Just back from the Breakaway (Aug. 3rd - 10th)

[ClaireAndMike]

Just got back home to Chicago a couple of hours ago. The Breakaway is an AMAZING ship. Wow. They really, really did a nice job on this one. I feel so scatterbrained and realized that I barely took any pictures of the ship the entire week (but I guess that doesn't matter because Gambee already did such a wonderful job on that) BUT I can certainly offer my experience and thoughts.

 

I didn't take many notes and the whole week feels like such a blur but I will try to be as informative as possible over the next few days, as it comes back to me but overall, I will say that it was yet another amazing NCL cruise, the ship was FANTASTIC, Bermuda was beautiful though I don't think it's a place I feel I need to rush back to.

 

I didn't take advantage of a lot of things onboard, though I think my family (I was with a group of 27) did EVERYTHING but unfortunately they're not on Cruise Critic and can't offer their two cents.

 

So that's my brief report thus far. One would really have to have something MAJOR happen to not enjoy themselves.

 

The crowd was very different than the other three cruises I've been on, but I'm sure that's because there are so many New York area locals that were onboard.

 

Bear with me as I gather my thoughts...

[ClaireAndMike]

Okay so where to begin. First of all, this was my 4th cruise (all with Norwegian) BUT I've only ever gone with just my sister (just the two of us) save for our Pacific Coastal on the Jewel last September when my parents joined us.

 

This time, it was me and 26 other family members on my mom's side. The fact that we ended up on NCL was kind of a fluke. My Grandma, who is almost 86, wanted to take the whole family on one last big trip. Numerous ideas were tossed back and forth ranging from renting a villa in Italy to Hawaii to Mexico to British Columbia and then deposits were places on a Holland America cruise from Boston to Montreal I believe? A cruise was decided upon because they wanted it to be something easy. The thought was that if we rented any kind of house anywhere, we'd still have to cook and there'd be a bit more involved. This was a trip to relax so hence the cruise idea.

 

Now I'm not sure why we changed from the New England cruise to Bermuda, but fortunately we did and even better, they chose a Norwegian ship! I, like most of us, had been following the Breakaway's progress via NCL's social media accounts but it wasn't a ship in my "top 5" next cruises to take. Frankly, I don't like New York (I spent a very bleak period of my life living there) and I had no interest in going to Bermuda.

 

So the Holland America plans were scrapped and we booked our many staterooms on the Breakway. I was in a balcony on deck 10 with my mother and sister, my brother, his wife and their 1 year old daughter (with another on the way as we found out the morning of embarkation) were in the room next to us and everyone else ranged from inside cabins on deck 5 to owner's suites in the Haven. I think we had a little of everything.

 

Now, I am definitely the black sheep of this family and not very close or social with many of them. They are all white-collar-job professional type people and I'm the liberal, artsy fartsy one. I happen to think I'm a hell of a good time, but the oil and water idiom applies well to my family dynamic. My late Grandpa (who technically is the one who funded this whole operation) had a motto that was "Average is not good enough." Hmm... ANYWAY.

 

So I flew on Southwest from Midway here in Chicago to LaGuardia on Friday. Flight was supposed to leave at 1:25, we kept getting delayed to due weather in Chicago and arrived in New York about five hours late. I have a very dear childhood friend (like from kindergarten on) that lives in Manhattan that I had planned to stay with so our dinner plans were shot but we had a pretty wild late night at a gay bar in their neighborhood and were able to spend all day Saturday together (had lunch and dinner at a couple of very nice restaurants near where they live on the Upper East Side) which was nice. I hadn't seen him since the last time I was in New York three years ago.

 

Oh! And apparently, my debit card expired July 31st, which was a lovely surprise. Thankfully, my friend told me that we could walk into a Chase and they'd issue another to me on the spot. So I received a new, functioning debit card but when I checked my emails after I turned my cellular data back on this morning, I realized that three automatic bill payments that were due during the cruise week didn't go through because I hadn't updated the debit card info. Grrrrrr. So I spent my final moments aboard Breakaway trying to pay bills and hopefully avoid paying any late charges. Pain in the ass and I have no idea how I missed that my card was expiring. A great thing to have happen to you your first day of vacation.

