We first sailed on the Epic nearly 5 years ago when she was new. After spending 3 weeks in dry dock, she is young and new once again! This was a 6 day Iberian Peninsula repositioning cruise from Southampton to Barcelona calling at Vigo Spain, Lisbon Portugal, Cartagena Spain, and Barcelona Spain.

Embarkation: Southampton is not a normal embarkation port for NCL. This, combined with the ship coming out of dry dock, resulted in a few glitches in the check-in process. There was no one in the terminal to help and direct guests. When we arrived, there was a line of several hundred crew members waiting to check in (which got us worried that a new crew would be unfamiliar with the ship). At the check-in counter, stateroom keys for Havens guests were not available. Butlers where walking through the terminal searching for Havens guest to get them their keys until just prior to boarding.

Embarkation was “interesting” since the NCL had not arranged for the use of the terminal boarding gangways. Instead, passengers where led through a maze of crew luggage carts in the baggage hall and across a loading zone where fork lifts were busy provisioning the ship. We went up a narrow, steep gangway with stairs, up into Deck 5. We only had small handcarries, but it would have been a chore if you had to carry a suitcase up the steps. Crew greeting passengers indicated that staterooms were already ready for guests, which was not an accurate statement. And there was no real escort for Havens guests, we just wandered up to the Haven Lounge. This single dock-side gangway was a problem when the 4000 passengers disembarked in Southampton prior to the ship going into dry dock (3 weeks prior), and the cruise line did nothing to resolve the problem for the passengers returning to Barcelona. Read more