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Solo Bachelor’s Bermuda Journey on the Norwegian Breakaway


Terpsince74
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Thanks for taking the time to post a review....loving it so far along with the fabulous pictures. Exactly what I need the Sunday before I board the Breakaway! So excited!!:D;)

 

roe2ship -- have you joined our Roll Call? You should come to the Meet & Greet! I can't wait for next Sunday. :D

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FANTASTIC review! Thanks for sharing! I just booked a last minute end of summer sailing on the Breakaway, so I really appreciate your detailed review, pictures, and videos. I'm looking forward to reading about your time in Bermuda!

 

Question~Did you happen to notice if there is a running track on top of the ship?

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Hi this is a great review! I am sailing in September on the Breakaway. I am confused about Vibe and The haven.

There is a private pool area on the ship? Do I pay extra for this? Is this haven? what is vibe?

PLease help me understand .

Thanks

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I love cruising solo eat when I want, wake up when I want. And with your roll call you can meet great people and enjoy doing things with them. I have met many nice people thru cc and even before cc. Great review. Anyone who is a little afraid of going solo bite the bullet and go you will not regret it. Cruising is the best way for a solo person to go on vacay. So glad the op had a great time and a great review

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Hi this is a great review! I am sailing in September on the Breakaway. I am confused about Vibe and The haven.

There is a private pool area on the ship? Do I pay extra for this? Is this haven? what is vibe?

PLease help me understand .

Thanks

You have to book certain category room to use Haven ( mostly suites and most expensive). Vibe is adults-only area. You have to buy a weekly pass.

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FANTASTIC review! Thanks for sharing! I just booked a last minute end of summer sailing on the Breakaway, so I really appreciate your detailed review, pictures, and videos. I'm looking forward to reading about your time in Bermuda!

 

Question~Did you happen to notice if there is a running track on top of the ship?

 

Yes there is a small running track on Desk 16. You run pretty closely to loungers so it did not look very ideal to me. If you get up early in the morning or wait until the late afternoon/evening that might work for you. I will try to see if have some pics of that. I also saw some people in the morning running around the Waterfront which I thought was not a bad idea. Not sure NCL wants people doing that but that is possibly another option.

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Hi all,

I apologize for the delay in getting my Bermuda section up. I am trying to make sure that I don't leave anything out. It is also quite time consuming to weave all of the pics and videos into the story. I am hoping to have the next section up in the next few days. Stay tuned!

 

Oh and thanks for the compliments on my legs. By far my better half. LOL!

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Great review and pictures, thanks for sharing your cruising adventures with us. Solo cruising is the best and it certainly has become my preferred method of cruising!

 

Getting ready for solo cruise # 8 this November and I can't wait!

 

Better start planning that next cruise for your new addiction! :-)

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. Please excuse any typographical errors.

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Great review and pictures, thanks for sharing your cruising adventures with us. Solo cruising is the best and it certainly has become my preferred method of cruising!

 

Getting ready for solo cruise # 8 this November and I can't wait!

 

Better start planning that next cruise for your new addiction! :-)

 

 

You took the words right out my mouth! I always love to read about the experiences of new converts.The only problem is it makes me start looking into my next cruise... yes I'm an addict too :D

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Awesome review, with good photos and good writing style! I (male) cruised solo too, and had similar great experiences. Looking forward to more posts.

 

Quick question for you: How did you handle Freestyle dining as a solo? It's one thing that puts me off cruising solo on NCL. I'd be really uncomfortable feeling like a new kid in the school cafeteria every night in the MDR. If you ate dinner with your cruise friends, how did you handle things on the first night, and what was it like?

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Quick question for you: How did you handle Freestyle dining as a solo? It's one thing that puts me off cruising solo on NCL. I'd be really uncomfortable feeling like a new kid in the school cafeteria every night in the MDR. If you ate dinner with your cruise friends, how did you handle things on the first night, and what was it like?

 

The best way to get a group of diners together for the first night is to go to the Solo Cruisers Gathering (in the Studio Livingroom on the EPIC and Breakaway) otherwise in a meeting room on the other ships. That information will be in the Freestyle Daily. There the solos can gather as a group and go en mass to one of the dining venues.

 

I have eaten alone in the MDR and it wasn't horrible at all, in fact they sat another single lady who was in her 80's and has cruised all over the place, at the table next to me and we chatted a bit and made for a very interesting dinner.

