Just off the Breakaway

[bigrednole]

We had a good cruise this week, not great, but good. I will breakdown all of the parts of it that pertain to my family. Since we only have one other cruise on Carnival, that is how I will be comparing some of the comments.

 

Port of NOLA: We were glad we cruised from this port and down the Mississippi once. It is nice to say we did it. However, we probably won't do it again. It is not a convenient location for us to fly to because we have no direct flights and flights are not cheap for us. If it is a convenient port for you, by all means I would recommend it to anyone.

 

Embarkation/Debarkation: Very smooth and easy process. Nothing really to it other than the bit of waiting.

 

Drink Package: No issue here and love how they do this differently than Carnival. Hand them your card, get your drink and card back. No dealing with signing a paper that has a tip line on it for drinks you already tipped on. I don't want this to be a tipping argument. To each their own. Drinks were good, no limits, and you could get two at a time. 

 

Specialty Dining: We ate at Moderna and Teppanyaki. Teppanyaki was incredible for $30, but was $50 for us so just good. Only minor complaint here is that the cooks routines are all the same. What happened at the table next to you, you got to see again from your chef. Moderna was a different issue. The food was good, not great. The food came frequently and most tasted very good. The real issue was with the table server. We had 6PM dinner and 7:30 passes to Six. At 6:45 we told the waiter we needed our card and bill. 15 minutes later a manager walked by and we told her that we need to get to the show. Well, we get to the show and our spots were gone to standby passengers. We were told we could go to the late show. However, long day traveling and getting use to the time change and late night before, we weren't able to go. We wound up not being able to see the show because of the waiter.

 

Casual Dining: These are all the places you could walk up and eat at with no extra charge: Shanghai Noodle Bar, buffet, O'Sheehan's, etc. I have to admit, we did not go to the dining room at all. With the 2 specialty dinners, we had no need to go to a sit down meal more. That is just our style. O'Sheehan's was great the entire week for snacks, drinks, hanging out, and just having a good time. Changing dinner special every night was nice too. My daughter said the noodle bar place was great. The buffet was adequate, not great not bad, but serves its purpose. The one complaint about the dining are the burgers. They were either moo'ing or hockey pucks. I don't think could get one right at all. This is where Guy's Burger on Carnival surpasses NCL by miles.

 

Shows: I hinted at this earlier, but we missed them all. Got nixed from Six and the canceled Burn the Floor. There was a duet couple (Rockabout Duo I think). That woman sang so well and her partner (not sure if they are married dating or just play together) belted out a country song that made you take a double look. Just a country sound from someone that doesn't fit the mold. The whole pool was loving it. I loved seeing them when they were around the ship. Howl at the Moon was mediocre. For it to be good, the crowd has to be involved. The problem with this show for us was a certain person the ruined it for many. People put $10 up, they start to play the song, and this person would pay them to not play it. I am sorry, the players should give the money back to the people they took it from. So many people just walked out because of it. Sad sight where a few can have their fun but ruin it for 100 others.

 

Ports: We will definitely NOT do a Western Caribbean on NCL again. Cozumel was good, but some excursions got moved from the good reefs to some others that were just blah. We used an independent company and they offered a complete refund if we wanted. We chose to go and in hindsight, it was the right decision. The only reason is because we missed Roatan. According to the crew, they say the Captain is a chicken. Missed Roatan 3 out of 4 weeks. We were getting near Roatan before RCL, then hard turn and away we go. We got to watch the Allure go into port and dock. The crew completely unprepared and nothing really going on for a bit. Just wasted time scrambling and crew having to go from bed to work. Roatan was the main port for so many people we talked to. We don't get a refund of the port fees because the port was open and other ships docked. Funny how Allure and Vista ported and this captain turns with a tail between his legs. Next up Harvest Caye. This was a great port, but prepare to go broke. Insanely overpriced because they know it is a captive audience. No other options so charge what you want. Ordered only one drink, paid $15 and there was no alcohol in it. Tried not to spend another cent there. We did do the zipline. It was nice to say we did it, but not again. It was good to see Harvest Caye once and once is enough for a lifetime for us. This will be a reason we won't do NCL again on a Western Caribbean itinerary. Now comes Costa Maya. We literally have like 5 hours at most here. Not even worth the stop really. The port area is extremely expensive. The workers there are even telling passengers to get out of the port area because of small pours and high prices. 

