ship for all day sun

All in all a great trip but just a little short of Premium

We returned from a two-week Independence of the Seas vacation to the Mediterranean out of Southampton UK this week and had a great time. It was longer than our usual cruises, and we wanted to see how we liked the more relaxing pace - which was great. The service was good, except for trying to get an adult beverage from the bar when there's more than a few people. The bartender will look past you as if you were invisible. Note to managers: A simple "I'll get right to you," will make me much more patient and understanding.

The Dining Room staff service is impeccable. The food was okay - and our table mates turned back a few things that were overcooked, but mostly things are well prepared and elegantly served. It was usually a highlight of the day. I noticed that some cruisers were not all that interested in getting dressed in formal attire on the 3 formal nights we had. 

The ship is well cared for although showing some signs of age by way of design. This ship locker room was inadequate and the locks didn't function well. There was one bathroom for women serving the expansive gym and spa covering two floors. There was a dry and wet sauna almost no one used (yippee for me), and when I've been on other cruises, this area has been busy.

The bed in our room was falling apart, which was not a good sign. The room steward made the best of it by putting layers of duvets on top as a cushion, but the thing should have been traded out some time ago.

On the upside, there was some good entertainment with music, comedy and some production shows.

The buffet area "the Windjammer" was always well supplied with an amazing array of choices, and the staff there was excellent.

The stops were well managed logistically. We had a tender in Ville Franche Sur Mer which operated smoothly. One stop in Spain required a shuttle from the industrial port to the shopping district at $10 per person, while also offering a free option that would drop people off in an industrial area that allowed wandering to the beach.

The weather was less than ideal sometimes as this was early May, but if you're looking to avoid cooking in hot summer temps, this might be the best time to go.

A very well run ship, spotlessly clean, good entertainment and adequate food. Shore excursions far too expensive and shuttle buses should be free. It was noticeable that standa standards have fallen like shorts and T-shirts were allowed in the main dining areas.

My favourite part was walking around the outside decks and chilling looking out to sea, can't beat it. Entertainment was fabulous. 

Improvement: Clientele was an eye opener to the extent of sharing everything no matter what you paid. Only the gold badge holders had a space/bar of there own. 

Yes l would recommend the cruise to others, the ship and it's staff are a credit to Royal Caribbean. 

Wouldn't working for them myself. 

Ship needs updating and I believe this is in progress.

i loved the Promenade area of the ship.

the shops were expensive and one of the staff in the handbag shop was rude and disrespectful.

i enjoyed the hot tubs and the drinks package was highly recommended because drinks are expensive onboard.

food was not to standard, it was bland, cold and the waiter service was very slow, forcing us to use the Windjammer.

As my first time in a cruise, i find it excellent and enjoying trip. Epic is marvelous especially the SPA and the shows. Beautiful cities to visit, but the tours fees are really high in price. state room is great and very comfortable. 

Itinerary was excellent but the handling of excursions was poor to awful most of the time.  It was especially crazy on a tender day with rough seas.  The staff handling the excursions had no control of the large crowd waiting for at least an hour for their tours.  it would help if they would take advantage of technology and use their video boards to show status of the tours instead of trying to sell bottles of water!!

Food in the specialty restaurants was overall very good and major entertainment was excellent.  Unfortunately, the balcony cabins are tiny and poorly designed.

My favorite part of the cruise(beside the food and alcoholic drinks)was the attitude of the crew and how we were treated at all times.  Our Housekeeping steward, Putu, is one of the nicest persons I have ever dealt with.  I never saw him without a smile and something positive to say.  The next thing I liked was watching the ship leave port.  This is an exciting time.  I was usually not awake when we came into port.  This Epic adventure was of Epic proportion.....!!!!! The cruise was a lot of fun.

The # Atlantic was like a lake on the crossing. Europe was was Fantastic.Crew very Pleasant and helpful.NCL is made proud by this ship. The Ports were all very nice enjoyed seeing all we could. Would definitely recommend this ship. We spent the whole month of April 29 days. No longer concerned about long Cruising.

We really enjoyed our cruise on the Crown Princess again, 2 weeks on a Med Adventure, however she is looking a little bit tired and could do with some tlc. Our cabin was lovely and all the staff we had contact with were lovely, accept the manager of The Crown Grill who was very abrasive. The ship is kept very clean and we have no problem here just the interior especially around the lifts need updating. The food was good but the service on day 1 and 2 was very slow, we complained and it was excellent after that. We had a couple of rough days coming back through the Bay of Biscay, pools emptied and gym closed but other than that an excellent cruise