Just off Breakaway 11/19 very brief overview

We were on that cruise also and actually was one of our better ones. DH is mid-80s; I'm upper 60s. We live in NYC....very close to the port. This was our 4th time on the ship (about 15 cruises total); we booked it 9 days prior to departure (before the Gem announced it wasn't sailing).

The last time we were on the BA was 12/2016....where about half the ship was a group from "a far away land" where pushing and shoving is a way of life....and they hogged the atrium, they hogged the buffet, they hogged the elevators and just about every "free" spot. By comparison, I never felt that this sailing was crowded.

A major difference for us is "no kids".

I was thrilled when I found out "Arvin & Emily" would be performing in the atrium. We saw almost every act and never had a problem getting a seat. We weren't chair hogs and didn't get there hours in advance.

Sometimes we started by standing and when someone left grabbed their chair. The other shows....well, they were the same as the other 3 times. However, instead of (I forget her name) a singer, the magician gave 2 shows. He was OK....but my preference would have been song & dance.

We ate almost exclusively in the buffet and we never had a problem finding a table. I'm not a vegetarian but my diet is mainly fruits and vegetables and the choices they had were amazing. I was also able to get my almond milk. The one time we ate in O'Sheehan's we had to wait 30 minutes for a table and 30 minutes for a hamburger (hamburger/fries was a splurge for me) and so NOT worth the wait.

I never had a problem getting a treadmill in the gym (I also did the stairs a few times a day between 9 and 15) and despite eating more than enough cakes/cookies/ice cream....I came home without gaining an ounce.

Basically....we cruise to relax, because we can book close to the sailing,because we hop in a cab in in 10 minutes we're at our destination and because I can get my healthy food.

Unlike most people I enjoy Nassau and always get a piece of jewelry (despite it probably being overpriced) as a memento of the trip. Since they closed the lagoon, I don't care about GSC (this was the first time I was on a ship that skipped it). I don't like the rows of chairs and the long lines for a piece of chicken. In Port Canaveral we did the "Orlando Eye/Aquarium" excursion which was excellent. It's mainly indoors,so the weather didn't affect us...and as a note...good for kids. When a ship gets in at 1pm I think Kennedy Space Center/Universal/Disney are too rushed. Those are good if the ship gets in earlier.

As a note....the BA is huge. If you want space you need to be in the Haven or get a spa pass. Probably coming from a densely populated area is why I don't find the BA crowded (except for my 12/2016 trip). As far as the weather....you just have to work with it.

As always it took forever to get off the ship. This time we waited until all the colors had been called...and it still took an hour and a half from leaving the buffet to getting in a cab.

 

As a note....the BA is huge. If you want space you need to be in the Haven or get a spa pass. Probably coming from a densely populated area is why I don't find the BA crowded (except for my 12/2016 trip). As far as the weather....you just have to work with it.

 

As always it took forever to get off the ship. This time we waited until all the colors had been called...and it still took an hour and a half from leaving the buffet to getting in a cab.

Only time I had felt it truely crowded was dropping my daughter off at Splash Academy. I was just really surprised at the number of kids on this sailing as school is still in session in the US. It might have been a holiday in Canada or something. When I wanted to escape from people I just went to the port side waterfront. There was never anyone there. Only problem is that the bars also were not open when I was there. The kids aqua park also got very crowded by around 10/10:30 but by that point we had been there for almost 2 hours anyway and were about to finish up.

Getting off for us was also easy. We had the second self disembark tag. We were off and on the street in probably 30 minutes. For some reason it seemed like the elevators just stopped working from the afternoon of day 7 till we got off. I felt like I was waiting for one for like 5 minutes each time I went to get one. The rest of the trip they were fine. We we were leaving the ship we ended up taking an elevator up from 12 to go down to 7 and that worked well.

I think the fact that we had the toddler with us probably changed our view a bit. I would rate the relaxation of this cruise a little higher than my last Allure cruise, but with that one our daughter was under 2 and couldn't use the clubs so that put a big damper on that vacation. This cruise was still a lot of fun, just never really felt like anything special.

Thanks for sharing your impressions and views for the BA. A lot has changed in mass market cruising in the last 5 years, NCL not excluded with its "innovations" - I think you will likely find booking & sailing on the mid-sized ships like the Gem or Dawn, etc. (nicely refurbished in 2015-16) to be a better experience, and far shorter lines & wait, if any. We just re-booked the Gem for 2018, something we typically don't plan that "far" in advance but had a pretty good offer/deal package that we couldn't resist - just applied a CruiseNext deposit, thus, nothing to be posted against our credit card ... yet.