 

Bars: The bars were good. Some better than others. O'Sheehan's was always good and Syd Norman's bar out on deck 8 was awesome. Avni and Ricardo were so good and made it fun to be there. The two pool bars were great and moved drinks with the masses quickly. I don't think I have one negative about any of the bars. I think they were all good in what they do.

 

Kids Activities: This is a joke. I felt sorry for families and teens. The teens said Entourage was horrible. It was good to go once to meet people but that was it. They get a band, but it is $20 to replace it. Then, get this, to go on the drop slide, you can't have any jewelry or anything on...this includes the Entourage wrist band. This is so ridiculous. For the smaller kids there was not much. I didn't look at things for them to do because it did not pertain to us, but the splash zone not open, no rock wall, no ropes course, slides open sporadically it seems. They had the typical Atrium stuff like trivia, Mario Kart, and paper airplanes (you get the picture), but not much else.

 

General Overall: We are not sure we will go on NCL again. I just can't put a finger on it, but we just had more fun on Carnival. This is not a knock on NCL. IT was a lot of fun. Just for us, my whole family thinks they enjoyed Carnival more. It could be that the Captain turned away from the main port out of four that everyone wanted to visit. That may have put a sour taste in our mouth as well. I know you can't control the weather but if weather was an issue, none of the other ships would have gone to port. I am an early riser, but walking the pool deck at 5AM and seeing people already havre chairs loaded with stuff was crazy to me. I felt the ship was a bit crowded with 2,450 people onboard. I would absolutely hate it if there were another 1200-1400 on it.

 

In the end we had a good time. Unfortunately, we were not paying for good, we were paying for great. Maybe our expectations were too high, but I doubt it. We had fun with everything that was offered and available. Being able to do everything we were sold on for the cruise probably would have made it great: only 2 chances to see Six, no chance for Burn the Floor, comedy shows booked out insanely fast, Would we take another NCL cruise like this one for $3,200 vs $4,000 on Carnival in a similar room? Probably now, we would spend more to go on a similar Carnival cruise.

 

 

[RocketMan275]

1 hour ago, bigrednole said:

Embarkation/Debarkation: Very smooth and easy process. Nothing really to it other than the bit of waiting.

We boarded at NOLA on Breakaway about a month ago and found the boarding process to be very long.  We arrived at the port around 1130 and stood in line for well over an hour.   We had to show our boarding passes, vaccination cards, covid test, and identification four times before even arriving at the check in desk.  I'm curious whether we just encountered bad timing or if our boarding was typical for NOLA.  Specifically, when did  you arrive at the port, how many times did you have to show your credentials, and how long did it take from arriving to check-in?

 

BTW, we've rebooked Breakaway again for next march and very much appreciated your reports on the rest of the cruise.

[warb]

Great Insight about Breakaway. Yes, for a Big Ship, it has

"Flow" Problems.  We got a Great Haven Deal about five

years ago. That  was Great !  Agree about Carnival. Thanks

for Posting.

[bigrednole]

6 minutes ago, RocketMan275 said:

We boarded at NOLA on Breakaway about a month ago and found the boarding process to be very long.  We arrived at the port around 1130 and stood in line for well over an hour.   We had to show our boarding passes, vaccination cards, covid test, and identification four times before even arriving at the check in desk.  I'm curious whether we just encountered bad timing or if our boarding was typical for NOLA.  Specifically, when did  you arrive at the port, how many times did you have to show your credentials, and how long did it take from arriving to check-in?

