Dblack87

We will be on the Breakaway in June. So many questions for you:

Where was the ceremony held, what kind of music, how long was the ceremony, how many pictures did they take? Personally would you think it worth it for us being that we are in the Haven, as explained in an above post that we get quite a few items included in package already? Thank you for your time answering.

Hi!

We requested to have the ceremony done in Fat Cats. They took pictures during the entire ceremony, and also pictures after the ceremony including cutting the cake. We also had a family member who was a professional photographer there, so we weren't that reliant on the ship photographer. We actually didn't know one would be provided until we got on the boat.

Whether it is worth it or not really depends on you. I think it is worth it if you want to have a private ceremony. The things we got that were included in the package didn't matter that much to us, it was about the experience. But, this was something we did in place of a large wedding ceremony on land, so while it was technically a vow renewal because we had gotten married before boarding the ship, it was really more like our wedding.

Also, you should get all of the things with the package twice, so if you like those things...then why not?!

We did the $499 vow renewal on the Breakaway in August. We did it as our wedding, and brought in our own officiant. We checked on a few other cruise line prices, and found NCL to be pretty reasonable. They don't mention in the email that they actually provide a photographer for the event as well. On other lines they charge extra for this. You have to pay for the photos, but you get 1 free, so it's usually pretty good.

We liked to alternate nights because the two restaurants had different menus. So we would go to the dining room that had the best menu for that night. We were on the boat for 12 days, so we had plenty of time to test out both. I thought both were similar in ambiance and level of service, you really couldn't go wrong with either. Just pick the menu you like best for that night.

We leave for our wedding aboard the Breakaway on Sunday and are so excited. I've been on two other NCL cruises, and two RCI cruises, as well as Carnival and I think it is safe to say that NCL and Carnival have had pretty comparable vibes. Both lines have a lot of activities, with plenty of music and dancing all the time. I feel like they cater to a bit younger crowd than RCI, and I have always had a blast. My fiance and I are both 26 and many of our guests are around our age, and I have no doubts that we will have a great time and that the ship will be very lively. With 4000+ passengers, there will be a lot to do for all age groups.

My brother got married aboard the NCL Epic a couple years ago, and that ship is fairly similar as far as entertainment goes to the Breakaway. It was such a blast, there was always something to do, and as Lipz recommended...the dueling pianos at headliners is a must!

We also toured the Breakaway a couple months ago, and the ship is beautiful! I'm not sure how many guests you are having and if you'll be doing your wedding on board the ship or at port. But my fiance and I wanted our ceremony on board the ship while at sea, and since we have to get married in NYC to make it legal anyway, we opted to do a vow renewal package and bring our own officiant instead of paying $1000 more just so a wedding coordinator could handle things for us. So far, the ship has been very on top of our requests and I think (hope) it will all run smoothly. With that being said, we have 20 people total, and there aren't a ton of details that we are asking for (we are pretty low key), so I imagine if you are very particular then paying for the dedicated wedding planner is probably worth it!

Good Luck and I'll try to post again after next week and let you know how it all went.

Yes!! Bagels! Check out Murray's or Ess-A-Bagel! They are all great!

I live in the city. What to do in NY and recommendations on where to stay really depend on what you want to see. If it is your first trip to NY and you only have two days, I would very much recommend staying somewhere on the west side of Manhattan.

If you want the consummate tourist experience, stay in Midtown in the 40's or 50's between Broadway and 9th Ave. If you want to get more of a local feel stay downtown, Union Square area, below 23rd St. between broadway and 8th avenue or into the West Village. Soho is also a nice area, but it will also be more of a tourist experience if you stick to the main drag on Broadway.

I definitely suggest to become familiar with the subway system. If you are unsure of where to go, ask someone who looks like they know what they are doing and people are usually pretty friendly about pointing you in the right direction. Also if you have a smartphone, download the google maps app and you can select public transport as a direction option and it will give you accurate directions on the subway. I've lived here for four years and I still use this app to help go places I don't normally go.

If you are really into the tourist sites, like Times Square, Brooklyn Bridge, Statue of Liberty, Central Park...the highlights...then I would recommend a hop on hop off bus. I've done it before and it is actually very informative. I recommend doing a full lap on both circuits, get an overview of the city, then pick your top 3-5 spots to jump off the bus and spend a little time at. 2 days is a short trip for NYC, but it is doable. If I were to pick the top tourist spots to go to, I would say Time Square is a must if you can squeeze in a Broadway show...even better, but DON'T eat near there (unless you walk to 9th Avenue in the 40's).

The Village is a really cool area to wander around and get a real NY feel, I suggest a visit to Washington Sq. Park, and then up to Union Square area for some food...try Grey Dog for sandwiches at lunch time, or if you're in the area for dinner, go to the West Village location of The Meatball Shop. It is an amazing little restaurant that is pretty affordable by NY standards, make sure to save room for one of their homemade ice cream sandwiches!

