tripleboom

Since luggage hadn't yet arrived at the stateroom, we decided to bug out for a bit before hanging out in the room too long. So we headed up to the top decks to see what more we could find to do, hitting the sports complex first: Despite Landon's indication to the contrary, I did in fact win our game of Pig. We knew there was a pool table down in O'Sheehan's, so we were wondering if the UAP would work on the games down there too. Turns out, yup! Landon's UAP card allowed us to play pool, darts, pop-a-shot, and air hockey down in O'Sheehan's too! Connor and I got our revenge after our earlier Foosball loss:

After some time in the arcade, we headed up to check out Entourage for Connor too. Again, compared to the meager offerings on the Joy, this Entourage is a palace! Foosball, air hockey, video gaming, and a huge lounge area. Score! Shortly after we wrapped up our game of Foosball (Landon and Stacy won after a brutal own goal by me), they announced that the rooms were ready, so we headed down to Deck 9 to check it out. We were in room 9864 this go round, a BF class balcony. I really do prefer Deck 9 over others, and with the mid-ship location within about 100 steps of the elevators this was really quite perfect. My only gripe is the way that the Waterfront canopy partially blocks the view, but I would gladly trade that off for the nice access to Decks 6, 7, and 8, The Waterfront, and most of the evening action on the ship. Other than that, it's really a perfectly run of the mill balcony stateroom. Those that read my Joy review may remember that we got a "lucky" upgrade to a club balcony suite last year, only to discover once on board that it was directly over the Cavern Club, home to the Beatles cover band and late night karaoke. NOT ideal. With that in mind, I booked a room this go round that was directly above... the photo gallery! It was wonderfully quiet every night!

With kids' clubs registration behind us, we made a beeline for one of they boys' favorite spots on the ship: the arcade! Located on Deck 16 near American Diner and around the corner from Entourage, this arcade has plenty of options for fun games for the boys to play. At a cost of $175 ($25/day basically), you can register one card for the Unlimited Arcade Package (UAP) on the green swipe machines. The other machines, which produce tickets for prize redemption,have yellow swipes and each have a very prominent placcard on them stating that they are not part of the unlimited arcade package. The boys combined some Christmas money from family to purchase ONE arcade package between them. Because the one active card is limited to 3 game activations per every 3 minutes, you have to be a little careful not to "lock out" the card, but our boys proved to be plenty responsible and never had any issues. Many of the games last longer than a minute or two, so there was no issue with them passing the single cabin card back and forth between them. Games are plentiful, and the following pictures show a relatively small sample of those available to play for free once the UAP is active.

While at lunch, I was busy getting our phones connected to the ship's WiFi, and getting them each registered on the $9.95/phone messaging app. This would become super important for us to be able to keep tabs on each other throughout the day, particularly on sea days when the boys were often off doing their own thing with new found friends. In the past our rooms were frequently ready by the time we finished lunch, but again, we were allowed onto the ship so early that I wasn't belly aching that they weren't ready yet! We had some business to attend to with the boys so we headed to Splash Academy to handle registration. With an 11 year old and a 14 year old, they were going to be split between Splash and Entourage for this sailing, but they've handled that ok before. I will say Splash Academy and Entourage both are much nicer, larger spaces than they were on the Joy. We were able to register the boys for both Splash and Entourage at the same time while in Splash, so that worked our very nicely. 10-12 year old Splash participants can, with their parent's permission, check themselves out of Splash after a 2 hour period, so we opted to allow Landon that freedom. The staff in Splash also had both the Splash and Entourage "dailies" for the boys, so they could know what was going on each day before they arrived. Seems like I always see the ship dailies, but rarely see the ones for the kids' programming published, so here ya go! Entourage Splash Academy Safe to say Landon's grown up just a bit since his first trip to Splash Academy in 2019! The gaming options and space in general on floor 2 of Splash Academy really is great! Wish I could peek in for a night just to check it out in action, but hey... rules are rules!

As is our tradition, we start our cruise in the main dining room to enjoy a less hectic lunch than the Lord of the Flies situation going on up at the buffet. 😁 I started with the hushpuppies as always: Connor opted for the first of what would become MANY cheesebugers. A man after my own heart... And Landon opted for a cheese pizza (which came EXTRA cheesy!) and some french fries: Among the many good choices on the menu, I opted for the fish and chips. Yum! Everyone LOVES the chocolate and orange mousse and it was just as rich and delicious as I remembered!

