On our way to Southampton!

Norwegian Epic may be limping due to a technical problem that’s slowed down the ship enough to delay its arrival in Southampton tomorrow…but we are on the move.

Here’s today’s trivia quiz (first winner to answer all questions correctly wins a Cruise Critic prize) — I’ll admit, this one isn’t going to be easy.

We’ve just cruised past a special ship; its smokestack is pictured, left. Which line built and operated the venerable vessel? What was its original name (and what were subsequent iterations)? What year was it originally launched? And what’s it being used for today?

Please send your answers to Kelly@cruisecritic.co.uk.

Good luck. Oh, by the way, we’re still getting answers to the weekend question (What was the first ship to have a passenger escalator?). We’ll keep you posted.

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NCL delays Epic’s Southampton arrival

Bad news — Norwegian Epic’s developed technical problems that affect its speed (we’re told it’s definitely not a safety issue). As a result, the ship is delaying its much-anticipated arrival into Southampton tomorrow morning. Instead it will arrive at dinner time.

We’re already onboard so we’ll continue to keep you posted via our blog, news coverage on Cruise Critic’s home page, and Kelly’s Q&A on the Norwegian Epic forum.

But we do want to make sure any folks who are planning to come out tomorrow — whether to board the ship or to celebrate its arrival — read our news item, posted early this afternoon, with the details.

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Cruise Critic, Radio Solent, welcome Epic to Southampton

As the city of Southampton eagerly awaits the arrival on Tuesday of NCL’s spectacular Norwegian Epic, one of the largest ships ever to call at the port, Cruise Critic’s Sue Bryant is among those who’ll be guests on BBC Radio Solent – at the quayside – to chat about this innovative new ship.

The breakfast show broadcast runs from 6.30 a.m. to 9.30 a.m. If you’re in the Hampshire area, tune in on 96.1FM or 103.8FM, or listen online.  And while you’re on the Radio Solent site, check out the map for ideal ship-spotting sights, should you be planning on turning up to welcome Epic!

Why all this for one ship, when ships call at Southampton every day? Well, that’s precisely it. Cruising is such big business for the city now that it’s a massive employer and an important generator of income.

Sue will be on the show from 8.30 a.m. to 9.30 a.m. to talk about the phenomenal growth of cruising but other guests will include a local Solent pilot, a local cruise specialist travel agent, a taxi driver, a bigwig from NCL and P&O’s managing director, Carol Marlow – all people whose businesses are linked to passenger shipping.

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Norwegian Epic’s revolutionary cabins (and bathrooms)!

I’m going to go on the record here and say that of all the innovations Norwegian Cruise Line’s introduced on Norwegian Epic, the one that will spur the most controversy – this is the prediction! — will be the radical new approach to cabin design.

Of course I’m referring to the balcony cabins (which make up a huge percentage, overall, of stateroom types onboard) with wavy walls, curved beds and sofas, and … bathrooms that are divided into various parts: the toilet is in one frosted-glass cubby and shower or tub is in another. The sink is outside, in the bedroom.

In fact, the pros and cons of the staterooms would make a perfect Cruise Critic poll! So weigh in with us here.

Now that I’ve settled in, I’ll tell you there are pros and cons. If you’ve never cruised before and wonder what the fuss is about, well it’s about monotony – in the same way that cookie cutter hotels all over the same basic room layout.

See, most cabins on cruise ships are built in “cabin factories.” Read more about cabin factories here. What you’ll learn is that while there are some exceptions (top-of-the-line staterooms are usually built onboard) the usual cabin, whether you’re on Carnival or Princess or on Holland America or Celebrity, is mass produced to the same basic design. There’s a bed (converts to two singles from a double), a small couch (some pull out), and built in cabinetry for storage. Bathrooms house small sinks with counters, a toilet, and most often a miniscule shower.

It’s key to note that the wavy staterooms on Norwegian Epic, while being a new design, are also mass produced.

So the cabins on Norwegian Epic are very, very different. We want to know: would this style of cabin encourage you to take a cruise on Norwegian Epic? Or scare you off? Please tell us….

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Epic’s Aqua Park, part 2

The bowl slide is actually not the scariest ride — for that, the lime green slide, with its tight, corkscrew twists and turns, elicited more delighted screams from its daredevils than did the orange bowl.

In fact, and I’m sure that slide experts will be tinkering, the orange bowl part, which was supposed to toss people around like whirling dervishes, doesn’t actually generate enough speed.

By “enough” I mean that some of the folks I watched came to a dead stop, and had to paddle themselves into the tunnel that leads to the end.

And here’s the view of the sun deck’s main pool area from slide-level (there are actually three different levels; orange falls in the middle).

Epic’s Aqua Park, part 1

Norwegian Cruise Line is billing its Aqua Park, an Epic exclusive, as a cornerstone of its family friendly activities. Take a look at the sundeck (alas not too much sun today), where the Aqua Park’s huge bowl slide is a major focal point!

Note that there are three slides in the Aqua Park; one’s got a huge orange bowl where presumably one spins round and round (the others, which you can see as well, are green and purple).

