A first timer's account - NCL Breakaway - May 18-25

[Winston Wolf]

Background:

My wife and I sailed on Norwegian Breakaway from NYC to Bermuda on May 18-25th. This was my first cruise and her second (but first in over 20 years).

We booked this cruise as a 10th Anniversary trip (no kids!) about 10 months prior to sailing and in the months from booking on , I had done a TON of reading on CC about Breakaway and at a few points had gotten a little freaked out about what the experience would be like. Below are my thoughts from our trip. I won’t get all high and mighty and say others were wrong about things, but my impressions did not always match the criticisms that I had read on here for months. I’ll try to provide context to the lens I saw things through when appropriate.

Here we go….

Booking:

Given this was my first cruise, and my bride’s second, we only had a vague idea about what we wanted to do, or where we wanted to go. I floated the idea of a cruise out there to see if she’d be interested and she was. She only asked that we not do the Caribbean as that was her last cruise (granted in 1997!). OK, no problem. So I stated hunting around on NCL, RCL, X, Carnival, etc. to see what kind of trips were around our anniversary date. Once I started seeing trips to Bermuda on a few lines this seemed like the idea for us. Not overly tropical (my wife has “retired” from the sun for the most part), but would be a nice change of pace from the nasty Wisconsin winter we would eventually go through. So the question became which line. RCCL had a ship out of Baltimore, but was only a 5 day cruise. X had the same itinerary as NCL at a lower price, but I became enthralled with the idea of a new ship like Breakaway. Frankly, and I won’t bore you with details, there were just a lot of synergies with our lives over the last 10 years that it seemed like this ship was meant for us. So we booked and that was that. Saved some money going through a big box store TA and got a little OBC. Not bad. Wound up doing a Category M6 cabin (more on this later)

[Winston Wolf]

The wait:

So for months on end I started reading everything on CC that I could about Breakway. The “Everything Breakaway” thread, Gambee’s extensive review and video, and Chesneygirl’s videos always got me pumped up for our trip. At one point had thought about switching from our M6 to a B1 (aft balcony), but decided to stick with what we had. As I read threads I would cut and paste stuff to a document on my computer when I’d run across something interesting or something I wanted to remember. (Ex: How and where to score Vibe passes, Ferry schedules, places to visit in Bermuda, etc.)

[Winston Wolf]

The Trip:

NYC:

We flew into NYC the day before to make sure we wouldn’t miss the ship in case we had cancelled flights, but everything went smoothly. Stayed down by the WTC and spent the day doing 9/11 stuff.

The morning of our trip I woke up early and walked a couple blocks to the Hudson River to watch Breakaway sail in. It was really cool to see this ship I’ve been thinking about for almost a year right in front of me and know that in just a few hours we’d be boarding. Anyway, cool moment for me. Wife slept. Haha.

Embarkation:

We took a cab to the pier which took longer than expected due to traffic. So let me step back. As I mentioned above, I wanted Vibe passes. Like bad. Told my wife that we needed to be at the pier early to have any shot at them and she was down with that. So the plan was leave the hotel at 9:15, be at the pier by 9:30. Best laid plans….

So we were a bit late leaving the hotel room (9:30), and took longer than expected to catch a cab (9:45), then hit traffic because of…well…New York. Didn’t get to the pier until 10:15. Crap. Dropped our bags, which couldn’t have been easier and then hustled inside to get our boarding number. Got #23. Crap.

So in order to get Vibe passes, you either have to be very early, have status, or very lucky. We were the latter that day. Got to the counter and started checking in. I asked the agent about our boarding number and whether it was early or not. She indicated it was middle of the pack. I asked “So how do people get lower numbers?” more just making conversation than trying to get somewhere as I’d resigned that we wouldn’t get Vibe passes. She said a couple things which I don’t recall now but added “Be a Latitudes member”. So I pipe up with, “Well we’re Latitudes members!” (which was legit, we were…not sure if we got in the wrong line or what), and she responded that she’d get us a much better number. Boy did she come though. Group 5! I wish I could remember her name and send her something. That act of kindness made our vacation.

So when they started boarding around 11:30, Groups 1-4 seemed like they were priority boarding folks who needed more time to board. Then they called 5 and 6 and we hustled up the gangway to get to Guest Services. Sorry for the old ladies I shoved out of the way. Just kidding! Jeez!

Through CC, I knew exactly where we would board, and what the path was to Guest Services. We boarded through the door between O’Sheehans and the Breakaway Theatre, immediately went down the stairs to deck 6, then through the elevator lobby right the Atrium (which, and more on this later, took about 20 seconds. The trip was a lot shorter than I’d expected given how massive I’d heard the ship was). Immediately headed for Guest Services and started asking around about which line was for Vibe. A crew member pointed us to the line right in front of us and were quickly greeted by someone else holding what I’ll call the “Vibe slips”. She then asked us if we wanted regular vibe passes or a cabana. I was dumbfounded. Never in a million years did I think Cabanas would still be available. After confirming that the $100 F&B credit still came with the Cabana, we took Cabana #2. The 3 groups in back of us took 3, 4, and 5. They went quickly. We felt so incredibly lucky. I still can’t quite believe we got one.

