This was my sixth cruise second time with Norwegian and my 30th wedding anniversary, I understand that up keeping on a vessel is necessary but arc welding and grinding off tie downs that were in the wrong place on the deck and closures of areas on the pool deck, very inconvenient. The specialty restaurants we did was La Cucina, Cagney's Steakhouse and Teppanyaki. All three were excellent. We also did the cirque dreams epicurean dinner , we enjoyed that show. Burn the flood was good, the comedians were funny, did not like Priscilla queen of the desert, Howl at the moon was also good. Buffets are buffets, the food so so. The bar tenders Won't make a frozen rum runner, but the drink package came in handy. Here is a good tip take the elevator on deck 15 outside the buffets up to deck 18 where there is padded deck chairs and hardly anyone around walk up to the front and enjoy. Wished we found that earlier in the trip. I don't understand why they don't have music in H20 during the day they have a big screen showing diving spots of the world. Wife did a few spa treatments she was happy with that. Not sure about doing that big of a ship again. Or at least that one, Port Canaveral is very easy on and off the ship. When getting off the ship Use the porters to get you and your bags to the front at customs. It's worth the tip. Read Less

*Main complaint…too crowded…elevators were esp over crowded & took SO long to access *Pre-made drinks were WAY too sweet/sugary, and weak *Finding a chair to sit down to watch the main atrium shows on the big screen was extremely difficult. Eventually we ended up sitting on the floor. *Getting into the on-board “shows” was impossible once we were on board, same thing w/the specialty restaurants *It took 45 minutes to be served one morning in Taste. We discussed this w/our maître d but were not compensated in any way (our room numbers were written down). *The food/variety offered in the main dining rooms was at best “fair”; fried chicken was a joke (very dry). We’d highly anticipated the cruise food, and that was a disappointment, with the exception of paying extra for the specialty restaurants (if we could get into them). ESPECIALLY the “Seafood” night. Shrimp & mussels? Please! Where was the crab? If we had not been eating w/someone else, we would have gotten up and left, and gone (yet again) to one of the main dining rooms. *The lines moving people on and off the boat were horrible; hurry up and wait. *Starting ALL of the excursions at 8:00AM one day was ridiculously early. *Our phone usage was down 77% that week. Why? Because the “ultimate internet package” we purchased had non-existent coverage (slower than dial up). No business selling bandwidth you don’t have. *This was our 1st & last “mega ship” experience. We’ve been advised to try for 900 people or less. We’ll give that a try. But being “herded” like we were was not our idea of a vacation. *We had to ask Customer Service 3 times to pls remove from our bill a $47 from the Epic Casino bar. Eventually it was removed. We never asked for the specialty alcohol, nor did we sign a receipt for it. *We selected this trip to meet new friends that were also going from our small hometown. That did not happen. Read Less

