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When looking at booking a cruise the NCL website will tell you if you should expect a tender port or not. For example here’s a cruise we’re booked on next year. https://www.ncl.com/ca/en/cruises/14-day-transatlantic-from-new-york-to-london-france-and-ireland-PEARL14NYCHALFSPSJFREYBFSDUNLEHSOU?embarkationport=4294949364&sailMonths=4294949338&numberOfGuests=4294949461&sortBy=featured&autoPopulate=f&from=resultpage&itineraryCode=PEARL14NYCHALFSPSJFREYBFSDUNLEHSOU If you scroll down to cruise itinerary overview it lists the plans for each day including the times in port. Here it will also specify if the port will use a tender as in this case: This is of course subject to change just like any itinerary is but should give you an idea what to expect before booking.

Docked everywhere. The only port where any ship had to tender was Roatan. There were two Carnival ships docked together further down the shore. Us and the Harmony of the Seas were docked together and the Enchantment of the Seas came later and had to tender. The Harmony left first and once it did the Enchantment took that spot for the rest of the day.

So nice to see someone who properly does their research and reads the fine print to make sure they have all the details. I know on our first cruise there was nothing major that caught me off guard or was unexpected because I made sure to read everything I could. So many people you see posting cruise reviews filled with complaints about things that are clearly detailed somewhere if you just spend a couple minutes looking before you get on the ship.

I know when we were in the process of considering our first cruise and doing all the research that was kind of item number one. Do we have to pay for it right away and if not is there some sort of required payment structure we have to follow? When I saw no, just put down a deposit and pay the rest on or before 120 days before the cruise that pretty much sold us right then and there. Not sure if it’s too late but NCL is currently running a bonus CruiseFirst promo for the next few days. https://www.ncl.com/ca/en/cruisefirst-program Basically you pay $250 to purchase a certificate worth $500 to booking a new cruise essentially giving you $250 off the price of the cruise. It may be worth calling in to see if it can be added to your booking or if you could cancel the current booking and then rebook it with the promo.

We added the prepaid service charges when we booked so it essentially became part of the cruise fare and just had to be paid off by final payment date. Beverage gratuities were $0 since we didn’t select the beverage package. Dining package gratuity was just over $10. We tipped our steward extra at the end of the cruise with cash and my wife bought one can of Coke and a couple milkshakes which had a 20% gratuity added to them. That was the extent of the gratuities/tips we paid. Otherwise our OBC was spent on a couple of gift shop purchases, a bag of laundry, and a few arcade games which are all gratuity free.

Just for the record our on board balance owing has cleared through our credit card and after being converted to Canadian dollars we owe 18¢.

A problem I’m all too familiar with. I either decided the picture wasn’t important enough to post and just deleted it, or I’d have to go into my photos folder, find the picture in question, edit it by rotating it a full 360° and then saving it looking exactly like it did originally. Then when I uploaded it again to the site it was right side up. If it wasn’t the internet being slow it was this site that was messing with me instead.

Watching all the ships go by while sitting in the dining room or on the top deck was the best part of embarkation day. Having never been to that area before it was shocking to see. It’s basically like a highway with ship after ship after ship of all shapes and sizes going one way or the other.

