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Just off the Breakaway- Haven 2 bedroom suite. Random thoughts and Oasis comparisions


Hammergirl
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We are sitting at the airport waiting to go home so I thought I would start my review while everything is fresh in my mind. We stayed in the Haven 2 bedroom suite on the Breakaway. It was myself and my husband (43) and our 2 kids son (14) and daughter (8) We have only been on one cruise before this one. The Oasis of the Seas. We wanted to try the Haven so decided to give it a go.

 

First - this was spring break and the shop was PACKED with people. I was actually surprised at how many college kids were on board as I always heard 7 nights or longer tends to have less of them. This cruise was possibly a fluke on that assumption. I was really happy to have had the Haven area to go to when we needed a little bit of quiet time, until the last 2 days (more on that later).

 

Our son went to the teen club the first night and only went back 2 or 3 times. I think part of him was really overwhelmed with the amount of kids in there. It was overflowing a lot of the time with groups of them sitting on the floor outside. We heard a lot of yelling, screaming and swearing coming from these kids and my son wanted no part of it. The other thing he really didn't like was that when they had activities he said the counselors made them either participate in them or leave the club. He just wanted to hang out and play video games. One night they had a teen swim and closed the club while they did that, even though there was more than one counselor in the room. The club had really strange hours too and opened at 5PM and did not seem to be open at all during the day. On Oasis, my son was in their teen club almost all the time and loved it. Met lots of kids and had a great time.

 

Our daughter attended the Splash Academy almost daily and seemed to have a great time. One thing I would suggest to parents taking their kids on a busy cruise, GET THERE EARLY for the popular events or they might not get in. My daughter was the last one to be able to get into the PJ party last night and everyone behind us had to wait until someone was picked up for their kids to be able to go in. Also, they do a show in the Breakaway theater with the kids (super cute) and the line to get into that went all the way down the hall and up the stairwell. Splash was OK. My daughter loves anything so she was content but she definitely preferred the Oasis kids club over NCL. For NCL you check in at a desk and I never once through the whole 7 night cruise met or talked to the actual people who worked in her room. On Oasis you take them directly to their room and get to have conversations with the counselors in that room. It was great and we really got to know these people and form relationships with them. It was also very clear to me that they cared about the kids they were taking care of. If they saw her around on the ship they always said hi to her and gave her a high 5 or something. The kids club on NCL was much more chaotic. Again, this could be due to the sheer about of kids on board.

 

More later!

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We were just off of this cruise as well and from an external observer (no kids), there were TONS of (little and big) kids due to spring break. I believe that all of the kids clubs were overwhelmed from the snippets of conversations I overheard throughout the week.

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OK all home and settled in now so here are more random thoughts. I also want to be clear that we had a really great cruise and were so sad it was over. I know it sounds like I am complaining about a lot of things, but none of these ruined our trip.

 

Internet. This was painful for all of us. First off, we had both the streaming and the regular unlimited package. One of each. NCL's internet is not good at all. On Royal we all had the internet package as it came with our room and it was fast and my kids both were streaming at the same time with no issues. My son could only watch twitch (his social media of choice) a couple of times. The other times it gave an error. Same goes with the regular internet. Is was spotty the whole trip. My suggestion is that if you don't have to stay connected (I do for work) I would save your money on this one. I really do feel like it was a waste of money, especially the streaming package.

 

Food. This is going to be a long one. We ate at a lot of places so I will run down each one. There seems to be a main theme on the ship. and that is that service is SLOW. I am not sure if this is intentional as it is only our 2nd cruise and maybe this is just how things are. Our last cruise we ate at the buffet a lot but on this one we did not.

 

Speaking of the buffet - it was bad. We tried eating there twice and both times we all thought it was gross. First off, nothing and I mean nothing anyone got was hot. It was all lukewarm at best. Nothing has a lot of taste to it and it was all just kind of so-so.

 

Cagney's was our favorite meal of the trip and the service and food there was absolutely terrific. We all got something different and everyone loved their meal. I got the 8oz filet and it was cooked to perfection and had a ton of flavor. Our server was attentive and really really good.

 

Teppanyaki was also good. It is not really my style of food, but the chicken and rice were both really good. Our table did have to sit there for a good 15-20 minutes before our chef came out and starting cooking though. My daughter had the Mac and Cheese and she got her meal before the chef even came out. It was really entertaining and my husband and daughter (who are way more outgoing than my son and I) had a blast.

La Cucina - because we were in the Haven we were allowed to have our specialty meals in our room. We decided to do that with this one so I cannot comment about the service. The food, however, was really good.

