Live from NCL Breakaway 15th January 2023

[nikkiw60]

I posted the following on another thread a couple of weeks ago, we are now on board so instead of typing all this again the following shows how we ended up here!

Finally 2 weeks from today (15th January) we will be boarding the Breakaway out of New Orleans!
Background story!
We started cruising in 2016 ( we are from U.K.) on MSC Divina since then we ( or should I say I?) have become hooked!
We did a status match to the top tier which was then Black from a hotel status so I started my research on Cruise Critic and went on board as a seasoned cruiser! 
Since then we have been on 8 MSC cruises and have further 3 booked…

Now let’s get on to how we discovered NCL and how the cruise in 2 weeks time got booked!

if you are not bored yet… if you are stop reading now!
With friends we had booked a Californian road trip and just by chance we saw a 5 night reposition cruise on NCL Bliss which we thought would be a good start to a road trip, Flight to Seattle stayed over night got train to Vancouver stayed overnight then Bliss back down to Los Angeles, with stops in Victoria and San Francisco. Then car back to San Francisco via Solvang, Monterey, and Paso Robles.
Whilst on board we purchased some future cruise vouchers…. 2 plus 2 free…

So we were booked for April 2020 for a milestone birthday on MSC Bellissima in Asia.. which was then cancelled in January due to a big virus in China… so determined to still be away for my birthday we quickly used 2 of our vouchers and booked either the Getaway or Breakaway for the same week out of New Orleans and prepaid the entire trip…

You can guess the rest of this chapter…

Anyway as previously stated we are finally ( hopefully) boarding in a couple of weeks time.

And back to the heading of my topic, usually on MSC I do a Live From, I will have the WiFi package and plan on boring anyone who can be bothered to read my thread with my morning musings, menus, food photos, dailies etc.

I will answer any questions live or as live as I can whilst on board..

[nikkiw60]

First day musings and sorry but they are not on the positive side so far, but I will enjoy this cruise I will!!!

we started with a couple of lovely days in New Orleans. Got 2 rooms using IHG points at the Indigo on the edge of the city area with the street car stop right outside. We ate at New Orleans Cookery restaurant the Friday night had a delicious seafood boil. Then Saturday morning took the street car to explore, this is the best $3 spent!

in the afternoon did a seafood walking tour and guess where one of the 3 stops was!

Tries a hurricane or 2 and discovered the deliciousness of the chargrilled oyster.

Then yesterday after spending a couple of hours doing more exploring and having the daft idea of going to cafe du monde for beignets- didn’t do as queue too long set off for the cruise terminal at 11.30 ish for our 12 noon to 12.30 check in!

[RocketMan275]

2 minutes ago, nikkiw60 said:

I will answer any questions live or as live as I can whilst on board..

We're on Breakaway in seven weeks. 

Spent two hours waiting in lines last March on NOLA.

Trying to determine the best time to arrive at the port to minimize waiting time.

All reservations have been made so no need to board early to make those.

Questions:

When did you arrive at the port?

When were you able to board?

How long was the line to clear security before checking in?

 

[nikkiw60]

We decided to walk to the port having no idea where it was this took about 20 minutes. 
When we arrived at the check in area OMG what a queue! Now in my cruising life so far we immediately got Diamond status with MSC , so does the rest of the world with status match… Which means priority boarding… and people on FB had all morning been saying what a breeze the check in was and were happily posting pictures of cocktails and food. 
Well, for the 12 nooners this was not to be! It was about 90 mins before we were on boards, we had to snake round the terminal!

And once on board the strangest thing! There were no tables to be found in the buffet all occupied but sun beds a plenty!

We did manage to find a glass of wine to have on sun beds and managed to eat later.

The safety drill was at 3 pm, omg what a shambles this was ! Our cabin had to go to the atrium near guest services, where hundreds of us gathered for nearly an hour! It was so bad people cheered and clapped at the end of it!

All I could think was welcome to the covid fest…

one positive so far cabins where ready and our cases had already arrived outside our cabins along with other random cases, which were still there at 7pm when we went to dinner… they were nowhere near the correct cabins.

Before dinner we had to join the queue At guest services to find out where our included 6 missing bottles of water where. Our friends found theirs in the door stool. They said we didn’t have any our package even though we had booked at the same time and we had paid more for our club cabin!

Our problem was nothing though compared to the people who still couldn’t get into their cabins due to key cards not working…

Will post more later as my thumbs are going numb and I need to drink my coffee which costs $4.95 to have delay to cabin! This I am not used to as it is free on MSC…

 

[nikkiw60]

15 minutes ago, RocketMan275 said:

We're on Breakaway in seven weeks. 

Spent two hours waiting in lines last March on NOLA.

Trying to determine the best time to arrive at the port to minimize waiting time.

All reservations have been made so no need to board early to make those.

Questions:

When did you arrive at the port?

When were you able to board?

How long was the line to clear security before checking in?

 

I have answered this in another post! Take a bottle of water just in case and got to the restroom! 
The ship was an hour late In leaving, also we were given a note on check in about port time’s having changed for Costa Maya and Cozumel…think it’s 1.30 for Costa Maya and either 10 or 10.30 for Cozumel so be warned if you have any private trips booked.

[RocketMan275]

9 minutes ago, nikkiw60 said:

I have answered this in another post! Take a bottle of water just in case and got to the restroom! 
The ship was an hour late In leaving, also we were given a note on check in about port time’s having changed for Costa Maya and Cozumel…think it’s 1.30 for Costa Maya and either 10 or 10.30 for Cozumel so be warned if you have any private trips booked.

Thank you.   If the lines are that long when we arrive, we will go up to the mall and kill some time there.

 

[nikkiw60]

Ok had coffee! 
to end yesterday’s info we had dinner in Taste at about 7.30 food was ok. I didn’t photo the menu but will do for the rest of the week. We are a group of 4 btw.

After dinner we sat and had cocktails and whiskey in the Whiskey bar.

I am going to do a lot of comparisons to MSC and so far MSC is far superior….

#controversial…

[FLAHAM]

Every time I have gone to the open MDR upon boarding it has been at least half empty and delightful.

[nikkiw60]

4 minutes ago, FLAHAM said:

Every time I have gone to the open MDR upon boarding it has been at least half empty and delightful.

We didn’t realise it was open.