Let me start by saying, you have probably read the seemingly endless parade of negative reviews on this ship by now, and you're questioning why in the world you booked this cruise? That was me for about a month leading up to this cruise, and I was worried we were going to have a horrible time waiting in endless lines, with mean staff, terrible unclean accommodations, and bad food. You know what? We had a great time! Let me start with embarkation, a process numerous people complained endlessly about in the reviews being 2-3 hours and waiting forever in the heat. Maybe that's true for them, but here's my advice: Don't be the first people to try and show up before the ship is ready. We waited until noon to get to our shuttle, we were in line for about 45 minutes, and we were on the ship, sitting in Taste restaurant at 1:15PM having lunch. It was an hour and 15 minutes from getting to the shuttle to sitting on the ship ordering food. No problem whatsoever, and the lines never stood still for very long. We were greeted at Taste by the very friendly Akash, who took our order and had both our food and drinks to us in 12 minutes. I timed this because I'd heard stories in other reviews about the slow service. We never encountered this in any of our main dining room visits in either breakfast, lunch, or dinner. If anything they were almost TOO fast getting to us to take orders or bring us our food, sometimes we just wanted to peruse the menus a little longer :) Drinks that afternoon were in the Atrium bar with Rajesh, another funny and kind guy who served us our drinks in 3 minutes. Again, I'd heard stories of 15 minute bar waiting times, which I found to be completely false with two exceptions. 1 - If you went to the O'Sheehans bar at prime-time (basically from 5-10PM), you'd have a long wait, and 2 - if you went to the Waves bar near the pool, you'd ALWAYS have a wait. The Waves bar was completely overworked, because it's the only bar near that area. However, my tip is that they would always open two carts on the other side of the deck area near the towel stand, and you could get beers, pre-made Bahama mamas, and some frozen drinks that were in the frozen machines. If you're not picky about having a pre-made Bahama mama (and I'm not, I had several and they have plenty of liquor in them), you're fine up there. If you went to any of the other bars, you could easily get a drink in less than 5 minutes. My favorites were the Maltings bar, which had the best drinks and best bartenders, and also the Shakers bar, which had the best table service. You could plant yourself at Shakers near the piano, and listen to Jay (imagine a goofy dad singing piano songs with enthusiasm and cracking you up) while you had the great staff take care off all your drink needs without ever getting up. We had the Ultimate Beverage Package, and found it had plenty of options. We both liked the fact Bombay Sapphire was included, as well as certain cognacs, and Bullit Burboun. The specialty drinks were also great, my wife really enjoyed the Painkiller, Pina Coladas, and the French Manhattan. I really enjoyed the Rusty Nail, the Shaku-Shaku at Teppanyaki, and the Old Fashioned at Maltings. We ate dinner at 3 specialty restaurants with the Dining package that was included. The first was Le Bistro, we had a server named Celeste and our Wine Steward Tapiwai who took care of us very well, and made excellent recommendations of the Scallops appetizer, the Crab Salad, and the French onion soup. My wife had the Dover Sole with lemon capers that she gave a 7/10 score to, and I had the Filet of Beef which I also think was a 7/10. Desserts were the profiteroles, and the creme brule, both excellent. The second restaurant was Moderno, which I didn't care for as much due to the fact that everything was entirely too salty. It was basically one big meat parade, which was filling, but I felt I had to chug water due to the overseasoning of all the meat, and the many salad options which were also heavily salted. It was my least favorite of the specialty dining we did and I wouldn't do it again. The last was Teppanyaki, which was very enjoyable from a show standpoint. I can't remember our chef's name, but he was very smiley and made it a fun event. The drinks were great, and I honestly think the filet they did was more tender and better tasting than the one we had in Le Bistro. Then again, I prefer that garlic flavor they put on everything at Teppanyaki. One thing that was an issue is the elevators. You do have to time things correctly or you'll be waiting forever on an elevator to get to your floor, especially in the middle decks. It's much easier to get an elevator on Deck 5, or on deck 15, than it is in the middle. You were better off taking the stairs if you were on a middle deck down a few decks to get where you wanted to go. The rooms are exactly what the other reviews stated, except we found ours completely clean, and our steward Alvito was excellent and took care of all our requests without any issues. He got us bathrobes, made sure our mini-fridge was emptied, got us 4 extra pillows, and managed to make up the rooms twice a day even with our slightly odd coming and going times. One of the best things about this ship was the staff. We found them to be more interactive and treated you like family than the other cruise line we'd be on. One of the bartenders, Rushane from Jamaica, is genuinely funny and will make you a great drink while chatting you up in an excellent Jamaican accent. Another fun crewmember was Maria from Argentina, who ran most of the Atrium events and the Escape Room we did, and she's always very interactive, took pictures with us, and showed me how to fold napkins in one demonstration. We really felt everyone we met was lovely and enjoyed them taking care of us on our fun cruise. The food was very good across the board, and I think generally the buffet was better than the other ship we'd been on with Carnival. However, I think they can do more with the selections in the main dining room areas. They just need to bring a bit more variety than a rotating 4-5 items, and the rest of the menu being the same every night. I'd also like to point out that the Irish pub food for late night really hits the spot if you've been out at one of the deck parties, and you just want some saucy wings and a pile of nachos to satisfy that alcohol soaking need. I have only two really main complaints for this cruise, so I've saved them for the end, because they aren't really that big of a deal. The first is that this cruise was in February, which we'd never done before, but many of the passengers were really old and not in great shape. We saw tons of scooters, wheelchairs, and more people with walking sticks or canes than I could count. The average age was probably 60. We're in our 30s. This made for a much tamer atmosphere than our prior Carnival cruise, and I honestly didn't enjoy hearing many of the older couples constantly complain about stuff. We also went to a cruise critic meet and greet, and we were one of the younger people in that group. If that's who's rating the Epic, I can see why the ship gets a bad rap, because outside of Stephanie (who ran the meet and greet and was very friendly, she's great), the rest of the group didn't seem interested in either meeting or greeting us after several conversation attempts. The other complaint is that I got a cold on the ship on by Thursday, and it seems it's something that went around to a lot of folks. Norwegian tries their best, but I think this is something that was left over from the prior cruise according to some reviews I read recently, which means they may need to do a better job of sanitizing the common areas now that I know for a fact several hundred people caught this cold. Washy washy isn't really enough when the crew gets it, and if they get it the ship needs to take that into account instead of forcing them out to do more work amongst the passengers and spreading it around further. I would go on the Epic again if the price was right, because the ship really does provide great value to get a balcony room, all your drinks and specialty dining, and some reducing port excursion costs in one package. Mandy the Cruise director was also very friendly and made things fun in her British accent. Try it for yourself, I think if you go into it with the right frame of mind you'll really enjoy yourself. The Epic isn't perfect, but it's seriously fun, and it's not the floating disaster many reviewers have claimed it to be. Read Less

