Travel advisor Kimberly McNally-Sheppard sailed the Mediterranean on the NCL Epic and came home with a breathtaking itinerary, a golden insider tip, and a clear-eyed professional verdict that her clients won't find in any brochure.
At a Glance
The Greece and Italy itinerary aboard Norwegian Cruise Line's NCL Epic features exceptional ports, including the Olympic Port and marble-rich Greek destinations, but the ship's design is flawed. A casino blocks access to entertainment and dining venues, washrooms are insufficient, and there is no running track, making it better suited for port-focused travellers than those spending significant time aboard.
There is a moment Kimberly McNally-Sheppard keeps coming back to. She is standing beneath the arch at the Olympic Port, two months too early to witness the lighting of the Olympic flame, and yet she feels it anyway, that quiet, electric charge of being somewhere that means something. "I am now an Olympian by just walking under the arch," she says, and the grin behind the words is unmistakable. It is exactly the kind of moment that turns a trip into a story, and a story into the reason clients trust their advisor to send them somewhere that will change them a little.
McNally-Sheppard, a seasoned travel advisor, recently sailed an Italy and Greece itinerary aboard Norwegian Cruise Line's NCL Epic. The trip was equal parts inspiration and intelligence-gathering, the sort of firsthand reconnaissance that separates an advisor who has read the brochure from one who has actually stood on the deck, walked the ports, and noticed what the marketing copy leaves out. She came home with both: a genuine love for the destinations, and a frank professional assessment that will steer her clients toward the right experience on the right ship.
A Port That Puts History Beneath Your Feet
The Olympic Port stop was, by McNally-Sheppard's account, the undisputed highlight of the journey. She and her fellow travellers arrived to find the site humming with anticipation, preparations quietly underway for the flame-lighting ceremony that would come two months later. It did not matter. The new museum was, in her words, "awesome," and the sheer weight of the history surrounding her was enough to make the timing feel less like a near-miss and more like a privilege. She contextualized the visit immediately for her clients, understanding instinctively that framing a destination's timing and significance is part of the service she provides.
From the Olympic Port, the itinerary carried her through Greek ports that offered their own form of revelation. What surprised her most was the scale of it: "How much marble exists in the Greek port we visited, and how well the locals keep the marble so clean." The observation speaks to something deeper than aesthetic appreciation. McNally-Sheppard noticed the pride embedded in the maintenance of those ancient surfaces, the way a community tends to its history not as a relic but as a living thing. It is the kind of sensory detail, vast stretches of pale stone gleaming under Mediterranean light, that no photograph fully captures and no itinerary document thinks to mention.
Where the Itinerary Ends and the Ship Begins
And then there is the ship.
This is where McNally-Sheppard's traveller voice steps aside and her advisor voice takes over, clear, measured, and entirely unsparing. "It is not a well-designed ship, and you have to walk through a casino to get to all the entertainment and food venues," she says. For a ship that markets itself as a premium cruise experience, that is a significant structural flaw, and McNally-Sheppard recognizes it as client-relevant intelligence, not merely a personal inconvenience. The casino sits on a high deck, positioned squarely between passengers and the places they want to be. For guests who are comfortable with that, fine. For those who are not, it is something they deserve to know before they book.
The layout frustrations did not stop there. Public washrooms were, by her account, insufficient and not all were reliably operational. There is no running track, an absence that may seem minor until you are a client who counts on that morning routine to make a week at sea feel manageable. Taken together, these are not isolated complaints but a pattern, a ship whose design prioritizes certain experiences at the expense of others.
Her professional conclusion is characteristically direct: "I would not recommend the ship. I would look for another cruise line that has the same or similar itinerary." The route itself, she is emphatic, is worth sailing. The ports are extraordinary. The cultural richness of moving between Italy and Greece rewards every kind of traveller. The ship, however, is a mismatch for anyone who plans to spend meaningful time on board between ports.
The Question Every Client Should Be Asked
What McNally-Sheppard has distilled from this experience is a simple but powerful framework she will now apply to every cruise consultation she conducts. "Ask whether you're looking for itinerary or ship layout," she advises. "Would you be spending a lot of time on the ship? If so, this is not the ship for that." It is the kind of question that reframes an entire booking conversation, shifting the focus from cabin categories and departure dates to the more fundamental question of what kind of traveller you actually are.
For the client who treats the ship as a floating hotel between port days, who rises early, goes ashore, and returns only to sleep, the NCL Epic's itinerary is genuinely compelling. For the client who savours sea days, who runs before breakfast and wanders between venues in the afternoon, there is a better vessel for this route, and McNally-Sheppard will find it for them.
The Secret Balcony That Nobody Talks About
Not everything about the Epic disappointed. In the spirit of the insider expertise she has built over years of firsthand travel, McNally-Sheppard is sharing one discovery that she suspects most passengers aboard that ship never find. For guests booked in inside cabins near the back of the ship, there is a door, easy to overlook, easy to forget, that opens onto a balcony. "There is a door that will lead to a balcony that everyone forgets," she says, "so you still have a balcony view for sunsets or sunrises." It is a small thing, perhaps, but in the currency of travel advice, a golden-hour view over open water that you thought was unavailable to you is not a small thing at all. It is exactly the kind of detail that makes a client feel seen and looked after.
Always One Journey Ahead
The Mediterranean chapter is closed, the notes taken, the lessons filed. McNally-Sheppard is already looking forward. The Baltics are next on her personal wish list, another region to experience firsthand, another set of ports to walk, another class of ship to evaluate, another body of knowledge to bring back for the clients who trust her to have done the homework they cannot do themselves.
That is, in the end, what this trip confirmed. The brochure will always show you the arch and the marble and the sunset. It will not tell you about the casino between you and dinner, or the balcony door that everyone forgets, or the question you should have been asked before you ever chose a ship. For that, you need someone who has been there. You need Kimberly McNally-Sheppard.
