Random thoughts about Breakaway Jan 2020

[luv2kroooz]

Just returned from 11 wonderful days on Breakaway. Here are some random observations from our cruise. Overall we had a wonderful time, and I’m happy to answer your questions.

Entertainment:

I really loved the former Fat Cat’s Jazz & Blues club, but I enjoyed Syd Norman’s even more. Top quality four piece 80’s cover band, Switch, swapped nights with the Syd Norman’s House Band, made up of four musicians and five singers. The House Band really had a Choir of Man feel except in a smaller venue. Great entertainment here. It is loud, though.

Six – mixed; didn’t love it didn’t hate it.  Actually, left about one-half of the way through.

Ed Harvey on Solo Guitarist, Natural Mystic Reggae Band, Vox and Keys Latin Duo and Wallison Melo Cocktail Pianist. Wallison is an amazingly, talented, classical pianist, but his style was probably not the best fit for the NCL nightlife. He is an extremely humble guy and visits with the guests during his breaks.

Headliners – Howl at Sea - usually a great time, but these three just didn’t draw in the crowds like usual. Comedians were fine – Frank Townsend and Danny Cardinale. They also do a show in the theater if you miss or can’t get into the Headliners Club.

I think NCL, and especially the Away class ships, have some of the best entertainment at sea.

Food:

I’ve previously shared my thoughts on the decline in dining room food offerings. Way too much chicken, pork, and turkey, but oh well, at least I was prepared for it. No issues with the lunch menus….lamb, fish and chips, shrimp salads, all very good and much more solid offerings. I think this menu is being phased out though.

Garden Café very average with many repeated offerings each day. Not much carved beef, mostly just rotisserie chicken. Also, tuna fish salad removed from buffet. Chicken salad and egg salad available every day for 11 days. The “egg” salad looked pretty bad….maybe leftover powdered eggs? We did grab some shrimp cocktail on Fisherman’s Buffet night. It has been suggested by some on cruisecritic that NCL’s cutback of seafood is due to changing demographics. I would suggest that the lines to get the shrimp would prove otherwise. The poor buffet servers could not fill the bowls with shrimp fast enough, as the “shrimp-deprived” guests were devouring it. It was actually kind of sad to see people acting like that.

O’Sheehans is back to serving dinner. Choices like Pepper Steak, Shrimp Po Boy, Chicken Paella, Fried Chicken, Chicken and Sausage Gumbo, Chicken Pot Pie, BBQ Grill, BBQ Ribs, etc. It’s a lot of chicken and pork, folks.

Cagney’s tried Prime Rib and liked it. Interesting that there has been another iteration of the menu. You can now have Classic Shrimp Cocktail at no upcharge OR Black Tiger Shrimp Cocktail with a $5 upcharge. I passed on both in exchange for a salad. Tried 8oz tenderloins at Bistro and Cucina. No complaints on either.

Only complaint is with service. There were times in the specialty restaurants where we had to ask for salt and pepper shakers, then one night we had two salt shakers but no pepper shaker, then one night bread but no butter. And then the time when the hostess went to pull my chair out for me only to find a ton of bread left over the seat and carpeting from the prior guests – I am assuming a baby or kid. They could benefit from slowing down instead of trying to turn tables over in 5 minutes. It doesn’t ruin my cruise, but the 20% service charge was not earned in our case. Fortunately, we were platinum or above so the meals were free, but if I were paying, I would think, wow.

 

Booze:

Went for the PBP this time. Overall, it was money well spent since this 11 day run through the Caribbean was intended to be a relaxation cruise. We only left the ship in Harvest Caye. Drinks were of good quality and strength and we tried a lot. Shakers very crowded all the time. I did note that most of the standard drinks on the menu are now made with the lower quality alcohol. Rebellious Fish – Wheatley instead of Grey Goose, many of the Martini’s Absolut instead of Belvedere or Tito’s, etc. Also, flavored grey goose has disappeared and replaced by Absolut Mandrin, Citron and Vanilla. Also, only light beers available are domestic…no more Corona Light or Heineken light. Just Michelob, Coors, Miller, and Bud. The bars will be busy at peak times so you should expect a 5-10 minute max wait.