Some random thoughts or observations and closing comments: I wasn’t sure if I could do it or not but I survived the whole week without the pop package. Juice for breakfast was good and just water for lunch and supper worked out sort of Ok and their tap water is very much drinkable with no funky taste. Also had a water bottle that I kept filled with either breakfast buffet juice or rest of the day buffet flavoured water. They’re not bad. It was a fairly diverse crowd on board. A decent amount of kids, but not overwhelming. A surprisingly high number of younger people in their 20’s. Don’t think I’ve ever seen close to that many on a cruise before. A somewhat normal amount of those you’d consider middle aged. And of course plenty of seniors. I doubt it was an even split between those three general age groups but it probably wasn’t that far off. Seemed a little weird that we didn’t receive any of our onboard perks until day 2 but it wasn’t really a big deal. As long as our OBC credit was there by the end of the cruise it was technically irrelevant as to when it showed up. Not having our Latitudes rewards information meant we were too late to be able to book a spot at the free cocktail party that we weren’t going to go to anyway, so I guess that was pretty unforgivable and should have ruined our cruise. I might have alluded to this once or twice along the way but the internet still su-diddly-ucked. Sometimes I was fighting it and sometimes I think I was fighting this website instead but it was pretty painful at times. Overall I’d say the cruise met my expectations, not that I set a really high bar. We enjoyed ourselves and felt like we got good value for the money we paid, so what else should we ask for? Of course there were a few minor things that could be considered negative but were only mentioned for the sake of completeness and not as complaints. Far and away the worst thing that happened was when they roped off the stairs on disembarkation day forcing me to use the elevator three times that day which tied my record for most times using the elevator on a single cruise. Beyond a casual one off comment here and there when passing someone I engaged in 0 conversations with anyone I didn’t already know which sets a new record I can be proud of. Would I sail on the Breakaway again? Sure I would. Would I sail out of New Orleans again? Not for this same itinerary but if something different came up I would consider it. See a couple 14 day cruises in February 2026 that look kind of interesting and fall into the general time frame that were next trying to fill. Would I do a live/semi-live report again? Probably. I think I learned enough along the way of how I can properly manage my online and offline time to at least somewhat increase the efficiency with which I use my limited minutes. I know that ultimately a post like this is whatever I want to make it and shouldn’t care what anyone else thinks but I’m open to any advice, critiques, positives/negatives that I or anyone else could use to make things better. My next cruise is booked for December out of NYC on the Prima. First time on a Prima class ship. Haven’t decided if I’ll do a semi-live for that or not. I barely made mine and my mom’s minutes last for 7 days and the next one is a 10 day. My mother-in-law and my mom will be on that one so I should be able to steal both their minutes along with mine which should be enough to make it that long. We’ll see. My wife still may add some pictures once she goes through what she has on her real camera but other than that I think I’m finally done. Thanks again to all those that hung out here and it was nice to have you along for the ride.

Entertainment: This has been where NCL seems to be getting the most flack recently and while I typically don’t care about the entertainment too much I can see this has changed a lot over the last two years. We usually check out one or two things over the course of a cruise but having already seen Burn the Floor, not having a sense of humour that renders a comedian pointless, and realizing on my first cruise that bingo and Deal or No Deal are just designed to funnel almost all the money brought in into NCL’s pockets there was nothing I was interested in doing. Burn the Floor ran 4 shows over the two sea days, 3 at night and one in the afternoon. The comedians ran 5 shows over three nights. Wheel of Fortune was 1 night 1 night the theatre had no events. Bingo was played 5 times as was Deal or No Deal. This seemed like far more than on any of our previous cruises and that includes a 10 and a 12 day one. My wife and my mom usually like to go to some of the evening or late night movies either in the atrium or Spice H2O. This cruise only had those twice along with a movie starting at noon on each of the four port days. They did not go to any of these. Otherwise there were all the standard things like regular entertainment each night in Syd Norman’s or Headliners along with random musicians in two or three regular locations around the ship. I’d say at this point entertainment should not be a reason you decide to take an NCL cruise.

