A Winter Break(away) - Family Breakaway Cruise - February 4 - 11

[tripleboom]

Hello again fellow cruise lovers! I'm excited to share my observations, photos, and tips following our Breakaway sailing earlier this month. Despite some rough weather and port shuffling, we had an incredible time as a family on this cruise, and I couldn't wait to get home and share our thoughts and review with you all!

 

First off, I always like to introduce our family a bit at the start of my reviews.  My wife and I reside in southwest Iowa near Omaha, Nebraska where we're raising two boys.  I'm employed in the insurance industry, while my wife, a Clinical Laboratory Scientist, saves lives on the daily in a hospital laboratory.  We've been married for 16+ years, and have enjoyed seven NCL cruises prior to this one (Sky 2011, Sky 2015, Escape 2017, Breakaway 2019, Bliss 2021, Breakaway 2022, and Joy 2023).  Here's a pic of all of us from Christmas:

 

 

Because we're so far from any cruise port, we typically get to cruise about every 12-18 months or so if we're lucky, but when you've got CruiseNext certificates burning a hole in your pocket and you find a good deal, then who can resist?? So we booked in late September and started counting down the days until we set sail though the Western Caribbean.

 

We didn't tell the boys about it because we decided to make it their Christmas gift this year. We're at the stage of life where they don't need more "stuff," and with only 4.5 years left before out oldest graduates, we're soaking up family experiences as often as we can. 

 

This year we decided to change things up a little in how we revealed the gift. We bought a few smaller gifts so they'd have some stuff to unwrap on Christmas morning yet, and carefully hid 9 teeny, tiny ducks in the gift wrap of their presents. They were so small that it took them a little while to start finding them, but eventually they found all nine. On the underside of each duck we wrote a letter, leaving them to unscramble the mystery word. It took them several minutes, but eventually they got there!

 

 

[tripleboom]

With Christmas behind us, we struggled though a bitterly cold, snowy January with wind chills plunging into the -30°s and lower. Nothing makes you appreciate an upcoming cruise like ice forming on your eyelashes!

 

 

 

But by the time early February hit, we had hit a warm streak and had dry roads for the trip down to Kansas City for our flight to New Orleans. We flew out the day before the cruise, and with a cheap rate AND a direct flight, K.C. was the better option than Omaha this go round.

 

 

When we arrived at the airport, we found that they were READY for the Chiefs Kingdom that was heading to Vegas!

 

 

Before long, our chariot had arrived, and we were off!

 

 

With only 60 some folks onboard, it was nice to spread out!

 

 

Fun seeing my oldest enjoying documenting his own journeys now too. Raising a little aviation nerd, just like his dad.

 

Edited February 14 by tripleboom

[pezgirlroy77]

We will be on the Breakaway on the 25th with a 13 year and 7 year old so looking forward to reading this. 

[tripleboom]

Our space crazy boys were pretty thrilled with the NASA display in the New Orleans airport terminal.

 

 

It was raining pretty heavily upon arrival, so I was grateful we had arranged our airport transfer in advance thorugh Viator. Our driver, Debi, had her Ford Excursion parked in the short-term garage attached to the terminal, and we were loaded up and out of there within about 5 minutes of gathering our luggage! After fighting through the Carnival Parade traffic (several parades had just been postponed to Sunday due to the rain), we arrived at the hotel and Debi helped us haul all the luggage out and we were able to check in shortly thereafter.

 

For this trip we stayed at the nicely appointed Cambria Hotel in the Warehouse District. Connor, a trombone player himself, wasn't sure what to think of the art in the lobby.

 

 

With persistent rain in the forecast the rest of the night, we ordered some UberEats pizza and called it a night early, watching Titanic of all things. 🤣 Tomorrow would be an eventful day as we embarked on our 7-day sailing of the Breakaway!