Ports:

Missed GSC (no big surprise there). Breakaway has made it zero times in the last three attempts. Truthfully, the tender conditions were unsafe. Also missed Costa Maya due to heavy wind and swells. Ship docked but broke two mooring lines and we pulled out just after 11am. No one hurt, thankfully.  Overall theme of this cruise was windier and rougher than typical in the Caribbean in January.

[FLAHAM]

Am I reading this incorrectly, or did you not leave anything for the servers at the specialty restaurants?

[Shell1964]

We are going on the Breakaway Feb 8th our second cruise so really excited . Did you have dinner reserved or what are our chances to get in on the evenings without reservations ? I’m getting to understand that we may very well not get into GSC as I’ve read many have not made that port . Enjoyed your thoughts thanks for posting 

[MNcruisingcouple]

12 minutes ago, Shell1964 said:

We are going on the Breakaway Feb 8th our second cruise so really excited . Did you have dinner reserved or what are our chances to get in on the evenings without reservations ? I’m getting to understand that we may very well not get into GSC as I’ve read many have not made that port . Enjoyed your thoughts thanks for posting 

 

In our experience, we've always had good success booking dinner reservations immediately upon boarding.  We usually arrive early and are among the first to board.  If you want to book shows, it is better to do that first and then dinner.  But those should be your first two stops upon boarding.  On the Breakaway last year, they were booking dinner reservation in Headliners on embarkation day.

We've done this with groups as large as nine and got reservations that we were happy with.

Have a great cruise!

[luv2kroooz]

58 minutes ago, FLAHAM said:

Am I reading this incorrectly, or did you not leave anything for the servers at the specialty restaurants?

I don't add any additional tip on the additional tip line. I pay the recommended $15 service charge per day to NCL and trust them to take care of their staff appropriately.

[luv2kroooz]

17 minutes ago, Shell1964 said:

We are going on the Breakaway Feb 8th our second cruise so really excited . Did you have dinner reserved or what are our chances to get in on the evenings without reservations ? I’m getting to understand that we may very well not get into GSC as I’ve read many have not made that port . Enjoyed your thoughts thanks for posting 

We booked the cruise last minute so everything was "sold out". Once the system was online on boarding day, everything was available and we made our reservations at that time. I've had success with same night walk up reservations after 8 pm, but on this cruise at least at La Cucina, they were crowded through at least 9pm on both nights we were there.

[JoeTec]

Currently on the Breakaway. Missed GSC today also. Seas are very rough even with a pier I doubt we could of made it there so definitely couldn't tender. Ship is rocking pretty bad

[Shell1964]

Oh no . Are people sea sick ?

[FLAHAM]

3 hours ago, blcruising said:

I don't add any additional tip on the additional tip line. I pay the recommended $15 service charge per day to NCL and trust them to take care of their staff appropriately.

My understanding is that the DSC does not cover specialty restaurant personnel. 

[luv2kroooz]

Just now, FLAHAM said:

My understanding is that the DSC does not cover specialty restaurant personnel. 

I don't know and NCL won't tell. They can have a direct tipping model or a pooled tipping model but not both. Otherwise, I have to adjust the DSC for the foregone MDR meal by some arbitrary amount and then think, well, gee, we ate lunch on Harvest Caye and not in the garden cafe. I don't want to do that on vacation, so I just tip the recommended amount. I did take a look at my specialty restaurant check and it states that a 20% service charge is included in the check and to use the additional tip line to reward outstanding service. Maybe that's why the menu prices are so high. A $50 steak is really a $42 steak with an $8.40 service charge baked in.

[FLAHAM]

4 minutes ago, blcruising said:

I don't know and NCL won't tell. They can have a direct tipping model or a pooled tipping model but not both. Otherwise, I have to adjust the DSC for the foregone MDR meal by some arbitrary amount and then think, well, gee, we ate lunch on Harvest Caye and not in the garden cafe. I don't want to do that on vacation, so I just tip the recommended amount. I did take a look at my specialty restaurant check and it states that a 20% service charge is included in the check and to use the additional tip line to reward outstanding service. Maybe that's why the menu prices are so high. A $50 steak is really a $42 steak with an $8.40 service charge baked in.

