Epic Studio Cabins, the good, the bad and the shower...

Studio cabins, did NCL accidentally get it right?

Yes and No!

I've heard that when NCL originally designed the studio cabins on the EPIC they were supposed to be small double occupancy rooms, but they didn't sell well so they made them solo passenger cabins, though you can still put 2 people in them if you choose. They have a private lounge area for only the studio passengers, it has a bar (open 1 hour a day), coffee, snacks and continental breakfast. There is even a member of the staff that helps to get the passengers to know each other.

It sounds perfect, and NCL absolutely got this right.  But it felt like now that they have this product they don't quite know what to do with them now, I think the concept needs a little nurturing to make it truely fantastic.
 
I'll start with the cabins...
The cabins, although small, are nice.  The bathroom is broken up - the toilet, shower and sink are separate.  The shower has a glass wall with frosting on it, but the frosting needs to be darker and cover more of the wall, luckily I was the only one in the room.  There are two closets in the room,with doors that slide (when open they cover the sink and the TV), each with a hanger bar and 2 shelves.  There are additional shelves in the room, but no drawers.  If you look hard enough, there are baskets under the bed for additional storage.  I thought there was plenty of storage for 1 person, but I think it would be tight if there was a second person in the room.  Actually, everything about this cabin was just fine for 1 person, but I couldn't imagine a second person in one of these cabins, except maybe a mother and small child. 

Vanity

Toilet

The room comes with "mood" lighting.  This was neat for about 2 minutes, then it was annoying.  Even more annoying was the panel to change the settings was next to the bed, not near the door.  Although there is no thermostat there is a panel that allows you to adjust the temperature to cooler or warmer, I think this is the first ship I've had this feature on and I like it!  My cabin had at least 3 sets of outlets, several of which were for european and american plugs.  There was a table and a bench in the room, but both were so small that I only used them to put stuff on. 

Mood Lighting

The Studio Lounge:

The studio lounge was a private area that offered a bar, drinks, food, sitting area and TV.  It was a nice sized space for the number of passengers in the studios, it was busiest in the mornings (continental breakfast was offered) and evening, but never crowded.  The space was used for the solo passenger meet ups, which was the only time the bar was open.  We had a member of the social staff assigned to us for the solo meet ups, Sol, she helped get everyone introduced and arranged for 1 group dinner. 
I think this is the area where the studio cabins fell short.  I met many wonderful people who were staying in the studio cabins, some were very outgoing and others were very very shy.  I think that the staff member who is assigned to the studio lounge should be organizing more activities.  I don't think this is the fault of Sol, from what I have heard everyone has had the same experience since the ship launched, so I think this is how NCL has designed the position.  I would have liked to have seen a few more dinners planned, particularly in the specialty restaurants, a session in the Ice Bar or bowling.  I think that would open up more opportunities for solo cruisers and it would generate more money for the cruise line - a win for all. 

The other thing that I thought was missing was a window or a balcony or anything involving fresh air and sunlight.  Since the studio cabins were inside I felt an extra need to go outside in my free time, I know other people expressed a concern about possibly feeling clausterphobic in these cabins.  I had no issue with clausterphobia.  There were a few occasions where I would have liked to have spent time in the lounge, but with no window or baloncy, I chose to go up on deck instead.  I think the interior nature of the lounge kept it from being a more popular place to congregate.  Not that it needed a big section of window or a large balcony, but anything would have been better.  The best example of this was on the last day of the cruise I ate breakfast in the lounge, got my things and debarked the ship.  To my surprise it was cold and raining and ended up not being dressed properly. 

Hallway for the Studios

I have written NCL a letter about all of my thoughts on improving the Studio cabin experience, so I don't mind saying it here.  They did write back and thank me for my input.  But since this post seems to be a bit negative, I do want to add that I absolutely LOVED this cruise and the studio cabins.  I made many wonderful friends and would definatley consider sailing on the EPIC again if I was traveling by myself.  I would also recommend this ship to anyone else traveling by themselves.  I just think there are a few things that can be done to make it an even better experience.

Reminder: I can be found on Twitter @Travelingiraffe

Freestyle Dining on the Pride of America

This was my first experience with Freestyle dining and it has some pros and some cons. I enjoyed being able to dine whenever I wanted, within the dining times offered and only once waited for a table, that was good. We did hear others complain about waiting and poor food quality. Overall dining was a good experience but there are some issues, though from what I have heard from past cruisers things are better then they were.

The Pride of America has 2 traditional dining rooms: The Liberty Dining room, the more formal of the two (jeans are not permitted), and the Skyline Dining room where shorts are permitted. Not to be the dining nazi, but shorts at dinner seemed strange to me. The Aloha Cafe is the pool deck level buffet that is informal for all meals. There are also specialty restaurants. The Cadillac Diner is a 50'sish diner serving traditional diner types of foods - burgers, meatloaf, shakes. It's informal and is open 22 hours a day. We ate mostly lunches here. East Meets West is a group of Asian restaurants - Sushi, Teppanaki, Asian Fusion. Jefferson's Bistro is a formal french restaurant, Lazy J's is a steak house and Little Italy serves Italian food. East Meets West, Lazy J's, Little Italy, and Jefferson's Bistro all charge an additional fee to eat there. I'm not sure if this is to cover the cost of the better food offered or to limit the number of people eating at them.

