From June 22, 2023 to July 2, 2023, we took a 10 Night Mediterranean cruise on the Norwegian Epic. Unlike other NCL ships, the Epic is in a class of its own – there are no sister ships. The NCL Epic went into service in 2010 and was refurbished in 2020, mostly the Haven areas. It’s scheduled for another dry dock in 2025.
The Ship
Norwegian Epic is a large ship. At the time of building, it was the third largest cruise ship in the world. With a ship this large, it comes with pros and cons. There are a lot of things to do – besides dining and bars, there are multiple event venues, water slides, and the Haven area is very spacious. The ship’s design was not well received by Americans – there is no mid elevator, which seems crazy for a ship of this size (4100 berths) and the bathroom setup is really one of a kind – the sink is next to the bed, the shower is next to the cabin door (with just a glossy shower door, no bathroom door), and the toilet is also next to the cabin door, with just a glossy sliding door. (If you are considering booking a regular stateroom, make sure you watch a Youtube video to familiarize yourself with the bathroom setup.) To avoid this awkward bathroom configuration, we booked the Haven Aft-Facing Penthouse with Balcony. (Suites/Haven rooms on this ship have regular bathrooms for the most part.)
Our Room, 11322
Our room, an aft-facing Haven Penthouse Suite, was spacious enough for the two of us, and the balcony was a little larger than a standard Haven Penthouse cabin. The bathroom was tight but we survived.
I knew being in the back of the ship meant a lot of walking, which we didn’t exactly mind, but I was hoping the trade off would be worth it. I was honestly expecting a larger room, larger bathroom, and larger balcony. The worst of all was the fact each day we pulled into or out of port, the rudders would vibrate so loud that I couldn’t sleep. It would wake me up every morning bright and early. Also, since our room qualifies as a Haven room, we had access to the Haven courtyard and restaurant, which is at the other end of the ship, so we made journeys everyday many times a day. If I had to do it all over again, I would not book this room.
Dining
The food on this ship is hands down the best I’ve had on any NCL ship, which says a lot since I was just on the Jewel in May and the Prima in April. There are many dining options on this ship and we never had a bad meal no matter where we turned. Here is an example of what we had.
La Cucina – Specialty Dining
Pasta E Fagioli literally means pasta and beans. This Pasta E Fagioli was certainly more beans than pasta, but it was delicious. It also had pancetta in it.
The Osso Bucco Alla Milanese is a braised veal shank with lemon, garlic and parsley Gremolata, and a side of saffron risotto. The osso bucco was tender and delicious. I couldn’t really eat the risotto though, due to my cheese sensitivities.
Grilled salmon, white beans, crispy cured ham. This was divine.
For dessert, we had the Torta di Cioccolata e Lamponi and the Panna Cotta alla Vaniglia. Torta di Cioccolata e Lamponi basically means chocolate tart with raspberry. Panna Cotta alla Vaniglia means Panna Cotta with Vanilla. I guess the menu just wanted to sound fancy? The chocolate tart had raspberry, pistachio and vanilla sauce on it. Good but sweet and I couldn’t eat much of it because I was so full. The panna cotta had Blackberry Marsala Compote, and Meringue Crunch. Teddy did a pretty good job at finishing that.
La Cucino comes with a LOT of food, assuming you are using the Specialty Dining Package or the Platinum benefit, so come hungry. If you just want some Italian food but don’t have any prepaid dining, sharing an entrée and pay the a-la-carte pricing isn’t terrible here. Honestly, my only complaint about La Cucino was how hard it was to find – it’s located on deck 14 but the only way to access it is by going to deck 15, walk to the stairs at the entrance of the Garden Café (buffet restaurant), then go down to 14. If you are handicapped, there’s a handicap entrance through deck 14, through the cabin hallways.
Haven Restaurant (For Haven Guests Only)
The Shrimp Toast at the Haven Restaurant is perhaps my favorite food there other than the lobster. It comes with a basted egg, avocado, cilantro, and Kimchi aioli. It’s so good and I haven’t seen anything like it anywhere else!
I loved the Haven Crudités with raw vegetables and dipping sauce. Seemed healthy, and tasty.
The pan seared scallops at lunch time are served with cauliflower puree, golden raisins and caper sauce. The menu at Haven doesn’t change but it really is a good menu.
The Israeli cous cous salad comes with roasted shrimp, chickpeas, edamame, cucumber, tomato and citrus dressing. This is my favorite item from the lunch menu. It’s light and delicious and the shrimps are great size.
