Breakaway to Bermuda - Short Report

[flag fan]

I just returned from a cruise to Bermuda on the Norwegian Breakaway and to pay back for all the great advice I got while preparing for the cruise I thought I should post a little about what I learned. Instead of a full report, I thought I'd just write about a few topics that might be of interest/helpful to others thinking about booking a Bermuda cruise or a cruise on the Breakaway.

 

(Short review: It was a great cruise and I liked the ship.)

 

1. Service -- Service was great everywhere. This is the first cruise I've taken where every little special order (no lime in the vodka tonic; meat cooked medium rare; etc.) was filled perfectly; no mistakes at all. My cabin steward was great--everything was cleaned quickly and the few times we ran into each other, he was very friendly.

 

2. Dining -- Food was good in all the dining locations, but best in the specialty restaurants. I ate in La Cucina, Le Bistro, Teppanyaki, Cagney's, Manhattan Room, and (for lunch and breakfast) Garden Café, Uptown Grill, O'Sheehan's, Room Service, Taste, Savor, Atrium Café, and Spiegel Tent.

 

Italian food is my favorite, so I went to La Cucina twice--I highly recommend the meat lasagna. Eating out doors when the ship was docked was particularly enjoyable. Le Bistro had disappointingly small portions and no sides, but I found that by the time I finished the lamb chops I was pretty full. Fortunately, I had enough room for the chocolate Napoleon, which was by far the best dessert of the week. Teppankayi was not only very entertaining, but the beef I had was the best meat all week--very tender and tasty. It was no problem ordering the rice without the garlic. Cagney's had a great atmosphere and great food--big portions. The ribs were incredible. The Manhattan Room also had good food, even though it was a no-cost restaurant. I ended up having simple spaghetti, which is one of the choices always available (I did mention that Italian food was my favorite). The background music made this a particularly nice venue.

 

For breakfast I found all the dining choices about equal. The Garden Café was quick and easy and to my surprise it had eggs Benedict, which was very good. The breakfast sandwiches were the highpoint in the Uptown Grill. They had a good selection and great service at Taste. A nice treat was being able to order a full breakfast (eggs, bacon, toast, beans (?), mushrooms (?), toast at O'Sheehan's on disembarkation day. To be honest, though, my favorite breakfast was a cupcake and hot chocolate at the Atrium Café.

 

I had lunch at Savor on embarkation day. Again service was good and the burger was fine. Room service had even better burgers, though (or maybe I was just hungrier that day). The meatloaf was disappointing at O'Sheehan's but the enormous hot fudge sundae I had one day made up for it. The Garden Café seemed to have the same offerings every day. I ended up getting pizza there a few times, which I liked. (I also had hand scooped ice cream there and soft serve ice cream at a self-service machine). The ice cream at the Gelato place was good, but the soft serve was my favorite.

 

I also had dinner and lunch in the Spiegel Tent for the Cirque Dreams (dinner) and Wine Lovers Musical (lunch) shows. The menu is fixed (surf and turf), but I was able to get the beef without the shrimp. Although the menus are similar at the two shows, they are slightly different. The meat at the dinner show was very tender; not so much at the lunch show. The dinner had fries and the lunch mashed potatoes (if I remember correctly). Also the desserts were different--three small tastings (2 chocolate) at dinner and a cheesecake at lunch (which was very good).

 

3. Cabin -- I ended up booking the mini-suite which I learned from these boards after booking was really a standards balcony room with a nicer bathroom. It is not a suite and no real special amenities, but the bathroom is very nice. The sink is a big double sink (connected basins) and the shower is enormous (relatively speaking). The shower has a rainfall showerhead on a wand that is adjustable up and down and you can have water also spray out at two other levels. (This really surprised me when I accidently discovered it; a feature I did not use during the cruise.) I ended up enjoying having the nice bathroom.

 

As others have written, the balcony is very small--you really have to sit on it sideways. The bedside tables are also small--about 1 foot square, with two shelves. There are no drawers anywhere--which I found annoying. I would all the receipts and souvenirs in a shelf in the desk and some would inevitably fall out every time every time I opened the door to the desk. A drawer or two would have been appreciated. There is no little table to put your tray on when ordering room service. (I ended up using the square stool that is the chair for the desk.) The bed was great. It was medium firm and is the only bed I've had on a cruise ship where I didn't notice the crease down the middle where the two mattresses are put together.

 

4. Smoke -- The casino is definitely smoky, which is particularly annoying because you have to go through the casino to get anywhere on Deck 8. The Water Front outside Maltings is also smoky, making half the Waterfront pretty unusable if you do not like smoke.