Taste and Savor - the food was ok. Nothing special and again, it all came out luke warm. Yesterday we had lunch at Savor and it was 40 minutes before our appetizers even came out. It always seems like there are a lot of servers running around, but nobody seems to actually be serving. Service in both dining rooms was really, really slow. At taste my son ordered a bacon cheese burger with just bacon and cheese on it. After 30 minutes of waiting the thing came out with a bun, some cheese and bacon. No hamburger patty. Apparently they took the just cheese and bacon order literally. LOL They did correct it right away when we said something, so we appreciated that. Oh, but they did have this peanut butter cup cheesecake that was amazing. We had it 3 times. LOL

Haven dining room. I wanted to love this place, but service again was really slow. This is where I started wondering if maybe this is just how things are on a cruise. The food that we ordered was good and came out hot. Except the first day. The first day we had lunch there upon embarkation. It took a while for a server to come to our table. She finally did and took our orders. I ordered a cheeseburger very well done. They brought us the food and my bun was red from the blood coming out of the burger. Our server literally disappeared and never came back to our table. Not once. And our water glasses were never refilled. We all wanted to explore the Haven area and ship so we just let it go and left.

We ate a lot of meals in our room and it was really nice. Our butler was fast and our food was always good.

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Our Room. Like I said, we were in a 2 bedroom Haven Suite. Our room was fantastic and the shower was to die for. It had a floor to ceiling window in the shower and it was just amazing to take a shower on sea days with the shade up. The room was in great shape. Way better shape than our Oasis 2 bedroom suite which was a great layout, but seemed really rundown. NCL's room had TONS of storage space. The second bedroom was plenty big with a couch/bed and a pullman bed. The bathroom in that room is your typical small cruise bathroom, but did the job for my son. My daughter wanted to sleep on the couch in the living room as she was afraid to sleep on the pullman. It worked out great and we all had plenty of room.

 

The Haven area was a godsend to us. The ship was crazy with people and there always seemed to be chaos in it. Once you opened the door to the Haven, it was so peaceful and such a different experience. We spent a lot of time in the courtyard, and I mean a lot. We played a lot of cards as a family at the tables in it and our daughter swam quite a bit. Unfortunately we did not get to use the sundeck all that much as it was cold or rainy a lot of the time. It was really unfortunate as we love to lounge on the sundeck.

 

Most of the time the Haven was occupied by very respectful guests. The last two nights, however, I am not really sure what happened. One night a pair of dads that had met at on the cruise brought their 4 girls to the Haven. While the dads sat in the bar, the 4 girls proceeded to run around the walls of the pool playing tag screaming and yelling. I was waiting for one of them to fall and get really hurt and kept my eye on them as none of their parents were. There were actually 3 families in the Haven that night trying to play games and you could not even hear as the girls were so loud. At one point I looked into the bar area and neither dad was to be found. I think they actually went into the restaurant to eat and left their kids to run wild. St. Patrick's Day was insanity around the whole ship, the Haven included. We were again playing cards when a couple and their daughter who were staying in the Haven proceeded to bring in at least 10 non-haven guests and they were SO loud and obnoxious. They completely took over the bar for at least a 1/2 hour and then wandered out into the courtyard and went to the upper level being super loud the entire time. They were in there for 45 minutes and nobody asked them to leave or even questioned what they were doing in there. It was kind of disappointing. A little while after that, we saw a crew member bringing a completely falling down drunk lady into the Haven bar and set her down in a chair. This woman was staying in the room next to ours and she was so drunk that she could not even sit up straight. I have honestly never seen someone this drunk. She somehow made her way to the bar and I think they actually gave her a drink. She proceeded to spill that drink all over the floor. So one of the other guests in the bar helped this woman to the couch again and she was all over him (he was there with his wife) and literally could not sit up. They must had made the decision this woman needed to go back to her room but nobody from her party was actually in the bar. I honestly don't even know who she was with as I only saw her. So this poor guest and 2 other crew members tried to get her off the couch. They had to put pillows up around the glass by the couch so she did not go though them. They finally got her off the couch, all three men tired to help her walk and she fell to the floor. They finally got her back up and into the hallway to her room and she again, hit the ground. They ended up doing a fireman's carry to her room, one man under her arms and the other took her feet. When the men came back into the bar it exploded with applause. We went back into our room about a 1/2 hour or so later and a crew member with a carpet cleaner and large plastic bags of vomit was coming out of her room. Clearly she had vomited all over her floor.

 

I think that the UBP is a great deal, but I also think that it makes people drink a lot more than they normally do. There were drunk people everywhere on this cruise, everyday. I don't remember seeing this is Royal, but they also don't practically give away alcohol either. It is just not enjoyable being around loud rowdy drunks all the time.