 

Most of the rest of the family were staying at the Courtyard Marriott Times Square West so I took a cab there at about 11:30 Saturday night. I knew I'd want to be up early and be close to the ship and I didn't trust myself to behave if I spent another night with "the boys."

 

That hotel, by the way, is very nice and quite close to the ship so I recommend it if you are not a local and need a place to stay for a night or two pre cruise.

Edited August 11, 2014 by ClaireAndMike

[ClaireAndMike]

So. Sunday morning, we took a cab over to the ship at about noon I guess? The luggage porter situation was a tad disorganized and confusing. We already had our luggage tags attached but kept getting stuck behind people who were filling them out right then. We finally found a guy to give our suitcases to and headed into the cruise terminal to do the security and check in thing.

 

My brother and his wife and baby took a separate cab so we got split up. My mother insisted that we wait on them before we checked in so she made up get out of the line and wait for about 20 minutes only to discover that they had already gone inside. This became a common theme throughout the entire week.

 

Despite how many people are on Breakaway, the process moved very quickly and smoothly. We were onboard in no time and our rooms were ready immediately with luggage being delivered not long after. We all downloaded and registered for iConcierge. I loved it, though many in my family kept repeating how terrible it was because the phone calls never went through. Now, the only numbers I had were my mom, sister and brother and I'm more of a texter anyway and honestly, I'm still so impressed about everything ELSE that it does that I don't care if the phone calls didn't go through. The messaging worked fine for it and there is sooooooo much more you can use it for. And please, $7.95 is not a lot of money.

 

One of my cousins came by our room to deliver the infamous family cruise t-shirt. I suspected it was coming, and I was right. It wasn't too cheesy and had some humor in it so I guess it could've been worse. We were instructed to wear them to sail away up in Spice H20. My sister and I usually sit on our balcony relaxing during sail away but, as is the case when you sail with many others I guess, you can't always do what you want.

 

Sail away was fun. We all convened wearing our shirts. Several of us (not me) joined the conga line (the joke all week was that one of my uncles was very prominently featured on the "sail away party" video that looped throughout the stateroom tv's throughout the week. He caught a lot of grief for that, but it was funny I suppose. My Grandmother kept telling my sister and I that we needed to dance and have fun and she didn't understand why we wouldn't go dance. I tried to explain that we have 100 times more fun in other ways but I guess dancing is the only way to have fun. Okay. Sailing by the Statue was nice, I don't really care about going under the Verrazano Bridge. I used to drive over it all the time driving home to see my parents in Virginia. (Now, sailing under the Golden Gate bridge on the Pacific Coastal DID excite me, but I digress.)

 

[ClaireAndMike]

My sister and I had dinner that night in Taste. We ate early. There was no wait at all, it was nearly empty, and we were in and out in well under an hour. I'm not wild about the changes to the MDR menus and I'm likely in the minority on that. I ordered the melanzane parmigiana which I wasn't wild about. I was so used to my "go to" dishes, comfort food, almost. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but there were things I definitely missed eating. Come to think of it, I think we only ate in a MDR two nights. Two nights were in specialty restaurants (La Cucina, which was on Tuesday (I think?) and Cagney's which was on the last night (Saturday night) and I don't think I even ate dinner the other nights. We didn't have to wait at all in Taste the second time either. In fact, our meals in the specialty restaurants took longer but I think that was because we were a party of 27 and they looooooooove to socialize.

 

I guess we spent that first night wandering around getting familiar with the ship. I honestly don't remember. Howl at the Moon was our favorite thing on the Epic, followed by karaoke but it has to be BAD karaoke. Bad karaoke is so bad it's good. The only karaoke on this trip was "Karaoke Idol" which was at very early times and it was a competition! So sadly, we weren't able to see any karaoke at all. As for Howl at the Moon, it was amazing as it always is but I wasn't as wild about these three guys as I was the three we had on our Epic cruise. They really "made it" for us so we didn't spend nearly as much time there. On the Epic, we parked our butts there from open until close. How I yearned for Drew De Four, his lovely wife "Kin Curran" and the other young gentleman from Florida whose name fails me now. Oh well. I had requested some pretty weird, out there songs on the Epic and dammit, Drew knew them! The crowd was also not nearly as enthusiastic on this trip as they were then. I'm trying to think of a way to organize this, but I'm kind of struggling.

