May 28th Breakaway review

[hansolosmom]

Just back from Breakaway from the May 28th sailing, so I wanted to share my thoughts with all of you about the trip, since I get so much from this board I wanted to give back. Weirdly I did not take too many pictures, so I won’t really be posting many and my review won’t be as in-depth as some, but feel free to ask questions. I will also go off on tangents in some areas, you just have to deal with them. I’m going to break this up into Pre-trip, the Ship and Bermuda.

 

About our traveling party – dh, myself, ds#1 (20), ds#2(19). We have been on several cruises together and we travel 4 in a room. We’ve been in anything from an inside to a balcony. We have never had an issue traveling with all of us in 1 room. I know that question comes up a lot, but for us it means we get to travel more often by sharing 1 room. We have been on Disney, Royal, Princess and Celebrity, we are not loyal to any line. I book based on itinerary, then deal.

 

Pre-trip

 

For this trip we knew it would have to be something out of a nearby port, so NY/NJ or Baltimore. We decided Bermuda for 7 days, so the options were NCL Breakaway or Celebrity Summit. Because the dates I was looking at had 3/4th passengers sail free, NCL won out. Also, my dh said the slides looked cool, so that was another plus. When I was trying to book, we were playing with dates since both boys are in college and ds#1 was also doing an internship and was going to start another. I originally booked the June 4th trip which would have fallen over his 21st birthday, then I booked the May 28th trip because of the second internship coming into play. I booked with 3/4th passengers free and the UBP. Only thing was,there was not much of a selection of rooms when I booked, so we were in a balcony on the 14th floor under the Garden Café. A few weeks later,more rooms were available, however the 3/4th passenger were no longer free on this sailing so moving rooms meant having to rebook since therewere no more 4 person rooms in the same category. If anything, this meant dealing with the new bidding system to upgrade.

 

Obviously, we ended up with the May 28th date andI cancelled the June 4th sailing. My PCC said they would move thedeposit over to the reservation we were keeping, so when I was making finalpayment he took it for $250 less than what was due because of that deposit.This is where I got a little nervous because I made final payment and cancelledthe June 4th date about a week before the May 28th trip’s final payment date. But on final payment day, I was still showing I owed $250 on the trip because the transfer didn’t happen yet. I didn’t want to lose the trip, so I paid the $250 to be paid in full. About a week later my reservation showed as me paying too much and I ended up with a refund of $250. It was a little screwy and in this case, I should have just listened to the PCC.

 

At 90 days out, like clockwork, I logged onto my NCL account and set up dining every night at 6:30pm and reserved Rock of Ages. I also got the upgrade bid option and checked it out. Not sure if the fact I got a good deal on the trip and it was beginning of summer play into the bids, but, the minimum bid to upgrade to a Haven 2br suite was $1500 per person. ACK! I bit the bullet and put in my bid for that. I also bid on the fwd and aft Haven suites, which the minimums were around $850 - $1000 (I can’t remember exactly). As the trip drew closer, the number of Haven 2 brs kept going down and I was kind of bummed, because I knewwe wouldn’t get one. However, I noticed the aft on 9 became available, so I upped my bid on that category to the fair range. I also bid on the Owner’s Suite for grins (minimum $1600) because my dh had suggested that, I think it was one night when we were drinking. LOL. Anyway, about 2 weeks before the trip, most of the Haven rooms were gone when I tried to do a mock booking for 4 people. There was still one 2br suite and the aft. On the Friday of that week (so not the Friday before the trip, but 9 days out) the 2 br was gone and there were no mini-suites that held 4. I upped my mid another $10 on the aft Haven but figured it wasn’t meant to be and we would try to get Vibe passes.

 

On Monday before the trip I got the email saying we had been upgraded to the Haven aft suite. I got the email from the CC company asking if it was my purchase or fraud before I got the email from NCL. So, wahoo we were upgraded for a pretty good chunk of change, however in total it was still $4K less than if I booked it outright. I didn’t tell anyone, even my Roll Call people because my dh knows my nickname and I had sent him links for the port board and I didn’t want him to find out. It wasn’t too hard to keep secret, but it wasn’t the easiest either. The biggest issue now would be the fact that the boys would now be in a sofa bed as opposed to the sofa/Pullman combination. I made sure I took a picture and will post it since it was so hard to find one ofthe sofa made into the bed.

