Breakaway 7/29 7 day Review

[valandemmy]

Thought I would give a quick review from our recent 7 day Breakaway cruise out of Miami...we have about 12 cruises with CCL, this was our Second with NCL. 

Traveling this time was Me-46, Wife 42, Son - 14  

 

Worked a 10 hour day on Friday drove home then a 13 hour drive to Miami...wife and I took turns driving so it wasn't that bad (she hates to fly...so drive it is).

 

Made it to the Downtown Hilton early in the morning on Saturday and they were nice enough to let us check in at something like 7AM   Hotel was nice, surrounding area was okay...wanted something quick to eat at lunch and went across the street to Checker's and Burger King and both were dirty and out of almost everything...as in the counter person said "we have whoppers, grilled chicken and a few fries"  this was like 1 in the afternoon...ended up driving out to get something.

 

CHECK IN

Next morning off to the ship...it was a very quick drive (only a few minutes)...parked in the garage and dropped the luggage with the porters...

check-in was very easy and up the escalators to the waiting area.  We had 9 to 930 check in time and were sitting the waiting area by 920- boarding group 1.

there was a slow trickle of people coming in and within a couple of hours the area was PACKED...people were standing everywhere...and had started all gathering around the one small entrance to start the boarding process.  There were only two workers at this area, and they kept giving different information to each persn who asked a question...people started getting angry and yelling and cursing...when they finally started boarding, they tried to  board in order but it got out of hand VERY quickly and basically people started ducking under the ropes and just walking on..which made more people upset..so within about 5 minutes..the people working basically said screw it..and everyone just walked through ...it was seriously CRAZY and I hope NCL has some better protocols set in place in the future

 

Food

After boarding we went to O'sheehan's  for lunch and a couple of drinks - Food was fresh, service quick and friendly.  We actually ate here several times during the week and each time the service was good, food was hot -

Dining Rooms - Taste and Savor -  Tried Three times to eat at both of these places for dinner and each time was told "WE HAVE NO RESERVATIONS" you can go to the Manhattan room to eat "they have plenty of room there".  the desk people were not rude per se, but certainly were not friendly.  Who knew with FREESTYLE cruising...you needed to make reservations...kinda takes the freestyle part out of it..

Manhattan Dining Room -  Ate here 3 times, food was fairly good, nothing was hot, more like luke warm.. Service was friendly, but slow..almost an hour and half for appetizer and main course...didn't stay for dessert 

OCEAN BLUE -  Highlight of the trip, Service was amazing, food and drinks were Fantastic...these guys were tripping over themselves to take care of us. It really was a Fantastic experience.

Noodle Bar - Service was quick, food was nice and hot and pretty tasty as well.   ate here once

Garden Buffett -  Although it could get crowded here, the food was decent buffet food, workers were friendly, lots of variety as you would expect

 

Room -  We stayed in a "mini'Suite" on the 9th floor, Right above Syd's Pour House -  not bad except from 9 to 11 and the music was so loud itw as shaking the floor.  Beds were firm, but not horribly so.  Room Steward did a great job,  I enjoyed the 2x a day room make up vs CCL only once per day.

 

Entertainment - 

SIX - OMG this show was fantastic and is a MUST NOT MISS -  Again, you need to make sure to get reservations or do a "standby" line...there were seats left on our show but it was pretty packed.

Comedy - Only did one comedy show and left pretty early on..some guy named FLIP something.  He started making fun of the ship workers and mocking their names and accents...not something I wanted to listen to and didn't find it funny so we left

Burn the FLoor -   didn't make reservations...couldn't find a seat on standby...so had to miss this one.

 

Here is one of my biggest gripes about this ship...WHY THE HELL is everything done in the atrium..  like EVERYTHING (except for the big shows).  every game, no matter the size of the crowd is done in the atrium that can not fit nearly enough people.  Carnival does the love and marriage type shows in the theater...Breakaway did everything in the atrium, it was always packed hard to find seats for the bigger things....just seemed like bad use of the space.

 

Drinks -  We did the upgraded drink package and for us it was worth it for the Starbucks and the water's.   We certainly drank enough alcohol as well, but the "top shelf" stuff isn't that important.  I did get a couple of top shelf drinks..and every time the bartender's would say..it was a waste because you couldn;t tell the difference in the mixed drinks...then they saw the "gold card" (their words - lol) and was like ok..here ya go...

 

PORTS-

GSC -  FANTASTIC,  brought our own snorkel gear and spent several hours doing that and drinking before heading back to the ship

PR - docked from 4 to 11.  was off the ship and walking around for about 2 hours before heading back.  The Fort had closed at 4pm so couldn't see that... 

USVI -  Didn't get off the ship ....If we don't have any excursing planned we find it fun to have the ship mostly to ourselves and like to make use of that.

 

That's about all I can think of...Any questions, feel free to ask

 

Charles 

 

[2boyzmom]

Thank you for the review. Is Six offered more than once?

[valandemmy]

3 minutes ago, 2boyzmom said:

Thank you for the review. Is Six offered more than once?

 

Yes,  Three times if I recall correctly.  I know the night we went it was 7PM and 10PM

[redwave]

Ty for review. If u happen to have any of the dailies, can you please post? Ty.