Booked my 1st cruise!

[mella2007]

Pushka thanks for your posts. I will PM you some questions re shore excursions.

 

[Bugalugz]

I officially hate you.

I just did this cruise in October and did like you are Rome to Rome on the Epic and let me assure you it is Epic. (btw Rome to Rome is the best as it's less stressful and less people getting on/off the ship)

If you are staying in Rome easiest way to transfer to Cvitiavecchia is on the train, we ended up getting an express train around 11am and were there by 12pm, usually train is 90 odd minutes. Then a 10 min walk from station to Port, however they let themselves down with trying to find transport to the ship luckily there were lots of people looking for the shuttle too!

Livorno (Florence/Pisa) - We did a shore tour (only one we organised through the ship!) Was a 10hr day but it was called Florence and Pisa on your own and was really good, got taken off the boat to Pisa and given free time to do what we wanted for 90 odd minutes and then headed to Florence (Stunning city!) and had a few hrs there to do what we wanted and then it's a 3hr odd drive back to Livorno, had the best tour guide you could have asked for - highly recommend that shore tour though as it's a tour but you still get to do and see what you want with limitations.

We stopped at Cannes instead of Palma, was meant to be Nice but they changed the Itinerary, Cannes was beautiful but a bit borning, regret not going to Monte Carlo for the day really.

Marsellie (France) - Port is MILES away and you have to pay for a shuttle bus - This was a short port day for us from memory, ALOT of people didn't get off and we found out why, I thought the place was an absolute hell hole, dog cough all over the place and rude locals......compared to Cannes was a real let down. Would advise you to do a Shore Tour here as the Ship will hold your hand etc and give you a decent look at the place rather than being dropped off in Town and trying to find your way around the place. Could have been a nice place but just so dirty was unreal.

Barcelona - LOVE LOVE LOVE this place and I can't wait to go back and spend time there, we were there on a weekend and there was a marathon on and quite a bit of the city was shut but we did hop on hop off buses and just wandered around the city and took it all in.......such a stunning and clean city. (Also remember this is where the majority of people disembark and embark from so it's a chaotic scene at the cruise terminal and gotta deal with everyone exploring the ship that night!

Sea Day - Nice relaxing day and heaps of stuff is put on for the day, you won't be bored!

Naples - We didn't actually spend time in Naples it's self - We found a private tour off cruisecritic.com and joined the roll call and asked if anyone needed to find another party to join them so we jumped in and was $150 odd each but we went to Pompeii for the morning and that place I could spend hours talking about! Awesome place to visit and try and understand, we then went and drove the Amalfi Coast and drove from Sorrento to Positano (Buy Limoncello!!!!!!!!!!!!) Positano is a quaint village on the hillside and where a lot of the lemon products come from and then we had a late lunch in Sorrento which is a beautiful town on the coast and had by far the best pizza I have ever had in my entire life here!

Try find a private tour to join on cruise critic for this one, just sign up and join a roll call for your cruise! and remember there is the Barcelona-Barcelona one and also the Rome-Rome one so you can post on both and we ended up with a few offers but was an enjoyable and social day!

The Ship its self!

Well where do you start??? Amazing, I have been on P&O and Carnival cruises and this was far far better than those. Staff are great and friendly and prices are USD so reasonably cheap to eat and drink there are a few free restaurants on board (Manhattan Room is a bit more formal and shirt and pants and has a cabaret, a main restaurant that anything goes and similar food to Manhattan room, an Irish pub which does American pub food and is 24hrs so great for the drunk 3am feed and the Indoor and outdoor buffet! and quite a number of extra payment ones as well. We tried a few different ones, the Steakhouse was great food for $20ish each and was well worth the extra money as was the Chinese and supposedly the French and Italian were quite good as well though we were sick of both of those cosines after the time we spend in Italy and France lol You won't go hungry nor be short of choices you couldn't go to every one of them on a 7 day cruise! Buffet is good for Brekky we found as you were usually trying to get off the boat rather quickly to fill in the days!

Blue Man Group is great and you have to book the entertainment at the box office but you can book online prior to going on the cruise and you can book through your TV in your cabin as welll. No shortage of entertainment and there will be something that floats your boat.