Day 1 - Embarkation - Port of New Orleans After a night of heavy rainfall and storms, the morning news was filled with reports of flash flooding from the night before. So we weren't in a terrible hurry to leave the hotel. So we had a leisurely morning, ordering in some Hurts Donuts and coffee via UberEats. Yummy! The ensuing sugar rush was fortunately burnt off before leaving the room! Around 10:45 we saddled up, grabbed the suitcases, and headed for the door to make our pilgrimage to the cruise port. As I mentioned before, we've left on cruises out of New Orleans before, and traffic is such a snarled mess down there under normal circumstances that it makes taking an Uber less than ideal. Now, couple that with several rescheduled Carnival parades for Sunday, and we know it would be a bad idea to even bother to try. So we hoofed it the short distance to the terminal. We were able to ditch our bags with the porters just before crossing the railroad tracks, and were then in the terminal. I'm VERY happy to report that after past poor experieinces with delays and long waits in LONG lines, the New Orleans cruise terminal staff figured SOMETHING out, and our whole check-in process was extraordinarily smooth! We were through security, checked-in, issues our sign & sail cards, and were waiting with a Boarding Group #16 card within about 20 minutes of arriving at the terminal building. Two years prior this was about a two hour process, and other arriving later in the day were waiting for hours upon hours for that sailing. ZERO issues this go round, and it might have just been our smoothest emabrkation ever! Within about 5 minutes of sitting down (around 11:20 AM) they began boarding, and by 11:45 our group was called and we headed "this way to the ship!" At 11:51 AM, we were on! Nothing like those first few steps onto the ship. I've always felt like that's the last big exhale before a week full of relaxation!

Our space crazy boys were pretty thrilled with the NASA display in the New Orleans airport terminal. It was raining pretty heavily upon arrival, so I was grateful we had arranged our airport transfer in advance thorugh Viator. Our driver, Debi, had her Ford Excursion parked in the short-term garage attached to the terminal, and we were loaded up and out of there within about 5 minutes of gathering our luggage! After fighting through the Carnival Parade traffic (several parades had just been postponed to Sunday due to the rain), we arrived at the hotel and Debi helped us haul all the luggage out and we were able to check in shortly thereafter. For this trip we stayed at the nicely appointed Cambria Hotel in the Warehouse District. Connor, a trombone player himself, wasn't sure what to think of the art in the lobby. With persistent rain in the forecast the rest of the night, we ordered some UberEats pizza and called it a night early, watching Titanic of all things. 🤣 Tomorrow would be an eventful day as we embarked on our 7-day sailing of the Breakaway!

With Christmas behind us, we struggled though a bitterly cold, snowy January with wind chills plunging into the -30°s and lower. Nothing makes you appreciate an upcoming cruise like ice forming on your eyelashes! But by the time early February hit, we had hit a warm streak and had dry roads for the trip down to Kansas City for our flight to New Orleans. We flew out the day before the cruise, and with a cheap rate AND a direct flight, K.C. was the better option than Omaha this go round. When we arrived at the airport, we found that they were READY for the Chiefs Kingdom that was heading to Vegas! Before long, our chariot had arrived, and we were off! With only 60 some folks onboard, it was nice to spread out! Fun seeing my oldest enjoying documenting his own journeys now too. Raising a little aviation nerd, just like his dad.

Hello again fellow cruise lovers! I'm excited to share my observations, photos, and tips following our Breakaway sailing earlier this month. Despite some rough weather and port shuffling, we had an incredible time as a family on this cruise, and I couldn't wait to get home and share our thoughts and review with you all! First off, I always like to introduce our family a bit at the start of my reviews. My wife and I reside in southwest Iowa near Omaha, Nebraska where we're raising two boys. I'm employed in the insurance industry, while my wife, a Clinical Laboratory Scientist, saves lives on the daily in a hospital laboratory. We've been married for 16+ years, and have enjoyed seven NCL cruises prior to this one (Sky 2011, Sky 2015, Escape 2017, Breakaway 2019, Bliss 2021, Breakaway 2022, and Joy 2023). Here's a pic of all of us from Christmas: Because we're so far from any cruise port, we typically get to cruise about every 12-18 months or so if we're lucky, but when you've got CruiseNext certificates burning a hole in your pocket and you find a good deal, then who can resist?? So we booked in late September and started counting down the days until we set sail though the Western Caribbean. We didn't tell the boys about it because we decided to make it their Christmas gift this year. We're at the stage of life where they don't need more "stuff," and with only 4.5 years left before out oldest graduates, we're soaking up family experiences as often as we can. This year we decided to change things up a little in how we revealed the gift. We bought a few smaller gifts so they'd have some stuff to unwrap on Christmas morning yet, and carefully hid 9 teeny, tiny ducks in the gift wrap of their presents. They were so small that it took them a little while to start finding them, but eventually they found all nine. On the underside of each duck we wrote a letter, leaving them to unscramble the mystery word. It took them several minutes, but eventually they got there!

