My thoughts and opinions- Just returned from the Breakaway

I just returned from the Breakaway with my DH. We are both professionals in our early 50's and caught cruise fever on the Jewel several years ago with this same itinerary. We had invited our family and friends to join us, but after different issues arose, it ended up being just the two of us.(So we thought!) This was our first time on one of the "big" ships. I will give you my thoughts on several areas- but it is only my opinion and many others may differ. To me a cruise is a place where anyone can find their own fun, and that fun is different for each and every one of us!

Transportation:

We left R.I. on the day before sailing and took the GoBus from Providence, which was $100 for two, and it was non-stop into NYC. It was an Academy bus and had the bathroom and was very clean. It drops you in Manhattan on a side street, and we walked around the corner and immediately got a cab to our hotel. We stayed at the Marriott New York Downtown, which is one small street from the 9/11 Memorial. The hotel was clean, had a Starbucks, and a restaurant. It served our purposes well, and we did go to the Memorial.

Embarkation:

Next morning, we taxied to the Pier for 9:45 am and security had not started yet. We waited in a line several rows deep, but when it opened at 10am it moved swiftly and then we were directed to another line for check-in. This moved a bit slowly,as Gold member were being interspersed with our line. But is was all in all very smooth. At noon, our number 9 was called and we walked onto the beautiful Breakaway.

Thanks for the review so far! Looking forward to your thoughts about "big ship" vs. "small ship" sailing!

We had our traditional first lunch and cocktail in the dining Room, which we chose Savor. It was our first experience with cruise staff that were not as friendly as other ships. The staff also made mistakes with our order, we ended up eating what we got and left to explore the ship.

Cabin:

I had booked an Aft-Minisuite, after researching on CC. When I booked 10916, I received an e-mail stating it was a handicap accessible room. I called my PCC and informed I did not realize this, and he said no worries, keep the room and if they need it they would have to bump us up to a suite. So we ended up in 10916 after all, and by chance my DH broke his leg in three places in late Jan., and we were not sure if he would need a wheel chair! Thankfully, by the time we sailed he only had a soft cast.

The room was very large, and we did have the electronic door that slowly closed but that was fine. The balcony was HUGE. We had two loungers, two chairs and two small tables- but we had room for many more. The room and balcony was quiet throughout the trip. The bathroom had plenty of room- (which will come into play on the last day of the cruise). Our room steward was Mira and she was one of the very few staff that was friendly and talkative.

As we started to sail away we had a knock on our cabin door- and SURPRISE our best friends had booked the cruise in November and had kept it a secret for months! We were blown way! They were blown away by the size of our cabin and the balcony. They almost missed the ship. They left R.I on the 7:30 am Amtrak train and were stuck in New London for two hours due to rail problems and they literally got to the port ran in and only had two other families left checking in. They were actually planning to fly to Florida to catch up with us. Thankfully we had no clue what was happening! They are also two professionals in their 50's and felt the same way about the staff overall throughout the cruise. The staff is much more formal, sometimes disinterested and just had a different vibe. My friend thought maybe it was they might not be as comfortable with language as other ships.

Thanks, looking forward to the rest.:)

Big Ship vs. Middle/Smaller ship:

Even though it was school vacation, we did not ever feel over run with children running around. The ship is beautiful with many venues for dining and drinking. However, the bars had VERY limited seating, and if there was entertainment in these areas, you had to stand and had the people walking through constantly. We enjoyed FATCATS because it was in a separate room and you could enjoy the band, sit and not have the other people walking through. Many of the activities are held in the Atrium- which also has a level above to overlook the activity. However, it again had limited seating. One evening we got lucky and found four seats overlooking the blues band- but we had the ping pong tables and arcade at our backs which was very distracting.

We also love the challenge of trivia contests and these were held in the Atrium and it just did not have the same competitive vibe in such a large space.

We decided- all four of us- that we prefer the smaller ships for the smaller spaces for entertainment/activities/games and the staff on smaller ships appear to be friendlier. This is just our opinion, and we did have a wonderful cruise, but we did notice these differences.

Food:

The Garden Cafe buffet was busy during high times, but we did not really eat there during those times. We ate breakfast in the Moderno and a very nice spot- Uptowne Grille. This was outside and never busy, we ate there for lunch too. We had breakfast once in Taste in was okay.

Dinner:

The Manhattan Room was very good, Taste and Savor had poor service, our friends went one night and they had the worst service on a ship. We had bought the 3 night dining package, so we went ot Le Bistro- excellent, La Cucina- very good and Cagneys- excellent.

Drinks:

Our friends had the UBP and enjoyed it very much, we did NOT have the UBP, and found the drinks to be reasonable. We never had to wait very long for drinks any where, we were served within a fair amount of time.

Pool:

We never used the pool, but it looked very busy. The children's area was very nice.

Entertainment and Activities:

We enjoy all of the action on the ship each day, I even bring a highlighter for the dailies to map it all out each night. There were many things to choose from, but as I have said before we did not even do the trivia the way it was set up in the Atrium. We did go to the shows. I knew we needed reservations, but we had reserved different shows than our friends- but we were able to get into them at the show's entrance check-in.

First Night Show: This was a preview of all of the shows for the week, it was good.

