Europe - Western Mediterranean Cruise Reviews

We really enjoyed this cruise. The whole itinerary was beautiful. The cruise ship was in pretty good shape. The rooms were great we stayed at the family suite stateroom and it was great the carpeting could use some replacement and movement within the room was a little difficult as it's tight but other than that everything was wonderful. We would have really liked to have halal options on the cruise ship since there weren't many vegetarian options we got stuck eating a liot of fish thourhgout the cruise trip which got boring after sometime.

The activities were great, we really enjoyed the cirque dream show, although the blue man group wasn't that great.

Rate the boat a 4/5

Food 4/5

Service 4/5

Rooms 5+/5

Good itinerary.  Would recommend taking it out of Rome instead if you can (you can board this cruise in Rome or Barcelona).  The reason is that Rome is a 3-4 hour round trip from the boat and Barcelona is a port city.  If you board in Rome then Barcelona is an excursion without the 3-4 hour trip.  Drinks less expensive than Royal Caribbean and Carnival.  Food was way better than RC and Carnival.  Specialty restaurants excellent.  Recommend Cagney's for Steak and the hibachi restaurant.  Regret we didn't try the Ice Bar.  Heard it was "cool".  We are sworn off of Carnival and will have to think hard about RC after this experience.

Great cruise to italy france and spain.Dinner great. very much ok!  Staff are very nice and work hard at keeping everything clean. I would go again in a heartbeat!

Norwegian rates at  the bottom  of the cruise lines . Everything  seems to be centers around how  much can they charge extra for that  other cruise  lines include. Poor food (at least you  don't  need to  worry about putting on weight).

Freestyle means sign up and wait for shuttles entertainment  and 5$ frozen pizza,s. Everything on this  boat seems to shout institutional cheap.

First and last cruise on  Norwegian.

It took me 35 years to get my wife on a ship - and now I have a "cruise junkie" on my hands! The Norwegian EPIC is a magnificent ship. We were amazed how each and every crew member couldn't do enough - they were the living definition of "service". The destinations and excursions were fabulous (and exhausting). I highly recommend this cruise.

Driving out of the port areas is the most beautiful views of the countryside and the food was great

On the ship what I enjoyed the most was the Spa, the pool there is so relaxing. The food at the Grill and the service are not to be missed Everything was super.

We have sailed on many ships and cruiselines and found this ship to be an nice, average ship. 

The food is good.  The selections in the dining room are not a diverse as we seen on other ships.  Usually I want to order 2 or 3 of the entrees.  On this ship I was trying to find 1 thing I wanted a few nights of the 12 night cruise.  The service is good.  The staterooms are clean and our room attendant staff was excellent. 

They let kids swim in all the pools.  On most ships the kids are not allowed in one of the pools that are reserved for adults.  Here while we were trying to relax in the "Serenity" pool kids were screaming, jumping and splashing without adult supervision.  We could not find a spot by the pool to just relax.

They also charge a $18 per bottle uncorking fee for every bottle of wine you bring on.  This is excessive in my opinion.

This was a great cruise . Great service ,great crew ,great food ! The ship was new and offered tons to do ! Never a board momment . The crew was alwas happy and smiling and dancing too . I hope to go again soon . The only bad thing is if your a non smoker europeans smoke all the time !! I wish there was a smoking side and none smoking side of the ship . Every time i went on to the balcony i choking all of the smoking .   

Very nice experience my room was great a lots of things to do. Very organized and good food. I will do it again. The only problem that they overcharge on the poker table ( 10% per a game). 

Thought the service fee of 12.00 per guest perday  was a little much. Also did not like the way they treated guests who booked excursions with companies other than Norwegian were treated.we weren't allowed to exit on the same floor and on tenders Norweigens got first pick. everything else was very nice.

This was my first time taking a cruise with my wife.  We have been wanting to go on a cruise for years, and decided to do the Western Mediterranean with the Norwegian Epic as my brother recommended it to me.  I was pleasantly surprised overall, with the quality of the food, especially in the main (garden cafe) buffet.  I would definitely recommend this cruise to anyone else.  The only criticism that I have of Norwegian is that the Spice H2O area, which was supposed to be the "Adult Zone" until 6pm daily on the boat, often was not enforced except for on one day.  It was nice, relaxing, and romantic for my wife and I to hang out at Spice H2O when it was the "Adult Zone" and there were no kids present in the pool or hot tub.  Other than that, the cruise was fantastic, and was everything and more than we ever imagined.  I would cruise again with Norwegian.  

