June 8, 2014 Breakaway Cruise to Bermuda with the Kids!

[cookmg40]

I am loving your review. I followed your European adventures last year (one word....magnificent) and am excited to hear your views on the Breakaway. I will be back on the Breakaway in October.

 

Marilyn

[diskids2]

Can't wait to read more...love this review and the pictures!

[Susie51]

I'm enjoying your review. Your upbeat style makes it easy to read. I'm a little disappointed that you don't seem to mind being a chair hog. Your kids don't appear to occupy their chairs much.

[ShellDil]

I'm enjoying your review. Your upbeat style makes it easy to read. I'm a little disappointed that you don't seem to mind being a chair hog. Your kids don't appear to occupy their chairs much.

 

Well, I wouldn't say I'm a chair hog in any way. They come and go. They have a right to use the chairs when they need them. However, I have no problem if someone wants to use one of the chairs when they're not there for an extended period of time and I have gladly offered up a chair if someone asked if someone was using it. To me a chair hog it someone who places belongings on chairs and leaves them for hours upon hours without coming back. This was certainly not the case in our situation. Sorry if it seemed that way.

[ShellDil]

I am loving your review. I followed your European adventures last year (one word....magnificent) and am excited to hear your views on the Breakaway. I will be back on the Breakaway in October.

 

Marilyn

 

Thank you! I'm glad to have you back following this review too! Enjoy your trip back on the Breakaway in October!

 

 

Can't wait to read more...love this review and the pictures!

 

 

Thank you so much! Hoping to have some time today to post about our first day in Bermuda!

[ShellDil]

Here we are, we are arriving in Bermuda! As if the trip hadn't been wonderful so far, we were finally arriving in our port. Yes port. This was a new concept for us! How would we like it? To be honest, until about three weeks ago the idea of a cruise to Bermuda had never crossed my mind. I'd known people who had gone to Bermuda, known friends who'd even done similar cruises - but never did I ever consider one myself. It just seemed, well a bit boring to me! For me cruising had always been about the ports. Waking up somewhere new everyday. The variety, the experiences. Where was the excitement in spending THREE whole days in one place? Well, we were about to find out weren't we?

 

I mentioned we booked this trip fairly close to our departure date, and I'm a planner. This didn't give me a whole lot of time to plan. This threw Alex and Megan for a loop! They kept asking what I had planned. Didn't I have any tours booked? What were going to do? Well, I had a general idea, and did have one "scheduled" activity. But I figured the rest, well we'd wing it! And we did and we had a BLAST!!!

 

We woke up Wednesday morning to a beautiful day. It may have been slightly cloudy. I think I remember someone on the dock commenting that it wasn't a great beach day, but the sun was shining most of the day and it wasn't raining! Seemed nice to me!

 

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We were on the port side of the ship, which this time was docked not facing the port. But here is a picture of the port from he starboard side of the ship, on our way to get some breakfast.

 

 

Now, when I say I didn't have a plan, that's not exactly true...I knew pretty much what I wanted to do during our time in Bermuda. I just didn't know exactly how to go about doing it or if we'd add to it. I had read a bunch of reviews and read over the Bermuda board. So I had some notes. I had a Bermuda guide book in hand...and I hoped that we could just figure it all out. One thing I knew for sure is that I wanted to be off the ship early and get the transportation pass. We decided on the 3 day pass since we weren't exactly sure what we'd do on Friday. In the end, we could have made do with the 2 day pass. But that was fine. We had breakfast in the Garden Cafe and were off the ship shortly after we were allowed to be. We purchased the transportation passes right in the terminal, remember cash only! And we headed straight for the ferry to Hamilton.

 

 

And yes, we did stop for the pictures as we got off the ship. We're silly like that!

 

 

Who wouldn't want a picture with a giant dolphin?

 

 

The ferry is easy to find, there's a large sign

 

 

And getting off the ship early on the first day, there was absolutely no line. We waited for about 10 minutes for it to come with a couple from our ship. They had been to Bermuda 10 times. They gave us a great run down of some not to miss highlights!

 

We sailed off on the ferry to Hamilton. It was a nice smooth ride. Our plan from Hamilton was to take the bus to the caves......

 

[barcelo]

I want more pictures ,realy love reading your stay on the cruise cant wait 3 weeks to go for us

[Susie51]

Thank you for clearing up my "chair hog" comment. I appreciate the time you are taking to continue to post your review and pics.

[ShellDil]

I left off with us on the ferry....and as I mentioned, we knew we wanted to get to the caves. We knew we had to take a bus. And I sort of knew which bus. But where would the bus be?

 

Here's a nice picture of the Summit and Breakaway, nose to nose as we pulled out of the dockyard. I think the perspective is pretty interesting!

 

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Well, as luck would have it, when we got off the ferry, there was this great sign right there telling us how to get to the bus terminal! We, like several other people snapped a picture and started walking!