Ice bar is great fun too! $20 gets you entry and 2 drinks so worth it and just fun to be in an Ice Bar on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean.

I recommend if you frequent a bar, tip and befriend the barman/maid they will look after you and as drinks aren't measured by volume only by time, they will make you get to happy town quicker and cheaper and we got a number of free drinks from tipping $2 here and there. Majority of the crew have all been on this ship since it started operations and a few of them are leaving to the new NCL ship but they are happy and it shows, you speak to the staff and they love how they are looked after as they get their own private rooms etc which is one of the only major cruise ships on the sea to have this luxury so the crew are genuinely happy and are there to look after you.

We had an absolute blast on the Epic as we were never bored! Great Entertainment, HUGE casino (rivals some cities casinos!)Great Food, Great Staff and just a fun atmosphere except for some of the whinging old Americans who wanted everything to be Perfect and like a Cunard Cruise, but go in with mild expectations and you will come out happy!

I will be trying to get an Epic cruise when I am next in the USA as I enjoyed the ship. I loved the "Freestyle" (and you will hear that word a lot!) everything is about when you want to do it and you don't have to make reservations, sit at share tables, sit at certain times and at the same table day in day out or do any of the cough some cruise lines make you do you go when you want to go except at the pay restaurants where reservations are required.

If you want to know anything just shout out! Hopefully this helps somewhat.

 

[mella2007]

Pilotdude. WOW Thanks SO SO SO much for such an informative post. We got it for an excellent price via going through cruise compete (and ended up with the No.1 Cruise Agency and the booking process was so easy). No OBC considering the rate I got, but I don't care.

The only ports we are planning to get off at this stage are Livorno, Barcelona and Naples. Have looked at NCL's shore offerings for Livorno and Barcelona and will prob do both of those. I have family in Sorrento and stayed there many times before, so unsure if we are going to back track and stay a couple of days there after the cruise or not. Have been to Rome previously so not excursions needed there either. Hoping it doesn't dock in Cannes, as I will be on the French Riviera with the other side of my family live
prior to the cruise. I also know how hot Italy is that time of the year, as I go every June/July, so want to relax also!

Not drinkers, so not worried re the bars etc. Planning on pre booking dinners and entertainment as soon the online portal allows me to do so.

What sort of room did you have? Where was it located? Did you use the spa at all? And how was the internet access in the onboard area? (this is important to me, as I'll need to be in touch with work while I'm away)

Great to see so many AFF's that have or plan on cruising. So interesting to research something different than points and hotels!

 

[Pushka]

Pushka- have you done liberty? I think that is the ship we are on for our first med cruise in June this year (royal Caribbean).

Looks nice, but huge, we have a room right at the back with a balcony.

Yes. We did. July med cruise,itinerary no doubt. Barcelona return. 7 nights. She is a big ship but that's good for exercise. We were in a hump cabin, around the middle on starboard side. Pm me if you want more details. Fantastic cruise you'll love it.

We did diy tours to Monaco, Rome, and hired a driver in Livorno and Naples. Just amazing bucket list things every day.

 

[DontGetMeStarted]

Now that's a huge ship! 5000 pax. No, make that 6300! Liberty has around 3800. I think Epic around 4000?

Ship mate is a great app that let's you track the ship and has a web cam. Also deck plans for your phone.

The RCL ships all have touch screens so you don't get lost as much.
You will love the Med cruise.

thanks for the suggestion re the Ship Mate app, downloaded it and busy reading - Great app...thanks

 

[Bugalugz]

No problems, glad someone else will get to enjoy the Epic!

Yep wouldn't worry about Marsellie, not really worth it getting off. Cannes was being changed as they mix up the itenary every year and change some destinations to keep people coming back, Cruise Director was telling us they were changing it.

You don't need me telling you about Italy then! But hell I love that country!

Well as it was me and a mate we went cheap and got the solo studios and they were great, best bed I have had on a ship and a comfy room, considering the size of it. So we were inside the inside rooms but didn't really spend much time in there anyways. We were on Deck 12, and only 2 minutes from a lift/stairs. Unlike other ships everything isn't centered in the ship it's quite spread out so you are always close to something and far away from other things. No Spa use, there is a resort style facility with gym, steam room, massage etc and then there is free hot tubs on the top deck and a couple of pools and water slides. Always popular from what I could see.