[jethrojam]

good stuff, keep it up:)

[rochelle_s]

Yes great start. Looking forward to reading more.

 

 

Rochelle

[ClaireAndMike]

I'm using my pictures to piece the week together, so it will make more sense going forward. In the meantime, here are some pictures I took.

 

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100861575393287.1073741834.48601402&type=1&l=397421e690

 

I took many more pictures of the dailies and menus but I will upload those to my Shutterfly account in the coming days. I don't think my non-cruising friends will be as interested in all of that as we are. ;)

[meatball_nyc]

One question. Did you notice any work going on on deck 18 as to making it into a sun deck.

Looking forward to the rest of your review.

Happy Sailing!

 

 

~Robin

Every Day at Sea is a Great Day

[ClaireAndMike]

Here are some of the observations/comparisons from other cruises I've made.

 

First of all, there seemed to be FAR LESS storage space in our stateroom on the Breakway. Granted, I've never shared a cabin with two other people before but my sister left everything in her suitcase the whole week, as did my mother, aside from a few hanging garments. I unpacked right away and stole the shelves inside the right half of the closet.

 

We barely saw/spoke to our stateroom steward the entire week. A MUCH different situation with him than our previous three. He still did the job well, but the "personal" element was not there at all. And I guess that's fine with me. I'm not much of a small talker.

 

I found the water pressure in the shower to be WAY LESS powerful than the previous ships we've been on. It took me FOREVER to get the shampoo out of my hair. It reminded me of that Seinfeld episode when their "super" installs the low flow showerheads. A shower really turned out to be something I had to invest some time in.

 

I also had to press the toilet flushing button a few times before it would go. Almost like I had to "prime" it. That made me nervous the first couple of times it happened. ;)

 

My mother also kept commenting that the water in the bathroom sink was always scalding hot. I found that if I turned it on all the way on cold and then gradually adjusted it, it was fine.

 

Two of my FAVORITE things on a cruise, and I think I mentioned this earlier, are karaoke and Howl at the Moon (well, on our Epic cruise). There was karaoke on Tuesday but it was only for like an hour and it was during our dinner reservation at La Cucina. So bummed. And then after that, it turned into the "Karaoke Idol" competition and was also at odd hours.

 

I think I also said earlier that I just didn't love the Howl at the Moon performers the way I did the ones on Epic. That was also a bummer.

 

Also, any event at the Atrium seemed to be PACKED. If you weren't there EARLY, you're stuck standing around awkwardly. I get that this is summer and it's prime kid cruising season. I usually travel during the school year when it's not so crowded, so maybe that's the difference.

 

We also tried to attend the margarita tasting and it was so packed that we couldn't. That was probably not such a bad thing, healthwise anyway.

 

My onboard credit also took a few days to show up. I kept noticing that I was getting more and more and more. I have no idea how I ended up with $150 but heck, I'm not complaining. I was buying drinks for my brother and still found myself at 11pm the last night with like $50 to spend. So I drank a lot of Chardonnay.

 

Oh, the Latitudes Silver, Gold and Platinum gathering in Fat Cats was VERY sparsely attended but VERY nice. Captain Hoyt gave a nice little talk and all of the officers that were there approached every single table and had conversation. It was VERY nice. I was given 3 glasses of white wine (one was even filled DOUBLE) and a glass of champagne. VERY nice.

 

My family members partook in the unlimited beverage package, fitness glasses, bingo, massages, most of the specialty restaurants, ice bar, you name it, they did it. Apparently, they were in casino one night and had a whole crowd of people chanting one of my aunt's names followed by chanting of "BUY THE BOAT! BUY THE BOAT!" I missed out on that.

 

They went to the Glow Party (which I did not do) and said that it was just straight out of an episode of Jersey Shore and was "very clubby." I've never seen an episode of Jersey Shore but I think I know what they mean. Oh, and apparently some kind of brawl broke out at it as well. That's just lovely. One of the combatants was apparently there with his kids.

 

As far as the crew goes, they were all so wonderfully friendly. Really great people.

