Mom of two young boys point of view on NCL Epic
I took the Epic over Thanksgiving with my family. My two boys are 2 and 4. I am a Latitudes member with NCL so I have been on many other NCL ships: Sun, Dawn, Sky, Pearl twice and now the Epic. When traveling with little ones it is hard to know what is the right cruise line with not only NCL but any cruise line. I think the ship was great for kids that are 6 and over. I chose the ship because I thought my little ones would love the Nickelodeon and my 4 year old would love the water slides. For my husband and I we take NCL because of the Freestyle dining as well as I was really excited about the ice bar. Here are my pro’s and con’s regarding the ship if you decide to take as a family:
PRO
Nickelodeon at sea was great! Although besides Dora and Diego my 4 year old didn’t really know Spongebob that well or Jimmy Neutron. I thought the storytime and activities revolving around the characters were great!
CON
The character breakfast was much different then I expected. We frequent Disney a lot so I enjoy the character breakfasts, but I prefer the characters coming up to the table where on the ship you had to be called by table number. We were table 28 so it was very hard for young children to wait until #28 was called.
PRO
The water slides are a great feature on the ship! Older kids can stay busy for hours! The baby area was great! Very cute baby pool and lots of fountains. My two year old was entertained!
CON
On all the NCL ships I am allowed to go the slides with my 4 year old. However, I was very disappointed when they told me my 4 year old was not allowed to go on with an adult but by himself. He is at that in between stage to old for the baby water slide and not old enough yet for the big water slides. I think this was my biggest disappointment. I think if I knew this information ahead of time I would have considered about taking a different ship.
Overall, i thought the ship was beautiful, nicely done. I enjoyed the restaurants as I do on all the NCL ships. I thought the new Argentian Steakhouse Moderno was a nice feature. I do feel I was very nickeled and dimed on the ship. My two year old wanted pizza for lunch while my two year old was sleeping. Needless to say they wanted to charge me $5 to deliver the pizza.
I think the Ice bar was also a bit overrated. Charging $20 a person to enter for 15 minutes is a bit much. It is definitely a been there done that. you go in take a picture and leave. They give you too drinks for the admission but honestly. it is cold that you don’t want to have two drinks. maybe one and leave!
I think my next time around I would still consider NCL, but would choose either the pearl or dawn. They seem to be a bit kid friendly and still have the free style dining.
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