Some thoughts from recent Breakaway cruise

[YYC F/A]

Breakaway r/t NYC - 7 day Bahamas/Florida. Travelled in a solo studio with a group of friends booked in various cabin types. Some thoughts...

 

Vibe Beach Club

 

We all purchased the one week pass. Loved the hot tubs with sea view, and ample lounger availability. Negatives? Poor weather on the winter r/t NYC voyages really cuts into the useability of the one week pass. Vibe was effectively closed on ALL THREE of the sea days (no bar open, loungers all lashed down etc). No credit is given for days that the facilities are not provided.

 

 

Bar & Restaurant Service

 

Had the UBP. Drink selection is good, including some decent quality wines. Hint - there are some outstanding wines by glass available on the Moderno and Cagneys wine menu that are covered by the UBP. I'm a bit of a connoisseur of the various cruise line beverage packages, and I'd put NCL's near the top - second only to Celebrity's Premium Package (which costs more).

 

Main issue I found is staffing (or lack thereof). Example - Prime Meridian Bar is a huge bar and a popular pre-dinner meeting place. Scheduled to open at 5pm. At 5:10pm a (singular) bar tender showed up, and told a already full bar of customers that he needed time to set the bar up. No drink orders were taken until 5:30pm - and by then he had a large amount of thirsty guests to serve. We gave up and went to another bar. Bar being open at 5pm means provision staff to arrive at 4:30pm so that the bar is OPEN at 5pm. Not that one person shows up and starts setting up and not serving.

 

Staffing was a persistent issue. We couldn't figure out in the specialty restaurants why there was never any wait staff around. Simple requests could not be made as there were no staff around. In both Cagneys and Moderno, we went up to the bar to order a glass of wine as we couldn't get service from our server. There was only one bar tender that was working, and four restaurant servers behind the bar making drinks for restaurant customers. This is insane. If you can't provide bar staffing so that the restaurant servers in specialty restaurants have to disappear for 15 minutes at a time to go play bar tender, this is just asking for trouble when they in turn have deserted the restaurant and can't serve their customers!!! There were lots of disgruntled customers getting antsy over lack of service - a couple at table next to us finally got up and walked out in Moderno.

 

Getting drinks during dinner was a long, tortuous affair at every specialty dining venue. By day three we'd simply get up and walk out and find a bar to refresh our sodas/wine/etc. For a specialty restaurant experience, this is terrible.

 

When restaurant manager/Maitre 'd stopped around, they promised "not to charge us" for the specialty restaurant. Given we'd already prepaid for our dining package this was little consolation. Cabin numbers would be taken down but no one would ever follow up - so what's the point?

 

 

Quality of cuisine

 

Moderno was great, the salad/appetiser bar is always outstanding. Cagney's was mediocre to poor. We watched the open kitchen from our table, and the chef's worked in silence with no communication. I've never seen a kitchen like it. No wonder food came out at different times - with several dishes being luke warm or even completely cold.

 

Teppanyaki and La Cucina had good quality cuisine, though service was also slow (again - staffing issues). Teppanyaki was the best service out of the onboard specialty restaurants and the chefs at the Hibachi grills were universally great. :cool:

 

Only visited the MDR's for lunch. Quality was very poor, food served stone cold, took forever to flag down a waiter (staffing issues - again) to get dishes replaced. MDR experience was truly dreadful.

 

Only visited the Garden Cafe once, and it was such a mob scene that I gave up. The problem on sea days is that 4,500 people try and eat in a two-hour window, yet none of the specialty restaurants are open - so the remaining venues just can't handle the masses. The Garden Cafe looked like a food fight had taken place, there was food and debris and trash everywhere. Staff couldn't keep up with clearing up (staffing issues - again). Just nasty, I can honestly say I've never seen anything like it on over 70 cruises.

 

 

Shore Excursions

 

Booked a Grand Cabana on GSC. Comes with priority tendering. Staff in theatre refused to "honour" the priority tendering despite repeated requests. Instead kept sitting for almost an hour after tendering had already commenced. When reported to the Shore Excursions Manager, he refused to apologise, instead blaming the Entertainment Staff for not doing their jobs correctly. :rolleyes:

 

The Cabana itself was a nice upgrade when travelling in a larger group, and well located and good access to a nice swimming area.