I would skip the 5th ave shopping and head down to SOHO instead. You can find all of the high end shops of 5th avenue as well as some of the more affordable shops, but they aren't as spread out, so if you want to do some shopping, you don't have to walk quite as much in SOHO, and trust me this is a good tip, because you will be tired after walking around the city all day.

Central Park is great! Definitely take a walk to the Mall, and the boat basin, so many movies have been filmed in these areas, that it makes it a very cool place to see! There are also some great picnic spots in the park, if you grab some sandwiches or salads and take a stroll, you can sit on one of the giant rocks and have a great lunch. If you enter the park by the Plaza Hotel you can get to the Mall pretty easily, and then you can also stop by FAO Schwartz which is pretty great if you need to get souvenirs for kids and take pics of the Plaza.

If you want to get an amazing view of the city, do the Top of the Rock. That way you will get a great view of the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building.

If you have any specific questions, I'd be happy to answer...I can recommend more food options too. For me NYC is really about the food, I think it's probably the best part about coming here to visit.

,NCL I believe holds weddings in Fat Cats and in Bliss. We are doing ours on August 11th in Fat Cats. We got to tour the ship last week and check out fat cats and it is definitely a cool venue, kind of a NY vibe. But it is pretty small and arranging an aisle might be a little bit difficult, you will definitely have to enter from the waterfront deck. But in general it is a cool venue. We chose Fat Cats because we didn't want to get married in what essentially was a nightclub (Bliss). Fat Cats looks more like a jazz club.

I also heard that they do embarkation day weddings in the Manhattan room. That dining room is very beautiful, and if that is an option and you have a bit bigger group of people, I would recommend that.

What a nice and well thought out post! I was going to stop back by this thread and suggest maybe taking a bus. It's not ideal, but it would at least guarantee not missing the boat!

Thanks! So helpful. We are thinking about 9122 now, but it looks to be pretty much the same. I just wanted to get an opinion on the motion! It's great to know that you had a lounger! I hope we get one!

Hi dznymom, How did you like the forward large balcony? Could you feel a lot of motion from the ship? I was thinking of upgrading, and was looking for people's experience with them. Thanks!

I live very near LGA (5minutes or 10 in traffic), there is almost no way you can make it to the port from LGA by 2pm to check in if you have a 12:30 flight. By the time the flight lands, taxis, and you pick up your luggage, you'll be lucky to get in the taxi line by 1:15. It is a minimum of 45 minutes to the cruise terminal (even though google maps says 30), trust me you do not want to chance it! If anything at all goes wrong, you'll miss the cruise, and there are a lot of little things that are common to go wrong.

We are doing a vow renewal package with NCL on the Breakaway in August. But we have already done most things to set it up. The cost is about $600-800, and includes an officiant, private ceremony location, photo and frame, a cake, champagne, and a bouquet for your wife.

You set everything up with each individual ship's group coordinator. It has been pretty easy to get our questions answered via email, but because the coordinators are on the ship it does take some time to get a response. Good luck with your planning!

We are having a group of 18-20 for our wedding on the breakaway. We were able to schedule a specific time for our whole group on the day of our wedding (the second sea day), but have ran into the same issue as you for the other two nights we would like to schedule group dinners. We noticed that we could go on our myncl account and book a reservation at 8:30 for up to 8 ppl, so our plan is to just go on two or three of the accounts from our party and book those times, then go to the Maitre D when we board and let him know the reservations are connected and we want to be near each other. The group coordinator on the boat said this was probably the best course of action.

We did something similar on the Epic a couple years ago with a group of 12. We just made a reservation for the group dinners with the maitre d usually the night before while we were waiting to be seated for that night's meal. It worked out well. But I understand your frustration, I wish they could be a little more accommodating to a larger group dining, but I also understand that with the "freestyle" model it makes that harder. I think that is why RCI and Carnival can accommodate groups easier.

We also had some issues with our general booking of the cruise that I was surprised by but our PCC has been on our side the whole time, and we did finally get things straightened out. I'm crossing fingers for upgrades down the line for all our trouble! Good luck to you!

We haven't worked out all of our details, but we think we are going to do a tote bag to be used at the beach with the hangover kits, sunscreen, etc. a bottle or two of water and the big favor is going to be a beach towel. We have about 20 sailing guests and are planning to spend around $500 total on the bags. We figure our guests are spending thousands of dollars to sail with us, so we want to make sure they have a nice favor that will be useful! We are getting the towels at costco for $10/pc, and taking them to be embroidered.

As for a regular favor if you don't want to go the OOT bag route, we also considered koozies, and key chain bottle openers.

Ok, we just heard back from the group coordinator. It doesn't seem like a purely open bar is an option. But they do have an option that is open bar with dry snacks vs. open bar with hot and cold hors d'oeuvres. The dry snack open bar is much more affordable. They also have non-alcoholic open bars.