 

BTW, we've rebooked Breakaway again for next march and very much appreciated your reports on the rest of the cruise.

We arrived at 9am per our boarding time. We waited outside of the check in portion maybe 15 minutes. We showed vax cards and tests once and that was it. We did have to sit in the waiting area about 1.5 hours.

[RocketMan275]

7 hours ago, bigrednole said:

We arrived at 9am per our boarding time. We waited outside of the check in portion maybe 15 minutes. We showed vax cards and tests once and that was it. We did have to sit in the waiting area about 1.5 hours.

thank you.  That makes me feel much better about my cruise next year.  I received a survey from NCL about my experience in early March.  I complained bitterly about the boarding process.  I also called the concierge desk in Miami too. Checking that paperwork four times was ridiculous.  

 

Since we're staying overnight in NOLA, I'm thinking we may wait until afternoon to board.

[bigrednole]

Wife and I talked about it with our daughter on our flights home. We would never take an NCL cruise again on the Western Caribbean run. The captive audience syndrome of being on Harvest Caye made Belize a useless stop. Either pay the price to go over to Placencia for the ferry, take NCL's 2-3x excursion pricing, or stay on the island paying insane prices. The short stop in Costa Maya is crazy too. You can go out of the port area, but only 5 hours there makes it not worth it. Why even stop there? 

 

I think our enjoyment overall dwindled by 1000 cuts. Shows cut or limited, no rock wall, putt putt, or ropes course. Poor Captain. We would have to look at Eastern to try NCL again and the pricing out of PC, PE, or PoM would have to be really good to consider it.

[tampadee]

Wow, disappointing to hear of shows cut or limited, etc.

 

We're going May 1.  Hopefully, things will be better then?

[dogg1322]

we were on this cruise as well and I would agree with most everything posted here.

 

Skipping Roatan and Burn the Floor being cancelled was a huge disappointment (I will post a separate review when I get a chance).  I see those as two major attractions of the cruise and losing both of those definitely left a bitter taste in your mouth.  We ate at the MDR quite a few nights and found the food good.  We had a teen and a 10 year old with us. Luckily we traveled with another family with kids so they had friends but the teen club was a bust for the teens.  Happy to answer any specific questions people have.  We also ate at Ocean Blue and Cagneys.  Cagneys was the best meal we had on the boat hands down.

[dogg1322]

Sorry forgot to say, we saw Six and apologies to the OP, but it was fantastic.  Do not miss it.

[chrisdar1]

We were on this sailing as well.

 

@bigrednole I agree with almost all of your points about the cruise (good and bad).  

 

My two cents: 

 

New Orleans
We loved getting to visit New Orleans (flew in Thursday night before the cruise), and enjoyed sailing down the Mississippi, but would probably not book another cruise out of NOLA again.  1) we racked up $30 in drink taxes while we were still navigating the river from New Orleans to the Gulf - Not a big deal but it adds up.  2) I'm not sure if that was why our Costa Maya port day was so short.  I assumed it was because it took so long to return back to NOLA, but we spent most of Saturday (sea day) slowly meandering.  Again, I'm not a ship captain and we knew we'd have a short port day in Costa Maya when we booked.  There were itineraries from February that swapped Costa Maya with Cozumel so you could spend a "normal" day in both ports (8:00-5:00), we would have preferred that to what we had on our sailing.  

 

Ports:
We had planned our trip with the expectation of our "big" excursion in Roatan (private tour - monkey/sloth and Infinity Bay day-pass) and to not be able to dock was a big disappointment.  When you add on the fact that Costa Maya was shortened and Harvest Caye (beautiful, but I agree with your assessment for the most part about being held captive), the cruise felt cut short.

Entertainment:
Like mentioned above we didn't get to see Burn the Floor.  When we were returning to the ship in Cozumel there were three guys walking in front of us who told us that the show was going to be canceled because a few of the cast members tested positive for covid and had to quarantine for the rest of the cruise.  They said they were stage managers for the show.  I'm not sure if that's what Technical Difficulties is code for, so take it with a grain of salt.

