As we prepared for our upcoming vacation I found myself thinking
about the last trip my wife and I went on and feel compelled to share our
experience aboard the Norwegian Epic over the December break 2013. I
know, I know, my last cruise review was all about how we remain “Loyal to
Royal”, but with a 2 year old and our second child expected it was difficult to
travel with our preferred brand. Besides,
how can you trust the opinion of someone who hasn’t shopped around? Full disclosure, we have traveled with
Princess and Norwegian Cruise lines and are not opposed to trying other brands
as well. This is how we know what our
preferred brands are.
(Note: I did intend to include wonderful pictures of the ship. However, I have lost all pictures taken from Dec 15 - 31, 2013, but for the few included.)
This truly is a “you get what you pay for” experience, which
is probably why the trip wasn’t spoiled.
I hope this review comes across more comical than cynical,
because the crew of the Epic is truly a caring and hardworking bunch. But….
It had been a long trying year. The holiday season was fast approaching. We found out in August that we were expecting
our second child. We knew that there
would be little opportunity to travel “in style” for a while.
EmC was just over 2 years old and doing well in
daycare. We made arrangements with our
parents to look after her for a week if we could get a sell-off. When we saw the price of the Epic vacation
we were floored. It included Flight,
transfers, Balcony cabin...and it was cheap!!!
We know that some things are too good to be true so… We looked at many reviews of this ship and for
the record I would like to say that they are all true. From the people that loved the ship to hated
it, they were all right. After reading
the review we felt the price was worth the risk. Besides all we wanted was hot sun and a
beach.
Given that the ship has been reviewed in depth I will only talk
about our experience. Because we read
the reviews we were able to board the ship with an open mind. If we didn’t like the room, oh well, we were
warned.
Our trip started out really nice. The flight was smooth,
embarkation was quick, and the ship is quite impressive. What we found lacking from Norwegian was
their attention to detail on the service side.
This ship is listed as 5 star and if we hadn’t paid 3 star price, we
would have been more upset by our experience than amused by it.
Having a balcony really makes a difference on any ship.
We travelled over the December holiday season
so the ship was packed.
To make our
mornings less stressful, we would order room service for breakfast.
It’s simple, you fill out a door hanger
before you go to bed and the breakfast arrives in the morning….simple.
Day 1 was absolutely splendid. Day 2 they mixed up the yogurt flavour, but
what the hey? Peach instead of cherry
would not ruin our day. Day 3 we had to
call the desk after room service was 10 minutes overdue. They assured us the meal was on its way so we
waited. Another 5 minutes…. 10
minutes. We called again to cancel the
breakfast. We were at port and wanted to
get off the ship, so we would just go to the buffet. As we left the room a pleasant serviceman was
yelling down the hall “Mister! Mister! Your Breakfast!!!” So we went back in to eat it on the balcony. They got both yogurts and croissants wrong (I
like the chocolate filled). The wrong
order wasn’t as bad as insisting we wait for things we did not order.
Meanwhile, for lunch and snacks we visited the Garden Cafe
(buffet). I understand that the ship was
full and the restaurants were very busy, but for 3 days there were food and
plates thrown all over the buffet restaurant and the pool deck. I tried, but couldn’t flag down any staff to
clear tables. If we wanted a table to
sit at and eat, I had to remove the dirty plates from previous passengers. I wouldn’t take note of this if the dining
staff looked like they were trying to keep on top of things, but one guy
holding a cloth looked at me as I cleared the table myself as if to say “great!
He’s got this” and walked away.
Despite my ranting, my wife and I are actually easy going
people.
None of this was ruining our
time or holiday.
However, we also know
that comment card are requested to be filled out at the end of the trip.
What is the point about complaining to
someone when they have no time to correct themselves or make it right?