The minimum amount of people for a private open bar is 15. Meaning you either have 15 or more ppl or you can just pay for 15 ppl. There is also a labor fee added on to the total cost, not sure the exact percentage amount of the fee but her quote for 20 guests was about $20/per hour. I'm going to list all the options with the quoted prices below. Hopefully this will help anyone else who is in the earlier stages of planning!

Also note, that we are not going through Royal Ocean Events, as we are scheduled as a vow renewal opposed to a wedding. (We are getting married before we board the ship, and see no reason to pay an extra $1000 for a symbolic ceremony at sea so Royal Ocean events can handle our wedding opposed to the NCL Group coordinator...the packages are the same, with the vow renewal having slightly more to offer and the vow renewal is literally $1000 less) - If you want to go this route, just make sure you do not mention it is a wedding or they will direct you to ROE, just keep using the term vow renewal! Without further ado...the alcohol packages:

-One hour open bar party with dry snacks - $24.15 per guest

-One hour open bar party with hot and cold hors d’oeuvres - $40.15 per guest

-One hour non-alcoholic party with dry snacks - $13.80 per guest (this is also the price for kids up to age 17)

-One hour non-alcoholic party with hot and cold hors d’oeuvres - $29.80 per guest (this is also the price for kids up to age 17)

Has anyone done an alcohol only reception for an NCL wedding? My fiance and I are getting married on a sea day aboard the Norwegian Breakaway in August. We decided to do a mid-afternoon ceremony so that we can have a cocktail hour, do some pictures then dinner, then party at the bars on board the rest of the night! Since we are planning to do dinner quite soon after the cocktail hour, we do not want to have any food served during the cocktail hour, but rather want alcohol only.

Has anyone done this or does anyone know if this is an option? If so, does it cost less than the reception that is quoted in the wedding brochure? Any insight would be awesome. We are working on getting contact information for the boat's group events coordinator now, but if anyone on here can answer more quickly, that'd be awesome!

My fiance and I are going to get married aboard the Breakaway on the August 10th-17th Bermuda sailing. We have few family/friends coming with. Any advice from fellow lgbt cruisers about this particular ship?

We are doing things a little last minute and haven't booked yet. We are thinking of booking a GTY Balcony then if prices come down trying to upgrade to Haven or a Large Aft Balcony Room.

This will be our third cruise together and since we are from NYC, it's a very convenient itinerary. Hoping that cruising will be an annual tradition for us!

Thanks for the link. That is the post that actually gave us the idea. We were always planning on getting married at sea vs. embarkation day as we did not want to feel too rushed.

It is a little different now on NCL, in that there is now a symbolic ceremony at sea for weddings and there is also a private vow renewal package. The vow renewal is $1000 less than the symbolic ceremony. It seems that on other lines these might be the same thing, or at the very least, have more significant differences between the packages. However, on ncl, if you pull up both brochures and look at the services offered with both, they look exactly the same, with the vow renewal actually being a little bit better. I really think the difference might just be that because you are calling it a wedding, they are outsourcing you to a wedding planner, and you end up paying more because you are outsourced.

We are probably going to be booking this week, and I think we are going to try our luck using the vow renewal instead of the symbolic ceremony. I'll definitely keep people posted on what we find out!

Hi All,

My fiance and I have been looking at the different packages that NCL offers for weddings. We also looked at the vow renewal packages. It seems to me that the vow renewal package offers exactly the same services as the symbolic ceremony, plus a few additional touches that are not included in the symbolic ceremony. Since the vow renewal is about $1000 less, we are wondering why anyone would book a symbolic ceremony at all.

I know that NCL changed wedding planning companies recently, so I'm wondering if anyone else has booked the vow renewal instead of a symbolic ceremony since then. Anyone have any insight?

From the couple things we have talked about with the NCL reps, it seems like as long as you don't mention it is a wedding, and simply continue to always call it a vow renewal, then you save $1000 and receive the same amount of service.

This review has been soooo helpful! My fiance and I are a lesbian couple as well and planning our wedding for August aboard the Breakaway to Bermuda. It is good to know that NCL was able to satisfy two brides! We are doing ours a little bit last minute, so your review and your OOT boxes have given us some great ideas! It is also good to know that the meeting rooms aren't exactly spectacular. Do you know if there is ever an option to do the ceremony up on one of the decks and then the cocktail reception in the meeting room? We were thinking that maybe we could just "flash mob" the deck with our wedding, but this is obviously not realistic! And I would much rather get married outside where you can see the ocean!

Hi Everyone,

I'm going to be sailing on the Breakaway in August, and we are trying to plan a private function for about 15-20 people on the boat. I was wondering if anyone knew anything about the meeting rooms aboard the Breakaway. I heard they were small. Any information would be awesome, or better yet, if anyone has any pictures, that would be even better!

Thanks!