I can’t speak to whether or not 10 year olds will enjoy any of the three waterslides onboard (cause there really aren’t any kids here) but passengers in the 30-plus set were having a ball. With temperatures in the high 50s, aided by a brisk and chilly wind, it’s not just their daredevil courage I admired; it was their constitutions, too!

This guy, unfortunately, forgot one very important component of the slide experience: You need to pick up an inner tube before you head up the five-plus flights of stairs….

Check out NCL’s video coverage of the slides.

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Getting around Norwegian Epic

I’m going to need more than a few hours to really get a handle on the layout of the 4,100-passenger Norwegian Epic but already am getting my bearings, at least around inside spaces (I’ll tackle top deck spots, from the pools to spa to restaurants, in another post and on another day). Basically, decks five, six and seven are a hub for restaurants, nightclubs, bars and shops. There are two mini-atriums, one relatively forward, the other reasonably aft. Much of the liveliest bits of activity are wrapped around one or the other of the atriums.

The ship’s a mishmash of decorating styles and themes — it’s a blend of contemporary, retro, kitschy and elegant. Tastes, a fee-free restaurant venue, is sleek and sophisticated while O’Sheehans, a pub and bowling venue, is kitschy and Victorian in ambience. In an era in which cruise lines are often decorating ships based on one specific ambience (Oceania’s country house hotel influences and Celebrity’s contemporary boutique hotel-like schemes come immediately to mind) the mishmash on Norwegian Epic is refreshing. It’s fun to be able to find a venue that matches whatever mood you’re in at the moment.

Some miscellaneous observations:

*The Atrium Coffee Bar is one of the few spaces onboard that really reminds me of NCL’s other ships – it’s definitely the heart of the indoor action (especially since the weather’s been pretty iffy so far). The mood here can be raucous (this is a great spot for watching big sports competitions – as with today’s World Cup) or serene (I’m a softie for the film images of nature scenes paired with soothing tunes).

*The Epic Casino on deck six is immense, it just goes on, and on, and on.

*If you like to dine in a see-and-be-seen milieu, bag an atrium table at Tastes, one of the two fee-free main dining venues. Tables are set on the ground floor of a three-deck atrium, underneath a massive LED chandelier that changes colors. Passengers on decks six and seven, above, can lean over railings to check out who’s eating what.

*Bar Central on deck seven is another concept that comes from existing NCL ships but it’s been expanded. Here, in addition to signature lounges like Shaker’s for martinis, and Maltings for beer and malt scotch, you’ll also find the Humidor cigar bar, the Ice Bar, and a sake bar.

*Teppanyaki is a fantastic concept that exists on other NCL ships but venues there are small and the restaurant concept is popular so reservations can be tough to bag. Here’s hoping that a huge expansion on Norwegian Epic will mean there’s more room for everybody. And don’t miss the adjacent Wasabi sushi bar – and a sake bar.

*Deck five is pretty much the place to go for services – the photo gallery, art auction space, Internet café (wireless is excellent by the way so feel free to bring your own laptop), purser’s desk. Shops – none of which were terribly inspiring – are on deck 7.

*Having seen a preview of Cirque Dreams and predicted its smash appeal, it’s fun to see the crowds lining up for the dinner and show at the Spiegel Tent.  Here’s a preview: http://www.cruisecritic.com/news/news.cfm?ID=3771.

*Other fantastic entertainment venues include the Headliner’s Comedy Club (haven’t seen NCL’s in-house Second City troupe yet but last night’s Howl at the Moon dueling pianos performance played to a packed house) and Fat’s, for jazz and blues.

*Are the escalators that ferry passengers from deck five to deck six the first passenger escalators at sea? The first person to send a correct response (and if Epic’s are not the first – you must identify the ship with this original distinction) to Kelly@cruisecritic.co.uk will win a prize.

More to come.

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Epic’s 1st night – what’s working (and what’s not)?

The most intriguing thing about being onboard a cruise ship’s first-ever sailing is this: for all the talk while a ship’s under construction about fab new eateries, bars and entertainment, no one – and I mean no one – really has a perfectly accurate crystal ball that’ll tell you in advance, for instance, whether the Shanghai Noodle Bar will be a big hit or big flop. The jury’s still out on that one (though frankly this gambler is betting heavily that it’ll be the former despite the fact that it was pretty empty at 8:39 p.m. on Epic’s first night) but it’s always interesting to see where people gather (already it looks like Cirque Dreams is going to be a smash; it was mobbed). You can also see which destinations are not drawing crowds.

Tonight on Epic, I was in search of a spot for a quiet cocktail. At first glance there wasn’t a lounge that quite fit the bill. Shakers, the martini bar, was packed. Maltings Whiskey Bar – packed. There was a line outside the frosty Ice Bar (which to be honest is probably not the spot in the first place for a relaxing cocktail). Headliners’ Comedy Club, designed to evoke the Second City ambience (the troupe performs later on in the cruise) was housing dueling piano players.

