7 Days in the World’s Most Controversial Cruise Cabin (Norwegian Epic)

I recently went on a cruise, and I stayed in one of the world’s strangest cabins.

The design is so unusual that there are no other cruise ships with this layout at all. Even the cruise line that owns this ship never used the design again. 

For years, I’ve seen people arguing about whether this cabin style is a genius idea or something to be avoided entirely.

I suspected that it may be something in between, but I was not prepared for the reality of living in the cabin for 7 days. 

I wanted to find out why the cruise line did this, and I wanted to know why they never repeated it.

It’s really rare for a cruise ship not to have any sister ships with the same design, so I knew that there must be a reason.

I wanted to know if the controversial cabin would be enough to put me off cruising on the ship in future, and whether the cabin would be in a bad condition given that the ship launched in 2010. 

When I booked this cruise, I picked the cruise cabin type, but I didn’t pick the specific room location.

I was very happy to see that I was assigned cabin 8125 – in the middle of deck 8.

The ship that I was cruising on was Norwegian Epic, and I knew that she didn’t have stairs in the middle, so I’d be walking from the cabin to the front and to the back.

I hoped that meant that we wouldn’t hear a lot of noise of people passing by, but I hoped that the long walk wouldn’t get annoying.

Norwegian Epic is over 300 metres long, so that’s like having 30 buses parked in a row.

Looking at the deck plans I noticed that even on there I could see that the cabins on the Norwegian Epic have wiggly walls.

All other cruise ship cabins are rectangles, but that’s just the start of the differences between this and a standard cabin on any other cruise ship.

We boarded the ship at 11 am, and it was at 2 pm that our cabins were available for us to use. Before that time, the housekeeping team were busy cleaning them after the previous guests left in the morning. 

Walking down the corridor, I saw the fish corridor carpet, which I loved. The fish always swim forward and I used this every single day. We already had our key cards, and we used them to open the cabin door. 

From the moment that the door opened and I first laid eyes on the cabin, I could tell that this wasn’t like any room I’ve ever stayed in before.

My cabin was technically a standard balcony cabin, but it was anything but standard.

As soon as I took one step into the room, I was in the bathroom area with the bed beyond that and then the sofa.

On the right hand side I had a little room with a toilet in it, and on the left a shower. The floor was different here to show that this was the bathroom area, and there was a sink on the side just in front of where I was standing.

On every other cruise ship in the world, there is a separate bathroom with a door just off to one side.

That is the case on the oldest cruise ships or the newest, the biggest or the smallest – so I had a lot of questions. The first one being WHY? Why did they do this? 

The whole room was curvy, and I headed around the bed to explore the rest of the cabin.

At this point, for me, the bathroom was just a quirky difference, but it wasn’t until I was using it and spending time here during the week that the perks and drawbacks would really become apparent.

This design is the same in the inside cabins too, and I would also get the chance to have a look at one of those later in the cruise. I actually think I prefer the inside cabins layout, but more about that later. 

I loved the big circle part on the ceiling and the lighting above the wood at the top.

I could see where the wall curved behind my bed and onto the sofa. The cabin behind mine would have a flipped-around layout because of this wall; they’d have the sofa here and the bed at the end. 

Beyond the bed, I found a big sofa and lots and lots of storage space opposite.

Newer cruise ships tend to have a more minimalistic design, like the new Norwegian ships Norwegian Luna and Norwegian Aqua that I cruised on recently.

This cabin definitely didn’t feel minimalistic, and if you compare these two, the difference is dramatic, but I found it all very comfortable and nostalgic in a way. 

This ship was built in 2010, and I do think the design reflects that. She would have been designed a few years before that, so I wouldn’t expect this cabin to feel really modern.

I did wonder if anything would be broken or damaged, as the cabin is pretty much exactly the same as it was when the ship was launched. From a quick first look though, it looked fine.

It isn’t uncommon for problems to show themselves a few days in, though, so I wasn’t “counting my chickens until they’d hatched”, as the phrase goes. 

I headed out onto my balcony and was happy to see that it was really quite big and nicely protected.

