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Review: Breakaway to Bermuda Sept 11-18

arsa

By arsa,
in Norwegian Cruise Line

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arsa

arsa

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Let me start off by saying what a fabulous vacation it was! Perfect weather, blue skies, open ocean and unlimited drinks – what more could you need!!

Next- to my Roll-call folks I am really sorry I completely spaced out on Monday... I am not sure what we were doing but I do know that I had one-too-many mimosas that morning :D

 

This is going to be a multi-part review, starting with our Park and Cruise experience at the Hilton Garden Inn in Ridgefield.

 

Part 1- Park and Cruise at the Hilton

Overall, I found it to be a pretty good deal. We were 4 adults and 1 7 yr old. Our package price was 264 + tax (came to about 303 total) – for that price, we got a one night stay in a 2 queen bed room (we always travel with an inflatable bed for the kid – the room was big enough to have another full size inflatable bed), breakfast in the morning with cooked-to-order eggs, a minivan round-trip transportation to the cruise terminal and parking for our car. At check-in, the front desk staff asked us when we wanted the car to pick us up tomorrow morning, how many people and luggage and what time we wanted the return ride next Sunday. They did not charge us any extra for a fifth person.

 

The hotel is a standard Hilton garden inn, but could definitely use more staff. Apparently the housekeeping isn't on duty in the evening, so there's no one to restock the towels in the pool area...Dominos delivery to the hotel for dinner is a good dinner option after the pool.

 

We were a little concerned with traffic for next day, since it was 9/11 but the minivan picked us up on time at 9 AM and by 10:15 we were already checked-in at the terminal, waiting to embark.

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arsa

arsa

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Part 2 – Embarkation Day

The minivan dropped us at the cruise terminal at about 9:30. When we walked in, check-in hadn’t started yet so there was a long line of passengers waiting for security screening. Once they opened the security screening and check-in, the line went quickly. We went to the Latitudes check-in counter and went through the check-in procedure relatively painlessly. By 10:15, we were in our boarding area with a few hundred other passengers. This number quickly grew to the thousands in an hour.

 

There was some kind of a delay with embarkation – not really sure what was going on, but they kept announcing that embarkation will start with the priority section between 11:30 to noon, when in reality they started embarkation around 12:15 for Haven and then went down the line to boarding groups. We were in group 7 and were called around 12:30 to board. I saw some people with boarding group number 21 – not sure when they actually got on the ship.

 

Stepping foot on that ship has to be one of the most incredible feelings! After some "washy-washy", we went in to deck 7 and were guided to the garden café on Deck 15. The food at the garden café was standard NCL buffet fare, but we were surprised by the consistent good quality food throughout our stay on the breakaway.

 

After the buffet, it was ship exploration time!!

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arsa

arsa

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Part 3 – The Breakaway

The ship in itself, is a giant floating city – you can’t even call it a hotel. It is equipped to hold close to 6000 people which is a 10th of the population of Portland, Maine where I live. I don’t honestly think we explored everything on the ship, but here’s what we did get through –

 

The Balcony Staterooms – are a decent size. We had two connecting staterooms and had a door across from the bathrooms that connected the two rooms. That was fun for our 7 yr old, who spent the first few minutes running from one to the other room while singing YMCA in Minion-language. The beds are soft (too soft according to my DH) and the sofas don’t pull out into a 3rd bed. The bathrooms are bigger that the other ships we have been on and feel a lot more luxurious. Balconies are a bit narrow and feel too cramped if more than 2 people are outside.

 

The Pool Deck and Waterslides – Fun, but way too crowded. We were able to get into the kid’s pools only during port days. You couldn’t even step foot near the pools during at-sea days – the main pool was way overcrowded, people had blocked all the deck loungers and it was overwhelming. That being said, my son did the open water slide 22 times in a row during one of the port days because that was when he could actually get through with no lines for the slides.

 

The food – we ate in only the complimentary restaurants – the Buffet, Shanghai noodle bar, O’Sheehans, Taste, Savor, Manhattan Room, Uptown grill. The food was really good in all the restaurants, including the buffet. The dining rooms had different décor but the menu was identical in all three of them – this was a little disappointing since in the other ships we have been on, there has been slight variations in menu for each restaurant. My favorite of all was the Warm Chocolate Lava cake – I think I had that 4 times in the last week!

 

The Drinks- Yaay for UBP!!!!!!!! We drank so much!! I tried some drinks that I probably would’t try again, but also found some new favorites. The Bahama Mama, Pina Colada and Long Island Iced tea was excellent at the poolside bars – they usually had these premade in big beverage containers. The MIXX bar and Shakers were my personal favorites – the drinks there were super-strong and the bartenders actually measured out alcohol in your drinks so you actually ended up getting more alcohol compared to the other bars where they randomly poured. The Daydreamer’s daiquiri and Mr. Worldwide were awesome here! I tried a Martini (James Bond style) but wasn’t really my taste. The Bartenders will also tell you if something isn’t covered by the UBP – apparently red bull and Gosling’s Bermuda Rum isn’t. We did find that some bars were more lenient towards asking for one card per drink and would allow you to order two drinks on one card – the bartender at the Garden Café was a stickler for rules (and was rude too) – we had to remember to collect a keycard for each drink (we were 4 adults with UBP for 2 staterooms)