We sailed the BA before you on a week with - fortunately - fewer children and probably more solo travelers ... on a less crowded ship than our last 3 times (same ship) - so we pretty much knew what to expect and tried our best to avoid certain places, i.e. buffet was mostly a zoo & circus (with more than a handful of annoying adults, whose native language isn't as popularly spoken and practically foreign to the norms & culture of cruising, as we know it. )

GSC has always been a tendering port, we used to jump off the boat's landing ramp & take a few steps for getting onto the rocky & sandy beach - at the "discretion" of mother nature. We managed to stop there on Halloween but decided last minute to stay on the ship, surprisingly finding about 1/2 of the fellow cruisers had the same smart idea ... chair hogs weren't a problem and there're plenty of loungers in the shade, and/or further away from the pool area.

I agreed about that designed smoking section, portside by the pool on deck 15, passing thru that area is a potential hazard for those allegic to nicotine odor ... that should be starboard side in AFT, let the smoke blown away from the ship - while respecting those that choose to inhale.

Food reviews & impressions are subjective and personal in nature, but I do agree in that O'Sheehan's wasn't all that great, compared to the Gem ... same menu, same food & likely prepared with identical receipes out of the ship's gallery. Pace and speed of service were at least prompt, fast & friendly - we have had bad experience with that on the BA, twice before. We had booked (since there're 5 of us) the Manhattan for several nights but gave up, somewhat, after eating there twice for dinner, finding it to be too noisy and slow, food serving temperature just "warm" - Taste & Savor, were again, our venue of choice for the rest of the week (aside from our 2 specialty dining meals)

I commented this on our post/blog that NCL really, really need to re-think that boring, same old Daily Lunch main in the MDR (when it's open ... closed for GSC & Nassau) and not even offer one single daily chef's special ... absolutely no creativity, whatsoever, dare I say, not acceptable especially on longer 10 or 11 and 14 days sailing. They do it with 3 Daily Features in the MDR for the sit-down Breakfast menu, why ... why can't the Executive Chef come up with something !!! Maybe in 2018 when they update & change the menu selections again for the rotation, they will consider this.

Attention to details - yes, I saw that and we are in agreement ... not that it ruined our cruise, but it was annoying and not a good benchmark for a 4 star dining experience. If the waiter didn't catch the asssitant's oversight, the head waiter and asst manager working the shift should've spotted those little things that matter ... missing salt or pepper shakers, no tea spoon when coffee or teas were served, creamer but no sugar, unlit "LED candlelight", etc. Perhaps, it had to do with seeing a good # of newly hired NCL trainees on the ship, learning and not very comfortable with their duties, and, a few clearly indicated that're not very happy at all ... with months remaining on their contract as DW spoke to several newly hired crew "miserable" members from overseas.

We had our mandatory muster drill inside Manhattan MDR last month so that was a huge relief, instead of being human "sardines" in the Fwd Atrium lobby, packed with easily 1,000 pax & crew ... Otherwise, it was packed but not too bad except on Sea Days and when Outdoors are closed due to rough seas and/or weather ... yulp, not enough seating nor thoughtful design. And, I would add that BA Main Theater is really what I consider to be a school auditorium, not a grand style one like the mid-sized NCL ships.

For others thinking about sailing the mega-ships, reading a few reviews would've likely helped with setting expectations and planning the cruise a little better, or to experience at least once just to compare ... well, enough excuses to book & sail the Gem in a few months (again) where we'll likely find services to be just as good, if not better (probably) and just as much things (or as little) to do - and, a "different" & friendlier deck layout ... plus, far fewer passengers & a better crew ratio.

Procedures for priority tendering and disembarkation has changed also compared to 2016 on the BA, and we also find that to be "different" ... I'm going to comment on those when I find some time this weekend to write up & post a review on CC, others that sailed before us had "warned" about the long wait to get out of the cruise terminal.

We were also on this same sailing. GSC - I never expected to get there... I must be the jinx, so don't travel this itinerary when I am on the ship. Four times we have done this itinerary and we have never made it to GSC.

This is not our first time on the BA, but I did feel it seemed more crowded then before in the Atrium and OSheehans. As far as the kids were concerned, feel lucky that you are not on the this weeks sailing and we were told there were over 1200 kids sailing.

We only ate in the buffet once for a snack and only ate in Taste one evening. The rest of our meals were either at the Specialty restaurants or The Haven restaurant and had no complaints about the food.

I also wondered why they kept advertising Second City Comedy when they were no where to be found. I was not that thrilled with their show anyway last time that we saw them on this ship. I was not overly impressed with any of the shows I saw in Headliners. Magic and Mayhem was entertain and ROA is my favorite.