We did see Six on Saturday and thought it was great.  Also saw the Fleetwood Mac Rumours show and thought it was great as well.

As for the entertainment on the rest of the ship because of the extended time on the ship due to skipping Roatan and such a short visit to Costa Maya, it all ran together and lost some of the luster.

The shows in the atrium were good - some better than others, and as for the musical acts, how many times can you hear Wasted Away in Margaritaville, Sweet Caroline, and Toes in the Sand before it gets repetitive?   

Ship:
Overall the ship was immaculate the entire trip.  Very rarely did I NOT see someone cleaning (stairwells, bathrooms, etc.) almost at all times during the day.   We had a balcony room (with the extended balcony) and there was plenty of storage for our family of four.

The pool deck was crowded (even with only 2400 people on board) especially with the extra sea day from skipping Roatan, so my wife and I spent a lot of time in the Waterfall in Spice H20...   

Our kids (teens) did register for Entourage but by the third day just spent time with a small group that they met earlier in the week and hardly spent time in the actual Entourage club area.  (OP - My daughter did get to keep her wristband on going down the drop slide, so not sure if it was just the person manning the slide that day or not....)

Thought food was really good, and bar service never had a wait time longer than 5 minutes or so (even on crowded pool sea days).  Vlad at Maltings was awesome all week as well.

Disembarkation: 
A quick note about our disembarkation process.  When we got to the luggage storage area, we were missing one of our bags.  I saw a bag that looked a little similar to ours (our bags are black with a neon green trim) and figured out that someone mistakenly took our bag and thought it was theirs.  Carol in the terminal was awesome as she called and texted the person (info was on bag tag).  Our bag was returned to the terminal and then NCL put it on a bus to the airport.  We were able to get the bag before our flight left.  I was really impressed with the communication and effort put into getting us our bag before we left New Orleans - so thank you Carol!

 

Overall:

Like @bigrednole said, we're glad we cruised out of NOLA to experience it, but probably won't do it again.  And we will also make sure that port times aren't shortened down (where possible) for future cruises as well, would have loved to be able to actually do an excursion in Costa Maya but the timeframe was so short. 

 

We had a good week (weather was incredible) and made some great memories and quite a few new friends, so all in all it was a good vacation, just not a great one due to the missed Roatan stop and the short time in Costa Maya... 
 

[chrisdar1]

On 4/17/2022 at 10:16 AM, bigrednole said:

 

Shows: Howl at the Moon was mediocre. For it to be good, the crowd has to be involved. The problem with this show for us was a certain person the ruined it for many. People put $10 up, they start to play the song, and this person would pay them to not play it. I am sorry, the players should give the money back to the people they took it from. So many people just walked out because of it. Sad sight where a few can have their fun but ruin it for 100 others.

 

I saw this happen at Howl at the Moon as well - person in front paying extra for them NOT to play a song that was requested (and paid for).   Not something I expected, I actually thought it was a joke at first, but then they didn't actually play the requested song...  I think this is why they didn't play to a packed house/room all week.

[bigrednole]

1 hour ago, dogg1322 said:

we were on this cruise as well and I would agree with most everything posted here.

 

Skipping Roatan and Burn the Floor being cancelled was a huge disappointment (I will post a separate review when I get a chance).  I see those as two major attractions of the cruise and losing both of those definitely left a bitter taste in your mouth.  We ate at the MDR quite a few nights and found the food good.  We had a teen and a 10 year old with us. Luckily we traveled with another family with kids so they had friends but the teen club was a bust for the teens.  Happy to answer any specific questions people have.  We also ate at Ocean Blue and Cagneys.  Cagneys was the best meal we had on the boat hands down.

Nice to know we were not the only ones disappointed with it. We still had a good time, but this things add up to not make it a great time.

[bigrednole]

45 minutes ago, chrisdar1 said:

We were on this sailing as well.

