Girl's Trip ~ Breakaway Dec 13th ~ Booze, Food & Fun Review

[wanderlust81]

Hello! I don’t post on here too much, but before my last 3 cruises I’ve really enjoyed reading people’s reviews, it’s helped a ton on deciding what to do during my trips. So I’ve decided to finally attempt a thorough review. I apologize in advance for the dwindling number of (random) pictures as the week goes on, I’m a total slacker when it comes to taking them! The quality will not be so great, I took them with my iphone. I did save all the Dailies, I’ll try to get those scanned when I’m done with the review.

 

A little background…

I’m a 34 year old woman from Connecticut. Back in 2007 (I believe) and 2010 I took two short cruises, both on Carnival Imagination. In 2012 my husband and I took the NCL Pride of America cruise in Hawaii. In February 2014, and again last week (12/13/15 sailing) my 34 year old friend since college,“L” and I took the NCL Breakaway to the Bahamas (those are the only 2 cruises she has been on).

 

So neither of us are the most experienced cruisers by a long shot, but we do both travel a lot. My husband does not like beach/laying out in the sun vacations or leaving the country, so L and I are great travel buddies, especially those kinds of trips.

 

Since I never reviewed our last trip on the Breakaway either, I’ll make some comparisons as I go along. We had SO much fun the first time, we had to do this trip again, and I think we did it even better this time – which also means it was sadly even harder to come back this time! :cool:

 

Please let me know if you have any questions as I go along and thanks for reading :D

Edited December 23, 2015 by wanderlust81

[wanderlust81]

Pre-Cruise Day

 

Last time we used a car service from Central CT to NYC and it was pricey, so this time we decided to talk my husband into dropping us off, he graciously agreed and that saved us about $200 each. Of course as soon as we saved some money we found a way to spend it ;) Instead of being dropped off Sunday morning, we decided to look for a hotel room Saturday night so we could visit a couple of the pop-up holiday markets that are all over the city in December. Being a train ride away from NYC I didn’t realize how expensive it is to get a hotel room in December when everyone is flocking to NYC to see the tree. We planned on shopping most of the day, meeting my SIL who lives in the city and meeting some other friends who were in town for dinner, so we weren’t spending much time in the room. The cheapest (and safest and cleanest) option that we could find in a good location was called Pod 51. I did a lot of research and it had great reviews on TripAdvisor/Yelp, despite the fact that it’s cheapest room contained bunk beds and a shared bathroom. So basically an upscale hostel ;) We channeled our younger traveling selves and this ended up being a great option honestly. More hotel details after we got into our room.

 

My husband dropped us off at 11 am and we met my SIL. The room wasn’t ready yet, but we were able to drop off our bags and pay our bill (about $220 with taxes). Then the three of us headed out to Lunch at Republic – a yummy Asian noodle restaurant that’s a favorite of ours. It’s right at Union Square, which is the first market we wanted to visit.

 

We found out on our way into the city that Saturday also happened to be SANTA CON. If you’re not familiar it’s a Saturday in December where a bunch of drunk kids (I feel old enough to call them “kids” ;)) dress up like Santa and bar hop. THANK GOD we didn’t take the train in with all our luggage and a bunch of drunk Santas!

 

After hitting all the great shops in Union Square, my SIL left us for her evening plans and L and I headed on the subway over to the shops at Grand Central Station. After that, we were all shopped out, and decided to walk back to our super conveniently located hotel to freshen up before dinner.

 

Our rooms were ready, so we could finally see what we had gotten ourselves into! We were happy to see the room/hotel was very clean just as the reviews said, we had a sink in our room for face washing/teeth brushing, there was a little tv in the wall next to each bed, the bathrooms were very modern and clean, and there was even a handy electronic display in each room so you could see which private hallway bathrooms were unoccupied.

 

We walked over to PJ Clarke’s for a drink, and then over to Hillstone for dinner with the friends we were meeting - I’d never been to Hillstone before, great restaurant.

