Breakway June 9th-16th Brief Review

Hello All.

I spend sooo much time reading the boards here to get ready for my cruise, I figure I should attempt a review of my own. :D

This will NOT be a lenghtly review at all, and will probably be very brief. The Breakaway has been discussed to death on here -- and who can top Gambee's review? -- that I thought I would just share some of our top impressions.

Background: We are a 40yo couple. This was our 5th cruise, and by far our largest ship.

Room: We were happy with our balcony stateroom, 10210. The balcony was small, but we were never both out there at the same time -- and like just having the floor to ceiling "window" that the balcony doors give us. One caution -- we booked 10210 because the deck plans show that the bed should be by the balcony, instead of by the closet. However, the NCL site is wrong, because this was certainly not the case - our bed was by the closet. So, 10212 must be "wrong" as well. Just thought I would post this for anyone else in these rooms.

Dinning: Overall, the food was good. We enjoyed our meals, but were not overly impressed with the MDR for dinner. Hey -- better than cooking and cleaning up after ourselves at home. And it was far from inedible like some "push you to the specialty restaurant" conspiracy theorists would have you believe. But this was the first time back on NCL sine they switched to the mostly fixed, fewer special items on the menu. We thought much of the menu lacked creativity in the choices. We enjoyed Moderno and the noodle bar, our only two specialty restaurants.

Entertainment: What can I say? We were blown away with the quality of the entertainers on the ship -- Cirque, Burn the Floor, Rock of Ages all had large, very talented casts. Not to mention Fire & Ice, Howl and the Moon, Slam Allen -- they were all good. It boggled my mind to think of how many entertainers they had to "house" on board to give us all the entertainment. I guess it is a function of a 4000+ passenger ship, but we were still impressed.

Size of Ship: We loved having all the choices that a ship this size provides. And for the most part, it was not overly crowded. But, when everyone decided to do the same thing at the same time -- listen to Fire & Ice, go to dinner, etc, then you really felt the crowd. Also, in order to spread everyone around, you never felt as "connected" as you do on the smaller ships. I believe this comes from the usual announcements to go see that nights theatre show, game show, etc. that were lacking on the Breakaway so as not to have everyone show up at once. Don't get me wrong, we loved having fewer announcements. But we enjoy having a shared experience with the other cruisers, which felt lacking to us.

If you have any questions that other folks have not answered, I will be glad to give them a try.

Thanks,

Brad (and Joy)

Thank you! Glad you had a nice time. Did you use the pool deck at all? The pool is supposed to be smaller on this ship than Epic, so I was wondering if you felt the area was overly crowded? Thanks!

Great review :) we are also 40 and will be cruising on breakaway August 11th. It will be our first cruise. I'm always trying to figure out if most people on this site are just major complainers, or if they just didn't enjoy the ship as much as they thought they would. Breakaway has a lot of mixed reviews. Did you pay to get Vibe or did you find that the pool deck was available enough without feeling over crowded ?

Thank you! Glad you had a nice time. Did you use the pool deck at all? The pool is supposed to be smaller on this ship than Epic, so I was wondering if you felt the area was overly crowded? Thanks!

Yes, we set out by the pool. We had one really nice sea day (the second sea day) and it was crowded out there. When the pool band is playing, there are tons of people listening/dancing in and around the pool making it very crowded. Not sure if this was much worse than other ships during warm weather cruises. I don't know if we lucked out or what, but we did not walk around for too long before finding two lounge chairs on deck 16 above the main pool. People must have just left. Spice H20, at least on our sailing, seemed to be almost impossible to snag a chair if you were not an early riser.

The third sea day started yucky, but cleared up in the afternoon. Because of the rough start, it was a little easier to find chairs -- but Spice still filled up quickly once the sun came out.

--Brad

Great review :) we are also 40 and will be cruising on breakaway August 11th. It will be our first cruise. I'm always trying to figure out if most people on this site are just major complainers, or if they just didn't enjoy the ship as much as they thought they would. Breakaway has a lot of mixed reviews. Did you pay to get Vibe or did you find that the pool deck was available enough without feeling over crowded ?

We did not pay for Vibe. Even when crowded, we like being where the "action" is by the main pool (or one level up) listening to the pool band and so were not interested in paying extra for a quiet area. As I said, it might have been luck, but we did not have to hunt too hard for chairs near the main pool.

--Brad

Thanks for sharing some of your thoughts about the Breakaway.

Can you tell me if you experienced any long waits for dinner at the dining rooms ? If so, which dining room and about what times? How about service? Some reviews have complained about slow service.

Thanks for sharing some of your thoughts about the Breakaway.