Grabbed some lunch in the Buffet, walked around the ship a bit, got our first bucket of beer, then went to drop off a couple things in our cabin. Supposedly the cabins were not ready to move into yet, but that you could drop your things off. Ours was already cleaned up and had our treats from purchasing the Deluxe Anniversary Package already in the room. Good stuff. We’re off to a proper start!

[Winston Wolf]

Our Cabin:

As I mentioned we booked a Category M6 (Large Balcony Mini-suite) Cabin. They’re all located on deck 8 Forward. These have a balcony which I estimated at 12 feet long by 9 feet wide. It’s big. Ours had 2 lounge chairs, two standard chairs and two small tables with room to spare. Really great. We were on the Starboard side of the ship in cabin 8730. The bed was by the closet which we preferred to give us more room to not block the balcony door. We didn’t have an issue accessing the closet with the bed right there but it’s true that it doesn’t give you a lot of space. If you’re a larger person…you might have problems with it. The room itself was nice. Nothing fancy and other than the bathroom, no difference from a standard balcony room (other than the balcony itself of course). So now seems the time to address a few things I’d read about the various Balcony categories. Our M6 was as I said around 12x9. I had read various things about how much or little they were “exposed”. This concerned me a bit and was a big reason why I had looked into switching to an aft balcony. Since I’m a big nerd, I took some graph paper and sketched it out based on what I knew of dimensions. I came to the conclusion that people would really have to want to look down at you to do so. So we kept our M6 and put to rest the B1 thing. The M6 was about 1/3 covered by the B6 on deck 9. Those appeared to be around 7’x9’. So now you’re saying….but Winston…if yours is 12’x9’ and the B6 is 7’x 9’, isn’t that over half covered? The answer is no. Look at pics. The B6s are set back from where the M6s are. The doors are not above each other. I assume this is from the bigger bathrooms. Anyway, like I said. About 4 feet of cover on the M6 balcony with another 8 feet exposed. The standard balconies above the B6’s on deck 9 were about 4’x 9’ so the B6’s get about 4 feet of cover too. The standard balconies are not big…but doable for two average sized people. If you’re tall, you’ll have problems unless you sit sideways.

One other thing I’d heard about was debris falling onto these balconies because they stick out from the others. We found one cigarette butt after the first morning. That was it. Didn’t ruin our day.

We also really thought the bathroom in the Minisuites would be great. Expectations not met on this one. The shower, while big and impressive looking, is just bad. The jets hurt and are just weird to use. The overhead shower has such little pressure and is so close to the wall that you basically had to pin yourself against the wall to get any water on you. Renders 60% of the shower space useless. Nice idea, but poor execution in my opinion. So my reco is if you’re upgrading to the MiniSuite because you think the bathroom is something spectacular, you might want to save a few bucks. Having the dual sink was cool, but ironically the water was not. It was HOT. Like scalding HOT. If you moved the handle to the cold side you got lukewarm water, and the pressure was bad. Now since this is my first cruise, maybe the BA water pressure is good for ships…but I didn’t expect it to be like it was. So there you go.

The cabin had ample storage space for my wife and me. We are overpackers. We each took a large suitcase and a rollaboard size suitcase. The suitcases fit under the bed great, and all our clothes into the closet or other storage spaces.

Despite hearing that you couldn’t make it fit, we fit our iPad2 into the safe in the closet. You had to angle it a bit, but it fit.

One last think about the M6…half of them were still unsold up to a few weeks before our sailing. While other cabin prices dropped significantly in price, ours never fell below what I paid all those months earlier. A couple weeks before sailing they had all disappeared. I suspect they were handed out as up-sells. We loved this cabin location and would easily book it again, especially if we were travelling with our kids (big balcony) despite the disappointing shower. J

[Winston Wolf]

The ship:

As I said, this was my first cruise and my wife’s previous was on the SS Norway, so I don’t have much to compare it against, but I liked the layout of the ship. Daytime is spent on the upper decks, and night time in and around Ocean Place 678. Much has been made of how packed the pool deck is, and I would agree that it’s busy, but every single time I was around the main pool deck, there were available loungers. Were they out in the sun? No. But if you wanted that, you could easily have headed up to deck 17 over by Vibe or overlooking the pool deck to get one in the sunshine. (We sailed with a full ship).