 

@bigrednole I agree with almost all of your points about the cruise (good and bad).  

 

Overall:

Like @bigrednole said, we're glad we cruised out of NOLA to experience it, but probably won't do it again.  And we will also make sure that port times aren't shortened down (where possible) for future cruises as well, would have loved to be able to actually do an excursion in Costa Maya but the timeframe was so short. 

 

We had a good week (weather was incredible) and made some great memories and quite a few new friends, so all in all it was a good vacation, just not a great one due to the missed Roatan stop and the short time in Costa Maya... 
 

Your experience was the same as ours. I am glad we weren't the only ones feeling this way. We had a good time that so easily could have been made a great time. Knowing how little it would have taken to get there is what is having us question NCL.

 

[gatorchinsky]

Sorry your cruise experience was not what you wanted it to be, but in these times, having patience and going with the flow is all we can do.  I definitely would not be wanting to cruise with children now because their activities are so limited.

 

OP, you said ropes course was closed.  The entire cruise?  I wonder has any of the ropes courses on any ship been open?

[chrisdar1]

13 minutes ago, gatorchinsky said:

Sorry your cruise experience was not what you wanted it to be, but in these times, having patience and going with the flow is all we can do.  I definitely would not be wanting to cruise with children now because their activities are so limited.

 

OP, you said ropes course was closed.  The entire cruise?  I wonder has any of the ropes courses on any ship been open?

 

The ropes course was definitely open.  My kids did it early in the week and I did it on Saturday (our last sea day).

[bigrednole]

7 minutes ago, chrisdar1 said:

 

The ropes course was definitely open.  My kids did it early in the week and I did it on Saturday (our last sea day).

Wow, I must have missed it. Every time I was there, it wasn't going. I guess timing is key with this as well.

 

[dogg1322]

2 hours ago, chrisdar1 said:

We were on this sailing as well.

 

@bigrednole I agree with almost all of your points about the cruise (good and bad).  

 

My two cents: 

 

New Orleans
We loved getting to visit New Orleans (flew in Thursday night before the cruise), and enjoyed sailing down the Mississippi, but would probably not book another cruise out of NOLA again.  1) we racked up $30 in drink taxes while we were still navigating the river from New Orleans to the Gulf - Not a big deal but it adds up.  2) I'm not sure if that was why our Costa Maya port day was so short.  I assumed it was because it took so long to return back to NOLA, but we spent most of Saturday (sea day) slowly meandering.  Again, I'm not a ship captain and we knew we'd have a short port day in Costa Maya when we booked.  There were itineraries from February that swapped Costa Maya with Cozumel so you could spend a "normal" day in both ports (8:00-5:00), we would have preferred that to what we had on our sailing.  

 

Ports:
We had planned our trip with the expectation of our "big" excursion in Roatan (private tour - monkey/sloth and Infinity Bay day-pass) and to not be able to dock was a big disappointment.  When you add on the fact that Costa Maya was shortened and Harvest Caye (beautiful, but I agree with your assessment for the most part about being held captive), the cruise felt cut short.

Entertainment:
Like mentioned above we didn't get to see Burn the Floor.  When we were returning to the ship in Cozumel there were three guys walking in front of us who told us that the show was going to be canceled because a few of the cast members tested positive for covid and had to quarantine for the rest of the cruise.  They said they were stage managers for the show.  I'm not sure if that's what Technical Difficulties is code for, so take it with a grain of salt.

We did see Six on Saturday and thought it was great.  Also saw the Fleetwood Mac Rumours show and thought it was great as well.

As for the entertainment on the rest of the ship because of the extended time on the ship due to skipping Roatan and such a short visit to Costa Maya, it all ran together and lost some of the luster.

The shows in the atrium were good - some better than others, and as for the musical acts, how many times can you hear Wasted Away in Margaritaville, Sweet Caroline, and Toes in the Sand before it gets repetitive?   

