While I understand COVID limitations made things different, I find it unforgivable that they failed to notify parents of teens of the closure of the teen center and their failure to offer options for the teens that would cost them nothing such as free arcade play. It was also incredibly boring evenings on sea days because they shut venues down so early. All we wanted to do at one point was dance and we had no options other than packing in near the live performers in the bar areas which is worse for Covid protocol than opening up the Bliss Lounge for dancing.
Embarkation
5 out of 5
Went very smoothly and so simple. Helped that there were so few people. Covid testing was super easy
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
3 out of 5
Sadly the most touted restaurant, Cagney's, was the most disappointing. However, all of the venues had sub-par quality steaks so may have just been a fluke with the supplier. For the most part the standard drinks were incredibly weak. I was impressed with the variety of restaurant choices. The sushi place was AMAZING
Onboard Activities
1 out of 5
Only one or two hot tubs at the time were actually hot. The rest were cooler than baths I take at home. During shore days a lot of activities - like rock climbing wall - were only open during shore time. The seams on the waterslides were rough leaving one with a red back making it incredibly unenjoyable, except the bowl which had a raft to ride on. Would have been nice if they heated the water, though. It was ice cold. Then the evening entertainment all happened within the same 2-3 hour time block before shutting everything down every night by 12:30 at the latest, even on our 6 nights at sea! The only dancing provided was outside which was too cold and/or too windy all except a couple of nights. They refused to bring the dancing inside siting "covid", yet none of us were clear why we could share a microphone for karaoke, but not dance in the same room. Maybe it was because so many people were tired of karaoke by the 3rd night the bar wasn't crowded. The bowling alley was down (broken) all cruise as well.
Entertainment
4 out of 5
Absolutely wonderful performers except for the H2O music mixes that were incredibly disjointed.
Children's Programs
1 out of 5
Prior to the trip we were constantly receiving communications about changes to our itinerary, yet they failed to notify us that they were going to be using the teen club as a break area for the crew rather than for the teen that I brought with me. They offered nothing in return. Why not make the arcade free? When I asked this they said they could not credit us the money my son spent to stay occupied, but did offer to refund me our service fees that covered staff tips. So they basically offered to have the staff pay for my son's entertainment. Wrong! There was very little for the 30 teens on board to do for 2 weeks aside from an hour of karaoke every night and an hour of video gaming in one of the venues. Had we been notified this was going to happen we would not have gone on this trip.
Service and Staff
3 out of 5
The service of all of the staff around the ship was stupendous with the exception of customer service. There was almost always a long line causing wait times of close to an hour to even talk with someone because they weren't fully staffed. Then when you did talk to them to ask for remedy they would offer nothing.
HERE'S THE WORST PART! The first night there a man was in the lounge apparently pleasuring himself to the sight of my 15 year old son. After reporting it they assured us they would investigate and keep us posted. We NEVER heard a word from them again which made us look over our shoulders the entire 2 weeks wondering if he was still around.
Ship Quality
4 out of 5
Hand sanitizers were EVERYWHERE which we loved. Bathrooms were continuously cleaned which was sometimes an inconvenience, but worth it.
Cabin / Stateroom
1 out of 5
Not really sure why it is that the solo rooms have full doors to their bathrooms while the rest of the cabins only have a flimsy plexiglass slide providing zero privacy. I woke up every night with stabbing pain in my back from the bed. The "pull out" bed on the couch was just the seat cushion pulling out 3 inches further than when sitting on it. Sadly it was more comfortable than the actual bed. I will say that there was an impressive amount of storage space for our items including our suitcases. There just was no space for more than one of the three of us to move around in the cabin.
Ship tip
Unless you are an adult traveler in a solo cabin who wants to end their nights by midnight (even sea days), DON'T DO IT
They had a weird thing going on with the lines for immigration. They had us queue in lines then would distribute us again in the immigration lines with no rhyme or reason. People who were way behind me getting off the gangway made it thru immigration while my line didn't even move.
Epic is the worst ship we have sailed on in 50 years of cruising. Zero customer service. The only thing that that was done right on this ship is that they put a bar near the customer service desk so you can drink during your numerous unnecessarily long waits in line only to find out no one cares about your issue and nothing will be done to resolve it. I'm sorry for your bad experience. Hope your review helps warn others away from this floating disaster. Some people must have a good experience on this ship but I haven't been one of them.
The Epic is good for a port intensive cruise. In my experience the one problem with NCL is that other than sales there is little to no person to person communication. It would have been nice to know what going on a transatlantic cruise on the Epic would entail ahead of time so you could decide if it was worth your time and money. I hope the new normal for travel is not that you don’t find out until you get there and if it’s not what you thought you were buying then that’s just too bad. I love cruising but not enough that I’m going to pay several thousand dollars for just whatever.
Thanks for the review. Patience and lowered expectations are the key to cruising currently. There are much better options for vacations with children other than cruising currently with the Covid restrictions.
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