Liberty Dining Room

We had breakfast in the Aloha Cafe 3 times and each time was awful. The buffet areas were over crowded, there were never tables available and there wasn't enough staff to clear the tables. I never figured out what was going on in the juice area, was that even juice they had? I didn't see trays the whole week so I assume they didn't have them, which made it difficult to get food and a drink. After 2 breakfasts we didn't return to the Aloha Cafe again until the last morning. Breakfast in the dining room was significantly more enjoyable! The meals we had at the Liberty and Skyline restaurants were much better then the Aloha Cafe, the food was just average but the staff was good.

Skyline

We did take time to enjoy several of the specialty restaurants. We ate in Jefferson's Bistro and had George as a waiter who made the experience really enjoyable. While the food here wasn't fantastic we enjoyed the opportunity to try new foods and have this nice dining experience. However, neither of us felt the need to return here as the menu didn't appeal to us for a second visit or to pay the $15 cover charge again. We enjoyed our dinner at Lazy J's, and found the steak here to be far superior to the steak I had in the dining room. The experience and the food was just enough to justify the $25 additional charge. If the cover charge had been a little lower we might have returned to this restaurant, but at $25 felt that it was only worthy of visiting once. At Little Italy we found the food to be average Italian food, nothing special and barely worth the $10 cover charge. We also ate at Teppanyaki which I thought was a rip off at $25 a person. I recently ate at a Teppanyaki type restaurant at home, ordered the same thing and got more food for less money. The chef wasn't anything special, which was highlighted by the other chef being much more entertaining with his table.

One thing we did enjoy about Teppanyaki was sitting with other people. While we didn't "click" with the couple next to us we did meet two sisters who we became friendly with. This emphasized one of the problems I had with freestyle dining as it existed on the Pride of America, it was anti-social. When I cruised with Royal Caribbean several years ago at lunch and breakfast they had open dining, you would come any time they were open and they would seat you at a large table with other cruisers. This provided an opportunity to get to know other cruisers and hear about other peoples experiences during the cruise. I expected a similar situation at the main dining rooms on the Pride of America, but it was not the case. Although I noticed a note about it on the back of the Freestyle Daily that you could request to sit with others I never actually saw anyone do it, and since most of the tables are set up for 2-4 people (and the tables for 6 always seemed empty) I don't think the dining room setting was well suited for this anyway. On past cruises I felt like I got to know a lot more people on the ship then I did on this cruise which took away from the overall experience.

If you're one of those people who doesn't like to dress up, but still likes to have a sit down meal at a dining room, then NCL might be the line for you. However, if you want really good quality food then you'll end up having to fork up some money so that you can eat at the specialty restaurants. As for me, NCL wont be my first choice next time but I'll still consider it.

NCL's Pride of America

So my cruise was on NCL America's Pride of America. I had heard quite a few complaints about the ship before I went, most either weren't true or were exaggerated. In this post I'm just going to talk about the ship, I'll talk about dining in another post. I think one of the problems that NCL America had was that at one time they had 3 ships operating in Hawaii, they only have 1 now. I suspect they grew too fast in Hawaii and the staff was spread thin. By moving two ships out of Hawaii they may have been able to get rid of the poor members of the staff and consolidate crews and made a better experience for cruisers.

First, our Embarkation went ok. The terminal isn't set up well. You have to haul your luggage to the end of the terminal to drop it off, then walk back the way you just came to start the boarding process. This wouldn't have been so bad but the signage was lacking. But after this everything went smoothly and we were on the ship relatively quickly.


The ship wasn't as grand as some of the other ships I've been on, but it was still nice and had all the amenities you needed. Other then having an American theme there was nothing special about this ship.

We had a balcony cabin on the Starboard side of the ship on the 9th floor - cabin 9100. I had heard the cabins were small, and they are, though they didn't seem much smaller then other lines. But they were poorly designed. You walk in the cabin and the bathroom is on one side with a closet on the other side. Then there are the beds and near the balcony is the sitting area. The problem was that the placement of the beds made it nearly impossible to get around the room, especially at night if you had to go to the bathroom. And if you had to get your luggage around you had to pick it up and lift it over the beds to get around.

Our cabin met its purpose, as did the ship and considering how much time is spent in port I think the ship is well suited. I do think a balcony is a great advantage for this cruise. Although the view at the ports wasn't all that great we did sail the Na Pali coast one afternoon and also sailed by the volcano another night and it's really nice to have a balcony for those things.