Travel Seller’s Report: An Epic Trans-Atlantic Voyage
by Sherry LaskinSherry Laskin, ACC is the owner of Florida-based Vacation Shoppe. She is a founding member of the CLIA Travel Agent Advisory Board and has been quoted in Travel and Leisure, Frommers.com and msnbc.today.com. In her first report from the Epic, she provided an overview and a list of features agents should know about. Here, she shares details of NCL’s Epic maiden voyage from Europe to the U.S.
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The Epic’s maiden voyage was preceded by a 2,500 passenger inaugural two-night cruise to nowhere from Southampton for travel agents and UK Press. I managed to get a spot on that sailing and then stayed aboard for the ship’s first trans-Atlantic crossing, though a cabin change was required after the two-night event.
Of the 2,500 invited passengers, 600 were workers from St. Nazaire shipyards where just a few days earlier, the NCL Epic was delivered to Rotterdam, Netherlands. Apparently there were still a few areas under construction. For instance, the Courtyard Villas were not yet completed and non-hazardous electrical problems and audio/visual situations still needed to be addressed. The workers would attend to all these issues on the trans-Atlantic passage.
As with all two-night inaugurals, before you know it, you are back in port, wheeling your overstuffed overnight case down the gangway. I was lucky to be able to stay onboard for the afternoon along with a small handful of revenue passengers who had booked their passage from Rotterdam to America.
Beware Maiden Voyages
The phrase “maiden voyage” isn’t nicknamed a “shakedown cruise” for nothing. We were sailing with 3,648 or so passengers including the fix-it folks. A travel agent friend e-mailed me to let me know she had been notified by NCL that her Courtyard Villa group sailing would have to be canceled and rebooked as that area was still under construction. A strong chemical “new carpet” smell had permeated the passenger areas of the ship and was so severe in my room that I needed to change cabins after the first night. Carpet fibers seemed to settle on everything; I had to close up my computer each night or the keyboard was covered in fibers. What were we inhaling?
I wasn’t the only paying passenger without a working television, radio or phone. Without any ports of call on a trans-Atlantic crossing you are really relying on your self-contained environment to keep you occupied. The weather was not favorable on our crossing; 12-foot swells, and the cold, rain and intense fog caused the colorful Aqua Park to remain closed all but the very last day.
Despite the obvious top-heavy silhouette and large swells, the Epic performed beautifully at sea. If there was any pitch or sway, I didn’t detect it even in the gym on deck 14.
But with no water slides or library for entertainment, it was lucky I had recorded my favorite TV shows on my iPod.
Another area on which the crew will need to work – the reservations and seating logistics for the Epic’s two main theater attractions – Cirque Dinner and Theater and Blue Man Group. Queues for the both were out of control. People pushed, shoved and even arrived one hour ahead of time to get a good place in line.
Early Birds Are Rewarded
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The Cirque Dinner show features $15 and $20 seating, but within those ticket prices, seating is on a first come, first seated basis. I hope that the staff figures out a better system for making your show reservations as well as for queuing up. Reservations to nearly all of the Blue Man Group shows were taken by the third day at sea.
The front desk staff, extremely cheerful and helpful on the two-night cruise, seemed more stressed over the next few days. None were curt, most smiled and they seemed to be in a state of constant buzzing behind their desk. Perhaps it was what happened towards the end of the cruise that put them over the top, as nearly all of the British passengers queued up to have their automatic gratuities removed from their onboard accounts.
The day of our arrival in New York caught up with us soon enough. While the weather played a major role in dampening everyone’s spirits (except for the satellite broadcast of World Cup Football) all said it was a fairly uneventful maiden voyage. And it wasn’t all doom and gloom. There were several public areas I really enjoyed.
The Manhattan Supper Club dining room was a wonderful place for a “free” dinner; good selection of entrees, and an ample amount of wait staff who were efficient and well-trained.
And O’Sheehan’s Bar and Grill is great for people-watching while you eat. Food is heavy country-style breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Insider Insights
A couple of tips for travel agents preparing to book their clients on the Epic:
To avoid the thousands people streaming into the buffet for breakfast, tell your clients to enter the Garden Café at 7:50 am and proceed to the back of the ship buffet. Have them watch for the stairs leading down to La Cucina. This is the evening Italian specialty restaurant ($10) but is open for breakfast with a European buffet selection; cheeses, yogurts, croissants, brioches and of course, cereal for the Americans. By 9 a.m. it is packed down there, too, so arrive at 8 a.m. when it first opens.
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Unlike traditional ships, there isn’t a wrap-around (or half wrap-around) outdoor promenade. Instead, the walking/running track occupies the port side of deck 7 and the shuffleboard courts are opposite on the starboard side. The best, and only, close-to-the-water viewing area is on deck 7, mid-ship. There is a small unobstructed viewing area cut in-between the Jetson’s futuristic-inspired lifeboats.
Aside from the cushioned track never being crowded (it had better not be considering it is a two-direction loop only eight feet wide), the viewing area was pretty much undiscovered. Even when we approached the Statue of Liberty, the twenty-foot stretch of the viewing area had plenty of elbow room.
Just as Royal Caribbean’s Oasis and Allure of the Seas are floating resorts, the Epic, though a bit smaller by nearly two thousand passengers, fits right into the same category. One can remain onboard and be thoroughly entertained while other passengers head ashore when the ship docks at the same overly-visited Caribbean islands.