I’ve been on plenty of cruise ships in the past where the balcony is half the size of this. On the balcony were two chairs and a table, and we looked down over the lifeboats on the deck below.

We were cruising in the Mediterranean in summer, and it was really hot, so being able to sit and spend time in the shade here was lovely.

I did do a live stream during the cruise, which worked well, but that was the hour that seven seagulls decided that they wanted to have an argument on top of the lifeboat just outside my room. I thought it was funny, and I liked seeing them come and go. 

After a few minutes, it was really quite hot, so I headed back inside into the cold air conditioning.

Knowing how hot it would be this week, I knew that the air conditioning would be the most important part of the room.

I also knew that I had to have a closer look at the “bathroom”.

I am doing air quotes there, by the way; you couldn’t see them, but please just always imagine them when I say “bathroom”. 

I noticed that there was storage space above the sink and that there were towels on the sides down below.

There was a big tub under the sink too, and I’m not entirely sure what that’s for. A friend of mine did joke that it was a bath for a baby, but I don’t think it’s that. I think it’s probably for dirty clothes, but I just used it to store my cans of water.

I had read reviews before the cruise saying this sink was tiny, but I’ve used much smaller sinks on land before.

Perhaps that is because I’m from the UK and we’re used to having small downstairs toilets, or loos as I would call them.

Compared to that, this seemed a good size.

It was strange to have the sink in the main cabin, but there were benefits to it that I’d realise as the cruise went on.

The size definitely wasn’t ever a problem for me – it was ” just a wee sink”, as my friend Fraser would say.

“Wee”, meaning small, is your Scottishism of the week. Fraser was the one who had a “wee inside cabin” on this cruise, and I was looking forward to looking around that one too. 

Just to the side of the sink was a curtain that went right the way across the room, splitting the shower and toilet from the rest of the cabin.

I thought it was a bit strange that the sink was in the cabin part, not the shower part, because you’d have to move the curtain every time after using the toilet to wash your hands, but I did come up with a solution for that. 

I did have some concerns about the layout, first of all it didn’t seem very sound proof and I wondered how it would be doing things that I would normally do in the bathroom, in the main part of the cabin.

I thought it would be weird, for example, if somebody wanted to cut their toenails, they’d just have to do that in this area, I guess. 

It seemed to me as though they probably did this to make more room space in the main cabin, and they did that by opening up this area.

This cabin divides opinions, but I think everybody agrees it is strange. I wanted to know if that was why they didn’t do this again, but the answer isn’t what you’d expect. 

I was on this cruise with family, and when I went to their cabin, I noticed the flipped layout that I mentioned earlier.

I usually like to sit on the sofa near the balcony, but I did wonder which I’d prefer on this ship.

After all, with the bed further towards the back of the cabin, it meant that my head was not very far away from the toilet – and not far from the corridor.

I knew that it would be very convenient for middle-of-the-night trips to the toilet, though.

Our suitcases were already at our room by the time that we arrived so we didn’t have to wait at all.

When I put my suitcase on the bed and started to unpack, I realised very quickly that I didn’t need all of the storage space.

We had two wardrobe areas, drawers below and big shelves over near the desk area with a stool. There was more storage under the TV, too, and even some that were up high above the sofa.

When I was done, I pushed my suitcase under the bed, and as the cruise went on, I’d put my dirty clothes into it.

I’d usually put my shoes under the bed too as there wasn’t a lot of floor space. I could have put them away in some of the storage space of course, but I never did. 

My first impressions of the cabin were that yes, it was strange, but it was really exciting. I was nervous about how it would be using the bathroom area, but only time would tell. 

Watching the first sailaway from the balcony was amazing. I loved having the extra space, and even though it was showing its age around the edges, it didn’t affect my cruise at all. I enjoyed all of the time that I spent out there. 

The inside of the cabin was similar in that it was definitely showing its age in a few places, but not in any way that affected my cruise.

It’s always much more important to me that a cabin is clean and functional. It always was, and the housekeeping team would come into the room to clean it every day.

They’d change our towels if we wanted them changed and would take away things like cups and plates that we had brought to the room from other places.