 

We left Philly on Saturday and took the train up to NYC. My dh HATES to drive in Manhattan, so we opted for the train and used some Marriott points and staying in a Garden Marriott near Penn Station. It was nice to not worry about rushing on Sunday morning. We spent the day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art which is wonderful and the boys both like it, so we spent hours there. We ended up with pizza for dinner and called it a night.

[hansolosmom]

Ship Time!

 

Sunday morning my dh & I got up and went to St. Francis for mass. I have to say I love the music at churches in the city. Since there are so many talented people in the area, the singing and music is always wonderful. After a quick breakfast, we caught an uber around 10:30am to get to the terminal. Despite it being Fleet Week we didn’t run into any traffic issues and made it to the pier within 15 minutes.

 

After dropping off our luggage, we walked into the terminal. My dh starts heading toward the security line and I said, no we’re going this way. He gave me ‘the look’ and said you said they didn’t have any 2 br suites and I said no, but an aft became available and I got it. We cruised through the security line and walked past the lines down Haven road. We stopped and took a boarding picture, then went into the special waiting room. It was packed (note this theme for the week) checked in and got our key cards. They then directed us to the spillover area next to the enclosed waiting room and we chatted with some other people. It couldn’t have been more than 10 minutes when they came over and told us it was time to board.

 

They held us for a few minutes then sent us with another group of 4, a very nice lady, her 2 daughters and her friend. They were in a 2br. We walked to the ship, to the elevator area. The butlers weren’t really paying attention to who came on board together, so 2 other people milling (CAS or Platinum is my guess) around got on the elevator with us. Then when we got off, of course they directed us all the Haven. When Anoop checked our cards, we went into the pool area, while the 2 other people got turned away. I stayed inthe lower area while the boys went up on the second floor. We got our rum punch, but somehow never ended up with sliders. Anoop gave us the welcome speech which in all honesty was not easy to hear and apparently was worse onthe second level since no one else in my family had any idea what he said.

Since it was early, maybe 11:30, we went down to guest services to fill out the beer and wine waiver for ds#1, ds#2 didn’t want it,which was fine. He’s the college student I don’t need to worry about. After that was done, we were going to try Margaritaville, since I had read it’s free for Haven guests on the first day, but someone at guest services said no, so we went to the Haven restaurant. We ended up sitting outside and they opened the roof. It was really nice having the roof open. After lunch we went to our room.

 

I had read the deck 9 has the largest balcony and holy cow, is it huge! First off, the room was amazing. The living area has a 4 person table, the couch a bathroom with a shower. I thought it was only the toilet, but it has the shower too. Then the master has a king bed and the bathroom has 2 sinks, toilet, bathtub and shower. The cool thing was the window looking out over the balcony, so you can view the ocean while showering or brushing your teeth. The balcony was HUGE! There was a table with 4 chairs, 3 loungers and another 2 wicker chairs and small table. My older son said we could have brought a hammock and he could have slept out there.

 

We did muster and here I will insert a comment about the crowd on the ship. Like any trip you will have a range of people from differentbackgrounds. However, when you cruise from the NY/NJ area you get more people from the tri-state area (NY, NJ, PA) and Bostoners. There was some woman waiting to go into the room for the drill loudly dropping f-bombs every other word about how they make you do this after having 7 drinks. Several times, when you’re in an elevator or eating dinner and there will be a loud party next to you dropping f-bombs left and right. I’m not a prude but seriously by the end of the week I was tired of it – do you really have to a) talk that loud and b)drop f-bombs constantly.