We went with my brother and his wife as they were already going. Getting on and off the ship was very easy. Don't like the way the bathroom is set up as there is not normal privacy. I would go to u-tube and watch a video on the cabins but although I like my privacy, it still worked out well. Our cabin attendant (Renee) was AWESOME!!! He was extremely attentive, called us by name every time he saw us and kept our room very clean, well made up and always had great towel animals on the bed each night. All attendants do not do this so ask for him. It was not always easy to call the other parts of the ship... ie: front desk...as they rarely answered. The food was incredible on floor 15: all buffets. O'Sheehan's Bar & Grill was part of everyone's package and was terrible. I ordered a Ruben and it had hardly any meat on it and took a very long time to get the food once ordered. We also tried out 3 of the separate dining facilities that you have to pay extra for. Teppanyaki was a favorite, next was Cagney's Steakhouse and Moderno Churrascaria was last on my list as the food was not very good and the service even worse. The casino was not very well serviced. Some machines worked and some didn't and they had very few servers to take drink orders and even less people to fix the slot machines. Fun but aggravating!!! As far as going back to this ship, I would probably try others as I have just booked another cruise for June on a different cruise line. It would have to be a very very good deal to come back here and this was my 7th cruise line. Read Less

I was on this cruise with a large group and meeting friends from prior cruises. The embarkment was to long waiting approx over 2hrs standing for prior cruisers from the holy ship to get off. They left the ship smelling of urine. The theatre, bliss lounge and main dining rooms floors and rugs were sticky. The hall ways stunk of urine. Other cruisers ask to have urine carpet remove n replaced in front of there stateroom . The solo lounge with two large groups was so loud other arrangements should have been made. Me and another cruisers was on the tender Cayman islands when we were trying to get back on the ship half the passengers were off a fire started. We were told to stay back n not to get off. The mate was yelling at the pilot to get the button for extinguisher but I dont think he heard mate then a passenger yell at the pilot and passenger tried pushing the button. Me n my friend were frightened n wanted to get off the tender. Safety is the main issue. We reported this fire to customer service n we never heard a word while on cruise I reported this again thru email to ncl waiting hmmmhmmmm. I have never ever been disappointed with cruise ncl ships. I have been on the epic 3 times. But this time I was not pleased. Read Less

The Norwegian Epic more like an episode of Faulty Towers than a floating hotel. Never did know who cleaned our room, morning coffee room service forgot atleast one item every morning for 7 days from a consistent menu…including forgetting my actual coffee on day six. They assured me there was service on final day and lady on phone guaranteed they would pick up my door knob menu (I told her my scepticism)…sure enough they never picked up menu or brought coffee. Never did get disembarkation information and luggage tags were all gone before my neighbour complained to me about same problem. Telephone light was like a spot light that would not stay off, so we put under the bed. Push button for Room Service and got Box Office, push button for Operator and got Excursion Desk…gave up using the phone. Long lines for entertainment venues that were not suited for entertainment (pillars in the way and standing room crowds). Ship with 4,200 guests and not big enough facilities. Food was adequate but not fantastic. Norwegian are good at marketing but poor on customer service. This was our seventh cruise (various lines) and would not recommend for first time cruisers because it will turn you off from cruising with other better cruise lines. I would never go on EPIC again. Read Less

This was the first ever cruise for my husband and myself. I chose this particular cruise because of the fantastic offers given by Norwegian. Some people said probably not the best to choose a 10 day for your first cruise but I think it was the best thing we did. Just as I was learning to navigate the ship and all it had to offer it was over, just don't say oh we will do it later, do it now. The food was incredible, specialty restaurants were superb, Taste and Manhattan Room superb and the buffet was excellent, we never at dinner there but breakfast and lunch were excellent every food you can imagine, you could never go hungry food was so plentiful. Plus O'Sheehans was open 24 hours for great food. Bars were bountiful and drinks were super. I can't say enough about the staff they were always welcoming and smiling. Loved our cabin steward Bob he was fantastic, very personable and anything we needed he had it for us. The shows were outstanding Burn the Floor and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert . The cruise director Mandy was always visible and so upbeat. I really enjoyed this cruise but I think my husband is more of an all-inclusive traveler. We will definitely do another cruise on Norwegian. Alaska up next. Read Less