Think I’m going to push through and finish this today. Be nice to get it finished before people sailing this week finish theirs. Was considering a section on the ports but I think I covered that fine already. The food: As I said some time ago, I never cruised pre-pandemic so I can’t lament about how things used to be. That being said even just in the two years and 4 cruises since I started cruising I can see some changes. The most recent one that has received attention is the cookies. I never did see any cookies in the buffet the few times I went there. Never asked to see if you could be given any. They were available in the studio lounge for most of the day, and you can ask for them with desert in the main dining rooms. On our first cruise there was always a cheesecake option on pretty much every desert menu. I was already noticing on our October cruise that cheesecake had become quite rare and that trend continued here with it only showing up a couple times all week. As long as the peanut buttercup cheesecake remains I won’t root yet. Beef options on the MDR menu have been greatly reduced even since October. Aside from the NY strip steak that is still included nightly beef and even pork rarely made an appearance. Menus were typically a vegetarian option, some sort of fish, some sort of seafood, some sort of chicken, and some sort of random meat related option. As someone who’s not a big fan of seafood or chicken and has no interest in eating fish more than a couple times in a week there were a couple nights where finding something to eat was a challenge. At the buffet the available options felt fewer than they have on past cruises but there was still plenty available. The only time they offered a themed buffet was at lunch on the day we were in Cozumel when it was Mexican themed. Otherwise the only thing that really varied from day-to-day aside from the deserts was the meat in the carving station. O’Sheehan’s is still the same menu they’ve been running for at least a year now. Good for one or two full meals in a week or an occasional snack or smaller lunch with some of their appetizer choices. Menu isn’t as big as it was a couple years ago and with the daily blue plate special still absent it can get repetitive really quickly. Their breakfast is still an excellent option, especially on port days since it’s fresh and made-to-order unlike the buffet and you usually get your food within a few minutes which can actually make it faster than walking around the buffet. Not sure if this is a fleet side change or just the Breakaway but pretzel bites came with 6 pieces instead of the 4 that we’ve been used to. All that being said I had no complaints about the food. Tried some new things that I otherwise wouldn’t normally consider. Everything was good, the portion sizes are adequate, and the food was always hot, aside from the buffet of course. Service time was always at worst acceptable or expected and on several occasions it was downright impressive how fast things got served.

The crew: Everyone seemed comfortable in and familiar with their jobs. On our past cruises for the first day or two we’d always encounter one or two crew members that gave off the impression that they were new and just learning. Never had that feeling on this cruise. Can’t say we had many that were going above and beyond the call of duty, but everyone seemed competent. Our room steward introduced himself on the second day when we were passing by in the hall. With him having so much hall space to work in it seemed like he was almost always out there doing something, so we inevitably passed him two or three times per day. Always greeted us by name with a smile on his face. Always tell us to have a nice day in the morning and asked about our day if we were coming back in from a port. He did his job fine in keeping our room clean but didn’t do anything that stood out from expectations. I’d rank him as our second best steward out of our first four cruises. Dining staff was also good. Only a couple that really stood out as special but none that were bad. A small mistake or two was made but nothing serious and quickly corrected. Service was never what I would consider slow by cruise ship standards and a few times it was outright impressively fast. O’Sheehan’s was always fast service just like it always is. You could see that everyone was working together well to keep things moving. We filled out two hero cards on this cruise and both were for waiters. The first was for Alex Eman our waiter the first night at Moderno. My wife didn’t want any of the offered deserts so she asked for chocolate ice cream. He said they only have vanilla ice cream in the kitchen. My wife said that’s fine, she doesn’t really need anything. Instead he said he was willing to go down to the deck 6 kitchen for her to get some chocolate ice cream. Just a small gesture but very much appreciated. The second was for Myo Ko our waiter the last night in Taste. He was obviously just having a lot of fun and joking around with everyone. Once again my wife decided against desert and he just started rattling off a list of random off-menu items that he could go and get for her. That’s when she ended up with cookies. Didn’t do much at guest services and most of it revolved around trying to get our bowling game refunded. Got in line and they had someone screening the line to deal with any easy issues or direct them to the proper place. We told her what we were there for and she said to just continue waiting in line. Get up to the desk and we explain it and he says we don’t deal with that here, you need to go to the casino in a couple hours and talk to them. Wait and go to the casino where they have the players club and the cashier so with a 50/50 shot at picking the right counter we went with the players club which had no line. It was the wrong choice. Went to the cashier, she looked confused, called someone, wrote a few things down and said they’ll look into it. After 24 hours we saw nothing so we went back to the cashier, same one working, she looked confused, called someone, told us they were assessing it and we should be credited back by the end of the cruise. Finally sometime the next day the charges just disappeared from our account entirely. We did go to the CruiseNext desk as well to get our gold pins. In the past this has been a quick transaction where we tell them we’ve earned a pin and they hand us a pin. This guy decided he’d better try to upsell us on some CruiseNext certificates. Only a couple minute attempt but totally unnecessary when we already have three more cruises booked with them. Other random cleaning staff or washy-washy guy that you passed would usually greet you normally with a smile. Overall it seemed like a really solid crew. I’ll be back tomorrow with more.