 

By this time it was sail-away so we went up to the Haven for the sail-away party. The deck was packed. The boys stayed by the railing to get pictures and I lucked out to find a single lounger to sit on. We stayed up there until going under the bridge and went back to our room. The butler had called and asked us to call him so he could come over and meet us. We called and chatted with him for a few minutes before our dinner reservations. As I said previously I had made all our dinner reservations at the 90 day mark. We ended up keeping most of them, mostly because the Haven menu is the same everynight and not everyone was thrilled with the choices.

 

First night we did Manhattan room. Getting the table was a mess, we were 5 minutes late, and there were a ton of people in line with no one to direct you to which of the 2 desks you should go to if you had reservations. I went in the line for one desk while my dh waited by the other.The poor woman behind the desk is explaining to the couple in front of me that they should wait or make reservations. I finally got up there and said, I don’tknow if I’m in the right line but I have reservations for 4. By this time dh had also gotten to the desk and that woman told him we were SOL because we were more than 15 minutes late. Luckily the woman I was talking to took us. We hadpretty good service this night. Like I said earlier I didn’t take a ton ofpictures, so I have no idea what we ate, but everyone was happy at the end of dinner. I think after dinner we finished unpacking and enjoyed the balcony.

 

Our ritual for the week was dh and ds#1 got up and exercised, then went to breakfast in the Haven. Then ds#2 and I would go a little later on. It became a joke with Jackie (the Haven restaurant hostess) about mama and her boys. Breakfast was always amazing and I miss my salmon frittata in the morning.

 

During the sea days, dh & ds#1 would go to trivia and we would hang out. The Breakaway in general was packed. Last time I was on her, it was March so I’m not sure if it was packed just because it was the end of May because it didn't seem that packed in March. I can say the Haven was much more packed. I don’t know if it’s the bidding or what but it was packed. When we went out on the deck so the boys could slide, we couldn’t find a lounger on deck 15 or 16 so I told them, I’d go find room in the Haven and they could meet me. In the Haven there were no outside loungers, I found 4 together on the second floor inside deck and probably an hour later all the loungers were taken. I thought it was a little crazy. My dh is not patient nor does he like crowds, so I was very glad we had the Haven. But it was a little annoying with it being so crowded. I know there are discussions about Haven and Vibe passes. If I would have known the Haven was going to be this crowded, I would have opted for the Vibe passes. There were not a lot of little kids, there were some but not tons and they were mostly well behaved, but there were a lot of adults and not all of them well behaved. One night we were sitting in the bar and this group is talking about music, there was some guy who was a musician so he pulls out his phone and starts playing his music, even though there are other people in there trying to have conversations and they had the canned music playing in the lounge area. The funny part was, this same group of people were complaining about the kids in the Haven, who IMO were not near as annoying as this group playing the music loudly and over & over.

 

Lunch was usually in the Haven inside or out, ds#2 wants me to make brie burgers because he loved them! We did go to the Garden Buffet for lunch a couple times along with just stopping at the hot dog cart. There’snever a shortage of food. I know the second night we did Savor for dinner, extremely slow service. We skipped dessert and went to the buffet to get crepes. This would become the dinner routine, skip dessert and go get crepes.

The last night of the trip we went to La Cucina because ds#2 loves Italian food. We were seated in one of the Haven waiters section which was fun. I had forgotten they work the specialties at night. We did not have a dining package, so everyone made sure that we knew it was a la carte pricing. The total for dinner was almost $200. I really didn’t think we would do the specialties, so I didn’t look into the pricing beforehand, but in hindsight, I should have looked at the packages once I knew we wouldn’t be doing the Haven dining every night.

 

The sea days run together, pretty much food, laying around reading, and dinner. I did not get the internet package and it was great to be unplugged most of the trip. We went to Rock of Ages one night, which everyone enjoyed. We did the ice bar which was fun, poor ds#2 was freezing. There was aguy who decided to take the parka/cape thing off so his wife could get a picture of him in his tropical shirt and shorts. It was really funny and we had a good group in there. The only ship party we did was the glow party.