So when I stumbled onto the sedate cocktail lounges (very 1970s, in a good way) that front the adjacent Cagney’s Steakhouse and the South American-inspired Moderno Churrascaria, I thought I’d found the perfect, elegant hideaway. In the mirroring bars, there were café tables, wine cellars on display, and hootchy-kootchy low lights. And yet: despite the fact that the restaurants themselves were packed, the bar areas in both were empty of patrons.

The reason, it turns out, that both lounges are absolutely empty is that they are a no-man’s-land.  I sat for 15 minutes, a long quarter of an hour in which not one of the passing waiters (several of whom idled, gossiping and chatting, with fellow servers for a fair amount of time at the end of the bar while they waited for their orders to be filled) even so much as noticed that I was there alone, amidst a sea of lonely café tables.

No one enjoys feeling invisible. And sure, there’s a part of me that says, hey, this ship’s in its first night with passengers, there’s a learning curve. Maybe no one’s been assigned to handle bar orders in the fairly vast lounges, and that’s simply been overlooked. But I was pretty obviously there and someone should have noticed.

Ultimately I walked out, feeling ruffled, and headed downstairs to Fat Cats, the ship’s blues and jazz bars. There, the music was fine and drinks were readily, and pleasantly, served.

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Falling for Elvis

Norwegian Epic’s Legends act – in which impersonators of Elvis, Madonna, and a bunch from Motown perform their great (or good) hits – marries retro supper club café singers with the celebrity worship we’ve become accustomed to today.  It could easily curdle. After all last night’s relatively impromptu performances took place not on a theater’s stage (there is another show later in the cruise that’s held in the main venue) but in one of the ship’s fee-free main dining rooms (though to classify the sleek art deco, or is it art nouveau Manhattan Café, as a typical cruise ship banquet hall is to miss its glamorous essence).

The idea of being sung to at supper is a relatively new one to this 40-something traveler. So the balance of high camp (Madonna and Tina Turner look-alikes in particular) and simply heart breaking singing (Elvis-as-a-young-man and the Motown group) is absolutely novel and also compelling. Dinner lasted a long, long time as singers performed, waiters flawlessly took orders, delivered delicious dinners (the lamb shank was superb) and filled wineglasses, all the while deftly managing not to disrupt the entertainment. Ironically, more disruptive were the numerous folks, er, me included, who sidled up to the stage at various times to take flash photos of the performers.

At dinner’s end, with the rest of the evening’s entertainment options laid out before us, our waitress asked us: “would you like coffee or tea?” My reflexive response to the offer of a late-night jolt of caffeine, as an overtired traveler and overworked careerist, among other things, was a “my god, no!” And she responded, “you don’t want to stay up longer?”

Point taken. I drank the coffee.

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It’s the “it” ship, trust us…

Norwegian Epic, the newest (and largest) cruise ship from Norwegian Cruise Line, also known as the “freestyle”  icon (no rules, no regimentation), was delivered today by STX Europe’s shipyard in France’s St. Nazaire.

At Cruise Critic we call it the “it” ship because it’s the rare vessel in 2010 that’s completely and utterly unique. There are a lot of nice new ships launching this year, such as P&O’s Azura, Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas, Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth and Celebrity’s Eclipse, but they’re pretty much copies of an earlier original. Norwegian Epic IS an original.

By and large, the ship seems at first to be geared to a huge, sprawling, mostly U.S.-centric audience. In its own way, though, the line is trying to court UK and European cruisers too (with the former, it’s bringing the ship, pre-inaugural era anyway, to Southampton for some festivities and with the latter, it’s planning to deploy Epic to the Mediterranean during summertime starting next year).

Frankly I don’t think the ship is either American or European. It’s a mishmash of styles that have more to do with age demos than cultural ones. If you regularly read the celebrity-oriented tabloids, you’ll fit in just fine (which if we’re all going to be brutally honest, includes most of us!). Clearly, this is a ship that’s courting the hip and trendy young set (if in cruising we classify the “young set” as the under 50s, well, bear that in mind).

So there’s the solo studios for single travelers, the Spice H20 beach club for South Beach wannabes, and the Blue Man Group, essentially a mime act, that started in the U.S. but is now spreading worldwide.

We’re not the first to express the opinion that the ship’s exterior is the ugliest we’ve ever seen (and I’ll tell you that a few NCL folks have admitted as much to us) though if you’re already onboard, I’ll say it probably doesn’t matter what the outside looks like. I’ll confess that when writing a poll this week that asked “what one aspect of Epic intrigues you?” [Poll is here, please feel free to weigh in: http://bit.ly/aFTUuh], I did slip in a reference to the ship’s unwieldy outward design (somewhat surprisingly, a mere 5 percent so far have voted for this option).

Shockingly, even less enthusiasm was accorded to such choices as Shanghai’s Noodle Bar (an industry first), which so far has engendered just 1.5 percent-worth-of-excitement, the Spice H20/Posh Beach Club (which weighs in at a measly 2 percent) and, sadly, the Argentinean steak house restaurant, which clearly is not ringing bells but does deserve a bit of credit for a daring effort (it gets less than 1 percent).

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