[tripleboom]

Day 1 - Embarkation - Port of New Orleans

 

After a night of heavy rainfall and storms, the morning news was filled with reports of flash flooding from the night before. So we weren't in a terrible hurry to leave the hotel. So we had a leisurely morning, ordering in some Hurts Donuts and coffee via UberEats. Yummy!

 

 

The ensuing sugar rush was fortunately burnt off before leaving the room!

 

 

Around 10:45 we saddled up, grabbed the suitcases, and headed for the door to make our pilgrimage to the cruise port.

 

 

As I mentioned before, we've left on cruises out of New Orleans before, and traffic is such a snarled mess down there under normal circumstances that it makes taking an Uber less than ideal. Now, couple that with several rescheduled Carnival parades for Sunday, and we know it would be a bad idea to even bother to try. So we hoofed it the short distance to the terminal.

 

 

We were able to ditch our bags with the porters just before crossing the railroad tracks, and were then in the terminal. I'm VERY happy to report that after past poor experieinces with delays and long waits in LONG lines, the New Orleans cruise terminal staff figured SOMETHING out, and our whole check-in process was extraordinarily smooth! We were through security, checked-in, issues our sign & sail cards, and were waiting with a Boarding Group #16 card within about 20 minutes of arriving at the terminal building.  Two years prior this was about a two hour process, and other arriving later in the day were waiting for hours upon hours for that sailing. ZERO issues this go round, and it might have just been our smoothest emabrkation ever! 

 

 

Within about 5 minutes of sitting down (around 11:20 AM) they began boarding, and by 11:45 our group was called and we headed "this way to the ship!"

 

 

At 11:51 AM, we were on! Nothing like those first few steps onto the ship. I've always felt like that's the last big exhale before a week full of relaxation!

 

[bejw]

Thanks for sharing. 

[tripleboom]

As is our tradition, we start our cruise in the main dining room to enjoy a less hectic lunch than the Lord of the Flies situation going on up at the buffet. 😁

I started with the hushpuppies as always:

 

 

Connor opted for the first of what would become MANY cheesebugers. A man after my own heart...

 

 

And Landon opted for a cheese pizza (which came EXTRA cheesy!) and some french fries:

 

 

Among the many good choices on the menu, I opted for the fish and chips. Yum!

 

 

Everyone LOVES the chocolate and orange mousse and it was just as rich and delicious as I remembered!

 

[tripleboom]

While at lunch, I was busy getting our phones connected to the ship's WiFi, and getting them each registered on the $9.95/phone messaging app. This would become super important for us to be able to keep tabs on each other throughout the day, particularly on sea days when the boys were often off doing their own thing with new found friends.

 

In the past our rooms were frequently ready by the time we finished lunch, but again, we were allowed onto the ship so early that I wasn't belly aching that they weren't ready yet! We had some business to attend to with the boys so we headed to Splash Academy to handle registration. With an 11 year old and a 14 year old, they were going to be split between Splash and Entourage for this sailing, but they've handled that ok before. I will say Splash Academy and Entourage both are much nicer, larger spaces than they were on the Joy.

 

We were able to register the boys for both Splash and Entourage at the same time while in Splash, so that worked our very nicely. 10-12 year old Splash participants can, with their parent's permission, check themselves out of Splash after a 2 hour period, so we opted to allow Landon that freedom. The staff in Splash also had both the Splash and Entourage "dailies" for the boys, so they could know what was going on each day before they arrived. Seems like I always see the ship dailies, but rarely see the ones for the kids' programming published, so here ya go!

 

Entourage

 

 

Splash Academy

 

 

Safe to say Landon's grown up just a bit since his first trip to Splash Academy in 2019!

 

 

 

The gaming options and space in general on floor 2 of Splash Academy really is great! Wish I could peek in for a night just to check it out in action, but hey... rules are rules!

 

[James_Elmore]

Enjoying your review!

[mjmagee]

Following and enjoying!