 

 

I had a bus schedule, and the ferry schedule and we were good to go. We decided on the 10 or 11 bus, and had no problem. And the bus drivers are super nice. Just ask when you get on if they are going where you want. And they will let you know when they get to your stop.

 

Our driver dropped us off and gave us directions on how to get to the caves, just a short little walk. And he told us how to take the bus back to Hamilton too!

 

 

We decided to get the combo ticket to visit both the Crystal and Fantasy Caves. This is definitely a place you can visit on your own, no "excursion" needed. All visits into the cave are done by guided tour so we had just about 10 minutes to wait until our tour started. We started with Crystal Cave.

 

 

Just enjoying some Bermuda!

 

I think maybe Alex might just be a bit tired of all the pictures? He's holding our admission tickets....

 

 

 

 

 

[ShellDil]

Thank you for clearing up my "chair hog" comment. I appreciate the time you are taking to continue to post your review and pics.

 

I want more pictures ,realy love reading your stay on the cruise cant wait 3 weeks to go for us

 

Thanks for following along!

[ShellDil]

Our group was called for the Crystal Caves. I can't remember the name of our guide, and it's a shame because he was really great! He was quite a story teller. He had us hanging on his every word. It didn't matter if he was talking about safety or about how the caves were discovered. He was a dynamic man!

 

We descended into the caves and he gave us the history and told us about the structures and the water. The caves were quite beautiful. We had plenty of time for pictures.

 

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After spending about 30 - 45 minutes in the cave, we climbed back up the steps, I believe 88 or maybe it was 85? And then had about a 15 minute wait until our tour of the Fantasy Cave.

 

[Irene7]

We are doing this excursion this Oct. Did you feel claustrophobic down in the cave?

[ShellDil]

We are doing this excursion this Oct. Did you feel claustrophobic down in the cave?

 

Hi! We didn't find the caves claustrophobic at all. They weren't small at all, meaning as far as the top to bottom. They were well lit and there were fairly long walkways. There was plenty of air as well. The Fantasy Cave has a much higher humidity level, so it's a bit muggy in there. If that would contribute to feeling claustrophobic, as far as maybe being hotter, than choose the Crystal Cave if you only do one.

[Irene7]

Hi! We didn't find the caves claustrophobic at all. They weren't small at all, meaning as far as the top to bottom. They were well lit and there were fairly long walkways. There was plenty of air as well. The Fantasy Cave has a much higher humidity level, so it's a bit muggy in there. If that would contribute to feeling claustrophobic, as far as maybe being hotter, than choose the Crystal Cave if you only do one.

 

Thank you for the information. I believe the excursion we have planned is the Crystal Cave.

[ShellDil]

After coming our of the Crystal Caves, we had a quick break and waited for the tour of the Fantasy Caves. Unfortunately our guide was different this time. Had we not had such a great guide for the first set, this one would have been fine. However, in comparison, well he was pretty bad. He had no enthusiasm for showing us anything. It seemed as if he basically didn't want to be there, which is a shame. But once we did get into the caves and wandered around a bit, he did manage to loosen up a bit and tell us just what made these caves different from the Crystal Caves. It has to do with the humidity. The ceilings are different. The cave formations are different. Both are unique and we enjoyed visiting each cave.

 

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Now they've gone a bit crazy with the faces!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ShellDil]

We had a great time at the caves, and were ready to keep on exploring! We knew the Bermuda Aquarium Museum & Zoo was in this general area and would make a good afternoon combination with the caves.

 

Back on the bus we went! We got on and asked the driver if it was the correct bus, this time heading back towards Hamilton. I asked the person next to me to let us know when it was our stop, just in case!

 

However when we got to the aquarium, the driver announced it and about half the passengers got off with us!

 

The aquarium would better be described as a zoo, and it's fairly small. But it's a nice way to spend a couple of hours. It's right on the water and the exhibits are well maintained. We had lunch there and enjoyed our stay. Of course, we're big aquarium, zoo, animal loving people!

 

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Our view while having lunch

 

 

The Discovery Room where you could touch some sea life. From that point on Alex decided he wanted a pet Sea Pudding, also sometimes called a Sea Cucumber. Not much maintenance for a pet I'm assuming ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ShellDil]

 

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This guy walked all the way over to us from the other side of his pen, I think he was hoping for some food! He just had the sweetest face!

 

 

 

 

There was also a Natural History building that had exhibits outlining the history of Bermuda. This was quite interesting, although I have no pictures of this area.

 

After the aquarium we made our way back to the ship. Tonight we'd be having an early dinner at La Cucina. We were going to be going out later for an evening glass bottom boat ride - into the Bermuda Triangle! OOOOHHHH spooky!

 

Alex waiting for the bus...

