Cruise was wonderful but I will never book another excursion through NCL. Had a HORRIBLE experience with Marielena who wanted to lecture me

Norwegian Epic Cruise Review to Europe - Western Mediterranean

Cruises: 7+ cruises
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 36

Overall rating:

3.5 out of 5
Norwegian Epic

7 Night Western Mediterranean (Barcelona Roundtrip)

Sail date: October 07, 2018

Ship: Norwegian Epic

Cabin type: Balcony

Traveled as: Singles/Friends

Reviewed: 6 years ago

Review summary

Had a HORRIBLE experience with Marielena at the Excursion desk. She wanted to lecture me on how she didn't like my tone of voice while flatly refusing to even try to resolve the problem which caused the tone in the first place!!! She accused me of yelling and screaming though I never raised my voice more than a slight amount. After failing to even attempt to answer my questions, she reported my alledged bad behavior to another cabin via telephone because we were sharing the excursion, telling them that I was banned from the excursion desk and that she had filed a report on my yelling and screaming. Never happened. I am sorry that she is not used to someone refusing to be lectured by her but I will never stand in the middle of a public place and have someone try to chastise me about being upset over VERY POOR SERVICE and refusal to take action. She actually threatened to cancel a $1500 private tour that had been arranged WEEKS before the cruise! We REPEATEDLY asked to depart AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE but instead were scheduled to leave the ship at 8:45 a.m. Our requests for early departure were not even noted by the agent so were not requested AT ALL. We clearly expressed that the most important part of our ENTIRE cruise was to visit the Vatican but we did not arrive there until nearly 2 p.m., when the tour was scheduled to end at 4:00 p.m. to get back to the ship (an hour away). One of our party is gravely ill and touring the vatican has been a lifelong goal of his. This was very important and they screwed it up by not taking our requests into account. Marielena cared only about how I was speaking to her (which was polite, not loud, but clearly angry) She never once said anything like "let me see what I can do" or "I will try to get an anwer". I asked only for the schedule so we would know what our day would be like on a tour that we paid $1500 for. I do not believe this was remotely out of line.

Embarkation

5 out of 5

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

5 out of 5

Onboard Activities

3 out of 5

Entertainment

3 out of 5

Children's Programs

Service and Staff

1 out of 5

Ship Quality

3 out of 5

Cabin / Stateroom

3 out of 5
The size was fine but needed at least one drawer to keep clutter down. Shelves that were in other cabins are missing 13154. Poor layout for clothing storage.

Ship tip

Bring some hanging shelves if you want a good place to put small items.

Ports of call

Barcelona, Spain

3 out of 5

Naples, Italy

4 out of 5

Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy

4 out of 5

Livorno (Florence & Pisa), Italy

5 out of 5

Cannes, France

5 out of 5

Palma De Mallorca, Balearic Islands

4 out of 5

Disembarkation

5 out of 5
Was this review helpful? 36

11 Comments

junswifey    6 years ago

We were the epic a few days ago and had booked a tour with another company to see Rome coliseum and Vatican. We left the ship easy at 7:30 AM and although our tour mates were late 45 minutes after getting lost at one of our stops still had time to see Vatican, Spanish steps and the Trevi fountain.

ColoradoKen    6 years ago

The size of the ship makes sense doddser. The one I was on was even smaller than yours.

LobsterPot    6 years ago

That entry should read DOESN’T look like NCL were at fault... We had a similar glitch on Cunard earlier this year, fortunately it was a much smaller ship and the delay getting off didn’t prove catastrophic for the private tour we had booked... About 1/2 the guests on that tour were delayed so the transport waited...

LobsterPot    6 years ago

Appears to me that the guest booked a private tour and therefore didn’t have any priority disembarkation rights.. If the ship had 4000+ guests and as may be likely for that port most booked ship’s excursions to guarantee return on time it follows that other guests may not disembark until 11am, perhaps later... Something was seriously askew with the purchased excursion, and the anger stems from failing to get permission to jump the NCL disembarkation line... Doubtless infuriating but it does look like NCL or the excursion desk were at fault (unless of course it was an NCL tour)...

Hcruz1975    6 years ago

I had a bad experience at customer service on this ship. I didn't let it ruin our trip, but customer service at the desk was very rude also.

Charlou    6 years ago

Sorry about your bad experience but it would have been nice to know, also, what you liked and what went right on your cruise. Because something surely went okay because you rated your cruise 4 stars.

doddser    6 years ago

ColoradoKen in answer to your question I went to the Vatican in 2003 on a ship that held 2100 people. I went 10 years later on a ship that catered for 5000. There was a big difference on the disembarkation at Rome where nearly everyone gets off for a tour ??

41pearl    6 years ago

I may be wrong, but it sounds like the shortage of time for the Vatican was poor planning.

ColoradoKen    6 years ago

Not sure why you only had an hour or so at the Vatican. About 15 years ago I toured the Vatican and Collesseum as part of the tour, then had time to walk over to the Trevi fountain and Spanish steps.

elvis18    6 years ago

Not very good customer service

kayjean    6 years ago

Thanks for taking the time to let us know. I'm sorry you had to be so frustrated! Good luck going forward!

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