Burn the Floor: Excellent

Rock of Ages: BE FOREWARNED- NOT FOR CHILDREN. THEY WILL MAKE ANNOUNCMENTS REPEATEDLY IN THIS REGARD. This was one of the worst shows we have ever seen in our whole lives. It made no sense, they sang out of tune, and it was very crude. We are not prudes, but nothing made any sense and it was pretty dirty. Surprised this was on a cruise ship

FATCATS: Excellent, excellent, excellent EVERY NIGHT

Liar's Club Show in the Cirque tent: Extremely Funny

Carla Stickler: Excellent-Extremely talented broadway singer with a focus on "WICKED"

Managing a floating hotel: Very informative

Second City and Howling at the Moon: always a long line- make reservations, we did not get to go

We did play mini-golf and there were many people on the ROPES course.

Casino:

Very expansive across deck seven, many choices to play and I did a slot tournament- one my round but did not place overall.

Great review so far.. Any Information on spice h20 area ? Or finding chairs to relax in the sun ??

Ports and Excursions:

In Port Canaveral we met our DD who works at WDW. We went to a nice restaurant right by the ship- Grill's. It had a surfer theme, and had indoor and outdoor seating. It was fine, and then we hopped in her car and went to play Gator Miniature Golf. They had live gators and you could feed them. We then went to Cocoa Beach and walked on the Pier. There was a very nice open air bar overlooking the beach.

Our friends did the Airboat excursion and really enjoyed it very much.

Great Stirrup Cay:

We had a clamshell ordered so we had a tender ticket, but we had to wait in the theater for a bit before we got on the boat. We had ordered a clamshell on our previous visit years sgo, and knew it was a good thing to do. I will tell you they were sold out on the island, we saw MANY people be turned away looking for one. Because of my DH's broken leg, I chose the Bacardi Beach area for the shell so we would be near the buffet, but if he was well, we would have gone to the last beach where it was not as busy. The beach was beautiful, many fish swimming around. The buffet was fine, and they did have people coming around for drinks after a period of time. Our friends had bought the water jetski excursion, but after waiting in line to check in- it was cancelled due to high winds. It was rather blustery that day.

Nassau:

Our friends did the Sea and See, which we did before. They enjoyed it. We did the Atlantis Beach Break. We boarded several mini-vans, and travel to the resort and are escorted down to the beach, given to a bag and two loungers with a covering. The beach had a very rough current, and I saw a woman get lifted up and right down onto her bottom with the waves and she was only up to her thighs. We dipped our toes in the water, and sat down. People kept coming by and offering drinks, trinkets and braiding. They kept coming so often, literally every five minutes or less (The same people) that we left and went to eat lunch in an outdoor venue overlooking the pools. The grounds are just so beautiful. The food was good- very pricey. We then went ot the aquarium and the casino. We won in the casino- just a little-LOL. They had return busses back to the ship every 30 minutes and were waiting for us when we went back. We would definitely do this excursion again.

Other Observations:

We were on an elevator with a family that said they had two people in their party that had missed the ship in Nassau. We heard the staff paging two people and apparently these were the people.

There are plenty of places and chairs to lie in the sun, however you may not necessarily be near the pools or where the kids area are. The upper deck had MANY chairs and we always saw availability. There are some very nice round wicker beds at the front of the ship and they were available when we went. We did not do Spice H2o.

We wanted to enjoy the outdoor eating areas, but every time we went it was always smoky. We could not understand why they would put the smoking areas near the dining venues.

The ship was beautiful and we never felt crowded during the day, enough space for everyone- but at night it was congested in those entertainment hotspots. We missed the Spinnakers type space that is on other ships.

Cruise Director: DAN DAN was extremely talented and funny

Spa: I normally get to massages when I cruise, and take advantage of the port day specials. They had no specials, and when I went to visit were very disinterested in my questions, so no massage for me this time!

Moderno: had a themed lunch on some days- Indian and Bavarian

We went to see our friend's cabin- 9246, it was a balcony very nice, but the balcony was very tight.

Carlo's Bakery: We are New Englanders and the size of the coffee was size of a thimble compared to what we are used too! You cannot sit in this area for entertainment.

Photos: We really did not have that many pictures taken, the photographer walked by our table at times, and the one time he did come and take our pics, he must have put in the wrong room number because the photos were not in our folder. Your folder number is found on your key card.

Room Service: I unfortunately got extremely ill after breakfast on the last sea day, to the point of being bedridden and back and forth to the bathroom all day and night until disembarkation. Thankfully the bathroom was roomy enough for those purposes! I ordered some room service to try and get something down, and it was prompt, correct and temperature was spot on. It was well worth the $7.95 cost. There was a large selection of choices on the menu.

Disembarkation: Due to the fact that I was so sick, we wanted to not have to wait in line too long. We did self- disembark and were off the ship rather quickly to the point where we were wt our bus stop after a cab ride by 9 am. It would have cutting it too close to take the 9 m bus We had booked the noon, so we waited, there was several places to get food and drink. The bus was prompt and we were in Providence by 4 pm.

Would we sail Breakaway again: Maybe someday if the itinerary and time of the year was interesting. It was a classy ship. But we enjoy the smaller ships and are happy we tried the big guy!

If anyone has questions, let me know. Thank you!

Great review. The unfriendliness of the crew has been a very common complaint lately. We are sailing her again and hope this changes. I prefer the smaller ships too.

I'm sorry you were sick on the last day. That's no fun. I hope you are feeling better now.

I was on the Breakaway in 2013 with my mom. It was okay for me but not for her (I was 54 at the time), we too prefer the smaller ships with fewer passengers.

I'm sorry you were sick on the last day. That's no fun. I hope you are feeling better now.

 

I was on the Breakaway in 2013 with my mom. It was okay for me but not for her (I was 54 at the time), we too prefer the smaller ships with fewer passengers.

Thank you for your kind thoughts! I finally went back to work today. Wish I was sailing again right now!

Thanks for your review!