Prior to the cruise we had 6 weeks of misery trying to get shore excursions booked.  Every time we

called Royal Caribbean consultants they would make us tell them which excursions we wanted and then

at the end they would tell us that their computers were being updated.  After being on the phone for 30

minutes each time.

Finally we asked our agent to do it and she was able to get all the excursions except the first day. We don't understand how they could be full if it was unable to be booked.  We had to take a second choice

for our first excursion. The second day in France was cancelled due to a ferry strike. We were diassappointed about France.

We booked the Epic in Europe for our honeymoon and it was an amazing trip. The biggest note worth making is to sign up for shore excursions if you want to "do it all" (either through the boat or through ). We got on the boat in Rome, which we highly recommend, because with 4,000 passengers, only 1,000 are boarding in Rome. In addition, most are spending the day in Rome (the port is actually 1 hour from the city) so you have the opportunity to explore the boat and avoid the crowds.

Bottom line up-front: We felt that this cruise was all about location. The stops, time in port and shore excursions were the reason we would recommend it to friends.

Boat details:

Despite the size, we never felt overwhelmed by the amount of people on the boat. There definitely is not enough pool space, but we had no issues with chairs at 7:30 AM (started filling up around 8:30 AM). We felt day time activities were lacking (esp. with 4,000 guests onboard) and this was apparant during our day-at-sea where the weather was not ideal.

The evening entertainment was fantastic. We saw blue man group, which was great. The ice bar is fun, and we spent several nights at Howl at the Moon signing along with the Dueling Pianos. We were also fortunate enough to be on the boat during the World Cup and the boat was able to broadcast the games in the evening outdoors at H20.

The bathrooms in the staterooms are unique in that they have seperated the toilet from the shower and the sink is in the cabin. It does not leave a lot of privacy, but it does appear they have figured out how to add more storage space, which was a plus.

The dining rooms were our biggest complaint. The lines were enormous anytime after 7:30 (even for two) and the wait staff seemed overwhelmed. They have removed the concept of drink waiters, so waiters and their single assistant are responsible for both. This ends up causing long waits for drinks, meals, clearing tables and coffee at desert (we waited 20 minutes AFTER receiving our desert for coffee to be served multiple times). The food itself was very good and offered a wide-selection.

Itinterary:

In Livorno we did the Florence tour (including David statue) and Pisa tower climb. It was amazing.

In Cannes we just shopped. It rained, but it was fun. The good majority of cruisers seemed to either visit Monte Carlo or walk the streets for shopping.

In Palma, we rented bikes. There are no signs or advertisements, but about 1 mile from the boat is Palma on Bike. There is a bike path along the entire coast and you can bike on the path to the church, beautiful beaches, restaurants and gelato stores.

In Barca, we shared a cab with another couple and visited La Sagrada Familia. Cab is about 20 euro. We highly recommend buying tickets in advance for La Sagrada Familia. The line is very long and times begin selling out. We were able to find Wifi nearby and bought the tickets online :).

In Naples, we did a shore excursion through cruises only for the Amalfi coast and Pompeii. It was amazing. We could not recommend this more as it was our favorite stop.

The ship was Ok,  felt like being in a floating casino.   Food was abundant, but the same in every restaurant.   Drinks were, well drinks.   Everything cost extra so this was the most expensive vacation I ever took - and the value just wasn't worth the money.

Overall the cruise was good but I was perturbed by NLC allowing for the sale of wine after going through security to register for the cruise and then taking the wine away at the security when you entered the ship and returning the wine on the last night of the cruise. The sale of wine should not have occured if you were not allowed to consume it during the cruise.

Room was OK. Some dust was on the lamp and table. Food tasted good but the Garden Room tables were in short supply.  Seat down eating was OK but not on a par with Holland America or Princess Ships.

Did not have a great deal of time for Ship shows(except for Blue Man Group). Six ports to explore in 7days! We were able to get on and off this big Ship with ease. A real plus. Would recommend non-ncl tours. Better and alot less costly.

I will not be sailing Norwegian again. The staff was not friendly and they always acted like you were bothering them. Poor service! The only good thing I have to say about the boat was that the spa was nice and the rooms were done well. Other than that, it was no better than a Carnival cruise.

