This was by far the largest ship we have cruised on and I was reluctant as I so enjoyed the smaller ships with NCL such as the Pearl, Dawn, Pride of America but have been on the Epic in the past as well. But we booked less than a week prior to departure and the dates fit w our schedule and we needed two balcony cabins.

Embarkation was a bit slow with being assigned a 'group #' once through check-in, but it moved fairly quickly, perhaps 20mins wait in a lounge area. My cabin was ready when we embarked, which was a last minute balcony guarantee and we were upgraded to a wheelchair accessible Aft cabin on deck 9. The cabin was huge, more storage than usual and the largest balcony I've ever had. It was fabulous. Our steward, Noel was the best I have ever had as well. Our other cabin was also an Aft facing on deck 14. Smaller but still a bit larger balcony than on the sides of this ship. The ship is large and with being at the Aft we had quite a walk to the theatre for shows, but the elevators at the aft were nearby and less busy than mid ship. The location was excellent for dining and getting up to the pool deck and ropes course, etc. Dining was quite good in the main dining room, breakfast in Savour every morning was excellent, but we like specialty dining and enjoyed our outside seating at La Cucina, excellent service and meal, the Cirque dinner show was excellent as well and Teppanaki is always a favourite and must do each cruise. The chef was even able to accommodate our vegetarian daughter by cooking her meal first and she absolutely loved her dish, very generous portion of tofu cooked amazingly well. She also loved the noodle bar who were able to accommodate her. I recommend the spicy seafood noodle soup!

This was a Western Carib which we have done many times, but this was our first time to Harvest Caye. The walk from the pier is quite long to the pool area, but there were lots of loungers w umbrellas around the large pool area which was lovely and tonnes of loungers and clam shells on the beach. Unfortunately due to conditions a red flag was up for most of our day. The young adults loved the zip line and we had a decent snack at the restaurant/bar on the island which we paid for, but was reasonably priced. Cozumel is a favourite port of ours as well love to snorkel and this trip was our best yet w spottings of baby sharks, a baby green sea turtle, monster hawksbill turtle, yellow ray, sting rays and schools of barracuda....among numerous other fish. We were lucky and had awesome weather all week, light shows at night from our balconies and calm seas. The entertainment was also very good. "Burn the floor" was high energy. "Million Dollar quartet" was excellent. The comedians quite good as well. There was always something going on around the pool deck on sea days and we had no trouble finding a lounger, even midday somewhere w a view. The Cirque show is definitely worth the additional fee. I even tried the ropes course! It was quite windy so the plank off the side of the ship was closed but I managed the zip line across the ship....exhilarating for a 50+ for sure. Read more