Internet isn't exactly cheap, It cost me $100 for an hourly package, think it was a few hours....can't remember but it was pretty reasonable speed wise. But we just took our phones on shore and used free wifi. But reasonably quick for satellite internet. I required it as well as we hadn't actually booked much after the cruise as we weren't sure where we were going but I had booked airfares, hotels, train tickets and a few other things without any issues. Never tried Skype or anything like that. The entire ship had Wifi....something that lets P&O down, I realise we don't go on holidays to use the internet but sometimes it's a necessity for various things.

Cheers,

 

[Sprucegoose]

I hate all of you ..........I think I'm hooked!

 

[Pushka]

I know, I think even my husband got hooked after our med cruise - but he's a bit fussy. We both hated our Pacific cruise we took on the Oriana, maybe 32 years ago! It has taken me all those years to summon up the courage to try again. But the Med cruises are something so different to our pacific cruises. I want to do a Transatlantic on the Queen Mary 2 (I was on her sans hubby last year for a few days). His only comment was to remind me of the Titanic.

 

[drron]

Well mrsdrron had to work hard on me to get me cruising.Started on an 8 pax boat on the Inside passage-just fantastic.Jumped to a 16 pax vessel for the Galapagos-memories to last a life time.
From there a big increase to a 110 pax ship-the Orion from Broome to Darwin.Loved it.A slight jump to the 130 pax Silver Explorer in the Arctic-spoilt rotten.
So I dove in at the deep end and went on the 396 pax Silver Shadow from Korea to Alaska.Really took to this but I have decided that is the largest ship I want to be on.
We have 4 more cruises booked but all on the Silver Explorer.This is because of the itineraries which is the most important thing for me.

So to all-enjoy your cruising.And do look up Cruise Critic-there are in fact a lot of us there as well.Pays off-36 CC members on our last cruise so a special coughtail party was put on for all of us.

 

[Pushka]

Well mrsdrron had to work hard on me to get me cruising.Started on an 8 pax boat on the Inside passage-just fantastic.Jumped to a 16 pax vessel for the Galapagos-memories to last a life time.
From there a big increase to a 110 pax ship-the Orion from Broome to Darwin.Loved it.A slight jump to the 130 pax Silver Explorer in the Arctic-spoilt rotten.
So I dove in at the deep end and went on the 396 pax Silver Shadow from Korea to Alaska.Really took to this but I have decided that is the largest ship I want to be on.
We have 4 more cruises booked but all on the Silver Explorer.This is because of the itineraries which is the most important thing for me.

So to all-enjoy your cruising.And do look up Cruise Critic-there are in fact a lot of us there as well.Pays off-36 CC members on our last cruise so a special coughtail party was put on for all of us.

Gosh. Those ships are more like sailing than cruising. I think my hubby would love these but you'd need a good mix of people to get it right.

Cruise critic is the best. Last cruise we got together a group of six to do private shore excursions. Saved the mass of people on ships tours. We had an Irish and NZ couple. This time we've got a Canadian couple sharing an overnight tour in Egypt and two day trips in Israel. Can't wait.

 

[AVC]

We are going on our first cruise too in March - Allure of the Seas around the Caribbean along with our first status run from HNL-SJU Looking forward to your trip report as would love to do a med cruise too

Were on the same ship this Christmas. We picked it for the Dreamworks experience (as we travel with little Miss 6yo). I'd love to hear a TR. My wife wanted to cruise the Caribbean. I just wanted to go to St Maarteen for plane spotting, lol.

Still have to do a Poo-ket one first. Lol

Hmm, me too.

OK, here goes. Shortest TR ever with no photos.
We flew BA codeshare on QF metal in Y. It sucked. Our BKK-HKT was delayed.
We spent a week in the Novotel on the hill (tsunami proof).
Ate mainly on the beach at Baan Kalim restaurant.
Swam in the pool heaps.
At the Christmas party, Santa Claus had his beard on backwards.
My daughter only wanted to travel in pink Tuk tuks.
HKT-BKK was a 777. It hiked, we were in the cruise for about 8 minutes.
BKK-SYD was great fun. NOT!