 

Can you tell me if you experienced any long waits for dinner at the dining rooms ? If so, which dining room and about what times? How about service? Some reviews have complained about slow service.

Yes, we did have to wait most nights at the MDR, anywhere from 15-30 minutes. Did not seem to matter which MDR we went to, or what time. The exception was we walked right into to the Manhattan room around 5:45 on Wednesday, when everyone must still have been off the ship in Bermuda.

I think they are making progress on the slow service. Cruise ship service is usually not fast, and I would not say this was worse than other ships. The fact that there were 15-30 minute waits, and not an hour+ from earlier reports is a good sign.

---Brad

Yes, we did have to wait most nights at the MDR, anywhere from 15-30 minutes. Did not seem to matter which MDR we went to, or what time. The exception was we walked right into to the Manhattan room around 5:45 on Wednesday, when everyone must still have been off the ship in Bermuda.

 

I think they are making progress on the slow service. Cruise ship service is usually not fast, and I would not say this was worse than other ships. The fact that there were 15-30 minute waits, and not an hour+ from earlier reports is a good sign.

 

---Brad

Nice review.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

Room: We were happy with our balcony stateroom, 10210. The balcony was small, but we were never both out there at the same time -- and like just having the floor to ceiling "window" that the balcony doors give us. One caution -- we booked 10210 because the deck plans show that the bed should be by the balcony, instead of by the closet. However, the NCL site is wrong, because this was certainly not the case - our bed was by the closet. So, 10212 must be "wrong" as well. Just thought I would post this for anyone else in these rooms.

This is very interesting :eek: My son is in 10214 and from the deck plans the bed should be by the closet but I asked NCL over the phone and they told me it's by the balcony. So now I wonder if my cabin 11782 is by the balcony like I think it is :rolleyes: The rep at NCL told me mine is also by the balcony, but if their deck plans are all messed up, I guess there's no way to be sure.:confused:

Nice review.

Would you sail this ship again?

Keith

Nice review.

 

Would you sail this ship again?

 

Keith

Good question Keith. We did have a good time, so I am sure we would. But right now, there are different cruise lines/ships/ports that we want to try and that interests us more than rushing back onto the Breakaway.

---Brad

Thanks for the review and update on Breakaway.

This is very interesting :eek: My son is in 10214 and from the deck plans the bed should be by the closet but I asked NCL over the phone and they told me it's by the balcony. So now I wonder if my cabin 11782 is by the balcony like I think it is :rolleyes: The rep at NCL told me mine is also by the balcony, but if their deck plans are all messed up, I guess there's no way to be sure.:confused:

Ok, now I'm wondering about my cabin also. According to the deck plans, we should be next to the balcony, but it sounds like some cabins are not as depicted on the website. :eek:

Ok' date=' now I'm wondering about my cabin also. According to the deck plans, we should be next to the balcony, but it sounds like some cabins are not as depicted on the website. :eek:[/quote']

 

someone posted a review that had my exact cabin and confirmed that my bed is by the balcony which is what the deck plan shows :D I guess it's hit or miss with this :rolleyes:

Glad you had a good time. Thanks for the review.

someone posted a review that had my exact cabin and confirmed that my bed is by the balcony which is what the deck plan shows :D I guess it's hit or miss with this :rolleyes:

Guess it'll just have to be a surprise when I get there. Hopefully, a good surprise, but either way, I'll have fun.

someone posted a review that had my exact cabin and confirmed that my bed is by the balcony which is what the deck plan shows :D I guess it's hit or miss with this :rolleyes:

It seems I started a mild panic with everyone thinking they can't trust the deck plans. If I am the only one reporting an issue, then I would not worry too much. It seems it may be an isolated issue to my cabin (and the one next door that "fits together" with it.) It does not appear to be an epidemic.

Here's hoping everyone has the cabin configured like they expect!;)

---Brad

Thanks for sharing your comments!

Hey Linda! I don't want to hijack this thread, but how was your anniversary cruise?

Hey Linda! I don't want to hijack this thread, but how was your anniversary cruise?

We are scheduled to leave next Friday but may have to cancel because of my mother's declining health.

We are scheduled to leave next Friday but may have to cancel because of my mother's declining health.

Oh no! I'm so sorry. I hope she feels better. :(

Oh no! I'm so sorry. I hope she feels better. :(

Thanks for the kind thoughts, Sheri. Unfortunately, her state is such that there is no recovery and just praying for a peaceful departure.

We are scheduled to leave next Friday but may have to cancel because of my mother's declining health.

So sorry to hear this. You can always take another cruise at any time. Cherish the moments with your mother.

Thanks for the kind thoughts, Sheri. Unfortunately, her state is such that there is no recovery and just praying for a peaceful departure.

I will pray for her as well as you and your family.