After lunch on day 3 I went to the porter’s desk to voice my
concerns. I spoke calmly “Hi, none of
what I am about to say has ruined our holiday and we are having a wonderful
time, but for a 5 star ship…..” The lady was very polite and extremely
concerned. She wanted to know what they
can do to fix things. I assured her that
we were not upset, but we felt we would bring these little details to their
attention.
After dinner we returned to our stateroom and were delighted
to find a bottle of wine with 2 glasses, a plate of chocolate dipped
strawberries, and a note that requested us to accept their sincerest apologies. Since my wife was expecting a baby and I had
no intent on drinking a bottle of wine on my own, we didn't care much that there was no corkscrew to open it with. The gesture was well
received, as we had left the desk telling them we were not that upset and we actually
didn’t expect anything. We enjoyed the strawberries
and laughed it off that they forgot the corkscrew.
The next day breakfast was correct and on time.
It was clear that calls were made after we
spoke with the desk.
Lunch time at the
buffet seemed to turn a 180, tables were cleared as people got up and the pool
deck was spotless.
Perhaps I was
imagining the power one polite “observation” could have, but no.
As we returned to our room for a siesta, our
room steward asked how breakfast was.
We
replied “wonderful, thanks,” put on the “do not disturb” indicator, and closed
the door.
There was a message on the
phone from the ships maitre d apologizing for our previous dining experiences
and invited us to make a reservation at one of the (included) a la cartes (they
don’t normally take reservations for the included restaurants).
We returned the message and took him up on
the invitation to the “Manhattan Room”.
He
said that we would be seated at the best table and he would see to it personally
that we were taken care of.
Great!! We
laid down to take a nap.
About 15 minutes later there was a knock at the door. “Was that our door?” “No hon, I put the DND
on.” KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!!! I got up. There was a very pleased looking steward
standing at the door with a plate of chocolate covered strawberries and a
bottle of wine. “These are for you
sir.” “Are you sure? We got the same
thing yesterday.” “Yes sir” he showed me
a card with my name and room number. He would
not let me refuse the gift, I accepted and asked him if the DND was still on. “Yes Sir, it is.” I said thank you and closed the door. This bottle of wine came with no glasses and
no corkscrew. We enjoyed the
strawberries and took a nap.
Day 5 and 6 were again “top notch”, the decks were clean and
the staff was great. The Crew were
really making an effort and it showed.
Day 6 was our invitation dinner.
The Manhattan room is very elegant.
We were taken to a table right at the back of
the room and given the evening menu.
The
wall at the back of the room is a 2 deck window looking out the stern
of the ship.
During the day this must
provide a breathtaking view of the open horizon, but this being dinnertime, it was just
black abyss.
But the table was close to
the entertainment which did make it nice.
I noticed the menus we were given were Spanish.
The waitress came over to introduce herself
so I asked her “Hablo EspaƱol?”
to which
she replied “no”.
I responded “Well, neither
do we.”
I was trying to be funny, but it
may have come off a bit rude, so I don’t know if her laugh was because she
thought I was funny or she was being polite.
Nevertheless, we got English menus.
The wine steward came to offer us a bottle of wine from a
menu titled “Complimentary Wine Selection”.
I told him that we already had 2 bottles in the room and that my wife is
pregnant. But he insisted and told us we
could take it home with us. Dinner was
lovely.
Take away from our experience what you want. I would travel with Norwegian again, but only
if the price is right. My wife claims
she will not get on another Norwegian ship.
I would not recommend the Norwegian Epic to anyone, but more importantly
I would not detour people away from the Norwegian Epic. It was unfortunate that the crew had to be
reminded to keep up standards, but once they knew people were watching, they
really stepped it up. And although their
efforts to apologize were well received, these efforts were also plagued with lack of attention.
Once again, the crew of the Norwegian Epic are very
hardworking people that really tried to make our experience as wonderful as
possible…. After we gave them a failing midterm grade. The vacation for the price could not be beat.
And we ended up using the three bottles are wine to celebrate the birth of our
second child…. A healthy baby boy!!!