 

We really didn't do as much around the ship as we normally do, and that's likely because we spent so much time off of the ship in Bermuda. And traveling with a huge group kind of complicated things. If I can help it, I will NEVER do that again! It was very chaotic, even though my sister and I kind of kept to ourselves most of the time.

 

I felt bad for my brother and sister in law. They really couldn't do much of anything with the baby. I guess they could've let someone babysit, but they didn't want to and instead spent a LOT of time in their room with her while she napped and went to bed early and what have you. They also had to leave several lunches and dinners before getting to eat because the baby got fussy. I guess if you're a parent that's normal to you, but I'm not, and I thought it sucked for them. But there are numerous reasons my husband and I don't want kids. ;)

 

I'm starting to piece my days together pretty decently so it should get better from this point on.

Edited August 11, 2014 by ClaireAndMike

[ClaireAndMike]

Oh goodness, I sure didn't notice.

 

One question. Did you notice any work going on on deck 18 as to making it into a sun deck.

Looking forward to the rest of your review.

Happy Sailing!

 

 

~Robin

Every Day at Sea is a Great Day

[cruisin07family]

Hi Claire! I remember you from our Epic cruise. Perhaps you remember, we are the ones whose son had just been hired by NCL. He is now on the Breakaway and we're cruising with him next week! I'm sorry to hear that Howl on the BA wasn't as fun as on the Epic. I loved Drew, Kin and Brad. I follow them on Facebook so I know they aren't on NCL now but maybe we'll have a livelier crowd next week.

 

Enjoying your review so far and waiting to see how you spent your three days in Bermuda.

 

Carla & Mark

Edited August 11, 2014 by cruisin07family

[ClaireAndMike]

A quick tidbit about the waterslides. My sister and I waited until about 9pm to do them. Reason being, we are VERY fair skinned redheads (well, I ended up getting the suburn of my life on Friday which I'm so pissed about but will get to later). The lines were next to nothing and we were able to ride them all. We only did the freefall one once and believe me, that was enough. It was slightly terrifying. And what's funny is that if you don't get enough "oomph" to ger you up and around, you get stuck and there's like an emergency escape hatch. Luckily, we both made it up and around. They weigh you before you get on. The "whip" water slide was actually kind of painful. My elbow still hurts from banging onto it as a flew down. You go so fast and it's so curvy that you can't sit up in it even if you try. The speed you gain forces your body to pay flat. Very fun though. There was a nicer, more "tame" blue one that I liked just as well. "Aqua Park After Dark is the way to go! We did that either Wednesday night or Thursday night I think.

[ClaireAndMike]

Oh yeah! He was doing sound or something, right? And was starting out in Hawaii? That's awesome that he's still with them, I guess he likes it! Brad! Yes, thank you. The guys that are there now are certainly talented, but not Drew. We kept seeing them all over the ship in various watering holes and two of them sat in front of us at the magic show. One of them is pretty funny and "gritty." He's got a good, dark sense of humor. I loved the toasts that Drew, Brad and Kin would do. "Drink! Social!" "Drink! Social!" I think Drew was actually playing a show here in Chicago and I thought about going but for whatever reason, I didn't. I probably forgot about it. Julie was our cruise director. I liked her, she did a nice job.

 

Hi Claire! I remember you from our Epic cruise. Perhaps you remember, we are the ones whose son had just been hired by NCL. He is now on the Breakaway and we're cruising with him next week! I'm sorry to hear that Howl on the BA wasn't as fun as on the Epic. I loved Drew, Kin and Brad. I follow them on Facebook so I know they aren't on NCL now but maybe we'll have a livelier crowd next week.

 

Enjoying your review so far and waiting to see how you spent your three days in Bermuda.

[ClaireAndMike]

Okay so I need to keep going with this because I'm on a roll and if I wait a few days, I'll lose interest and forget things.

 

So yeah day one (Sunday) was basically getting acclimated to the ship (I never went to Bliss at all on this cruise), the sail away party, dinner in Taste and Howl at the Moon. Not too terribly exciting. I stopped by the guest services desk to see what was going on with my onboard credit since nothing was showing up yet and happened to walk by this woman who was like, YELLING at a management crew member. She was PISSED. Lord knows what she was pissed about, probably something stupid. There are ways to express displeasure about things, and screaming at someone I don't think is the way to have things go in your favor. Generally speaking. We also encountered some very loud and foul mouthed people. Again, I lived in New York (albeit almost ten years ago), I should be somewhat familiar with it. It's almost their schtick, some I knew, anyway.