Vibe was the best money we spent all week. It was our total retreat for the week and frankly made our vacation. If we ever sail a Breakaway Class ship again (likely) we wouldn’t hesitate to spend the money again. If we didn’t get it, I’d be sorely disappointed. Never went to Spice H20 during the day to check out how busy that was in the daytime.

A lot has been said of the Smokiness in and around the Casino. Neither of us are smokers and neither of us felt it was all that bad except in certain pockets of the casino. Was it noticeable in other spots in Ocean Place 678? Sure. But in my opinion the issue has been really overblown.

Crew:

The crew was great. Julie was the Cruise Director and Alvin the the ACD. Both were OK. You could tell that Julie has had some sort of performance background. My wife thought she read that Julie used to perform in Rock of Ages. Captain Svedung was good. Got us there and back and has an awesome accent for his announcements. Haha. Many of the officers did come to the CC M&G but weren’t made available for questions.

Edited June 9, 2014 by Winston Wolf

[Winston Wolf]

Food/Drinks: Restaurant reviews, UBP or not, Viva Vino

We mainly ate in the MDRs / Buffets and found the food to be good. Many in the CC group who were more frequent NCL passengers were really pleased with the updated menus. We only ate in one Specialty Restaurant, Le Bistro, which was excellent. I got a fantastic Pork tenderloin dish and my wife had a phenominal filet mignon. Best meal we had on the ship. The food for the Cirque meal was OK. Good, not great.

A quick rundown of where we ate:

Le Bistro – Best food we ate on the ship. Nice atmosphere. I only wish they had a Waterfront option for this restaurant. Fantastic service.

Manhattan Room - Had two dinners in here. Nice atmosphere, but really big. They have Burn the Floor shows during some meals, but unless you’re seated right around the floor, you aren’t going to see much. Never felt rushed and in fact were told we could stay as long as we liked if we wanted to keep watching the show. Very good service.

Savor – Only ate here for breakfast once. It was good. Nice restaurant. Good selection of breakfast stuff. Good service.

O’Sheehans – Had to try the pot pie…indeed it’s really good. The service however was horrible. Saw 2 people come and go seated next to us and didn’t get our food until we had to ask for it. Worst experience on the ship.

Uptown Grill – Ate here multiple times for lunches and at least one dinner that I can recall. It was good. Essentially a mini-buffet with burgers and sandwiches. Never very crowded which was nice.

Garden Café – A standard buffet. Nice selection of choices and food was always good. Finding a seat can be challenging, but is do-able. The wait for Omelets and custom prepared Eggs is bad, but other than that everything else is quick.

We debated a lot before the trip about getting the UBP or not…then the week before we left NCL jacked the price up $10/day/pp which cemented that we wouldn’t get it. We’re primarily beer drinkers. With the deals for bottles of wine (Viva Vino package) and the buckets of beer (buy 5 get one free) I had a hard time seeing how we’d make the UBP pay off. Ultimately I’m so glad we didn’t. We drank PLENTY…and wound up with something like a $450 bar tab. Not bad for a week. Now we did have dinner/drinks off the ship one night, but still….we wouldn’t have come close to getting our money’s worth on the UBP.

[Winston Wolf]

Shows:

Fire and Ice – OK performance. Saw the tribute to Whitney Houston which the singer in my opinion struggled with. Maybe she was having a bad night.

Second City – Went to back to back shows one night since we enjoyed the first performance so much. The troupe was as good as any SC show we’d seen in Chicago.

Rock of Ages – We caught the touring company of this a few years ago when they came to town. This performance was every bit on par with that one. Really enjoyed this show. They’re very clear that the show isn’t for children. There were two in the seats directly in front of us. They disappeared shortly after a lacy thong from the show landed on one of them. Not sure what the parents were thinking on that one.

Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy – A really entertaining show, but glad we got the opening night discount of $29pp. We’ve seen a few Cirque du Soliel performances in Las Vegas. While the scale of this show isn’t nearly as grand, the performers are supremely talented. My wife said she expected a JV performance, but she was really impressed.

Burn the Floor – I’m not much of a dance guy, but it was an entertaining performance. I was glad though that it was under an hour! Haha.

More to come in a day or two...

[PathfinderEss]

Enjoying your review, looking forward to the rest.

[VickiD59]

Yay! So enjoying reading over my morning cup of coffee - what a nice early morning surprise :)

[2Cruise4Ever]

More, more more!!!

[KweezyCruiser]

More in a day or two??? Leaving us hanging???

 

Just kidding. I'm really enjoying your review and looking forward to more. Thanks for posting.

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the report! Happy 10th anniversary!

[NJ Johnny]

Great review - can't wait for more. Thanks.