Overall we didn’t find the activities offered that great. A lot of them seemed to be an extra fee or had a sales pitch to them (i.e.) the foot and back posture or acupuncture. We are used to more trivia and diverse activities. Something we found out on the last day, was the activities staff was new as of this week. I don’t know if that included Alvin the cruise director or just the rest of the staff. Dh said the trivia was disorganized and one early morning round the girl running it was on her phone the entire time and just pointed to the screen for them to answer the questions. Once they found out the crew was new, they figured she was probably getting or giving information to someone which was why she was on the phone. I don’t know if the staff being new led to less activities or this is the norm. Again I didn't think it was a huge deal, but dh loves his trivia so he was a little disappointed they didn't have more.

 

 

[rebeccalouiseagain]

Thank you for your review. I really enjoyed reading it. I was on the 5/14 cruise and I was in a studio single cabin- but had a wonderful time. The Haven is a different experience, and I like hearing about it. I very much enjoyed my cruise and would do it all over again. On my sailing there was quite a bit of trivia and games, which were well attended. I think that since you had a new activities staff- it impacted that.

[hansolosmom]

Bermuda

 

There’s been a lot of talk of the new free ferry. They give you the schedule the night before you dock. It’s easy-peasy, you walk off the ship and the ferry picks up on the other side, you can’t miss it. We took the first one, 9am and it had a fair amount of people but wasn’t packed. They check your key cards to get on.

 

Day 1 – We took the ferry and walked around St. George. Mainly went to the cathedral and the unfinished church. My dh who did no research talked to the info people and got tokens for the bus and said we could take the 10,11 or 3 to go to the caves. We went to the bus stop and got on the 3 (I kept saying we should wait for the 10 or 11) we asked the bus driver about the caves and he made a joke that he wasn’t going but the bus was. After being on the bus a bit, dh saw a sign about the caves but the driver didn’t stop, so the next time the bus stopped, dh went up to ask the driver who said, we passed them. He wrote out a transfer and told us where to wait for the next bus which would take us back to the caves. We ended up being across the aquarium. So, I knew we weren’t too far and in the generally right area. We waited and the bus 10 came which we asked to let us know where to get off for the caves. This time it was much easier since the Swizzle Inn is right there. Moral of my story, not all the bus drivers remember to tell you where to get off.

We did both caves, Crystal and Fantasy and loved them. After that we walked over to the Swizzle Inn for a swizzle, I had never had one before and thought they are ok, but when in Rome. We also had some burgers, a fish sandwich and fish tacos. After we were done there, we took the bus into Hamilton. In Hamilton, the main goal was for dh to get some cigars. We walked around a bit and he got some, then we took the public ferry back to the Dockyard. At this point it was later in the day so we just went back on the ship for dinner and evening activities.

 

Day 2 – Horseshoe beach. Since there were 4 of us, we opted for a taxi to the beach. It was $32 for the 4 of us, there’s also the minibusfor $7 a person and the bus. We had a lovely taxi ride over. I had asked the driver about the crowds due to the America’s Cup and he said that he didn’t think it was that much busier. I don’t know if that was because it was the preliminaries when we were there or if there really aren’t a ton of people coming for the races specifically. We did hear complaints from both this driver and the one who took us back about how the gov says there’s no money for road improvements, but they had plenty of money to build the stuff for the races. We got to the beach and opted for 4 chairs and 2 umbrellas for $90. They take credit cards –this was a big concern of mine, so I’m pointing it out. I believe it had be Visa, Mastercard or Discover. I don’t think they took AmEx. We got a nice spot on the beach a pretty much sat there and did the beach thing for several hours. I think we got there around 10 – 10:30am and left around 3pm.

 

Here comes another tangent. The people in Bermuda make their living off tourism, that’s plain and simple so I really hate when people try to gyp the locals. There were 3 people who paid for an umbrella so the guy put it up for them. Then they went over to another guy sitting under an umbrella and asked if he was using all the chairs so they took 2 of them. The worker who put their umbrella came over and said to them, they didn’t pay for the chairs so he needs to take them. He took one and another lady at the next umbrella gave these people her receipt and said tell him you did buy them. Seriously!!! The guy came back so she showed him the receipt, which he knew wasn’t hers because he was the one that set them up in the first place. But he couldn’t do anything about it so he just left shaking his head. These 2 women high fived each other because they got out of paying for the chair. Yes, you can say the chair was paid for by the original rentor, but again the people working the beaches rely on the money from renting the chairs so I think it really stinks when they get shorted revenue because of things like this.