We arrived at Port Canaveral the day before our sail date. We went out to dinner, walked to the entrance of the port and we saw our ship, Norwegian Epic, docked. It was so big. We had the a shuttle pick us up at the hotel and brought us and our luggage to the port for embarkation. We were expecting a line, which there was but it moved smoothly and quickly. We checked in and got our keys. So excited to get on board. We found our cabin, bigger than expected and was very pleased with the large balcony which was VERY large. We met our steward, Walter and immediately asked to have the wet bar cleaned out and 2 deck chairs for our balcony. The case of water we ordered was already in the cabin. Walter was very efficient. He handed me a bottle of champagne! Loved that touch. By the time we finished exploring the ship, our luggage was in our room and the wet bar was emptied. Walter showed up with the deck chairs! We were very happy with everything. The food, the drinks, shows, restaurants, nothing disappointed us. We disembarked to all our stops which was easy. Jamaica was a let-down. Too many people asking us if we wanted taxis, rides, excursions, etc. Overall, the beaches were beautiful. We enjoyed walking at every stop. Each night for dinner, we had wonderful service. Most places were crowded but we expected that so no problem for us. My husband and I were very pleased with everything. Thank you Norwegian Cruise Lines for an unforgettable experience. Read Less

We sailed out of Port Canaveral. The embarkation process outside the terminal was chaotic with a lot of pushing & shoving; inside the terminal is was civil and relatively quick. We've been on a number of cruises but have never experienced a ship that bounced and swayed and rocked like the Epic -- even even a mild wind or a modest chop. Be forewarned: the Epic bobs like a cork. My poor wife never did get her sea legs (or tummy). We were in a Spa Mini Suite (14171), starboard aft. The cabin is spacious with lots of storage. I'm sure you've read the complaints about Epic's shower/tub and head being on opposite sides of the cabin and somewhat exposed. That was not a problem for us; it actually seemed to save space. The pillows, linens, and bed are very comfortable except the bed is not as long as a standard queen (perhaps because the first half dozen inches are attached up under the headboard). I'm only 5' 11'' (1.8 m) an my feet hung off the bottom of the bed. The "sofa" with its curved back is so incredibly uncomfortable the only time we used it was to sit for a moment while putting on shoes. Having a Spa Mini Suite did grant us unlimited us of the thermal spa, which we used many times. The spa is big, clean, and peaceful with nice robes and plentiful towels. We loved soaking in the different types of tubs and relaxing & reading on the loungers. We never found the spa to be overly busy. Dining on the Epic is hit & miss. In the complimentary class: The two main dining rooms, Taste (more casual) and Manhattan (less casual), were good but not exceptional. Also complimentary: Shanghai, an Asian themed eatery, was fair -- no better than your neighborhood Chinese takeout back on land. Also complimentary: O'Sheehan's had more hits than misses with its food and is a good spot for a light meal or a snack but it is oddly broken into two sides (port & starboard) by a corridor running through the middle which ruins any feeling of being in a friendly pub. The Epic's buffet is just okay. Hits include good made-to-order omelets, good made-to-order pasta dishes, and excellent cookies. Misses include unimaginative pizza (on par with grocery-store frozen pizza), dried-out pre-cooked burgers, tiny Indian & Asian stations that were substandard. For fee specialty dining was mostly good. In the Cirque Dreams Epicurean the steak was inedible but the show was excellent. La Cucina, Epic's Italian restaurant, was good -- the pastas were excellent while the sauces good. Moderno Churrascaria was a fun experience although the food was just okay. The French-themed Le Bistro was a treat -- very good food and very good service. Above and beyond all the other eateries is Cagney's. Cagney's steaks and seafood are truly outstanding, as is the attentive professional service. We went to Cagney's twice! We love to play trivia but were disappointed on Epic. The very short trivia games are not consistently scheduled (with the exception of the everyday "Early Risers Trivia"). The trivia hosts, sadly, had limited English language skills which made playing quite difficult. Also, avoid the "Cruise Next" trivia as it is nothing more than a slow advertisement for booking future cruises. Overall, the staff on the ship were very good -- friendly, positive, and happy. Our room steward, E Wayan, was excellent. We only did one ship-sponsored shore excursion, Chacchoben Mayan Ruins Deluxe in Costa Maya. It was well done. Our guide "Daniel Jaguar" was very good. In Grand Cayman we volunteered for the day at the Cayman Island Humane Society -- this was the highlight of our trip -- and we highly recommend it. On Cozumel we connected with a local woman who does walking touring of the town of San Miguel. That was an excellent day (google it). Read Less

food was incredible and Haven staff attentive and personable Cruise Director Nelson Martins and Vina Alvarano were terrific, attentive and professional!!!. Their caring and assistance made this trip very special. It had been 25 years since we sailed. I am now looking at booking another cruise out of San Juan on the Epic in 2020. The option of the Haven made this trip one to remember for a long time. The staff came to know us by name and treated us as family, The sun deck and lounge chairs in the Haven area was special. The shows on-board were great and food in the specialty restaurants were four stat in my opinion. having access to the Haven we seldom visited the dining area for other guests however they seem very satisfied and happy when listening to conversation in the elevator. Epic staff never allowed my drink glass to empty and very accessible to help us with any request. Read Less