Don't spend your money on Norwegian. Find another cruise line to spend your hard earned cash on and have a better time.
Embarkation
1 out of 5
The person we had checking us in, did not know how to check in 2 rooms at once for our family and then also messed up the photos attached to each person. Needed help from 2 other people just to check us in (which was still not done correctly as we found out later).
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
1 out of 5
Service was horrible. Lack of vegetarian options unless you want the same 3 things for each meal. We preordered a vegetarian meal and it still took 2 hours to serve us our dinner. We were not the only people who had negative experiences - it seemd the thing to do was for guests at every corner to ask each other how has your service been and listen to the other person complain. Served cold food in the dining rooms for main entree and also served soup in bowls that appeared dirty. Also, was told a number of times that a certain item was not available as it is a frozen food item - I get the sense that they spend more time reheating pre-made frozen foods that making fresh food on the ship.
Onboard Activities
3 out of 5
These were okay- we did some activities organized by the cruise directors staff; my teenager liked the Entourage club when they were open; otherwise a lot of activities were tied to shopping and bingo and casino.
Entertainment
3 out of 5
Magic Brian was excellent
Comedian Julie was good
Singers overall were not that good
Could never get to some of the entertainment as it always seemed to fall during the scheduled dinner times for most guests (seems like a dumb way to schedule things).
Epic Wonderland Holiday Show was good.
Service and Staff
1 out of 5
Staff/Service stink - big time! This is our first (and last Norwegian cruise) and our 5th cruise overall. I will never spend another penny to sail on Norwegian again. The number one answer we heard when we asked "Can we get....?" was "NO" . I have decided that Norwegian stands for NO!
Also, consistently want to blame the guests. Call with an issue - they immediately try to turn around and make it appear that it is the guests fault and that they (Norwegian) are being inconvenienced by the guests. Never had that feeling on other cruise lines.
Ship Quality
1 out of 5
Small rooms - even for balcony rooms. The bathroom and shower design is very odd and awkward and not very well done. Not all elevators go to all floors so that is annoying. Often times requires you to walk through smoky casino to get to the proper place on the ship.
Cabin / Stateroom
1 out of 5
No real bed for third person - they sleep on couch with a sheet on top of it!!!!!
No real space to walk around. Bathroom and shower set up is all out in the open and weird. One small curtain does not provide privacy. Balcony was nice. Enough storage space for our clothes which was nice Only 2 power outlets for US plugs and those are far away from the bed so that is really annoying and not well thought out for sure.
Many items in our stateroom did not work when we arrived and things took forever to get taken care of.
Ship tip
If you are unhappy with the service, go down to guest services and have them take off your daily per person service charges. You can do that! We did that and many others we spoke to had done the same on our sailing.
Okay island - lacking vegetarian food on the island - they serve tacos for lunch but don't have anything vegetarian for the tacos (hello - ever heard of black beans???). Mainly people stood in line to get drinks or rented overpriced rafts or went into the water - which was cold in late December (as expected).
We did an excursion with Capt Marvin's Watersports and booked with them directly. Check them out. They were great and booking with them directly saved me tons of $$$. People who had booked directly with the cruise line (ours and others) and paid a lot more than I did were on our tour.
Somewhat disorganized at times. As you are leaving the ship there is a man there who is only talking to some guests about what color luggage tag you had. He did not talk to us or anyone near us when we got off so we missed that we needed to go left instead of right and had to back track. Either he needs to talk to everyone or why not just post a sign to make it easier for everybody. Also, huge lines to walk off ship not like other cruise lines that seem to have a more efficient process in place.
March will be our 5th cruise with NCL never on the Epic before however our prior cruises we had excellent costumer service
Got sea sick one day and our room Stewart checked on me every 30 minutes brought soup and tea. Food was excellent every time. Entertainment excellent. Once a Norwegian always a Norwegian
Gmancso. Do not listen to the naysayers and trolls. Do not go on your cruise with very low expectations. Set reasonable expectations. You will have a great time. Yes the adult beverage package almost a necessity. I trust you got the one included in your cruise. Just rnjoy
My wife and I will be cruising on the Epic in 3 weeks.....not real excited after reading your review. This may be a self-critiquing experience. BTW, I’m 57 (Retired military), my wife is 48 and this is our first cruise......glad we got the adult beverage package, sounds like we are going to need it!
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