Can you believe Haven’s lunch menu even has lobster bisque? This lobster bisque may look a little different from the one from Cagney’s, but it was just as good. I can’t really say which is better.
Cipollini onion consommé is a clear onion soup that has some tempura onion rings in it. Usually the waiters don’t recommend this soup because it’s very plain, but that’s what a consommé is, and I like how plain and simple it is.
I LOVE this salad. It comes with kale, watercress, spinach, French beans, edamame, snow peas, pistachios, celery, and an amazing Green Goddess dressing. Healthy and DELICIOUS!
Teddy the brave soul decided to try the sea salt roasted beets one day and he said it really wasn’t bad! It had whipped goat cheese, crispy specks and pistachios.
Does it feel like someone personally asked me what my favorite foods are and wrote this menu just for me? Yeah it feels like it. The steak tartare in the Haven restaurant is a little different from the steak tartare in Le Bistro, but still very good. I like Le Bistro’s a little more. The steak tartare here comes with hen egg, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, capers, scallions and lemon. The waiter brings out all of the ingredients and puts them all together in front of you.
Ahi Tuna with napa cabbage, radicchio, cashews, mango, cherry tomatoes, cilantro, and drizzled with ginger vinaigrette. Amazing.
The lobster deviled eggs is amazing but filling. Each egg comes with a bite of lobster on top, making it extra fancy. It’s seasoned with mustard, celery and relish. This would be great for sharing but Teddy doesn’t eat any so I don’t usually get it.
Berkshire pork Tomahawk with braised red cabbage, pommes purees, Pommery mustard sauce. Very good, especially loved the red cabbage.
I think a major reason to book in the Haven is to have access to unlimited amount of lobster. (Correct me if I’m wrong.) We had lobster every night, either by eating at the Haven restaurant or order room service through the Haven restaurant. We usually asked for no fixings – we don’t want the other stuff to crowd our belly. The lobster at the Haven restaurant is VERY good. Generous sizes and cooked to perfection.
Wasabi – Specialty Dining
Wasabi is the standard sushi restaurant on some of the NCL ships. If you have an abundance of specialty dining prepaid, wasabi will be your go-to to use them up because it’s the only specialty dining restaurant that’s semi-consistently open for lunch. Many people love wasabi, but as a sushi “connoisseur” myself, I would adjust your expectations, because after all, you are in the ocean, so the fish can only be as fresh as the last port you were in.
The chilled edamame with BBQ salt and the sesame seaweed salad with ginger dressing were both very good, but if you are using the dining package, then this may not be the best way to spend as one of your 4 items, because they are the cheapest items on the menu. For us it was worth it to have some variety.
Dragon roll with broiled eel, avocado, shrimp tempura, crab and eel sauce. Not too bad, but more rice than what I’m used to. In fact, I can say that about all the rolls here – more rice than I would like.
Hiramasa, crab, yuzu juice, truffle oil, green soy paper, ao-nori tempura flakes. This was yummy but very rich, making it difficult to finish. I think they went a little heavy on the truffle oil.
Tuna Poke Bowl came with cucumber, seaweed, avocado, sushi rice and quinoa. This one actually exceeded my expectations but was much larger than I expected.
Don’t expect the best salmon sashimi you’ve had and you’ll be alright. I typically choose sushi nigiri over sashimi but their rolls have so much rice that I couldn’t handle any more rice.
Manhattan – Main Dining Room
Since we had a lot of prepaid specialty dining to use up, and the Haven restaurant, we only went to Manhattan one time during the entire cruise, and that was for the dining with officer night. Dining with an officer is a nice experience that many people don’t know about. When you become Platinum level or higher, the dining with officer is an experience you can sign up for (although first come first serve), however, you can actually sign up for this experience even if it’s your first cruise – you are just not guaranteed to get in. For some ships, the dinner happens in a specialty dining restaurant, in others, you have a specially reserved table in the main dining. The food is whatever is on the main dining restaurant menu for the night, but wine is served free of charge. You would also typically receive a higher level of service. There’s no way to know what officer you will get in advance – it can be anyone, from the spa manager to the captain. There’s no charge for this experience. If this is something you are interested in, go to the future cruise desk or your concierge on day one and inquire. I highly recommend everyone to try it at least once. You will be seated with other cruisers. Obviously, your experience greatly varies depends on who’s at your table, and the personality of the officer. Part of the fun is also just to see which officer came for you. Sometimes, you may even get two or three officers together. The officer that came to our dinner was the 1st Engineer of Hotel, Alfio Virzi. He talked to us about what life was like having a job like his, and his home life, his girlfriend (who’s an entertainer on the ship). You can see a picture of them here. We were allowed to ask any questions and learned a lot from him. He was very genuine and open, which made the experience pretty nice. There was also a dance show at the restaurant that night, and we were given the best seat in the house.