 

The ship itself is nice and well taken care of. But the flow is terrible. Oasis was sold out as well, but it never felt crowded at all. Breakway always felt crowded. Especially in the atrium/OSheehans area. The casino is nice, but so smokey you can really only stay for a short while. We did not go to any of the shows as they did not seem to be up our alley so cannot comment on the actual shows themselves. But Royal seems to have much more family friendly shows. Our kids both loved the water and ice show on Oasis. The kids did the water slides one day and had fun, but didn't want to do them again. Same goes with the ropes course. One and done for that as well. My son loves basketball and did play that a couple of times and had a good time.

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What honestly made our cruise was our butler Seka. She was absolutely amazing and took such good care of us. We really bonded with her and by the end of the cruise we had added each other as facebook friends. She missed her little daughter and really bonded with our daughter. It was so sweet. We loved her and would honestly cruise whatever ship we needed to, to get her has our butler again. I was not sure if we would use the butler but we used her quite a bit for eating in the room. She even escorted us to the dining room one day and got us in right away and put us at a great table by the window. Like I said, she made our trip and I cannot say enough good things about her.

 

We had Patrick and Dan as our concierges and they did a great job. We asked if we could move our dining reservations around when we got on the ship and they did so, no problem at all. They were always around (until 9PM) and were very helpful when you had questions. The concierge we had on Royal was terrible. They never seemed to be able to help with anything.

 

The staff on the ship overall was very friendly and upbeat. I don't know that I could put up with that chaos day in and day out without losing it on somebody. But they always has smiles on their faces and said hello.

 

We talked about if we would ever sail NCL again and the answer was, it really depends. With the kids, we are going back to Royal and booked a cruise on the Harmony in October of this year. We just feel Royal has so much more to offer when it comes to the kids. For my husband and I, we would absolutely go back to NCL and get a Haven room again. It was a great space to get away from things and we really loved it.

 

If anyone has any questions just let me know! I will add more things as I remember them.

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Seka is amazing! We too bonded and are FB friends. I hope she and her hubby come back to Breakaway. Honestly, knee of the most thorough and thoughtful butlers we've ever had.

 

I'm sorry your experience with neglectful parents and guests bringing in folks who didn't belong there impacted your trip. I hope you say something in your post-cruise survey. I might have missed it: Did you try mentioning something to Patrick or David? Sounds like a ripe opportunity for security to be called.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G925A using Forums mobile app

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Seka is amazing! We too bonded and are FB friends. I hope she and her hubby come back to Breakaway. Honestly, knee of the most thorough and thoughtful butlers we've ever had.

 

I'm sorry your experience with neglectful parents and guests bringing in folks who didn't belong there impacted your trip. I hope you say something in your post-cruise survey. I might have missed it: Did you try mentioning something to Patrick or David? Sounds like a ripe opportunity for security to be called.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G925A using Forums mobile app

 

She honestly was amazing and I could not have asked for anything more from her. She actually went to the kitchen and stole some of the peanut butter cup cheesecake for me for dinner because she knew I loved it so much and said it was only available for lunch. She was hilarious about it too. She said she went down there and saw two pieces sitting there and looked around for the chef. She didn't see him so she just grabbed them and ran. LOL She was always happy and put you in an instant good mood. I miss not seeing her today and hearing her say "hello, Seka butler" in her adorable accent when she answers the phone.

 

I didn't mention it to Patrick and David as they were both there and saw it all happening. I don't know if they thought because the Haven was not super busy it wasn't a big deal. I am not sure. But I know the bartenders were none to happy about it because I was standing there waiting for them to finish making this groups drink and when they left he looked and me and said "thank god". It was all strange but nothing that ruined the trip or anything. More just annoying.

 

My husband and I said that we wanted to take a cruise together and we are going to ask Seka where she is and take whatever cruise we need to in order to get her as our butler again.

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What honestly made our cruise was our butler Seka. She was absolutely amazing and took such good care of us. We really bonded with her and by the end of the cruise we had added each other as facebook friends. She missed her little daughter and really bonded with our daughter. It was so sweet. We loved her and would honestly cruise whatever ship we needed to, to get her has our butler again. I was not sure if we would use the butler but we used her quite a bit for eating in the room. She even escorted us to the dining room one day and got us in right away and put us at a great table by the window. Like I said, she made our trip and I cannot say enough good things about her.

 

We had Patrick and Dan as our concierges and they did a great job. We asked if we could move our dining reservations around when we got on the ship and they did so, no problem at all. They were always around (until 9PM) and were very helpful when you had questions. The concierge we had on Royal was terrible. They never seemed to be able to help with anything.