 

Day 2 (Monday):

I cheated and am using my pictures and invoice of purchases to figure out what the heck I did. We went to the Noodle Bar for lunch. I had the vegetarian fried rice and vegetarian spring roll which I liked very much. I was kind of disappointed that there wasn't a vegetarian noodle dish because I really wanted noodles. It's a la carte pricing, but fairly cheap, and you get a lot. I'll have pictures of that (the food and menu) on Shutterfly in a few days. We spent some time this evening at Howl at the Moon but again, not nearly as long as on the Epic.

 

**A quick note about weather**

So apparently tropical storm Bertha became a hurricane at some point on our voyage. They altered the course a little bit and went a little faster to Bermuda. That being said, I hardly felt ANY motion at all on this ship. I must admit, I do like to feel movement. I'm very lucky in that I don't get seasick and I love a little rocking. The ocean was smooth as glass the WHOLE time. To me, anyway.

 

[ClaireAndMike]

Day 3 (Tuesday):

Another sea day. I think we had breakfast in the Garden Cafe. I generally try to avoid buffets (I'm a germophobe) but this time, I brought latex gloves with my and wore one on my serving hand. Did it help? Who knows, but I sure felt better.

 

My sister and I did the ropes course this day. I actually felt kind of bad for dragging her on it because, and I had forgotten, she is TERRIFIED of heights. BUT she did it. I could feel her trembling on the the ropes behind me, haha. At one point, she got tangled up in one and I had to go back and untangle her but she did pretty well. We have no pictures of us doing it though which stinks. I had texted my mother about an hour earlier telling her we were going to do it but I guess she had better things to do. The plank and zipline were both closed that day (it was pretty windy up there) and we never got another change to do it so no zipline or plank for us.

 

We probably had lunch at O'Sheehan's. We ate there several times. The mozzarella sticks were very good, better than I remembered them being. I also liked that they now offer additional salad dressing choices. I wasn't a fan of the one dressing they had on the Epic a couple of years ago. It was like a malt vinegar or something. The chips that came w/the spinach and artichoke dip were a tad on the stale side, but still good. My mom and sister raved about the tuna sandwich from there. Oh, and my mother LOVED the french toast in the Garden Cafe.

 

So we went to see Rock of Ages this night. I discovered that I again need to get new glasses with a slightly stronger prescription. The stage was so blurry. So I thought the show was very good, as did my mother which surprised me. It seemed very long to me, but I was very tired. Definitely a more adult show, which I loved, heed the warnings if you've got kids in tow though I guess. My mother proclaimed it was the best show she's seen on a cruise ship though mind you, she's only been on one cruise and it was the Pac Coastal on the Jewel which definitely does NOT have the flashiness of the newer ships.

 

This was also a night that we had a dinner reservation for all 27 of us in La Cucina. They couldn't seat all of us at one table, so we occupied several different ones. The bread and various olive oils were DELICIOUS. Especially the garlic one. I ordered vegetarian lasagna, no surprise there. Ahh and a delicious caprese salad. Photos will be on Shutterfly. The pizza was also very good. Someone ordered one and then each of us took a slice or half a slice. The pizza delivery was actually really good too. Whatever night the Latitudes reception was, the family had a "sunset" party on the huge aft balcony one of them had and they'd ordered pizza. This was right after I consumed my four complimentary drinks so I was probably quite tipsy but I do remember inhaling two pieces of the veggie pizza and highly enjoying it.