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Yes there is a small running track on Desk 16. You run pretty closely to loungers so it did not look very ideal to me. If you get up early in the morning or wait until the late afternoon/evening that might work for you. I will try to see if have some pics of that. I also saw some people in the morning running around the Waterfront which I thought was not a bad idea. Not sure NCL wants people doing that but that is possibly another option.

 

Thanks for the info! Running on top of a moving ship is a lot of fun. Unfortunately, by late morning it becomes more of an obstacle course than running track!

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Day 4- Wednesday July 10th, 2013- Bermuda

I awoke a little before my wake up call. It was not overwhelming, but I could feel some slight vibrating in the ship. At first I thought I may have missed the sail into Port Bermuda. I strolled out to the balcony to see some small islands on the port side of the ship so knew we were getting close. It is a pretty cool feeling seeing land for the first time in a few days. I wanted to see if I could get some cool pics of the sunrise so decided to head down to the aft portion of the Waterfront again on deck 8. There were some clouds which made for an interesting sunrise but it was still pretty.

 

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In the far distance you could see the Celebrity Summit trailing behind us as well. I stayed on deck 8 as we sailed into Port Bermuda.

 

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I was unclear what side we would be docking on. As we got close to the port the ship started turning in a way that made it clear we would be docking port side. I decided to run up to my room to watch us dock from my balcony. That was a cool experience. It is truly amazing how precise these huge ships are. They can turn on a dime and really can do all of this in a pretty quick amount of time. I am sure most of it is computerized this day and age. As soon as we began to get tied up I hit the shower and decided I should get going as soon as I could as I had a big day ahead of me.

 

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Breakfast- Café at the Atrium

I decided to just grab a quick breakfast to go at the Café at the Atrium on deck 6. I ordered a lobster tail and one of those large tasty coffees. The lobster tail was incredible. I also enjoyed my coffee and then headed for deck 4 to exit the ship. I took my iphone off of airplane mode for a quick moment and then made a quick call to my folks to let them know I had arrived safely. I switched the phone back onto airplane mode and headed over to pick up my scooter when after getting off the phone with them.

 

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Currency

I decided to get some Bermuda dollars out of the ATM at the port. I had heard that they accepted USD all over the island. I quickly learned that you would pay for things in Bermuda dollars and they would just give you change in USD. LOL! My advice is just bring some USDs and try to avoid the ATM machine unless you run out.

 

Scooter Rental- Oleander Cycles

In doing my research on Bermuda I quickly learned that tourists cannot rent cars on the island. I have rented scooters in many islands in the past and was aware of the dangers of them. NCL does a good job of warning cruisers to avoid them as they are quite dangerous. I had mentioned it to Marcial, the bartender at Vibe, and he was trying to talk me out of renting the scooter. I was determined to rent the scooter but am not going to lie, it was the source of a bit of anxiety for me while in Bermuda. There really is no better way to explore an island than by scooter. I was told that people drive very fast and like maniacs around the island. I did not find this to be the case but will say that the buses and cars do tend to tailgate you pretty closely on the roads. I tried to just find a safe place to pull over whenever a car or bus got too close to my tail and that did the trick. You also have to get used to driving on the left side of the road which is an odd feeling at first. I lived in England as a kid so maybe it was not as foreign to me as others but it still takes some getting used to. The only thing that felt very awkward was making a right turn coming off of a main road. The other thing you need to get used to is looking to your right when making a right or left turn onto a main road. There were a few times that I realized I had a close call when I forgot to do this. You do get used to it rather quickly but I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to be alert and defensive while riding a scooter around the island.

 

 

Oleander Cycles was a short walk from the ship. I was there in 5 minutes. You walk just past the kiosks/huts to where the road dead-ends and it is dead ahead. I had called ahead to reserve the scooter for 3 days which ended up costing me $150. They could not find the reservation but that did not matter as they had plenty of scooters available. I ended up not even needing the scooter on that final day (as I stayed around the port area) so probably should have just rented it for 2 days. They fit you with a helmet and then take you outside to show you how to start the bike, put it on its kick stand, and also how to lock the front wheel to protect it from getting stolen. You then do a test drive to make sure you are comfortable on the scooter. After a successful loop around the dockyard I was on my way.

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