Ship:
Overall the ship was immaculate the entire trip.  Very rarely did I NOT see someone cleaning (stairwells, bathrooms, etc.) almost at all times during the day.   We had a balcony room (with the extended balcony) and there was plenty of storage for our family of four.

The pool deck was crowded (even with only 2400 people on board) especially with the extra sea day from skipping Roatan, so my wife and I spent a lot of time in the Waterfall in Spice H20...   

Our kids (teens) did register for Entourage but by the third day just spent time with a small group that they met earlier in the week and hardly spent time in the actual Entourage club area.  (OP - My daughter did get to keep her wristband on going down the drop slide, so not sure if it was just the person manning the slide that day or not....)

Thought food was really good, and bar service never had a wait time longer than 5 minutes or so (even on crowded pool sea days).  Vlad at Maltings was awesome all week as well.

Disembarkation: 
A quick note about our disembarkation process.  When we got to the luggage storage area, we were missing one of our bags.  I saw a bag that looked a little similar to ours (our bags are black with a neon green trim) and figured out that someone mistakenly took our bag and thought it was theirs.  Carol in the terminal was awesome as she called and texted the person (info was on bag tag).  Our bag was returned to the terminal and then NCL put it on a bus to the airport.  We were able to get the bag before our flight left.  I was really impressed with the communication and effort put into getting us our bag before we left New Orleans - so thank you Carol!

 

Overall:

Like @bigrednole said, we're glad we cruised out of NOLA to experience it, but probably won't do it again.  And we will also make sure that port times aren't shortened down (where possible) for future cruises as well, would have loved to be able to actually do an excursion in Costa Maya but the timeframe was so short. 

 

We had a good week (weather was incredible) and made some great memories and quite a few new friends, so all in all it was a good vacation, just not a great one due to the missed Roatan stop and the short time in Costa Maya... 
 

Interesting on the Burn the Floor situation.  The lady at guest services told us one of the lead males broke his leg during rehearsal...who knows the real story!  

 

Also, my teen kept her entourage bracelet on all week and was not told to take it off for the drop slide also.

[applequeen]

I agree with all of us. We all had a wonderful time overall but there were a few little things that could have been better.

 

The extra sea day and the shortened port added a lot of "ship time" with somewhat limited daytime activities (that appealed to my family). There was a good variety but just not things that would work for a family with kids. It was hard to find things we could all do together without someone being bored. We did enjoy the movies in the atrium and some of the games and activities there. The pool/ slides were difficult because it was so crowded. I've been on enough cruises to know it's just part of being on a cruise but I was surprised that it felt so crowded at such limited capacity. Can you imagine how it would be on a normal cruise?!?

 

I am so thankful that my kids were on the older end of the Splash Academy age group. They both met some friends and were allowed small amounts of freedom on the ship. It gave all of us a break from each other. It's a big ship but it's very easy to navigate and so we never had problems finding our group. 

 

I agree with the Howl at the Moon comments. I understand that type of behavior is normal for many dueling piano bars but it got a little out of hand on the one (and only) night we attended. I guess it's one of those things where the performers should remember that just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD. I wonder how many decided not to make a request because they were worried someone would outbid them? 

 

Harvest Caye is beautiful but the sand is terrible. It was impossible to walk on (shells and rocks). I did love that there were so many umbrellas and places to get shade. I will take the rough sand for the shade! It was pricey but if what I understand is correct, the Belize gov requires that NCL use local vendors/ employees on the island. This is so important as it allows Belize to realize a positive economic impact from our visitation to the island. Tourism is a huge source of revenue for many of these countries and keeping us off the mainland and on an island where everything is controlled by the cruise line isn't smart for Belize. Perhaps NCL could provide information to passengers explaining this (if it's true) and highlighting how spending $ on the island benefits locals. 

 

We purchased some Future Cruise Credits so we'll absolutely be sailing with NCL again although I doubt I would do Western Caribbean again unless it was just too good of a deal to pass up. It was a wonderful week overall and definitely worth the price we paid.