After the sailaway, I decided to go to the toilet. This isn’t normally something I’d mention on the internet, but it was quite an experience. 

I pulled across the curtain and went into the little cubicle on the side, the door there slides across and then you are in a little room.

The floor was kind of like a shower tray, it’s plastic and a little bit bouncy.

That’s probably because it’s easy to clean but the room reminded me a lot of when I stayed onboard Norwegian Breakaway in a solo cabin.

The difference there, though, was that I was the only person staying in the cabin, and I would be sharing this one. 

Have a look at that Norwegian Breakaway solo studio cabin to see what I mean, here:

The toilet was the same as always, and there was a bin in there too. I didn’t have any problems with the size of the room, but it isn’t huge, and you don’t have the space generally around the toilet that you have in most cruise ship cabin bathrooms.

The shower cubicle is bigger than the toilet, and the shower would be really important on this cruise as it was so hot. Most days I’d have a midday shower and would get changed. 

After using the toilet, I came back into the main part of the cabin to use the sink.

The toilet cubicle definitely isn’t soundproof – that didn’t surprise me given that it was just a sliding door and a curtain.

For me, that isn’t a massive problem, and if I were staying with family or a partner, it would be fine.

If I were in here with a friend, though, I might ask them to step out onto the balcony so I could have more privacy, or I’d go to one of the public toilets around the ship if I was feeling shy. There are loads of public toilets around the ship.

Later in the evening, I had my first shower, and I found that there were hooks on the side where we could put our towels.

I made sure to put the cabin door on to “do not disturb” and I locked it from the inside just so that I could be sure that nobody would come into the room.

The “do not disturb” sign is a little wheel outside the cabin that you turn. You can have welcome, make up room, make down room and do not disturb.

On newer cruise ships with all the mod cons, you might get buttons that you can press from inside, but this was better than the piece of paper or the magnets that you get on a lot of ships. They can be lost.

Mod cons can be your Britishism of the week, meaning the modern conveniences. 

Our cabin steward did knock a couple of times during the cruise to deliver things like the daily schedule, but we wouldn’t answer the door if one of us was in the shower or on the toilet.

I’m sure the crew are used to the quirky cabin layout, and they could hear if somebody is in the shower when they open the door, even if it wasn’t on “do not disturb”.

I don’t think they’d come into the room if they suspected it might be used, they definitely don’t want to embarrass the guests, they’re just trying to do their jobs. 

The shower itself was good, the cubicle was big enough, and it was powerful.

When looking at the promotional marketing that Norwegian released before launching this ship, the larger shower was one of the main benefits of this layout. The shower was good, and I did appreciate it a lot. 

The water temperature was very consistent, and the water didn’t leak out of the shower at all.

There was shower gel and shampoo.

It wasn’t as nice as the shower I had in my suite onboard Norwegian Spirit, of course, but for a standard balcony shower it was good, and it got the job done. 

Have a look at that amazing suite bathroom onboard Norwegian Spirit here:

We went to bed early on this first night after a day of travelling, the bed was very tempting and it was really comfortable.

I liked the pillows a lot, and the bed itself is curved slightly at the top and the bottom corners.

It didn’t seem any shorter than usual in the middle, but maybe at the edges it is slightly shorter. 

My friend Fraser, who was staying in an inside cabin, said that his bed was fine for him and he’s 6 feet 3 tall, but the inside cabin beds are curved just at the bottom, not at the top.

I was looking forward to seeing his inside cabin.

I’d actually stayed in an inside cabin on this ship with my brother way back in 2015, but I had no idea I’d ever be talking about cruises on the internet back then, and I didn’t think twice about the layout. 

I’d also not stayed in many cruise ship cabins then, so I didn’t have as much to compare it to as I do now. 

During the night, we would occasionally hear people walking along the corridor, but it wasn’t for long, and we never heard any noise from our cabin neighbours.

We did hear them out on the balcony, so I know that they were there, but they were either very quiet in the cabin or the cabin was fairly well soundproofed. 

I could sometimes hear their toilet flush, but only if it was quiet or I was on the balcony, and they had their sliding door open. 