Our room: We were in room 5169 which is port side, mid-ship right under the atrium, roughly the guest services desk. Had another room on one side of us and a crew locker on the other side and the medical centre behind us. All that made for a very quiet room and I only recall one or two instances where we heard outside noise. Aside from the fairly regular sound of running water in our walls. Guess there must have been a water pipe there. Not really a big deal. The room itself was an inside room, so nothing special but a suitable size for two people. A very large bed when joined together. I’ve never had a problem with the bed on any of our previous cruises but my wife decided to request an egg crate mattress topper before we got on board and it did make for a soft sleep. My mom complained that her bed was very hard but my wife had never thought to request a topper for her. She found our bed to be much more comfortable than hers. Storage space was plentiful with a lot of hangers in the closet. We had packed a few extra days of clothing since we were going to be on the road for three days before getting on the cruise and had no problem storing everything away and keeping our cabin fairly neat and organized looking. The ship does show its age with a total lack of USB ports in the room. Just two North American and two European outlets over the desk centrally located in the room. The shower felt a little tight at times but was good enough with no drainage or water temperature problems. Most of the time the toilet would flush immediately but sometimes there was a delay of several seconds up to a couple minutes before it flushed. More than enough storage space for all our toiletry items as well. The location was different for us as our previous cruises we were on decks 9, 11, and 14 so always between the main inside and outside decks. We did have the double wide hall right outside our room which was amazing. People could park their scooters out there. Our stewards cart was out there most of the day. Even with that two people could pass each other comfortably. It was such a novelty that we loved. Deck 5 is obviously super convenient to get to anything on 6, 7, or 8. If you’re someone who takes the stairs like I do getting to deck 15 and above becomes much less convenient. Fortunately with no interest in the pool or hot tubs and preferring to eat at any place other than the buffet means I didn’t have to go up there that often. Deck 5 rooms also allow you to get off the ship faster at ports. People were lined up in the atrium waiting for the all clear to disembark. Instead we could just wait in our room and listen for the announcement and then just merge into the line as it headed out on deck 4. No one seemed to care or even notice. Getting back on the ship from a port also meant going up just one flight of stairs and you’re already back to your room. I’d do a lower deck again.

The ship: Having sailed on the Getaway and the Escape on our last two cruises we already knew exactly what to expect on the Breakaway. Didn’t even bother taking many pictures of the different things inside the ship since I had already taken the exact same thing on those two cruises. It was nice not needing to take any time at all exploring or acclimating ourselves to where everything was and that made it nice to be able to get to both our muster stations and be waiting for Taste and Savor to open within about 5 minutes of being on board. Fairly basic layout with decks 6, 7, and 8 having everything inside and 15 and 16 being the two main topside decks. It was nice to sail out of New Orleans being an already warmer area so after boarding the top decks for already fully usable and that helped thin out the crowds a bit better at the start of the cruise than a cold embarkation day from NYC does. When cabins aren’t ready and 4000 people are on board the ship works a lot better when all the main decks can be properly used. I don’t recall a single time on this cruise where it felt like you got overwhelmed with the size of a crowd. It has the same design issues that the other two ships I mentioned have. No inside observation deck like the Jewel class or the more recent ships have. A small atrium seating area that they like to host some popular activities in that need far more seating than is available. The customer services desks being right beside the small atrium that they like to use to host activities with lots of people and lots of noise so hearing each other is hard. Lack of a wraparound promenade deck forcing you to cut through the ship to do a full lap going back-and-forth from hot to cold to hot. Outdoor dining space on the Waterfront that they never end up using because it’s always too windy for them to seat people out there. Small pool and only a few hot tubs making space in either of them a premium. A strange tendency to underuse bigger venues like the theatre and Spiegel Tent although they seem to be improving a bit at that. Long ago removing features like mini golf and the rock climbing wall and replacing them with empty space is still disappointing. The casino allowing smoking anywhere means there will always be a smell in certain areas. There are also many things that work well. The layout is fairly straightforward and doesn’t take too long to get used to. The Waterfront is a great place that is usually quieter to get outside and really enjoy and feel closer to the ocean than you do up top. This ship is from before NCL gained the nickel and dime reputation so most of the activities on the ship don’t cost extra. The Haven and Vibe are of course the premium extra cost areas that take up some key real estate. Otherwise everything aside from the arcade is free to use on the top decks including Spice H2O as an adults only area during the day. The buffet is massive with plenty of seating. The three main dining rooms can pack in plenty of people as well. Inside they have people set up inside at places like the shops or art gallery but they never pressure to buy anything. Aside from the obvious things like the casino, art gallery, and speciality restaurants the only other things that aren’t included inside are the ice bar and some games at O’Sheehan’s. The ship could probably use a refresh sometime soon. Things like the carpet and some of the chairs are starting to look worn in a few places but nothing too serious. For the most part the ship still looks good. It’s got a huge photo gallery area that’s mostly filled with the photo binder carousel’s they don’t use anymore so that space could be put to better use. It’d be nice if they added something back into the empty space under the ropes course that serves no purpose now. Making the American Diner complimentary was a good idea as it not only actually had people at it but it was usually packed. Only being open the three non-port days from 12-4 was probably the main reason for that and means we never got around to eating there. Overall it’s just a basic ship design that works fairly well. There’s a reason they had two more ships made after it that used the same design and there’s also a reason that they’ve released ships after that which made changes to the design. I’ll continue this with the next part tomorrow.