 

My brother and I wandered out later that night. In an attempt to spend some onboard credit, we had a few beers and ended up in the video arcade acting like a couple of stupid teenagers. We played some ridiculous game that cost us $5 and we couldn't even figure out what the point of it was. It was almost more of a "ride" than a game. Played a few games of skee ball, won some tickets (I have no idea what became of those) and then he insisted I let him play that stupid claw machine game because he swore to me he'd win. Guess what? He didn't. We then wandered around and found Vibe (well, we peeked in) and then just wandered aimlessly around Spice H20 and up along that deck. This was probably 12:30am? Then we ended up at O'Sheehan's where I proceeded to wolf down an order of fries and he ordered a hot dog AND buffalo wings. We probably had a couple more beers too. It was very fun. My brother was my right hand man growing up and I've pretty lost him to his wife and kid(s). I never see him (we live in different states 7 hours away) so it was nice spending time just the two of us, even if I did kind of go off on him Saturday night. He can be slightly arrogant now in his older age BUT I digress.

 

I don't think I'll have time to get into Wednesday tonight (I'm so tired and I have to work an 11 hour day tomorrow, my first day back, yay, but I will say this. I woke up with a bit of a hangover. Our first day in Bermuda too. Juuuuuust great. My uncle chartered a catamaran which was originally supposed to be Wednesday but was postponed to Friday because the weather was too windy on Wednesday so praise ye gods for that. I was able to sleep in a bit and take it pretty easy. Being on that catamaran feeling the way I did would NOT have been fun.

[david_sobe]

Loving this review!

Glad to see the horse mask on the balcony again :)

The shirts are cute. There was a group on our last cruise 5 daughters cruising for their mother's birthday. They all had shirts that said "I'm mom's favorite" T-Shirts during embarkation.

[wasiii]

Thanks for whetting my cruising appetite.

 

I leave in 34 days!

 

wasiii

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Forums mobile app

Edited August 11, 2014 by wasiii

[meatball_nyc]

Nice review so far. Thanks for sharing.

We are down the Jersey Shore in breakaway cruise withdrawal but loving the ocean :)

Looking forward to reading more.

 

 

~Robin

Every Day at Sea is a Great Day

[Norwegian Cruise Line]

Dear ClaireandMike,

Thanks for your great review of your time on Norwegian Breakaway! We are so glad you enjoyed the cruise.

 

We hope you will also post your review in the Member Reviews section and include your ratings of each area.

 

We look forward to welcoming you and your family on board again soon!

 

Best,

Norwegian Cruise Line Public Relations

[cv322]

Thanks for your thoughts about the Breakaway (I love that ship!). I'm happy you had a good time! And, further, thanks so much for sharing your photos...they were really good ;):D!

[ClaireAndMike]

I will! I always forget that that section is there. I'll make it a little more coherent when I do that. Thanks for another amazing cruise and we look forward to the next one in about 6 months!

 

Dear ClaireandMike,

Thanks for your great review of your time on Norwegian Breakaway! We are so glad you enjoyed the cruise.

 

We hope you will also post your review in the Member Reviews section and include your ratings of each area.

 

We look forward to welcoming you and your family on board again soon!

 

Best,

Norwegian Cruise Line Public Relations

[ClaireAndMike]

Haha! You know what, I'm so mad about this. After those first few shots, I completely forgot that we had it with us. I would have LOVED to get some Bermuda shots with it on the beach and the caramaran, maybe on the bus etc... I'm disappointed with my photo taking in general. I also wanted to get a "formal" portrait taken on the ship wearing it but I don't know if the photographers would find it as funny as my sister and I do. Oh and worst of all, she forgot hers! We only had the one. I was so mad at her.

 

Loving this review!

Glad to see the horse mask on the balcony again :)

The shirts are cute. There was a group on our last cruise 5 daughters cruising for their mother's birthday. They all had shirts that said "I'm mom's favorite" T-Shirts during embarkation.

[kba1988]

Awesome review. Keep 'em coming!👍👍👍

 

Sent from my One using Tapatalk

[ClaireAndMike]

Day 4, Wednesday, Arrived in Bermuda:

We woke up early Wednesday morning as we were arriving in Bermuda. A lovely sight indeed. I didn't get to sleep from my night out with my brother until probably 2 or 2:30am and was rudely awakened at around 4am by either my mother, or my sister, or possibly both snoring VERY loudly on both the inhale and the exhale. It was a horrible sound. Had I had easy access to my headphones, I would have put them in and in retrospect, that's what I should have done.