 

The Shows – Nothing really to write about… we saw Burn The Floor, Second City Improv, Rock of Ages and the Crew Talent show. Burn the Floor was great, and my son and I also went to the Burn the floor dancers’ Samba class on the last day. Second City Improv was just okay.. it felt like they were trying too hard to get laughs, although my son thought their debate on “Effervescent Encyclopedias should procrastinate” was hilarious. Rock of Ages was definitely not what I had expected – we actually left halfway because I was just disgusted by it. I am all for sexual innuendos and foul language (I can curse in 3 languages), but the show was just too much of it. I found myself missing the family-friendly shows on Dawn and Sky.

 

The Ropes course and rock-climbing wall – we could not try, that because, I forgot to pack sneakers and socks for the kid. At the rock-climbing wall, they give you shoes but no socks and at the ropes course, you need closed-back shoes or sneakers but they don’t care about socks. For my son, they recommended the kids version of the ropes course since he is just at 48 inches, so he just refused and walked away.

 

The Shore Excursions – We had the shore ex promo for both our staterooms. On the first day in Bermuda, we did the Bermuda Island Explorer by Mini-bus in the morning. It’s a 5 hr narrated tour through all the islands of Bermuda with stops at the Gibbs lighthouse, Hamilton and St. George. The tour departed from the end of the pier at 9:30 and we were back at 2.30. It was one of the highlights of our vacation. We really enjoyed hearing about the history of the island, looking at the scenery, going up Gibbs lighthouse, walking through Hamilton stores and seeing a weird Nagging Housewife’s Dunking Ceremony in St. George. The second day, we did the Bermuda Triangle evening glass bottom boat tour, which was actually disappointingly bad. The third day, we did the Snorkel Park Beach, Chair and Shared Umbrella excursion that we enjoyed – the sky was cloudy that day but the water was perfect!

 

Overall Experience - We had a good time overall on the Breakaway but surprisingly enough, found ourselves wishing for the experience of the smaller ships. It’s all a matter of personal choice. There was so much to see and do on the Breakaway and (according to one of the cruise staff) it was the least crowded week they had seen in 6 months – however, we still found it too crowded and a bit underwhelming at times – like they were just trying too hard.

Dan Dan is an interesting cruise director – he was always out and about, mingling with the passengers. We also saw a lot of other senior officers around the ship a few times.

The only negative experience we had was our cabin steward – he was extremely rude, argumentative and very aggressive. It got so bad that on Day 6, we actually complained to Guest services about his behavior.

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Aldeya

Aldeya

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Great review, thank you :)

 

I agree about the Bermuda Triangle evening glass bottom boat tour, it was very underwhelming. I wouldn't recommend it.

 

Just curious.. what happened after you complained about your room steward absolutely unacceptable behavior ?

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arsa

arsa

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Great review, thank you :)

 

I agree about the Bermuda Triangle evening glass bottom boat tour, it was very underwhelming. I wouldn't recommend it.

 

Just curious.. what happened after you complained about your room steward absolutely unacceptable behavior ?

Our complaints wwmere more around the fact that he didnt close the pullman bed for any of the days and it got to a point where we were all bonking our heads on it. Another complaint was that on day 6, not only had he left half our refrigerator full ( we had repeatedly told him to empty it) he put some other stuff in it which left the refrigerator open all night long. We had our precious rum cake and bermuda fudge in there which would have been spoilt. After we talked to guest services, the deck supervisor apparently got involved and next thing we know, the bed is madeproperly, the fridge is clean but the steward refused to then even wish us a good morning. Oh well....i really dislike telling on someone but when things start getting out of hand you have to speak up. The woman at guest service asked why we didn't speak to them the first day after the steward refused to keep pool towels in our room and asked us to get them from the pool deck.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Forums mobile app

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Charles4515

Charles4515

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Dan, the tour guide said it was at 12.30 on Wednesday. I don't remember if it was every Wednesday or once a month. It was actually funny..

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Forums mobile app

 

They start the "show" at noon and do the dunking at 12:30. It is not only Wednesday. This year we went to St. George's on Thursday and saw the dunking.

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arsa

arsa

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My husband participated in the dunking of the hag that trip. He was the tall guy in the back controlling the rope. He was the one that said dunk her again!

He looked like he was enjoying it way too much! My husband took a video that my son is watching on a loop!

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Forums mobile app

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arsa

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Do you remember what was in the Mr, Worldwide and the Daydreamer drinks? I havent tried those and want to on our next cruise in 2 weeks!!

Mr worldwide apparently is their "official" drink on the escape named after Pitbull..i found the recipe on NCL https://www.ncl.com/travel-blog/must-try-cocktails-norwegian-escape

 

Daydreamers was a lime juice mix - not creamy like a regular daiquiri, made with CRUSOE Organic Silver Rum, fresh lime juice, and agave nectar..yummy!!!!

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Forums mobile app

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