 

The staff on the ship overall was very friendly and upbeat. I don't know that I could put up with that chaos day in and day out without losing it on somebody. But they always has smiles on their faces and said hello.

 

We talked about if we would ever sail NCL again and the answer was, it really depends. With the kids, we are going back to Royal and booked a cruise on the Harmony in October of this year. We just feel Royal has so much more to offer when it comes to the kids. For my husband and I, we would absolutely go back to NCL and get a Haven room again. It was a great space to get away from things and we really loved it.

 

If anyone has any questions just let me know! I will add more things as I remember them.

 

You have a lot of the same observations I did with Escape. I am a big Oasis-class fan and the NCL product just wasn't up to par. We did the Haven as well. On our trip, the Haven was a disaster of screaming kids from day 1 through 7, every waking moment. Consider yourself lucky it was only a couple of days for you.

 

The service was super slow for us, too. Especially in the Haven restaurant. And yes, the "away" class ships flow terribly and are way overcrowded vs a ship like Oasis. I haven't been on Breakaway but if the shows are anything like Escape, consider yourself luck you skipped them. No set design, super low budget and boring. Not even close to the production level you saw on Oasis.

 

We thought the NCL crew was outstanding in general and the Haven concierge was superb. Again, similar experience! But we said the same thing about sailing NCL again, though we were more of an emphatic "not a chance" - I guess truly I would say "it depends." But we'll definitely stick to Royal for now and have Allure booked as our next cruise.

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What honestly made our cruise was our butler Seka. She was absolutely amazing and took such good care of us. We really bonded with her and by the end of the cruise we had added each other as facebook friends. She missed her little daughter and really bonded with our daughter. It was so sweet. We loved her and would honestly cruise whatever ship we needed to, to get her has our butler again. I was not sure if we would use the butler but we used her quite a bit for eating in the room. She even escorted us to the dining room one day and got us in right away and put us at a great table by the window. Like I said, she made our trip and I cannot say enough good things about her.

 

We had Patrick and Dan as our concierges and they did a great job. We asked if we could move our dining reservations around when we got on the ship and they did so, no problem at all. They were always around (until 9PM) and were very helpful when you had questions. The concierge we had on Royal was terrible. They never seemed to be able to help with anything.

 

The staff on the ship overall was very friendly and upbeat. I don't know that I could put up with that chaos day in and day out without losing it on somebody. But they always has smiles on their faces and said hello.

 

We talked about if we would ever sail NCL again and the answer was, it really depends. With the kids, we are going back to Royal and booked a cruise on the Harmony in October of this year. We just feel Royal has so much more to offer when it comes to the kids. For my husband and I, we would absolutely go back to NCL and get a Haven room again. It was a great space to get away from things and we really loved it.

 

If anyone has any questions just let me know! I will add more things as I remember them.

We had Seka for our Butler on our BA cruise, hand downs she is awesome!!!
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Love seeing so many Seka fans here! It would warm her heart to know she impacted so many people in such a positive way. :) I plan on sending an email to corporate letting them know how amazing she is and that she literally made our trip. I filled out a hero card for her on the ship, but want to make sure the higher ups see what an amazing employee they have in her. She mentioned that her husband is now at home and does not have another contract coming up and she only got a 1.5 month one next time and you could tell she was worried about how they were going to make ends meet with neither of them working.

 

Kristine

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Thanks for posting. We're big fans of the 2-BR suite, though there's just the two of us. After cruising in one on Jade nine years ago, I remodeled our master bath with the same exact shower. Tripled our water bill but totally worth it.

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What honestly made our cruise was our butler Seka. She was absolutely amazing and took such good care of us. We really bonded with her and by the end of the cruise we had added each other as facebook friends. She missed her little daughter and really bonded with our daughter. It was so sweet. We loved her and would honestly cruise whatever ship we needed to, to get her has our butler again. I was not sure if we would use the butler but we used her quite a bit for eating in the room. She even escorted us to the dining room one day and got us in right away and put us at a great table by the window. Like I said, she made our trip and I cannot say enough good things about her.

 

We had Patrick and Dan as our concierges and they did a great job. We asked if we could move our dining reservations around when we got on the ship and they did so, no problem at all. They were always around (until 9PM) and were very helpful when you had questions. The concierge we had on Royal was terrible. They never seemed to be able to help with anything.

 

The staff on the ship overall was very friendly and upbeat. I don't know that I could put up with that chaos day in and day out without losing it on somebody. But they always has smiles on their faces and said hello.