 

I felt like crap a few hours later when I actually got up. I ventured out onto the balcony with my mom and sister to take in the first views of Bermuda but had to keep going inside and chugging from my huge bottles of smart water which I'm so glad I brought with me because there would've been no way I could've made it up to the Garden Cafe and back. Quantity-wise, I didn't drink that much but like I said before, I'm not a heavy drinker at all so it hits me a little harder than it would most other people. I had a few glasses of wine (maybe 3) and a couple of Stella Artois but the glasses they came in were pretty big. This is the last alcohol I would consume for two days so for that, I was thankful.

 

Anyway, our chartered catamaran adventure was supposed to be this day but was cancelled due to weather. It wasn't raining this day, it was just incredibly windy. I'm also very glad because when we did do the charter on Froday, I got sunburned so badly but only had one more day left of the trip. Had I gotten burned on Wednesday, it would have ruined the rest of the trip.

 

When we got word that the boat trip was cancelled, I was so happy and laid back down for maybe another hour or so and actually felt a little better. I think we ventured up to the Garden Cafe for some light eats and then my mother, sister and I explored the dockyard. It was so hot and a rather aimless trip. I saw a dude wipe out on a rented scooter, that was interesting.

 

When I was in my research phase of this trip like a year ago, I had originally planned to rent a scooter but the more I read about it, the more I turned completely against the idea and after seeing them in action and the driving there in general, I know I made the right decision not to rent one.

 

We very briefly walked through the glassblowing place but since it was so darn hot, we didn't last long. We then continued towards the drugstore/pharmacy and then to Clocktower Mall where we wandered yet more aimlessly. We stopped back at the drugstore so my mother and sister could purchase several bottles of their beloved diet Coke. My mother was convinced that her bottle which read "Matt" said "Mom." Riiiiiiiight. She told me that they way the letters were made the T's look like an M. Okay whatever.

 

We then went back to the ship and Jesus, I think we had a quick lunch back at the Garden Cafe. My sister and I then ventured to Hamilton to head to the Crystal Caves. My intinery that I came up with several months before had to be reconfigured with the postponement of the catamaran and it took me awhile to formulate a plan. We were losing precious time. When I saw that the Crystal Caves closed at 5 and it was like 2, I wondered if we'd have enough time.

 

We caught the 2:30 ferry, made it to Hamilton at about 3, walked up to the bus terminal, caught the first bus we could that went by the caves (either 10 or 11) and made it there at like 3:45. I don't get motion sickness but I admit, I got a little nauseous on that bus ride. Our driver drove very fast and there were quite a few twists and turns.

 

So we arrived at the caves in barely enough time. We elected to only do the Crystal cave. I thought the price was a little steep at $22 a person. Being that I grew up in Virginia, there are numerous caves on private property that we (foolishly) explored on our own and then the more commercialized "Dixie Caverns" that we were dragged to multiple times during childhood so I'm not really sure why I was so hellbent on venturing into yet another cave while in Bermuda. It was something to do I guess. And many other people had mentioned it during the course of my research. They were cool. The tour wasn't very long at all and really all we did was walk down a ramp, then down some stairs, then out onto the floating pontoon bridge. Oh well, it was pretty.

 

Now, the Swizzle Inn was literally right across the street but we didn't have time to go since we were supposed to meet my mom, brother, sister in law and niece at the ferry stop in Hamilton for dinner and Harbor Nights at 5:30. We caught a different bus back. Either number 1 or number 3 which took a bit longer. We were dropped off right at the ferry which was nice, and we made it at about 5:45 where my mom was waiting.

 

We took the niece to Queen Elizabeth Park to run around for a few minutes and then to the Pickled Onion where we had dinner. We ate outside and watched as Harbor Nights was being set up. After we finished eating, we walked around as a group for about 10 or 15 minutes. My brother and his little family left because it was getting close to baby's bed time. My mom and sister and I stayed awhile longer. It was a nice thing, but there was nothing there I wanted to buy. I'm totally not a shopper. In fact, I left for this trip with only $300 cash and, as usual, came back with most of it. And I used some of it in New York for my meals out with my friend.

 

My mom bought some cloth book for the baby and my sister bought some cheap souvenirs in whatever shop that is. Onion Jack's or something crazy like that. I just don't have much use for "destination trinkets." My mom bought some coffee for my Dad, we watched the Gombey dancers and then pretty much left.