We are booked on The Escape next year since the BA is leaving and going to NOLA. Not excited about even more people, but what are you going to do if the ships keep getting bigger and bigger.

We were also on this same sailing. GSC - I never expected to get there... I must be the jinx, so don't travel this itinerary when I am on the ship. Four times we have done this itinerary and we have never made it to GSC.

 

This is not our first time on the BA, but I did feel it seemed more crowded then before in the Atrium and OSheehans. As far as the kids were concerned, feel lucky that you are not on the this weeks sailing and we were told there were over 1200 kids sailing.

 

We only ate in the buffet once for a snack and only ate in Taste one evening. The rest of our meals were either at the Specialty restaurants or The Haven restaurant and had no complaints about the food.

 

I also wondered why they kept advertising Second City Comedy when they were no where to be found. I was not that thrilled with their show anyway last time that we saw them on this ship. I was not overly impressed with any of the shows I saw in Headliners. Magic and Mayhem was entertain and ROA is my favorite.

 

We are booked on The Escape next year since the BA is leaving and going to NOLA. Not excited about even more people, but what are you going to do if the ships keep getting bigger and bigger.

Yes I heard about the 1200 young ones this week lol. I'm sure my experience would have been different in the Haven haha.

Anyway...in regards to some earlier responses...I knew going in that being on the "mega-ship" might be an issue (thus the reason I picked a week that is *supposed* to be slow traditionally) I'm certain that the Gem breakdown was a major contributing factor to the overcrowding. On day 1 right out of the gate I overheard crew members remarking to each other that "this is worse than I expected". Unfortunately that confirmed my fears going in.

We made the best of it...obviously getting to GSC would have help but I knew the drill on that going in (we are now 2 for 4 on private island visits)

Maybe this was just a particularly bad week for Osheehans but I was pretty bummed about the food there combined with the wait times and slowness of food delivery. The corned beef stew was really just cabbage and potato soup...zero corned beef in it. The wings were really mediocre at BEST...I think we are spoiled where I live on those...the breading was a disappointment (was told in the last it was just a slight coating...not now) The fajitas were ehh...I guess I went into there expecting a little better quality in the pub food. The fact that every time we went to it required getting a pager and waiting (including after 2am one night) probably didn't help my view of it.

The extreme lines for the kids activities on deck were also a big negative. If they know there is a full boat why are these activity hours so limited...and they are *never* all open at the same time...which further contributed to the long lines...if you are funneling everyone on board to 1 or 2 activities when there are 4 different ones available you can imagine that those that are open are going to get crushed.

Management to crew communication...clearly missing GSC is not an unusual event. When this happens they adjust the onboard activity schedule to attempt to compensate...unfortunately the news didn't seem to get to all of the crew that is assigned to take care of those newly scheduled activities very quickly. We ran into a few different spots where crew seemed to have been caught unaware that there was supposed to be an activity taking place or a venue open on the day that we were supposed to be at GSC. I found that surprising.

As far as choosing the "mega ship" over a mid sized one...I debated over this when booking the trip to begin with. The idea was I felt BA would give my kids more fun things to do than a mid sized ship could afford to them...which in a perfect world (or maybe even the average week before Thanksgiving sailing...see Gem issue above) would have been true...unfortunately the lines and congestion I feel may have completely negated all of those extra fun options for them.

My teenager still had a good time...and the other kids did overall. My wife and I...not as much as we would have liked...but as was said before...a day on the boat is better than a day at work...unfortunately we can't take cruises ever year...or really even every other year. So we'll have to wait a few and see how things look in 2020 or 2021.

We just got of the Breakaway, we got lucky and we did make it to GSC so happy about that, we had a great time on the island. I'm sorry you didn't have a very good experience.We didn't have any issues, yes a lot of people on board, but all in all it was well manged ( Thanksgiving cruise) The only time we had to wait a bit long for our food was when we got to GSC ( understandably so, since a lot of the crew is busy getting supplies to the Island, and on disembarkation day also understandable. The Gem is our favorite ship, but we find the Breakaway to be very lovely with lots of options for dinning and entertainment.We would certainty book her again.

Marion

Thanks for your view.

I think I heard that the Secind City contract finished literally last week and wasn’t being renewed? TBH most of the feedback I’ve heard was that it was never that good, and people often left, but can’t talk from personal experience... that’s just the main feedback I’ve seen from research I’ve done.

Yes, we had them on the Gem earlier this year, and was not impressed at all. Very poor.