Norwegian Epic: The first review

Here it is - the first review of the brand new 153,000-ton Norwegian Epic, posted by KVI's agent in the UK, Russell Forgham, who sailed on the liner's first passenger-carrying voyage on June 21 from Rotterdam to Southampton with his wife Sheila -- sadly just one night on board . . . but what an epic night it was!


There’s no doubt about it: Norwegian Epic is a beautiful ship. The crew are wonderful, the food is excellent and the entertainment is probably the best you’ll ever see at sea.

The ship is huge, but it doesn't feel that way because the layout creates lots of more intimate areas and we didn't feel there were thousands of people on board, even though the Epic can carry more than 4,000 passengers. It's very stylish, too, with a sophisticated modern decor throughout.

We had one of the new "wave" balcony cabins. They have curvy walls and where the wall curves out, the wall in the adjacent cabin curves in, and vice versa. The theory is that by putting the bed in the space where the wall curves out, the cabin can be narrower and deeper than standard cabins on other ships but appear to be just as spacious. There’s plenty of storage space and they have quite a big flat screen LCD TV. And the bed is really comfortable. Five stars all round in that respect.

I don’t know whether NCL picked the crew from the best of the crews on their other ships, but it certainly feels like they did. And best of all everyone we saw looked really happy and excited to be working on the Epic.

We tried to sample as many of the dining options and as much of the entertainment as we could in our limited time and it was all excellent.

We had lunch in the Garden Cafe buffet after lifeboat drill on the first day and the variety of food available was probably the best we’ve seen in any ship’s buffet. Lunch on the second day was in the main Manhattan Room restaurant and again was first rate – and made even more enjoyable by a special performance of Legends In Concert, an excellent tribute show featuring the likes (or should that be look-alikes) of Madonna, Elvis, Tina Turner et all.

And for breakfast we went to O’Sheehan’s Bar and Grill, the 24-hour cafe, and had their excellent country breakfast.

And as for dinner, well, we had it at the very best show we’ve ever seen on board a ship – and one of the best we’ve ever seen on land either: Cirque Dreams.


Think Cirque du Soleil in a much more intimate fashion and then some. It’s billed as the first "big top" at sea, and it’s a dazzling two hours of acrobats, muscle men, trapeze artists, music and comedy all taking place in a 10ft-wide circular area in the middle of the room just feet away from the audience at their dinner tables. Even the waiters take part in the show – as do some lucky people plucked out of the audience by the cast. Like me – I got to play the bells in one of the musical numbers! There's a cover charge of $15, or $20 for premium "ringside" seats but it's worth every cent ... and more.

Before that, we saw the excellent Second City comedy and improv show, from the legendary Chicago breeding ground of many of America’s top comedy stars, like Bill Murray and Tina Fey from 30 Rock to name just two. It’s very American and as there were a lot of Dutch, German and French passengers on board the audience was quite small – but those who didn’t go missed a damn fine show.

After Cirque Dreams we tried to get in to see the end of the Blue Man show but the theatre was packed out, so instead we stopped by Howl At The Moon, billed as “the world’s greatest rock ’n’ roll duelling piano show,” for one quick drink and were certainly glad we did – we were still there two and a half hours later having fun singing some of the greatest songs of the last 50 years in another amazing show.

We had such a brilliant time that we can't wait to do a longer trip on the Epic, probably in summer 2011 when she relocates to the Mediterranean.