 

We had no trouble getting a taxi back, but we saw a ton of people waiting for the bus. They do have a nice new pathway to walk up the hill for the bus. Our driver said it was really dangerous and people had gotten hit walking up the hill so this makes things safer for everyone. We had the driver drop us at the Clock tower mall to have a look around.

 

Day 3- I had booked a Segway tour for us. We were up really early, ok except for me because I drank a little too much before the glow party the night before. The boys went for breakfast and when they came back we were ready to go. The Segway place is right in the Dockyard area, not far at all from the ship, so it’s an easy walk to get there. We filled out our forms and got an orientation. It was a group of 6, our family of 4 and a couple from Long Island. Then we had 2 guides. This tour was so much fun. Dh & I had done a Segway tour in Bermuda back in 2008 and all we did was go around the Dockyard area. This tour ended up being almost an hour and a half. We went around the Dockyard where they pointed out sites, then we went over to the clocktower mall area. Then we went over the bridge past the America’s Cup area. He showed us local flora and the original tennis court. Then we went over to a beach area with some rocks and to a sea glass bay. It was a great tour and I highly recommend it. I booked it through the ship because when I looked online at the Segway website it showed the tour as $100 which was only a $5 difference from NCL. However, when we got to Bermuda, the sign in the dockyard said the tour was $80. I don't know if the website jacks up the price or what, but I thought I'd mention the disconnect in pricing.

 

After we got back we walked over to the rum cake factory and picked a couple up, we also walked around and picked up America’s Cupt-shirts. The boys stayed out for a bit longer because we got free wifi from one of the shops, but I went back to the ship for lunch. I was amazed at thenumber of people still getting off the ship at 1pm when you need to be back on-board by 2:30.

 

Leaving Bermuda was cool, there was an America's cup race going on, so when the ship swung around, we could see the race from our balcony.

[hansolosmom]

Wrap up

 

After Bermuda we hung out on the ship. Like I said previously, we did La Cucina the last night. On that last sea day, ds#2 decided he wanted to try the ropes course, so he and dh decided to do it. It was a bit windy and chilly, but the course was open. However, right before they got on, the zip line was closed, and then the closed the port side of the course because ofthe wind. They finished that and then did the water slides once or twice, there was absolutely no line because of it being chilly. So again try to do the ropes course earlier in the trip or while you’re docked.

 

Overall it was a nice trip and we had fun. If it were up to dh he will not go on Breakaway again, to him it was just way too crowded and I agree. Again, not sure if it was time of year or what that made it seem more crowded this time around. We heard a few people say the ship was too big and that they preferred Gem to this one.

The other things I wanted to mention were food and service since those come up a lot. We thought the food was fine in all the main dining rooms. We are not foodies, but we all felt there was plenty of choices and everything we ate was good. The service on the other hand I felt has declined. Even in the Haven, I felt the servers had too many tables to work. We only saw our room steward 3-4 times the whole trip which was fine and the room was always clean but it seemed we had to leave for a longer period of time for it to be cleaned. Also, since the workers are so busy you don’t get that chance to chat with them and get to know them, so the service doesn’t seem as personal.

Well there's my take on the trip, feel free to ask questions. I will post a couple pictures when I get a chance later on.

[hansolosmom]

Thank you for your review. I really enjoyed reading it. I was on the 5/14 cruise and I was in a studio single cabin- but had a wonderful time. The Haven is a different experience, and I like hearing about it. I very much enjoyed my cruise and would do it all over again. On my sailing there was quite a bit of trivia and games, which were well attended. I think that since you had a new activities staff- it impacted that.

 

Thanks, I thought it was more the staff than anything else.

 

I would actually love to try a studio, they look so cool.

[Chesneygirl]

Great review thanks for sharing!