 

 

 

 

[bearette]

I read your last year review too and it inspired me to do a Europe cruise with my twins( 2 now but 20 months then). I am currently looking at Italy because of you too! Thanks for the travel inspiration.

 

Sent from my KFTHWI using Forums mobile app

[ShellDil]

I read your last year review too and it inspired me to do a Europe cruise with my twins( 2 now but 20 months then). I am currently looking at Italy because of you too! Thanks for the travel inspiration.

 

Sent from my KFTHWI using Forums mobile app

 

Wow! I'm glad to have inspired your travels :D I hope you had a great cruise and if you need any Italy help, be sure to ask away! It was really a dream vacation for me. I would love to go back someday.

 

Thanks for checking out this review as well.

[ClaireAndMike]

I completely agree with you. I would've never chosen to go to Bermuda had it been a trip I organized myself. I am going next month as an extended family trip and the destination was already chosen. That being said, it's a nice surprise because I likely never would have been going to Bermuda so that's an expected place I can cross off the travel list.

 

 

Here we are, we are arriving in Bermuda! As if the trip hadn't been wonderful so far, we were finally arriving in our port. Yes port. This was a new concept for us! How would we like it? To be honest, until about three weeks ago the idea of a cruise to Bermuda had never crossed my mind. I'd known people who had gone to Bermuda, known friends who'd even done similar cruises - but never did I ever consider one myself. It just seemed, well a bit boring to me! For me cruising had always been about the ports. Waking up somewhere new everyday. The variety, the experiences. Where was the excitement in spending THREE whole days in one place? Well, we were about to find out weren't we?

 

[ShellDil]

I completely agree with you. I would've never chosen to go to Bermuda had it been a trip I organized myself. I am going next month as an extended family trip and the destination was already chosen. That being said, it's a nice surprise because I likely never would have been going to Bermuda so that's an expected place I can cross off the travel list.

 

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did! It's always nice to travel to someplace that is a bit unexpected, and then find it to be such a treasured place!

[ShellDil]

After our day at the caves and the aquarium, we went back to the ship and got ready for dinner. We had pre-booked La Cucina for tonight. One of the other items that I did pre-book was the Bermuda Triangle Evening Cruise. Usually I'm not big on ship excursions, but since this was a fairly last minute trip, and we were going to be in port in the evenings, it seemed like a pretty cool thing to do! This excursion got very high ratings in the reviews on NCL, so we gave it a shot.

 

First our dinner....

 

I think I already mentioned that every chance we had, we chose the Waterfront seating at the specialty restaurants. We really enjoyed this area of the Breakaway! So, tonight was no exception!

 

We had early reservations so that we would make our boat tour, so the restaurant was pretty empty. Our server was very attentive. I don't really remember everything we ordered, but I know Alex got a pizza with steak on it for his appetizer and we all thought it was very good. I think Megan and I had salads which were good. Our pasta dishes were ok. When they first came out and were hot, they were good, however as they cooled off they became a bit dried out. But that being said, we enjoyed our meals, as well as the service and the atmosphere. We certainly didn't leave hungry or disappointed!

 

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And back off the ship we went! Looks huge here doesn't it!

 

 

The dockyard area as we were waiting for our group for the boat tour.

 

 

 

 

[Susie51]

Thank you for continuing your review. The nose to nose pic was great. The caves look very interesting.

[ShellDil]

We started our boat ride, which was on a glass bottom boat, right about sunset. We went on the top deck of the boat and the captain began the tour by giving us a history of the island and answering any questions that the guests had. Then he talked about the history of the Bermuda Triangle and told about some of the missing planes and ship stories. He was pretty good and kept everyone engaged during the trip out to the reef.

 

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This island here is the tip of the Bermuda end of the Bermuda Triangle, we were about to enter! Ooohhhh.....scary right??

 

 

Actually, the Bermuda Triangle is the area between that island, Miami and Puerto Rico. I guess at some point I probably might have known that, but I didn't realize it was such a large area!

 

We then went over a nice area of the reef where they turned on the lights on the bottom of the boat so we could see a lot of the fish and coral. Then the, I guess I'll call her the assistant, told us about all of what we were seeing. She told us about the coral, the fish, the reef and the history of the reef area. We saw a fair amount of activity. Nothing like snorkeling, but it was sort of neat to see the night version!

 

 

 

[ShellDil]

 

After the reef we moved over to a ship wreck. This was pretty interesting. We learned all about the ship and got to see it from the view of the glass bottom. And there's a portion sticking out above the water as well.

 

 

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On the way back they had Rum Swizzles, or soda for everyone.

 

All in all, we enjoyed this boat tour and thought it was a great thing to do while in port for an evening!

 

 

Our first day in Bermuda was quite a success! We couldn't wait for day 2! Our original plan was just a beach day, but we ended up adding to that....there was just too much we wanted to do!