 

I have no idea what we did that night back on the ship. Maybe just went back to our room.

 

[ClaireAndMike]

Day 5, Thursday, Still in Bermuda:

 

I think Thursday was the first day we utilized the miracle of room service for breakfast. For whatever reason, my sister and I had never ordered room service before. We got the cue from my brother since they were constantly getting it.

 

My mom had a shore excursion this day. It was the handicapped accessible island tour and I think it was just my Grandma and aunts that took it. So she was up and out pretty early.

 

This was beach day for my sister and I. I was hellbent on going to Jobson's Cove since that's the place I was told to go from Facebook and maybe also the Bermuda board here on Cruise Critic. As soon as we got on the number 7 bus, i started POURING rain. Thanks a lot, Bertha.

 

The bus ride was somewhat terrifying as the bus was kicking up a tidal wave of water on the sides and the roads were completely covered with water. Again, the bus driver was going pretty fast. Luckily, as we were approaching the beach, the rain let up. The bus emptied out at Horseshoe. We continued the two or so stops further down to Jobson's Cove and were totally pleased to learn that we were the ONLY souls there. The weather was perfect. The rain had cooled things down and it was pretty cloudy so it wasn't overly hot. Perfect outdoor weather for our skin type. Yes, we were still slathered in sunscreen as I am VERY aware you still burn through clouds. I took a ton of pictures, we walked to the next beach up from Jobson's Cove, walked back to Jobson's Cove, then back to Warwick Long Bay. We climbed up on some rocks and I took yet more pictures. By now, the sun was coming back out, it was getting warmer, and we were getting hungry as it was about lunchtime.

 

We headed back up to the bus stop and were able to get seats before the masses got on two stops after at Horseshoe again. We had lunch at the Frog and Onion, another social media recommendation. As we were eating, the rain started to pour again but ceased by the time we finished and were walking back to the ship. We met up with my mom and brother and decided to go back to the Swizzle Inn. We decided we couldn't pass up a rum swizzle.

 

My mom was going to watch the baby that night so my brother and his wife could go out to dinner. When I saw "watch the baby," I mean that my mom would sit in our room with their baby monitor while the baby slept next door in her own room. Anyway.

 

So again, we hightailed it to the ferry so we could get my brother back in time for his romantic dinner with his wife. Same routine as the day before. Ferry to Hamilton, oh, haha, of course once we were on the ferry, along came yet another downpour which continued for our entire walk up to the bus terminal. We didn't have umbrellas so we were completely soaked.

 

As for the Swizzle Inn... we sat inside on the first floor on the back wall. The service we received was pretty bad. I get that this place is total tourist trap but still. My sister had a pina colada and my brother and I split a half jug of rum swizzle which, in all honesty, was just okay. I'm not a huge fan of those overly sweetened drinks. Apparently, my brother was starving so after sitting there for about an hour after our waitress brought us our drinks, we were able to flag her down to order the Cup sampler thing. She said "Oh, I'm not your waitress anymore." It was some other dude that we had yet to make contact with. So after our epically long meal there, we stopped by the gift shop where my sister so generously purchased tshirts for us.

 

We waited about 35 minutes for a bus to go back which was the longest by far we had to wait the whole time we were there. The afternoon seemed to drag by of course since we were on a time constraint. I'm not sure why my brother wanted to eat before his dinner out, but he's got a much larger stomach than I do so maybe he still had room for his dinner?

 

At some point, either this day or yesterday, we went to balloon animal making in the atrium. I think stuff like that is hilarious, some of my relatives made fun of us for the activities we chose to attend. One of my uncles would quip "There's a silver polishing seminar today!" Ha. Haha.

 

Again, I have no clue what my sister and I did that night. We got a cupcake and lobster tail from Carlo's at some point, but that was during an afternoon.

 

My brother and sister in law had their dinner in the Manhattan Room. The baby was sick with a 103 fever so they had to blow about $150 at the medical center so I guess that ate into their mad money fund. They both liked what they had. Then they went to the casino and my sister in law won $108 on penny slots. I guess they recupped some of their loss there.