Day 8 - Disembarkation We had a late afternoon flight home, so we would up with some time to kill. The brown tags meant we'd be the last non-NCL arranged transport group to disembark, so we were able to wake up a little later and make our way up to the buffet. They were working to clear us out of the buffet pretty quickly, eventually coming around to every table and telling us to head to other public areas. So we grabbed our suitcase and headed down to The Waterfront to hang out until our color was called. Oddly, they never did call brown, but instead the color groups after ours were called so we decided that must be our cue. We headed to the Manhattan Room where we found an incredibly short line for disembarkation. It seem as though the aft disembarkation points were MUCH less crowded than those that were forward (where the buffet is located; I'm sure that's no coincidence). We had our cards scanned and were off the ship within about two minutes of stepping foot in The Manhattan Room. Customs was likewise a breeze. We spoke briefly with a customs officer after grabbing our luggage, and we were officially back on U.S. soil. Since we had time to kill before our flight, we made plans to head one pier down to check out the U.S.S. Iowa Battleship Museum. Best of all, because we were residents of Iowa, we were able to board for free by showing our driver's licenses (no such requirement for the boys obviously, so they were admitted for free with Stacy and me). We stopped by the big donor board on our way to the gangway. My dad and step-mom are among the donors who had their names etched onto a piece of the teak deck from the ship. Once we made our way to the top of the gangway we were allowed to stow all of our luggage in a room near the entrance. Great service to allow cruisers to check out this amazing museum, even with luggage still in tow. We were touring on Super Bowl Sunday, so the boys had all their Chiefs gear on for the occasion. Here they're standing with an inert armor piercing round that would have been fired from one of the massive, 16" guns shown above. Just how big are those 9, 16" guns? Well there's a Pepsi machine for scale. The officers' china on display was pretty neat. Safe to say the 1953 Christmas Menu was likely not up to snuff compared to Specialty Dining on NCL. A view of the battle bridge where war could be waged from behind 17" thick steel. A tough nut to crack! And a view from the navigation bridge as well. The rear guns appear trained on the Joy. Rude! We enjoyed one last look at this beauty. Back in November I arranged to have a U.S. flag flown on the USS Iowa's aft deck on my dad's birthday. The staff at the museum then retired the flag at the end of the day and shipped it to me to gift to Dad, complete with a certificate of authenticity. Pretty special to then get to stand where his flag had flown! Before long, it was time to head for home. We hopped in a Lyft, and headed to John Wayne (SNA), making one last pass past the Norwegian Joy. Thanks to everyone who stuck with me as I completed this review! It's a labor of love, and I wish I had the time to be able to knock it all out quickly, but something about a full time job and raising two active boys keeps me occupied. 🙂 Until next time, fellow cruise lovers!

We closed out the night by meeting up with the boys for one last trip to the arcade, this time checking out the offerings on the starboard side of The Local. Stacy dominated at Pop-A-Shot. We then managed to fend off an alien invasion in the Halo game. We finished off the night by stopping in at Q Smokehouse to split one last skillet brownie as a family. Couldn't ask for a tastier way to put a bow on our cruise. Despite the rough start, we had a picture perfect ending!

With the final night upon us, the boys wanted to squeeze the most out of it with their newfound friends, so they were off to the buffet and a night in the arcade, while Stacy and I went to cash in our last specialty dining credit, returning to Food Republic. The Rock Shrimp Roll delivered again! As did the crispy salmon roll. On the more adventurous side, we tried these Kanpachi Wonton Tacos. With kanpachi ceviche, jalapenos, radishes, and avocado wrapped up in a fried wonton shell, it had a lot of flavorful promise, but the flavors just didn't mesh well for us. Swing and a miss. The Tiger Roll was a hit though with spicy tuna, shrimp tempura, crab and avocado. Yum! Our waitress on this evening, Angelica, was amazing! She took great care of us, and when I told her we were ready to head out for the night, she told us we had to try a dessert, on the house! Who am I to say "no" to free dessert?! This Chocolate Black Forest Cake was so delicious! Kirsch soaked chocolate cake, vanilla schlag and black cherry compote.