Cagney’s Steakhouse – Specialty Dining
Cagney’s Steakhouse is NCL’s most popular specialty dining restaurant, for good reason. The food here is very good and who doesn’t love a nice slab of steak? If you want to eat at Cagney’s, I would recommend to make your dining reservation as early as possible.
The lobster bisque here is absolutely amazing. There are morsels of lobster and I love how it comes piping hot.
I think the tuna tartar here is even better than the tuna you get at Wasabi Sushi Restaurant. It’s most likely from the same source but the chef does a great job here.
Cagney’s Iceberg Wedge Salad is epic. It comes with a big wedge of iceberg lettuce, and Roma tomatoes, garlic, green onions, blue cheese, bacon bits, and of course, dressing. Teddy usually gets this.
The Grilled Fisherman’s Platter comes with lots of stuff – shrimps, scallops, calamari, branzino, crab cake, as well as some dips like mustard remoulade and sweet chili. If you like seafood, then this is no brainer.
Le Bistro – Specialty Dining
Le Bistro might be my favorite restaurant on the ship. I’m a huge fan of escargot and the escargot here is just so good. Everything was so good.
Escargots à la bourguignonne means snails from Burgundy. This is a classic French dish made with garlic and butter. It’s just one of my favorite things to eat. I can happily eat this every single day and never get tired of it.
Steak tartare au couteau, another favorite food of mine. I admit, I have an obsession with raw meat. I think everything taste better raw – fish, caviar, oysters, steak, lamb, eggs, etc. Steak tartare is a way to serve steak raw. Steak tartare au couteau means steak tartare made with a knife. It’s a French delicacy that involves hand cut beef and grilled baguette. This was amazing.
If you like French Onion Soup, then this is the one to get, not the one that appears at some point on the menu in the main dining room.
I love lamb. This dish comes with the shank meat as well as lamb chops. Seasoned with Moroccan spices, served with sweet potatoes and cilantro. Yum.
Grenobloise loosely means served with a sauce of browned butter, capers, parsley and lemon. It’s a sauce originated French town of Grenoble. This dish of sole was served with lemon caper butter, croutons, and French potatoes.
Homard is the French term for lobster. The lobster thermidor does come with a $25 upcharge if using the specialty dining package (or the platinum benefit), but there’s no charge if using American Express Platinum card benefit, which is what we did. The lobster thermidor came with a mushroom cream sauce and some pilaf rice. It was delicious but RICH. I’m not sure how I was able to handle it when I had already had the escargot and the steak tartare, but it was very good.
Coq Au Vin, a famous French dish that is the cheapest entrée on the menu so we usually avoid getting it, but it sounded so good and we had dined at Le Bistro quite a few times recently and tried everything else already. Coq Au Vin is made with red wine-braised chicken, mushrooms, potatoes, pearl onions and bacon. Delicious.
Filet de Loup de Mer, which I think means Mediterranean Sea Bass. We love seafood. Since we’ve already tried the Sole, this was the next item to try. It was served with black olive tapenade, crushed lemon potatoes, artichoke, tomato confit, zucchini, and pesto. Good but I was expecting the fish to be more flaky and soft.
I saw this thing on other people’s tables and it looked so funny I had to get it. It’s 70% dark chocolate and I love dark chocolate so it was very good. It’s custardy and came with a Chambord raspberry sauce. Very good.
Teddy loves pear, so he got this one a few times. I love the presentation. Fortified wine poached pear with spices, vanilla ice cream in the middle, then covered with a chocolate sauce. This has got to be good.
The île flottante which literally means floating island, is a meringue floating airily on some vanilla crème anglaise. Delicious.
We never ate at either one of the buffet restaurants (the Garden Cafe or the Great Outdoors) but I just want to mention that we walked by it a few times and it looked absolutely amazing. The variety of food was astounding, including things like kimchi, Pâté, crepe station, etc. If you want variety, you can’t go wrong by trying the buffets on this ship.
Entertainment
There was a wonderful variety of entertainment on this ship.
Burn the Floor
Burn the Floor was the dance show that was on our trip and available multiple nights, including one night in the main dining room. The dancers were absolutely AMAZING! If you like shows like Dancing with the Stars, then you’ll love this. We were jaw dropped the whole time. Expect to see dances like Viennese Waltz, Foxtrot, Tango, Pasa Doble, Cha Cha, Samba, Ramba and Jive.