[tripleboom]

With kids' clubs registration behind us, we made a beeline for one of they boys' favorite spots on the ship: the arcade! Located on Deck 16 near American Diner and around the corner from Entourage, this arcade has plenty of options for fun games for the boys to play. At a cost of $175 ($25/day basically), you can register one card for the Unlimited Arcade Package (UAP) on the green swipe machines. The other machines, which produce tickets for prize redemption,have yellow swipes and each have a very prominent placcard on them stating that they are not part of the unlimited arcade package. The boys combined some Christmas money from family to purchase ONE arcade package between them. Because the one active card is limited to 3 game activations per every 3 minutes, you have to be a little careful not to "lock out" the card, but our boys proved to be plenty responsible and never had any issues. Many of the games last longer than a minute or two, so there was no issue with them passing the single cabin card back and forth between them. 

 

Games are plentiful, and the following pictures show a relatively small sample of those available to play for free once the UAP is active.

 

 

 

 

 

[tripleboom]

After some time in the arcade, we headed up to check out Entourage for Connor too. Again, compared to the meager offerings on the Joy, this Entourage is a palace! Foosball, air hockey, video gaming, and a huge lounge area. Score!

 

 

 

Shortly after we wrapped up our game of Foosball (Landon and Stacy won after a brutal own goal by me), they announced that the rooms were ready, so we headed down to Deck 9 to check it out. We were in room 9864 this go round, a BF class balcony. I really do prefer Deck 9 over others, and with the mid-ship location within about 100 steps of the elevators this was really quite perfect. My only gripe is the way that the Waterfront canopy partially blocks the view, but I would gladly trade that off for the nice access to Decks 6, 7, and 8, The Waterfront, and most of the evening action on the ship.

 

 

Other than that, it's really a perfectly run of the mill balcony stateroom. Those that read my Joy review may remember that we got a "lucky" upgrade to a club balcony suite last year, only to discover once on board that it was directly over the Cavern Club, home to the Beatles cover band and late night karaoke. NOT ideal. With that in mind, I booked a room this go round that was directly above... the photo gallery! It was wonderfully quiet every night!

 

[tripleboom]

Since luggage hadn't yet arrived at the stateroom, we decided to bug out for a bit before hanging out in the room too long. So we headed up to the top decks to see what more we could find to do, hitting the sports complex first:

 

Despite Landon's indication to the contrary, I did in fact win our game of Pig.

 

We knew there was a pool table down in O'Sheehan's, so we were wondering if the UAP would work on the games down there too. Turns out, yup! Landon's UAP card allowed us to play pool, darts, pop-a-shot, and air hockey down in O'Sheehan's too!

 

 

 

 

Connor and I got our revenge after our earlier Foosball loss:

 

 

[tripleboom]

After the gaming marathon, we headed back to the room and got busy unpacking and setting up the room. None of our cruise hacks are news to anyone, but magnetic hooks, hanging toiletry bags hung by the magnetic hooks, and the over the door shoe organizers have been huge in ensuring we make the most of the limited space in the cabin with four people in it! But then we felt the ship begin to move and booked it up to the deck 16 for sailaway!

 

 

 

 

With the sun rapidly sinking and lunch closing in on 8 hour ago, we headed to Savor for our first dinner of the cruise.

 

The Spicy Crab Wontons w/ Chili Sauce have been on the menu in the past, so I remembered this one being very good!

 

Connor didn't care for the shrimp cake, but I thought it was pretty decent when I sampled a bite.

 

I opted for the chicken picatta main dish. It was delicious, and probably the second best entrée of the cruise. 

 

Connor's New York strip was awfully fatty and on the tough side. MDR beef just isn't what it used to be unfortunately.

