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2200hrs. I drag myself out of my comfortable New Wave stateroom with its endless reruns of Columbo to join the Philippine media group for dinner. There are more than 20 restaurants on board and we can order anything anywhere we want (and after this maiden voyage there will be a pizza delivery service for those who prefer Columbo to actual humans). The sheer number of available options causes the decision-making part of my brain to shut down.

We go for the default setting: the Garden Cafe, the 24-hour buffet restaurant on deck serving American diner fare, roasts, pastas, and Asian cuisine. Think of the largest buffet you’ve ever seen. Now make it bigger. Apparently this is the guiding principle of the Norwegian Epic: You think you know big? Hahahaha.

Afterwards we try to burn off some of the calories by walking around the ship. We pass the gleaming Casino, which is sparsely populated because everyone is too busy partying.

We peek into the biggest gym I have ever seen, the vast expanse lined with brand-new torture exercise machines—unsullied by human sweat, Leah points out.

The Ice Bar is, as the name promises, an ice bar at sea. You put on a parka and make like you’re in the Arctic. The place is packed and we don’t have reservations, so we move on to

Shanghai, the Chinese restaurant. As you may have guessed, at least half the crew on the Epic are Filipinos.

(The next day when I reported a maintenance problem in my stateroom, a tall man with a mullet showed up to fix it. After he had ascertained my nationality, he told me that his son Reycon Cabigting plays for the Jose Rizal University NCAA basketball team. Reycon has been getting a lot more playing time since Coach Vergel Meneses took over, the proud father said. I don’t follow collegiate basketball—Does anyone know how Reycon is doing?

Later the Pinoy media wind up in Spice H20, the dance club. Vince and Leah, who stuck around at Spice, report that the DJ plays a good mix of music from the 80s to Lady Gaga, the intention being to make everyone dance. Unlike other DJs who are more concerned with showing off their esoteric musical knowledge.

Three English ladies dressed for dancing get into our elevator. “So long,” someone in our party says, whereupon the three English ladies break into a chorus of “So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye.” Giddy intoxication is one thing, but spontaneous public performance of tunes from The Sound of Music is too weird for me.

The following morning the guys report that their butts had been pinched.