 

 

Cabin Service

 

My needs are simple, and I keep my room pretty clean. Actually, really clean. I even make my own bed. Yes, I'm one of those people. But I think housekeepers and cabin attendants worldwide find me one of the easiest guests they have. Attendant was cheery and pleasant and my one request (feather pillow) was promptly accommodated, and appropriate gratuity rendered.

 

 

Studio Lounge

 

Don't know why they bother with a bar in here. It's never open. There's no opening hours posted. Anywhere. And when I asked various staff members when it was supposed to be open, no-one could tell me :confused:

 

Love the bean to cup coffee machine and the nice premium teas. A very nice little perk/upgrade for Studio guests. :cool:

 

Wifi didn't work in the Studio Lounge (though it did in my Studio).

 

 

Entertainment

 

NCL has the best entertainment at sea and no one can throw a party like NCL, so if this is what you're looking for onboard - NCL continues to deliver. Great live music, great parties, I'm not big on shows but rest of the group raved. NCL really does a great job with the nightlife and entertainment. :cool:

 

 

All-In Package

 

Several of us purchased the ALL-IN package. Concept was terribly delivered onboard. Hassle, hassle, hassle at every turn. My idea of vacation is not to spend hours at the front desk, or onboard credit desk, arguing to get the benefits we've already paid for.

 

The final day (disembark in NYC) left a particularly sour note. After finally getting to the front of a ridiculously long line to disembark "Express Walk Off" - I was denied. Instead told I hadn't paid my bill and to go to front desk. A long wait at front desk, they referred me to onboard credit desk. Another long wait. Finally turns out that my 8 photos I had taken from my "included photos - up to 20" in the ALLIN package had been charged at $169 USD. I was told to go (with my luggage) up to the photo centre to get the charges waived. Lots of back and forth with the photo manager who at one point blamed me for the snafu for not "telling the photo staff clearly enough that I had a package". Then back to onboard credit desk again, finally good to go. Take my luggage back to the line, and STILL cannot disembark. Back to onboard credit desk for a third time - yep, system issues - still hasn't removed the errant photo charges. Finally, issue resolved, and finally - after 1hr15 minutes from when I first tried to disembark, I was "permitted" to get off the ship.

 

 

Final Thoughts

 

Staffing issues seem to abound on Breakaway compared to other ships in the fleet. Restaurants and Bars in particular just seemed unable to cope. Having to get up and leave a specialty dining room as it's only way to get a drink during your meal is unacceptable.

 

Onboard service resolution is non-existent. No one seems empowered to fix issues. Everything has to be "emailed to Miami". Department managers blame other onboard divisions when service failures happen.

 

It's a shame as NCL does many things right (Entertainment, music, onboard parties, flexible freestyle dress code, modern amenity filled ships). But while I fully appreciate it's different strokes for different folks, these positives were overshadowed by major let downs in so many other areas which is really too bad.

 

I've just reached Platinum level in the Latitudes program after this last cruise, but sadly, I just don't think I'll be enjoying those perks anytime soon. Celebrity just delivers such an incredibly superior experience for the things that matter to me that I can't see myself back on NCL anytime soon out of choice. But that is what is great about cruising - there really is a cruise line and ship for everyone ;)

[staceyv64]

Thanks for the review!

 

Silly question - were there adjustable lights in your studio cabin?

[rochelle_s]

Welcome home and thank you for taking the time to provide your thoughts. How very unfortunate that you had so many issues getting what was included in your all-in package. I am not sure I would have been so patient come disembarkation time and being sent here there and everywhere to have the problem resolved. I wonder why guest services could not have just picked up the phone and called the photo department and had the correction/adjustments done that way? I am not surprised you are looking elsewhere for future travels.

 

Thanks again,

 

 

Rochellle

[Sotermarler]

I had the same issue in the Vibe last November on the Getaway, it was so windy it was effectively shut down on sea days. I complained and got half the money back. I was happy with that, I know they dont control the weather but if its a known issue why don't they put up a wind wall?