20% of a platinum coupon is $0.00.

[luv2kroooz]

1 minute ago, FLAHAM said:

20% of a platinum coupon is $0.00.

Correct. As stated, I don't write anything in the additional tip line for the free meal.

 

[Pat.D]

4 hours ago, blcruising said:

Just returned from 11 wonderful days on Breakaway

 

Me too :)

 

4 hours ago, blcruising said:

Top quality four piece 80’s cover band, Switch

 

I really REALLY enjoyed them!

 

4 hours ago, blcruising said:

Howl at Sea - usually a great time, but these three just didn’t draw in the crowds like usual. Comedians were fine

 

I agree, not sure why... they were quite decent and put on a good show.  Different vibe from the 3 pianists who were on when I sailed the Breakaway in Sept but still very enjoyable.

 

4 hours ago, blcruising said:

I’ve previously shared my thoughts on the decline in dining room food offerings

 

Yes, I found the MDR food not great but acceptable.  Similar to their offerings in Sept.  And again the buffet's fares were mostly of "ok" quality with some exceptions (like that scary egg salad!), but I found the selection extremely lacking and very repetitive.  Both the MDR and Buffet do not compare in any way to the food on the Bliss last march which was orders of magnitude better.

 

4 hours ago, blcruising said:

Drinks were of good quality and strength and we tried a lot.

 

Also had PBP, and also tried many different drinks over the cruise (and just a little too much on one night! :) )  Never really waited more than 2 or 3 minutes for service at a bar and in most cases was satisfied with the product (I'm no connaisseur of fine booze so take that for what it's worth).

 

4 hours ago, blcruising said:

Also missed Costa Maya due to heavy wind and swells. Ship docked but broke two mooring lines and we pulled out just after 11am

 

I was on the Waterfront watching the docking procedures and saw the side wind was bouncing us into the pier and saw one of the lines snap... I was glad the Captain made the prudent choice to drop all moorings and sail away from the pier asap.

 

Overall I enjoyed the cruise... this was a last minute booking that did not cost me a lot and honestly it was well worth it for me. I had a great time and though there were some small issues here and there I don't really have any major complaints.

 

Pat

 

[Pat.D]

By the way I just posted a PDF of the Freestyle Dailies for this cruise.

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2727979-freestyle-daily-breakaway-11-nights-jan-11-2020/

 

[luv2kroooz]

One other item of mention.....cruisecritic website can be accessed for free from any computer onboard including your personal device. There is a blurb in each freestyle daily encourage guests to post their experiences.

 

I thought internet speed was acceptable for checking emails and light web browsing.

[Shell1964]

On 1/23/2020 at 3:52 PM, blcruising said:

We booked the cruise last minute so everything was "sold out". Once the system was online on boarding day, everything was available and we made our reservations at that time. I've had success with same night walk up reservations after 8 pm, but on this cruise at least at La Cucina, they were crowded through at least 9pm on both nights we were there.

Thanks very much for the tips 

.

[Paul Bogle]

The cruisecritic website can be reached. The boards cannot be reached without an internet package.

[luv2kroooz]

2 hours ago, Paul Bogle said:

The cruisecritic website can be reached. The boards cannot be reached without an internet package.

Was not my experience last week on Breakaway. I had no trouble surfing the message boards on my personal device without a paid package.

Edited January 25, 2020 by blcruising

[Paul Bogle]

1 hour ago, blcruising said:

Was not my experience last week on Breakaway. I had no trouble surfing the message boards on my personal device without a paid package.

 

I was on the same sailing. When I tried to access the boards it just timed out. The regular cruise critic site loaded just fine.

[lizord]

On 1/23/2020 at 8:20 PM, FLAHAM said:

20% of a platinum coupon is $0.00.

The gratuity is included in the coupon, no other gratuity is needed.

[FLAHAM]

1 hour ago, lizord said:

The gratuity is included in the coupon, no other gratuity is needed.

Didn't say anything to that effect on my coupons.