I have been on several cruises and this one definitely tops them all! The food was amazing, the shows were great, prices weren't too extreme compared to other cruiseliners...All of the staff was always in an upbeat and positive mood and always ready to assist. Overall the best cruise I have ever been on.

Wonderful way to take a first trip to europe. Would do it again. I enjoyed all the shows on the cruise and the dinners as well. I was a little disappointed with the other activities on the ship. They seemed a little too focus'd on trying to generate additional profit on every turn.

First let me start by saying my wife and I are some what snobby when it comes to food, we consider ourselves to be "foodies".  We boarded the cruise and went straight to the main buffet and found had one look at the meat which they served and knew we were in trouble.  The hamburgers looked like it was basically a "Bubba Burger" or something close to that low quality, the deli meats looked to be lower quality than those meats used at Subway or Oscar Myers and the chicken and beef used for the chinese food was worse than your low-end neighborhood chinese restaurant.  So upon seeing this we went straight to the front desk and upgraded to the "Ultimate Dining Package", thinking that the speciality restaurants served different food, higher quality, since they are charging you extra for it.  To our suprise this was not the case, the food at these restaurants were not of higher quality, only provided a set menu for the cruise whereas the main dining halls offered revolving menu's each day.  We did find however one good meal during our time on the cruise which was at Le Bistro, the french restaurant on board.  The whole dining experience there was good except for the cirque du soleil going on above us during our meal.  You could hear everytime anyone jumped, the music, everything.  So overall, the food was a major disappointment and not at all worth the upgrade to the "Ultimate Dining Package".  If we would have known the food was going to be this low quality when we spent this much money for the cruise we would have definately made an effort to find the closest Disney Cruise in the area!! 

The ship overall was modern, had many ammenities, and was acceptable.  The thing which caught us off guard was the missing pool.  The ship had about 3 to 5 pools on the entire ship (which is fine, but the size of these were ridicolous).  The pools were the size of most kiddie pools you would find anywhere.  The layout was not very accomodating, I have been on many smaller cruise ships which had much better layouts with a much better pool set up.  This was disappointing as we were on the ship a good time going port to port.  

The shows, were a bright spot for us on the cruise.  We elected to purchase the dinner show for Cirque du Soleil and found it to be very good.  You could definately tell that you were in Europe in regards to the show as it was a little risque, but overall was very well done.  The dinner on the otherhand, I will not discuss as I have talked about the overall food earlier (Lets just say it was not the best).  The Blue Man Group was good, same show as it is in Orlando, Florida or I suppose anywhere else.  The other entertainment was good, the casino was large and seemed to pretty well set up.  

The duty free shop on board due to it being a cruise within the EU was a joke due to the issue of having a VAT tax of 20% on all goods.  So these shops did not make any since unless you were spending large sums of money on overpriced goods that you could get back home or at the airport without the tax.  

The room, was good but not great.  Let me explain, we elected to upgrade to a balcony which we found the balcony to be nice and accomodating.  The interior of the room left somethings to be desired though.  The room was very narrow due to the TV and bathroom sink to be about a foot to the end of our bed not allowing much room to pass by to get to your closets as well as balcony.  Overall the room was good, much better than any Carnival or older Royal Carribean Ship I have been on but not to the standards of a Disney or one of the New Royal Carribean ships. 

This last thing really got me, this cruise elected to charge passengers $5 for 24 hour dinning per order.  This was the first time I had ever heard of such a thing, the next thing was that most to almost all cruises I had been on before had a large, expansive room service menu which you were allowed to order the entire night.  This cruise did not have any of that.  They really did not offer any late night dinning options (anything past 12 am) which I found very odd, as all other cruises had plenty.  Also, they did not offer breakfast in the dining halls for an actual sitdown breakfast, the only offering was for you to eat the breakfast buffett (which was not an option by the end of the 3rd day, we ended up electing to eat breakfast as soon as we got off the ship at each port).

Overall, we were pretty unsatisfied of our experience on the Norwegian Epic.  I would go as far as that we will not be embarking on anymore "Freestyle Crusing" most likely ever again.  

I will say that one bright spot on the cruise was Norwegians staff and customer service was definately the best part of the cruise.  All staff were very friendly, easy to find and took notice of all guests problems that we encountered.