After getting dried off we headed back to the room to change into warmer clothes. While there we saw the crew hard at work on cleaning the balcony barriers. The boys wrapped up their scavenger hunt and made plans with friends for one last dip in the pool, so we headed up to soak up one last sunset. The boys were a bit braver in the (heated) pool than Stacy. 🤣

On our last cruise, Stacy had the brilliant idea of sending the boys on a scavenger hunt all around the ship to take their pictures with various landmarks. This was a super fun way for them to get the explore the ship a bit, and they were practically begging us to put it together for them again this time. With a list of 30 items to track down, we sent them on their merry way, and Stacy and I headed to Spice H2O. Knowing that the boys would be occupied for the better part of a couple of hours allowed us to enjoy the nearly empty, giant hot tub until we got pruney. 🙂 We also took the opportunity to send some texts to friends back home reminding them of where they COULD be, instead of home dealing with snow and cold. While hanging in the hot tub I noticed a cleverly hidden cruise duck chilling up above a very high mounted box on the wall!

Oops! Accidentally deleted the earlier Speedway video.

After racing around, we decided to squeeze in one last came of mini golf as the ship pulled into port. By this time the sun was starting poke out a bit. Because we couldn't find anything super interesting to do in port, we decided to stay onboard and take advantage of the emptier ship. First we stopped off at the cabin to grab a few items, but as we were there we noticed a few birds flying and hopping around on the roof over The Waterfront which was just past our balcony. The boys spotted this one little guy and loved him. But when we looked a little closer we noticed that he was fighting through a disability, a deformed foot. He had very impressively adapted by hobbling around on a very calloused up nub. We decided we'd be ok with the boys feeding the wildlife on this one occasion. This guy works hard enough as it is just to survive.

Day 7 - Ensenadaish We woke up to overcast skies and a forecasted high in the low 60s. With a noon arrival, we were still a good ways out from docking. Having put it off too long, I headed down to Deck 6 to grab a straight flush of sadness. Nothing worse than voluntarily preparing to leave the ship! The first order of the day was to get the boys out onto the Speedway! At $15 per race, we knew that the price likely wouldn't be "worth it" given the speed these go-karts travel, but they were enthusiastic about this from the first time they heard about go-karts at sea. So up we went! Connor's kart seemed a bit zippier and Landon's height made reaching the pedals a little difficult, but he was bound and determined to put up a good fight! They both had a blast, but admitted that one race was enough for their thirst for racing to be slaked.

Our starters were quite delicious tonight! Connor opted for the meatballs. While my coconut shrimp were fantastic! Probably my favorite starter dish from the cruise. My shrimp fettuccini alfredo was a little bland, but pleasantly filling still. Connor's NY Strip w/ fries was pretty tasty he said. Lots of good dessert options to choose from on this evening! My Mexican Chocolate Cake was awesome! While Landon and Stacy both enjoyed the Snickers Cake. And we split two eclairs among all four of us. And that was a wrap on Day #6. One last full day aboard ahead of us!

After the show we went to enjoy a nice, leisurely paced meal together as a family at Taste. During dinner service we tried to take a couple more pictures as long as the boys were looking so nice. Connor and I nailed it. 😄 Landon, predictably, wanted to try his darndest to ruin every photo he was in. He did a pretty admirable job! Finally, after some cajoling by Mom, he caved and took one nice one.

Rather than risk another dining fiasco, we elected to catch the 7pm showing of Elements tonight, so we got dressed and headed out for the night, stopping by our favorite spot for a family photo. Poor Landon was suffering after yesterday's sun-filled day in Mazatlán. His shoulders were a little tender, thus the grimace and shoulder shrug here! This night we got to take in the "Elements" show. This was an incredible blend of Cirque du Soleil style acts, acrobatics, and illusions. Super fun, visually impressive show. All performed while the ship is rocking along in the ocean!

In my defense, even one of the crew on the bridge thought it was picture-worthy! And now, your moment of zen...

Ok, I swear she loves me, but after about a dozen times of me saying, "come back out here! It's even prettier now!" I think Stacy had had just about enough of me and my sunset obsessed self. 😄 Uh oh... Those are the crazy eyes... But I wouldn't let up... I wonder if it'll cost me... Yup. It cost me. 🤣 And now I'm alone. With my sunset.

We managed to sneak in some family photos too, much to the family's chagrin. Landon is NOT a fan of taking pictures at all, so we had to try pinching him, telling stupid jokes, etc. in an effort to get him to smile. But we found some winners amongst the fails. 🙂

After a wonderfully lazy afternoon, we asked the boys to beg off for the evening from their friends in order to enjoy dinner together as a family. So as the boys returned and the sun began to set, it became clear that it was going to be a showstopper of a sunset tonight! Fair warning, these pictures don't nearly do it justice, but I also couldn't help but take picture after picture. Just beautiful!

After beginning to turn a lovely shade of pink we headed up to the Observation Lounge for a while to enjoy the afternoon snacks they had available there. Stacy and I headed back to the room after a little while to relax and to start working on getting ready for dinner that night, but not without making another stop past the chandelier. Love these types of views!