[TrumpyNor]

I just enjoyed reading your review so far - even though I am not planning any cruises on the Breakaway. I am going on a cruise myself in a few days, and your review just got me kind of in to the "cruise mode".... :D

 

I also like the way you have divided different portions of your cruise in to different sections in your review - it makes it very "eye friendly" to read. I also like that you are able to describe everything with facts, and kind of objective even though it is of course your own subjective cruise experience. Very well written, so thank you!

[swim25]

Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy – A really entertaining show, but glad we got the opening night discount of $29pp.

How do you get the day 1 discount. When I checked it was still $39.

Edited June 9, 2014 by swim25
did the quote wrong

[Winston Wolf]

I just enjoyed reading your review so far - even though I am not planning any cruises on the Breakaway. I am going on a cruise myself in a few days, and your review just got me kind of in to the "cruise mode".... :D

 

I also like the way you have divided different portions of your cruise in to different sections in your review - it makes it very "eye friendly" to read. I also like that you are able to describe everything with facts, and kind of objective even though it is of course your own subjective cruise experience. Very well written, so thank you!

 

Thanks everyone for the compliments. I'll try to finish it tonight and post the rest. Still lots of random thoughts that don't in and of themselves warrant an entire section as well as a few things I forgot to address in previous sections!

[Keith1010]

enjoyed the review/trip report.

 

Keith

[Winston Wolf]

Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy – A really entertaining show, but glad we got the opening night discount of $29pp.

 

How do you get the day 1 discount. When I checked it was still $39.

 

GREAT question.

 

So we had booked Rock of Ages for the Thursday at 9pm performance. When we boarded, we were told that we had been re-booked to Tuesday night instead as the Thursday performances had been cancelled. We already had Cirque reservations for that night so we needed to find another time. I called the box office and they confirmed that they still had seats for the Sunday night performance, and (I had forgotten about this) that there is a 25% discount on the first night.

 

I had jotted some notes during my months of pouring over threads of a suggestion from someone to book Cirque for later in your cruise, then if they're offering the discount switch to Sunday and save yourself some money. So I guess without intending to, I did exactly that.

 

The first night price online will always show $39pp, but some have reported being able to get the price adjusted once you board.

[mugtech]

Our price was adjusted once we boarded, the original $39 was credited and then $29 put on our tab without our saying or doing anything.

[Susie51]

I didn't realize you had to pay for the Cirque show. In 2011 on Jewel there was a Cirque style show in the main theater with the ropes hanging from the ceiling above row 4 0r 5.

 

Is Cirque Dream on Breakaway more elaborate and in a different theater?

[JenTX4NYC]

The wait:

So for months on end I started reading everything on CC that I could about Breakway. The “Everything Breakaway” thread, Gambee’s extensive review and video, and Chesneygirl’s videos always got me pumped up for our trip. At one point had thought about switching from our M6 to a B1 (aft balcony), but decided to stick with what we had. As I read threads I would cut and paste stuff to a document on my computer when I’d run across something interesting or something I wanted to remember. (Ex: How and where to score Vibe passes, Ferry schedules, places to visit in Bermuda, etc.)

 

Any chance you can share that document? I'm heading out on the Breakaway on Sunday and would love to have it!!

[TrumpyNor]

I didn't realize you had to pay for the Cirque show. In 2011 on Jewel there was a Cirque style show in the main theater with the ropes hanging from the ceiling above row 4 0r 5.

 

Is Cirque Dream on Breakaway more elaborate and in a different theater?

 

Cirque Dream on Breakaway, Getaway and Epic is a dinner show, and not in the theater. So yes, it is a different show including dinner.

Edited June 9, 2014 by TrumpyNor

[Kenlorz]

I had been reading that NCL has rearranged some show times (mainly ROA) recently. It appears you may have been the first Bermuda sailing that had the re-arranged schedules. Would you mind terribly posting the dailies? I noticed you had offered to a few weeks back, but someone else had done it the week before, so you probably thought it would be redundant and re-thought the idea... but with new show schedule changes, I'm REALLY interested to see what else (if anything) has moved around for the evenings. If you still have them and wouldn't mind, I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to see them :):):)

[JenTX4NYC]

Our price was adjusted once we boarded, the original $39 was credited and then $29 put on our tab without our saying or doing anything.

 

Do you know if this applies to both Sunday night shows? There is a 5:45 and a 9pm.

 

Would love to pre-book and then get the discount!

[JenTX4NYC]

I had been reading that NCL has rearranged some show times (mainly ROA) recently. It appears you may have been the first Bermuda sailing that had the re-arranged schedules. Would you mind terribly posting the dailies? I noticed you had offered to a few weeks back, but someone else had done it the week before, so you probably thought it would be redundant and re-thought the idea... but with new show schedule changes, I'm REALLY interested to see what else (if anything) has moved around for the evenings. If you still have them and wouldn't mind, I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to see them :):):)

 

I second this. Would really love to see some more recent dailies!