 

Meanwhile, Landon opted for old reliable. 🍕

 

Shortly after dessert, the boys bugged out and headed to their respective kids clubs for a while. Meanwhile Stacy and I finished up setting up the room. Unfortunately, Connor didn't find the ice breaker activity at Entourage all the enthralling, so he returned to the room early. So we decided to make the most of it and hit the hot tub in Spice H2O. It's worth noting a couple of things:

 

1. Spice H2O opens to all ages after 7pm each evening, so kids aren't an unusual sight back there after hours.
2. The hot tubs in Spice are normally pretty full during the adult only period, but aren't discovered in the late hours until later in the cruise week typically. So we found an empty tub without issue.
3. The towel exchange closes by 8pm, and they weren't available anywhere else on the ship, nor are they placed in your stateroom on Day #1 as they had been doing several years back. As such, we wound up having to bring our room towels up with us. 
4. The hot tubs in Spice H2O close at 10pm, so plan accordingly.

 

With that, Day 1 drew to a close and we prepared for what was expected to be a BUMPY ride through the gulf on our first sea day.

Edited February 15 by tripleboom

[pezgirlroy77]

Very important question: did the arcade card work for that skeeball machine I see? If yes, that might mean we get a card. 🙂

[tripleboom]

1 hour ago, pezgirlroy77 said:

Very important question: did the arcade card work for that skeeball machine I see? If yes, that might mean we get a card. 🙂

 

I wish!! I may have never left! Unfortunately it produces tickets like the other prize redemption machines. Honestly, they may sell more UAPs if they made them part of the package and got rid of the tickets! 

[pezgirlroy77]

26 minutes ago, tripleboom said:

 

I wish!! I may have never left! Unfortunately it produces tickets like the other prize redemption machines. Honestly, they may sell more UAPs if they made them part of the package and got rid of the tickets! 

Darn it. That is very helpful information. Thanks. This trip report has already been so helpful. 

[tripleboom]

Day 2 - Day at (Rough) Sea

 

If I have one double-edged quality, it's that I love information. I research, over-research, and then go back to check that my re-research was accurate. That's normally a great quality, but not terribly helpful when I can't do anything about the information I receive. Case in point: before we left home, I was looking at sea condition forecasts for the Gulf during our trip. Turns out that our day at sea was expected to have gale force winds and up to 16' waves. I know that that shouldn't be trouble for a large cruise ship, but this was also coming off the heels of Royal's Voyager of the Seas making headlines for its incident in the Gulf. I really wasn't that concerned, but my motion sickness prone wife....... Wasn't so sure about her. 😬

 

As we made our way into the Gulf overnight, we could definitely feel the ship rocking side to side pretty noticeably, but in a "rock-a-bye baby" way. Not a Metallica concert mosh pit kind of way. While there were plenty of whitecaps to go round, it never really felt too terrible all day. 

 

We started our moring in the Garden Cafe checking out the breakfast options. Fun to see the boys remember and retain their own little cruise hacks. They dove into the fray and said "see you at the back." If you struggle to find a table along the sides of the buffet, there's almost always some tables available in the back, and you can drop your plates and THEN go get a drink from the refreshment station OR the small bar that's staffed in the back of the buffet too. In short, skip the long lines at the front of the buffet, grab food from the duplicate stations (including second omelet stations) further toward the back of the ship, and find a seat with a view of the wake of the ship!
 

 

After breakfast the boys headed off to check and see if there were any sports deck activities available, and Stacy and I headed to The Waterfront to read in the quiet. Always a favorite of ours!

 

When we got out to The Waterfront, we discovered that none of the chair cushions had been set up yet from the previous night. At this point, the winds weren't particularly bad, and in fact the ship was sailing WITH the wind, so the perceived winds on board were even lower. I thought it odd that we basically had to go and set up our own chair cushions at 11:00 AM on the first sea day, but this would actually be an issue a couple of other times. I get them not wanting cushions to fly away, but they literally have anchor points that attach to the chairs themselves, so.... 🤷‍♂️

 

However, about 45 minutes to an hour later, a staff member did come and let us know that they were closing The Waterfront entirely in anticipation of poorer weather ahead. The boys had just arrived back from finding that the sports deck was closed, so we packed up and headed to the great indoors.