 

Which aft suite on deck 9 did you have? Who was your butler?

We are booked in one on deck 9 for our upcoming cruise along with the connecting balcony next door for our 2 kids plus one friend. Very excited to see this huge balcony (in person) that I keep reading about!

[Coffeecat1]

Excellent review! Thank you for sharing your thoughts! We are headed on the BA in the fall in an aft penthouse so it was great to hear your take on the room and the ship. Thank you.

[lmintzer]

Enjoyed your review. Thank you! A little disappointed/concerned to hear that the Haven area was so crowded (especially the sundeck) and that the staff seemed overworked. I wonder if this was, in part, because you sailed over a holiday weekend? Maybe the ship was even more booked than usual?

 

Was really hoping that the Haven would feel like a quiet respite with no issues with getting loungers, etc., especially since we will be sailing with someone with chronic pain issues who can't stand for long periods of time.

[hansolosmom]

Great review thanks for sharing!

 

Which aft suite on deck 9 did you have? Who was your butler?

We are booked in one on deck 9 for our upcoming cruise along with the connecting balcony next door for our 2 kids plus one friend. Very excited to see this huge balcony (in person) that I keep reading about!

 

We were in 9316.

 

Willie was our butler. We didn't really ask him for much, we had him deliver breakfast the first day in Bermuda since we wanted to be off the ship for the first ferry to St. George. Even though we didn't ask him for anything specific he brought a nice selection of snacks every day and figured out pretty quickly to just bring pb&j and blt's for the sandwiches.

 

I'm hoping to get a chance tonight to post a few pictures. My dh did a nice video of the suite, including the balcony that I'll try to post too.

[hansolosmom]

Enjoyed your review. Thank you! A little disappointed/concerned to hear that the Haven area was so crowded (especially the sundeck) and that the staff seemed overworked. I wonder if this was, in part, because you sailed over a holiday weekend? Maybe the ship was even more booked than usual?

 

Was really hoping that the Haven would feel like a quiet respite with no issues with getting loungers, etc., especially since we will be sailing with someone with chronic pain issues who can't stand for long periods of time.

 

In all honesty I didn't even realize it was Memorial Day weekend until a few weeks before the cruise. My guess is the holiday combined with school getting out had to do with the crowd. There was also a fairly large group celebrating a 50th anniversary, I think there were 12-15 of them which may have added to the crowding.

 

When I went in March of last year, the Haven was definitely not as crowded. On that trip I took my mom who has mobility issues and we never had a problem finding somewhere to sit.

[hansolosmom]

Here's the sofa made into a bed. Outta pretty big, if say queen size. My son's are both around 6 ft and didn't have any issues sleeping on the bed.

 

You can kind of see how there are 2 blankets to make it like 2 singles so they didn't have trouble sleeping together.

 

We had our room steward keep it out and the boys would take naps on it during the day. It wasn't a big deal to walk around it.

 

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[hansolosmom]

A view of the inside of the ferry so you can see how much room there is. There are 5 sets of 3 seats in that front section so 15 seats in a row.

 

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[oceanfun77]

Thanks for the review :) I was on the same cruise with you, but stayed on an oceanview room. Our room stewardess came into our room to make it twice a day! When I get back to my room around 5ish to change out of swimsuit and shower, my room is made. Then, after I get back from dinner and evening shows, the room is made again (and a daily schedule added to your bed) and the towels I used at 5ish to shower were replaced. I was very very very happy with the service I got :)

 

I had a feeling the 7th sea day would be chilly since we're closer to NYC. I remember the 2nd seaday to be super cloudly and foggy and chilly too. I actually wanted to go on the waterslides on the 7th sea day, but when I got up there, all the lounges were practically empty and it seemed like they might have closed the waterslides as well (it definitely was very chilly)...there was almost no one outside.

[easyboy]

Great review! Thanks.

 

 

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[riclop]

Thanks for the review.