 

5. Activities -- The activities staff was great. I was on a cruise line recently where they got rid of their activities staff except for the cruise director. Having the full activities staff really helped make things more fun. They all had different personalities and different approaches to running the games or activities--not all rah-rah cheerleaders and they were all great. My favorite was Zac--who handled some pretty tricky situations incredibly well, always making guests feel comfortable. The cruise director was Silas, who was very good, but I wish he had a show on the cabin tv to explain/promote different activities and staff, as I have seen on other cruise lines.

 

We had a lot of time at sea and I was disappointed there were not more activities. Quite a few trivia games but many activities cost extra--bingo, deal or no deal. I wish they had shown more movies in the theater or had more lectures there.

 

The Atrium, which was used for a lot of events, just did not work well, in my opinion. The giant screen with the thousands of pixels is distracting/dizzying/annoying and there was usually not enough seating for the popular activities. For movies, the people wandering by was too distracting and noisy. They should have used the theater for a lot of these activities.

 

6. Entertainment -- Speaking of the theater, the seats did have a bar across the back of the seat (where the hinge is) which was very uncomfortable. You can avoid it by scooting down a little. (Or just sit at the tall stools at the back of the theater.)

 

Rock of Ages was very good. I had seen it once before as a touring show and was not that impressed, but on the ship I liked it a lot--the music was great and the performances were top notch. I also liked Burn the Floor--a dance show, but wished they had more variety--there were a lot of jazz/Caribbean numbers and not many current songs. It could have used some editing. The dancers were incredible, though. Second City was hit or miss; I saw two shows and liked the skits more than the improv. The dueling pianos show--Howl at the Moon--was good, but I noticed the enjoyment factor varied based on the music. On the show I went to there was a lot of country music--for me a little goes a long way. They take requests (with money) so the show you get is likely to be based on the audience you get.

 

I did see a couple movies--Raiders of the Lost Ark in the theater (it did not stand the test of time, in my opinion) and McFarland USA at night at Spice H2O on deck (very cold and windy but a nice experience to see a movie out on the open sea). There was also an excellent singer -- Donna Viviano -- but, again, the enjoyment of the show depended on the songs sung and few were ones I liked.

 

7. Bermuda -- Because of a detour to send a sick passenger off on a helicopter we got into Bermuda in the afternoon of the first day rather than the morning and it was raining and windy throughout the second day, time in Bermuda was limited and not the best. However, I loved the island and plan to go back. The ferries to Hamilton and St. Georges were quick (20-30 minutes) and convenient (right next to the information building where tickets are sold) so I ended up using the ferries rather than the buses. St. Georges is a small town while Hamilton is more of a city. I had an excursion (bus) to Horseshoe Bay the morning of the 2nd day but because of the winds no umbrellas were being rented out so I jumped back on the bus and used this as a sightseeing day instead. The little I saw of the beach was impressive, which is why I want to go back some day. On the 3rd day I went to Snorkel Beach, which is within walking distance from the ship. Nice little beach with chairs/loungers/umbrellas for rent and a place to get food and beverages and restrooms. Very enjoyable morning.

 

This cruise was affected by a hurricane moving up the coast, which NCL handled by delaying departure to late at night to sail out behind the hurricane, and a rescue as sea, which resulted in a detour and a late arrival in Bermuda. NCL made up for these delays by leaving Bermuda few hours later than planned--nice move NCL! Shows consideration for the passengers.

 

8. Passengers -- The ship and staff are an important part of a cruise but so are the passengers, who really set the tone for a cruise. This cruise leaving on October 4 had a nice mix of ages but not many children. There were a lot of New Yorkers on board (not surprisingly), who were a friendly, fun-loving bunch.

 

9. Ship -- The Breakaway is beautiful. I like big ships and this had a lot in its favor. The Waterfront is very nice--to eat or drink or just sit and read or watch the waves. Things that did not work so well is the lack of a promenade deck or even a useful walking area around the ship. The smoky casino blocking Deck 8 is also a problem, as is the overcrowded Atrium.

 

I was able to get a ticket to Vibe (I got at the terminal at 9:30 and was in group 5 (if I remember correctly; I got ticket 39 for Vibe). Although the raining, cold, windy weather made Vibe unusable for most of my cruise, I definitely can see the advantages of having access to a quiet, adult-only deck area. I would definitely pay for access to Vibe again. (The down side--smoking at the bar in Vibe.)

 

Well, that's it. This ended up being a longer post than I planned. I hope some of you find this helpful.

[Mandy412]

Great review!

[jerseygirl111]

Thanks for sharing.

[Willowmina]

Great review!

[Lady Arwen]

Thank you for your review. We're doing this cruise in May 2016 and you answered some questions we had. So glad you enjoyed your cruise despite the weather!