 

We talked about if we would ever sail NCL again and the answer was, it really depends. With the kids, we are going back to Royal and booked a cruise on the Harmony in October of this year. We just feel Royal has so much more to offer when it comes to the kids. For my husband and I, we would absolutely go back to NCL and get a Haven room again. It was a great space to get away from things and we really loved it.

 

If anyone has any questions just let me know! I will add more things as I remember them.

 

 

I totally agree about Seka! We had her for our last cruise. She is leaving to go home on April 15, and are trying to figure out how to meet up with her while she waits at the airport. She totally made our cruise. I message with her all the time still.

I just sent her the link to this.

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I totally agree about Seka! We had her for our last cruise. She is leaving to go home on April 15, and are trying to figure out how to meet up with her while she waits at the airport. She totally made our cruise. I message with her all the time still.

I just sent her the link to this.

 

 

 

My husband and I plan to cruise in the Haven again in the next year and I will sail whatever ship she is on and request her as our butler. That is how amazing she is.

 

 

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Thank you for the review.

 

We hated the way NCL skimped on the Haven Restaurant on the Breakaway. There is insufficient staff to provide “first class” service. It is way too small, overflowing into the pool area so that there are no loungers at the pool. You feel awkward using the pool with people 5’ away eating and watching you.

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My husband and I plan to cruise in the Haven again in the next year and I will sail whatever ship she is on and request her as our butler. That is how amazing she is.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

She read this review and is so touched. She sends her love.

 

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

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We were on the same cruise in Haven and also had Seka as our butler.....but hardly used her. If I knew she was as good as it appears I would have maybe figured out how to use her more. We never do room service and never do dinner in our room so I really can't figure out how to use a butler as good as Seka. Let me know....so next time I'll make better use of a top-notch butler. For us, it's just easier to walk the few steps to the bar and Haven dining room. We thought the food and service in the Haven dining room was great...and the Haven bartender was also great....I can't believe I forgot his name already. Kumar?

Edited by euromaster
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She read this review and is so touched. She sends her love.

 

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

 

We had Seka as our butler for the first week of back to back cruises last October. She was great. Unfortunately, they switched her to the night butler for our second week.

 

I was looking forward to perhaps having her again on our next Breakaway cruise, the crossing to Southampton on April 15. Then I read that she is going home that day.

 

Hey JoAnn, see if you can convince her to stay on for one more cruise, and to get assigned to the aft Haven suites. :D

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We were on the same cruise in Haven and also had Seka as our butler.....but hardly used her. If I knew she was as good as it appears I would have maybe figured out how to use her more. We never do room service and never do dinner in our room so I really can't figure out how to use a butler as good as Seka. Let me know....so next time I'll make better use of a top-notch butler. For us, it's just easier to walk the few steps to the bar and Haven dining room. We thought the food and service in the Haven dining room was great...and the Haven bartender was also great....I can't believe I forgot his name already. Kumar?

 

We used her mainly for in-room dining. We liked to have breakfast in our room everyday to start the day as a family before everyone kind of went their separate ways. One day we all got up early and decided to eat in the Haven restaurant for breakfast and it threw her for a loop. She came looking for us because up until then we always called around the same time to order breakfast and that day we didn't. She found us in the restaurant and teased us that we didn't like her anymore. LOL But honestly, just seeing her made our day for all of us. Always smiling, always happy and just the sweetest person. It is hard to be grumpy around someone like her.

 

I agree that the bartenders were great at the Haven. We don't drink that much, but they were always happy to make you whatever you wanted!

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We talked about if we would ever sail NCL again and the answer was, it really depends. With the kids, we are going back to Royal and booked a cruise on the Harmony in October of this year. We just feel Royal has so much more to offer when it comes to the kids. For my husband and I, we would absolutely go back to NCL and get a Haven room again. It was a great space to get away from things and we really loved it.

.

I appreciated reading your balanced review!

 

On thought on the above...I agree that the OASIS class of Royal ships are fabulous and probably unbeatable for kids. Other lines have large ships that just can't really compete (on the "stuff for kids" level). On the other hand, I find much great similarity between NCL and RCCL is you go with more modest sized ships. I prefer RCCL is going on a bigger ship, and frankly, NCL if going with a small ship (like Jewel or Jade vs. RCCL's Serenade). I don't know if you'll ever consider a more modest size (especially if it's just you and your husband), but if you do, I'd encourage you not to ignore NCL.

 

(Although, in the end we shop based on some nebulous combination of date, price & itinerary. For just the two of us, the ship is almost incidental. Again, with kids, our thinking would be different.)

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