Here goes. I’m sure I’ll forget something I was wanting to say as a lot of thoughts have been going through my head the last couple days but I’ll do my best. TL;DR:1 star. Worst cruise ever. At lunch on embarkation day our salt and pepper grinder didn’t have any pepper in it and I decided I wanted to be one of those people who lets one little minor thing that happens early on or even before their cruise annoy them so much that they decide everything on this cruise is going to be horrible. For those who want to read I’ll break it down by categories. Port/embarkation/debarkation: I’d heard many things about the New Orleans terminal before this cruise and I don’t recall any of them being good. Being used to NYC and their $45 a night parking, $25 a night seemed like a bargain. The way our GPS took us made it kind of weird to get to the parking garage but we did it with only a couple wrong or missed turns. Plenty of people working at the garage to direct you. If you pay in advance make sure to have your QR code ready both when you arrive and leave. About a block to walk to the terminal along flat sidewalks but the shuttle was available. Porter was not very subtle in asking for a tip implying that something could happen to your bag unless he has reason to care about it. In NYC I’ve never had the porters says anything. Begging for tips was very common at all ports on this cruise. Once you get to the terminal the mess begins as there are lines of people waiting for buses and taxis and shuttles just about everywhere. There are once again many workers trying to figure out where everyone is going but it’s just a mass of people to fight through. Once we found the right doors and the line for people looking to check in it was so smooth. Right through the metal detectors and then right to the counter to check in. Done well before our scheduled check in time. Waiting area is fairly small but with the slightly later check in times it had less time to fill up. Disembarkation was fairly quick as well. Had a separate area off to the side for anyone with unsettled balances who couldn’t get off yet, so that didn’t slow things down. Main issue was exiting the ship aft when the gangway is forward. Seemed like an unnecessary additional length of the ship we had to walk. Then the lengthy gangway and then a series of lengthy, empty hallways to get to customs and then more lengthy, empty hallways to get outside. Fortunately this was well before the embarking passengers were going to start arriving so the crowd wasn’t as bad yet. They have the shuttles to take everyone to the parking garage but with everyone getting off the ship they filled up fast and usually with more luggage than people. The line was already long and both shuttles were full and leaving so we figured it would be faster to walk. All told the distance we ended up walking from the end of the line on the ship to our car was roughly 2km weighed down with all our luggage. NYC is so much easier with their parking lot on the pier and embarking passengers going through a totally different floor than the disembarking passengers who go through the dank basement. All told we managed it and it was probably a more annoying process than it was a difficult or confusing one. The check in itself was far faster than any we’d experienced before, so that was great but the physical building itself and parking situation could be much better. This seems long enough so I’ll do my next section in a new post.