[lbkladybug]

Great review. My husband and I were on the Breakaway on April 2. And will be on the Escape to Bermuda in 478 days! [emoji23]

 

 

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[BostonGal35]

i was on this sailing as well.

there were 3 weddings on board, one of them had a total of 75 family members sailing.

i did NOT expect it to be so crowded. Schools in our area are not out until June (we are in Mass). We did expect a decent amount of college kids since htey usually finish up around mother's day.

 

this was our 3rd time on BA... was no where near as good as our first two times (first time we had Vibe, second time we had Spa). i think that was the difference - no where to escape the crowds.

[hansolosmom]

Thanks for the review :) I was on the same cruise with you, but stayed on an oceanview room. Our room stewardess came into our room to make it twice a day! When I get back to my room around 5ish to change out of swimsuit and shower, my room is made. Then, after I get back from dinner and evening shows, the room is made again (and a daily schedule added to your bed) and the towels I used at 5ish to shower were replaced. I was very very very happy with the service I got :)

 

I had a feeling the 7th sea day would be chilly since we're closer to NYC. I remember the 2nd seaday to be super cloudly and foggy and chilly too. I actually wanted to go on the waterslides on the 7th sea day, but when I got up there, all the lounges were practically empty and it seemed like they might have closed the waterslides as well (it definitely was very chilly)...there was almost no one outside.

 

Yep that last sea day was chilly and was weird because it would go from foggy/cloudy to sunny. I had also forgotten the fog early in the trip with the foghorn going. The slides were open at least until 4pm that last day. I only know that because dh & ds#2 went from the ropes course and did the slides. Then we were going to try to get nachos from Margaritaville but they had just closed. My dh said the guy working the slide looked at them like they were nuts because of going on. :) ds#2 really loved the drop slides and the one day he just kept going on because most people were in line for the other slides.

[hansolosmom]

i was on this sailing as well.

there were 3 weddings on board, one of them had a total of 75 family members sailing.

i did NOT expect it to be so crowded. Schools in our area are not out until June (we are in Mass). We did expect a decent amount of college kids since htey usually finish up around mother's day.

 

this was our 3rd time on BA... was no where near as good as our first two times (first time we had Vibe, second time we had Spa). i think that was the difference - no where to escape the crowds.

 

After you mentioned the weddings, I do remember seeing people dressed up the one day we were coming back to the ship in Bermuda.

 

I'm totally with you on the crowd, most school districts by us don't close until next week. I expected some college but again I didn't expect the ship to be as crowded. Interestingly, the week before we left, I had looked at cabin availability for the June 4th week and saw many more Haven cabins open (at least 2 br) so maybe we did just pick a popular week. If you think about it, you would only need to take 4 vacation days from work which may have made it more attractive to people.

 

In any case, I have a deposit on a Port Canaveral, Nassau, GSC trip on Breakaway, but I think I'm going to move that over to a Gem Canada trip and take my mom. With Gem being smaller it will be less crowded and easier for her to get around.

 

Then I'm actually looking at Carnival's new ship which has a few sailings from NYC next year. They have something called Havana Cabana (or something like that) which sounds like a cross between the Haven and Vibe. Only people in the Havana rooms have access to a pool area and you have to be over 12yo to be booked into one of the rooms. We'll see what happens

[hansolosmom]

Great review! Thanks.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

 

Thanks for the review.

 

You're welcome, I'm glad to re-live the trip while writing it. :D

[Clarea]

Very well written review, enjoyed reading it.:)

[packguru]

Thank you so much for the review and especially the picture of the bed! I was going to bring an air mattress so that my boys don't have to "touch," but after seeing this I am sure that they will be fine :) We leave tomorrow and are so excited, but hopeful that Haven is not as crowded!

[oceanfun77]

It was crowed, but I found it quite bearable. I was looking at weeks in may and June and May 28th was cheaper than other weeks for some reason, and so that's why I chose May 28th (that and only using 4 vacation days).

 

I don't know why that week was cheaper than the previous week though.

[BostonGal35]

If you think about it, you would only need to take 4 vacation days from work which may have made it more attractive to people.

 

 

 

 

that's exactly why we went! we always go first week of september too, for the same reason (and its hubby's birthday).