When you name a ship “Epic” by default you create lofty expectations. The current trend from the major cruise lines is to build big mega-ships that are themselves a destination. The Norwegian Epic continues the trend becoming the biggest ship to make Miami its home port since Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas was launched in May 2007. The Epic is indeed worth the hype and even adds a few major innovations:
1) A ship built solely for Freestyle Cruising: NCL started their “Freestyle Cruising” promotional campaign 10 years ago and the success of the flexible dining campaign now has forced the major cruise lines (Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Princess, Holland America and others) to offer some type of flexible dining options on all their ships. NCL takes their Freestyle dining to the letter on the Epic by offering 20 themed restaurants all with no group dining time or assigned seating.
Qualification: NCL’s Freestyle dining sounds great in theory but leads to a more regimented program of either booking reservations and paying an extra fee for a themed restaurant with limited seating capacity or waiting in line on one of two dining facilities with large seating capacities and no set dining time. (Taste or Manhattan Room).
Solution: NCL does allow groups to request dining reservations well in advance and individual cruises can pre-book dining starting 45 days prior to sail date. Furthermore, NCL plans to offer combination discount dining packages by where a cruiser can pre-book prior to sailing multiple restaurants at a discount. Considering the limited seating capacity at most of the themed restaurants (100+ people), I highly recommend pre-booking your dining at the Epic.
Conclusion: Freestyle dining thrives on the Epic in the choices of culinary options and flexibility of restaurant choices. The sheer number of themed restaurants all with separate kitchens and authentic culinary options make the Epic stand alone in diversity of cruise ship dining.