 

Having realized the potential for iffy sea days for this itinerary, we packed several of our smaller games for this trip, and headed to the card room on Deck 6, just forward and to the starboard side of the atrium. The tables weren't huge by any stretch, but plenty of space for smaller card games. This short duration, card stealing one called "Mantis" has quickly become a family favorite:

 

 

After a few rounds of Mantis and Exploding Kittens the boys bugged out to head to the arcade for a bit. So Stacy and I played a few rounds of our favorite 2-player game, Duel, while the waves really started rocking! On one occassion a very large wave crashed into the window directly behind her! Pretty startling, but not entirely a surprise given how far forward and low this room is.

 

 

Edited February 16 by tripleboom

[tripleboom]

After a couple hours in the card room, we dropped our games back at the cabin and then headed to O'Sheehan's for a 2:30 lunch date. Splitting appetizers is always a solid plan.

 

Forgot to take a pic of the yummy burgers, but dessert was good as always.

 

 

 

Before too long, the boys tracked us down after finding the afternoon offerings in the kids' clubs to be "mid, bruh." So we took advantage of Landon's UAP again, hitting the game offerings in the O'Sheehan's area.

 

Did you know that they may gyroscopically equipped, self-leveling pool tables for cruise ships? They are sooooo cool! Unfortuantely, there's not one on the Breakaway. 🤣 It made things a little challegning, but honestly we had so much fun just trying to play the game this way, and the folks at the surrounding tables were having a good time watching us struggle.🎱

 

 

By 3:45 (and they were probably up even earlier) the MDR menus were available for perusal, and nothing really interested the family. I did find it interesting that you can now order a Cagney's steak while in the MDR.

 

 

Having just opted for O'Sheehan's for lunch, that left us with the buffet as the only kid-approved option for the night, so we hit it. Lots of yummy food, though less variety than I remember from past cruises. Missing the theme nights like BBQ, asian, etc. Some of those elements were there every night, but not any theme nights where there were pockets of nightly variety.

 

Meanwhile, Landon had no problem finding the crêpe station, but we gave him a hard time when he couldn't quite finish it.

 

 

But Landon's pride got the better of him, and he polished it off. Which he didn't regret. Not at all...

 

 

And with that, we called it a night. Big day ahead (or so we thought) in Cozumel!

 

[James_Elmore]

Love the details on this review!  I relate to the over planner in you.  Any chance you kept dailies?

[tripleboom]

38 minutes ago, James_Elmore said:

Love the details on this review!  I relate to the over planner in you.  Any chance you kept dailies?

Sadly, no. I normally do, but as we're about to find out, the dailies for this cruise won't really be relevant to most other cruises. Stay tuned. 😉 

[fethiyeden]

Love your cruise recaps. Thanks for sharing another family adventure with us. The boys are growing up fast.

We were on the breakaway last January from New Orleans. Unfortunately no cruise for our family this year.

[tripleboom]

22 minutes ago, fethiyeden said:

Love your cruise recaps. Thanks for sharing another family adventure with us. The boys are growing up fast.

We were on the breakaway last January from New Orleans. Unfortunately no cruise for our family this year.

 

Thanks for following along! With the oldest starting high school next year, I'm really starting to feel that first twinge of "he's almost gone." The past 14 years have gone quickly, but I suspect 4 years of high school will absolutely fly by! Not sure what our family vacation structure will look like in the years to come with busy high schoolers, but we'll always make time for each other in some fashion!

[tripleboom]

Day 3 - Cozum.... Wait a minute....