There aren’t any sockets or USBs by the beds but the cabin does have four plug sockets, they are inside one of the cupboards, there’s a place for your wires to come up and through on to the countertop, to keep things tidy.

Down here, there were 2 US sockets and 2 European sockets. This was plenty for us during the cruise, and although I would have liked sockets by the beds, that wasn’t the norm back in 2010.

This ship has had a couple of refits since then, but not one big enough to change the cabins. What you see here is pretty much how the cabins were originally designed. 

A bit of a tangent, but does anybody think that this symbol looks like the bum of a cat? I do. When you see it, it’s really hard to unsee. It’s meant to be a plug.

We did have a few shelves on each side of the bed, along with reading lights. From here, we could watch the TV, or you could watch the other person brushing their teeth if you wanted to. 

We really liked the fact that one person could be getting ready for bed, brushing their teeth or doing something similar while the other was in the shower.

I think that was part of the original intention of the whole design. It certainly was a gamble. 

When I visited my friend Fraser’s cabin, his bed was really far from the toilet and the shower, and I do actually prefer this design. If I could have this, but with a balcony stuck on the side somehow, I’d pick that.

Perhaps this is why I didn’t mind the set-up so much when I cruised on this ship before.

Frasers standard inside cabin had a big bed in the middle, loads of storage and a little desk that came out of the side, we both thought that that was a good idea.

We took a photo together with me in the shower cubicle and Fraser in the toilet one which does make me laugh.

Fraser will be reviewing this cabin too so make sure you’re subscribed to him over at fraseratsea.com

He cruised Solo on this cruise, and Norwegian does a lot for solo cruisers. 

We invited Fraser back to our room to show him the layout, and he sat on our sofa.

It does make me laugh how, if you sit on the sofa, you are looking at the wardrobe door, but I’d usually have my laptop, and this was a place where I’d work.

This is actually a sofa bed as the cabin does sleep three, some cabins also have Pullman beds that come down from the ceiling and I have stayed on them on cruises in the past.

Adults are able to stay on them, but it’s usually children who do. 

For four people, I imagine that you would have to be very clever with the storage in this cabin, but for two, there was plenty.

There wasn’t a huge amount of tabletop space, so we did have to make an effort to keep things tidy, but as long as we did and we put things away, it was a comfortable base for the week.

There were a couple of things that I did that made the cabin work better for me, the first was that I usually left the curtain a little bit open so I could wash my hands easily after going to the toilet. There was still enough privacy then.

I also went to the pool deck and brought a pool towel back to my room to use after a shower, the white ones that are provided are good but they aren’t very big and the blue ones are bigger. 

We ordered a lot of cans of water on this cruise, which was great given how hot it was.

We didn’t order these just for us but also for our family and friends who were on the trip too.

We pretty much had cans of water everywhere, and the fridge was always full of them. It was so great to be able to pick up a can whenever we wanted. 

The air conditioning was fantastic, which made it a great place to come to during the hot days.

The storage was great, and although the bathroom situation is strange, it wouldn’t put me off cruising on Epic again.

Have a closer look at my balcony cabin in my full cabin video below:

I see why they didn’t do this again, but I honestly think good on Norwegian for trying something new. It was a brave choice. 

You might expect that Norwegian saw the way that some people didn’t like this layout and that they then decided not to make any more ships like it.

That isn’t how this happened or why Epic is so unique.

There were meant to be two ships of this design, with a possibility of a third; the second ship was cancelled two years before Epic was even ready or was being tested by the public.

When it came to designing the next type of cruise ship, Norwegian decided to go back to the standard bathrooms.

I’m glad they did because the bathrooms on their newest cruise ships, like Luna and Aqua, are really nice. 

I’ll show you what those new cabins are like in this video – you’ll notice things have changed a lot…

Before You Go

Find out what you should know before cruising with Norwegian Cruise Line here:

7 Things You Should Know Before Your First Cruise With Norwegian Cruise Line

Find out all about the interesting history of Norwegian Cruise Line here:

Norwegian Cruise Line History (Including Interesting Brochures from the 1960s)