The Abbey Road Beatles
This was a Beatles tribute band, which, if you like Beatles, would absolutely love this. The singers were talented and they were in character the whole time!
Comedy Magician Peter Wardell
We aren’t allowed to take pictures during the show so I can’t show you what his show was like, but if you want to see a bit of his magic, you can watch this Youtube video: Peter Wardell Close Up Magic. It’s an old video but his style hasn’t changed much. I love magic and comedy combos so I really enjoyed this, even though it wasn’t the most impressive I’ve seen.
Deal or No Deal Game Show
This is similar to the TV show, Deal or No Deal, except the winnings are a lot smaller here and you have to buy the game show tickets in order to have a chance at winning. It is kind of entertaining to watch even if you don’t buy the tickets, but if you do buy the tickets, you can play along. There’s always a chance to be called to the stage and be the person deciding which cases to open – they scan our room key card when you go in, and that’s how they randomly select someone for the stage.
Luke Burrage Comedy Juggler
Luke Burrage is a juggler and a comedian. His acts are funny not just because he’s a funny guy, but also because how many times he fails. We watched him twice – because we liked it so much. I wish we had our kids with us on this ship so they could have seen him. I recorded this final act of his second show: Luke Burrage: Impossible Things.
Howl at the Moon Dueling Piano
Howl at the Moon is a dueling piano show that happens on most nights at the smaller venue called Headliners. You’ll have to be there early if you want a seat with unobstructed views. The pianists are very talented and funny and the whole thing is very casual and just fun. There are people who go there every single night. That’s how good it is.
Some shows we missed:
The Other Guys: Legends Live
The Other Guys is a musical group from UK. Their show, Legends Live feature music from Elvis, Bee Gees, Bruno Mars, etc. I’ve heard they are amazing. This was a port intensive cruise so we were just too tired to catch everything.
Chris Watkins: Rock Violinist
I wish we had made it to Chris Watkins’ show. I grew up trying to play the violin, never really succeeded, but it made me give special respect to people who can play the instrument. Chris Watkins has a very special violin, his handcrafted Swarovski violin named “Marilyn”. It’s a Yamaha violin with over 1000 Swarovski crystals. I bet this would have been amazing. This was on the night when we had the officer dinner so we couldn’t have made it on time. Check out Christ Watkins’ Youtube channel here.
Tony K. Irving: Music A Language We Understand
Tony K. Irving is a musician who is versatile and energetic. We couldn’t make it to his show. If you want to see his work, you can visit his Youtube channel.
Staff/Service
Like most cruises we’ve taken, the service was top notch. We really enjoyed the service in the Haven restaurant and honestly the service was great everywhere. For our cruise, our captain was Idar Hoydal. I don’t have anything bad to say about him but I noticed that he wasn’t around much. We only heard from him one time during the whole cruise. Our Butler was Dennis. He actually flew in on the second day of our cruise to start his contract (we had someone else on the first day) and he went straight to work. I don’t know how they operate with so little sleep. He checked on us daily and brought us lobster tails from the Haven restaurant to our room many days. Our general manager was Amir Tikvesa. We never talked to him but he sent a few treats to our room. Our concierge was Roel Gonzales. Roel worked very hard and was very knowledgeable.
Activities
Epic is a large ship, so there’s plenty to do. There were quite a few waterslides, although we didn’t partake any. There was mini-golf, climbing wall, arcade, kids club, etc. We signed up for a behind the scenes tour and a wine tasting tour. Both were free with our Platinum benefit and both were informative.
Karaoke in the Bliss Lounge
This is something NCL does on most of their ships – Karaoke in the Bliss Lounge, every night. Earlier hour is family friendly, after that is adult only. I’ve been to some Karaoke’s and since they are just fellow passengers, you don’t usually expect a top performance. This group on Epic proved me wrong. Each participant was outdoing the last. It was incredible.
Skyy Vodka Ice Bar
There are a few dozen ice bars in the world, but the only ones located on a ship are Norwegian cruise line’s Skyy Vodka Ice Bars. The entry fee was about $20 a person but with our premium plus beverage package, we get a 40% discount. Once you are inside, you get two drinks (non-alcohol options available too). There’s a 30 minute time limit but you are allowed to leave any time. We had a great time. Everything was made of ice, which made great pictures!
Conclusion
We really enjoyed our time on NCL Epic. If I were to book again, I would try to stay in the Haven proper. I loved the itinerary (checkout our blog entry on the ports later!), the food was amazing, and this ship had hands down the best entertainment lineup on any cruise. I would be happy to sail on the Epic again!