The ship is quite nice, although it has changed quite a bit since 2010. Unfortunately, the ice bar has gotten much smaller, and the Spiegel Teint no longer offers a dinner show. The staff were generally very friendly and helpful. The bowling alley, which I had been looking forward to, was still out of order—and, as we read later, apparently had been for quite some time. The entertainment and food were also good, though the buffet on the Jewel was significantly better. On the Epic, I once had potato salad and mayonnaise that had clearly gone bad. I had already wondered about this on the Jewel, because it used to be different. But it seems to be the case everywhere that the menus stay the same every day. At the Haven restaurant, it was always the same thing in the evenings. For the prices you pay, I actually find that pretty weak. Plus those awful raffles. We entered one once and were there right on time. Then you wait forever, shove more coupons into people’s hands to throw in, and those people end up winning. Then you don’t even have to hand in those coupons when you disembark, and you don’t have to lug them around. It was just really silly. And it’s not just us Germans saying this—we’re usually harder to get excited about stuff like that than Americans, who’ll go along with just about anything. Even Americans are just turning up their noses now, and one guy said, “What has become of NCL?” The services are getting fewer and fewer, prices are getting higher, and then you’re bombarded with ads at every turn. He’s right. From 2010 to 2013, things were definitely different. Back then, the Epic even served Eggs Benedict at the breakfast buffet. We had a Haven Suite at the stern, which was very nice. Our cabin steward certainly wasn’t perfect, but he did a great job anyway. Our butler, on the other hand, was very unpleasant. We were surely still spoiled from the previous year, because the butler on the Jewel was simply phenomenal. We knew this one wouldn’t be like that. But nobody knows what he was even there for. He didn’t really introduce himself, just briefly at some point. He apparently forgot to bring the treats to the room on the first day. And the icing on the cake came at the end of the trip. Even though he didn’t do much for us, he had said twice on the phone that he doesn’t get a tip from what’s distributed to all the staff. I thought I’d misheard him. When he stopped by shortly after those two phone calls, he said it in person. So he’d mentioned three times that he’d like to receive a tip. My husband, who lives off tips himself because he works for the Mobility Service at BER Airport, lost his temper and couldn’t calm down for ages. I was calmer, but I also saw it as an impertinence. He then told the deputy concierge directly in a rather loud voice and later repeated it to the concierge himself. The concierge understood and said he would speak to the butler. Everyone does their job. We go to work too, and I even have two jobs. It’s simply unacceptable for someone to beg for tips like that. Especially when they don’t even ask every now and then if everything is okay or if we need anything. On our other trip, we spoke to our butler almost every day, and he was constantly doing things for us. And he never once begged. Overall, it was still a nice trip with a few minor downsides. Unfortunately. However, the booking process through Cruisedirect was professional and extremely smooth. Kudos to the team.
