I was traveling with my family, 14 of us in total, as a treat for my 3 grandchildren to experience Rome and a taste of Europe. We flew to Rome a couple of days early and I had arranged before going with All transfers In Rome to get us all to the ship on departure day with 2 vans. This was at a cost of roughly 19 euros each, so quite a bit less than the NCL charges for the transportation from hotel to ship. We stayed at the Marriott Park hotel on the outskirts of the city. Embarkation was easily done and no complaints there.

My stateroom, which I was sharing with one granddaughter was 12148 and our other staterooms were next to each other or very close. If you don't mind struggling with 4100+ people then this is a great ship. There were 3 water slides but only 2 postage stamp sized pools for the general public and on the one sea day it was impossible to get a deck chair or get into the pool. I found the food average at best, though the specialty dinner with the cirque de Soleil show was better than anything in the main dining room. Again on the sea day going alone to the cafe was a nightmare, hard to find a seat and then if you left your place to get anything else, your place was cleared and your seat taken. The cabin has an unusual configuration with split bathroom with opaque doors and a tiny sink in the cabin and only room for one person to pass between the bed and dressers so the other person had to crawl over the bed. The grandkids enjoyed the teen club and met lots of other teens from different countries.

On the negative was other activities like the Arcade, Bowling, pool and rock climbing wall all had to be paid extra. Staff service I found to be mediocre. Shore excursions I had booked privately with our large group and these worked out well. I did like being able to book a specific time for a tender to shore. I was also happy to pre book entertainment on the internet prior to sailing. The Blue Man Group was fun to watch. Disembarkation was done on our own so we handled our own luggage and was off the ship by 7:10 ready for our prearranged private airport transportation back to the Rome airport for our return home. In summary, July is a hot and crowded time to visit Europe, the Epic is a huge ship and not one that I would go on again. Maybe the staff get overwhelmed with so many people or maybe they no longer have to work for tips since daily fees are added to your shipboard account. A word of advice on buying the ships's wi-fi for $7.95 for the entire cruise, you frequently get booted off the wi-fi then roaming charges occur and I came home to an additional phone charges of $57.