 

With a scheduled arrival in Cozumel of 8am, Connor and I were up early enough to snag some breakfast while Stacy prepped for the day and Landon worked on finishing digesting 15 pounds of

crêpes. Connor and I headed up to the buffet which was quite crowded, as is the norm on port day mornings. However, this was getting to be late in the morning, and while we could SEE Cozumel, we were definitely arriving late. We could see two Royal Caribbean ships in port already, but could also see a nearby Princess ship that was also hovering nearby but not actively trying to dock.

 

Sure enough, as we ate, Connor and I noticed that we began to pull away from the pier, and a short time later the Captain came over the PA to announce that we were unable to dock in Cozumel today due to high winds and strong currents in the docking area. There was a pretty audible groan from those in the buffet, and I'm the first to admit that I was among them. Two sea days in a row, particularly if the weather was still going to be iffy, was not my cup of tea. Honestly, I was pretty upset by the cancellation given that two Royal ships were able to make it in just fine.  However, I would come to find out later that those two ships had been there OVERNIGHT, not being able to make it out of port due to those aforementioned conditions.  Lesson learned, the Captain knows what he's talking about and always has your safety in mind first.

 

Day 3 - Day at Sea 2 - The Sequel

With that, the ship started to head toward Roatan to hope for more favorable conditions the following day. Connor and I headed back to the stateroom where Landon and Stacy were waiting. They heard the announcement start late, and not directly in the staterooms, so we had to brief them on what we had learned. Our cruise director made an announcement that revised Dailies would be issued for today with amended entertainment options, and they were soon available in print outside our door, and an hour or two later they were up in the app as well.

 

 

 

Thankfully, as we pulled away from Cozumel, the prevailing winds continued to push us toward Roatan, meaning perceived winds on the ship were minimized, AND the sun started to come out. After a day cooped up indoors yesterday, it was nice to have the promise of some daylight, so we, and 4,500 of our closest friends, headed to the top deck to enjoy the sunshine and a bushwacker.

 

 

Again, the pool deck (15) and sun deck (16) were full up, so we had to head clear up to deck 18 to find any space. And again, with no crew in sight, the passengers were left to pull the ratchet straps off the stacked loungers, and organize them on the deck themselves. I'm still left scratching my head as to why there were no staff there to try to assist or better organize it. Deck 18 wound up being a mish mash of loungers strewn about at odd angles and super inefficiently. I'm sure we could have fit more loungers in had there been some method to the madness, but that was not to be. Stacy and I wound up finding a corner of the deck that allowed us this stunning view of the radome. 🤣

 

 

Meanwhile, the boys were hitting the water slides hard since they had zero time on them the day before. One oddity we noticed throughout the cruise is that only certain slides were open at certain times. I would assume this is due to staffing? Less staff means less slide time for the kiddos that can only use certain slides (like Landon who is under 100 lbs), but I'm sure less staff means reduced cruise fares for us, right? Not increased profits for the cruise line? 😏

 

Once they were done with the slides, the boys decided to try out the ropes course before it closed at noon. Again, there is a 3 hour window from 12 - 3 on each sea day where the ropes course is entirely closed, and even during "open" times on the previous days, the staff were present, but kept telling the boys they couldn't operate due to either the smokestack blowing back toward the course or winds being too high. We LOVE the Breakaway's top deck for kids' activities, but when half of them aren't operational, safety reasons or not, the children get a little restless!

 

Fortunately, this go round they were able to get suited up and tackle the course, though only about one half was open, so no plank and no zipline portion.

 

 

 

 

 

[tripleboom]

 

 

After getting a little on the red, side Stacy and I went to check out the Waterfront to see if there were any seats to snag. No such luck, but no trip to The Waterfront is complete without a trip to see the wake.

 

We also decided to check out the dinner menu for the night to see if we could find anything that looked like a winner. I was tempted by the bang bang shrimp, but no one else felt it was all that appealing, so we opted for a buffet dinner again on this night.

 

 

With the drop slides open at 3pm, Connor finally decided it was time to conquer his fears, and take on the challenge!