 

L talked me into looking for somewhere we could buy cocktails and checking out the Rooftop Deck the person who checked us in at the hotel told us about. Our best option was Duane Reade but we made due. The rooftop deck was awesome! What a nice surprise at this hotel. It was a great place to relax in the unseasonably warm weather and plan for our vacation, and I wish we had bought more drinks :cool:

Edited December 23, 2015 by wanderlust81

[wanderlust81]

Our tiny room (made the room on the ship feel so big!):

 

Edited December 23, 2015 by wanderlust81

[wanderlust81]

Rooftop deck:

 

[wanderlust81]

Day One

 

We headed over to a local diner, the Morning Star Café, for breakfast and then walked around the city a bit to kill some time. Then we took Uber over to the pier, arriving at the terminal around 11:20. We were in boarding group 7 and were on the ship by noon.

 

We grabbed lunch at O’Sheehan’s, we weren’t too hungry, so just had some mozz sticks and chicken fingers and started off with our first 2 drinks of the cruise! Red wine for L and a Paloma for me. We actually ended up having 2 rounds ;)

 

We had pre-booked our spa pass (we used this a ton on our last cruise, it was so much colder), but neither of us had had time away from work before the trip to get pedis, so we end up to the spa to book those for the following morning.

 

After getting those scheduled, we headed to our room and were pleasantly surprised to see our luggage sitting out a little way down the hallway. We had a Mini-Suite with a Large Balcony 8726 – it was awesome! Last time we were on the opposite side on deck 8 in a standard balcony room. We really enjoyed the lounge chairs on our balcony and the larger shower and double sinks. So far we were loving our room selection.

 

However, at this point we were really re-thinking our plan to wait until we were on the ship to shower (rather than dealing with Pod’s bathrooms down the hall). I took a quick shower, but L had to head to the muster drill without getting to shower. Luckily it was a super fast drill, and she was then able to take a quick shower before heading to the Sail Away party.

 

We made it up to Spice H20 for the sailaway party and walked right into Sponge Bob and Patrick dancing :confused: We decided we weren’t ready for a kid’s party yet, so we went back down by the pool bar, ordered a couple of drinks and watched the Statue of Liberty go by from there. Eventually we headed back up to Spice, got a couple of martinis and enjoyed the music, watched people dance, and got to see the ship under the bridge from there which was really cool (better than the view we had from our balcony last trip).

 

I should say here that we are both foodies and definitely enjoy our adult beverages on vacation :cool: Last time on Breakaway we paid for the Unlimited Beverage Package and ended up paying for specialty restaurants 4 nights. This time we got the UBP as a promo, and paid for the UDP.

 

A couple of days before our trip I saw that the Cirque Dreams Jungle show was only $11 something each with tax and Ocean Blue was only $16 each with tax (I guess because we had the UDP). We had skipped both last time, but with the discount decided to do both the first day.

 

So around 4:30 we headed back to our room to get ready for our 5:15 Cirque show. We were really surprised when we got a call in our room at 4:45 asking if we were still coming, because the house was “filling up” and they wanted to make sure we got good seats. We were really baffled by this, we had figured we only needed to be 10 mins or so early, but having not gone to any shows other than Second City last time, we were inexperienced, so we ran quickly over to the Spiegel Tent.

 

It was pretty empty when we got there, and we were given dead center seats, just one family away from front of our table. I would say probably only about 1/4-1/3 of the seats were occupied by the time the show started. Not sure why they made those calls, except maybe they were concerned about low attendance the first night?

 

I’ve seen many Cirque de Soleil shows in Vegas and traveling shows, and I definitely wasn’t expecting this show from Cirque Dreams to be up to the same standard, but the first half hour we were both a little concerned about how long this show might seem ;) While Cirque de Soleil always has a story, is beautiful, subtle and sometimes a little dark, the first half hour of this show had a lot of people in really bright sparkly animal costumes just running around and making noises for no apparent reason. It felt a little amateurish. However, after the first half hour it really picked up, the acrobats in this show were without a doubt VERY talented, and their acts got more complex and interesting as the show went on. There wasn’t a story, but we enjoyed it nonetheless. I would definitely recommend the show, especially if you haven’t seen Cirque de Soleil before, in the end we did enjoy it. The food was actually better than I was expecting, but by the point the entrée came out, I was intently watching the acrobatics, and only ate about 3 bites of steak because it would have been too distracting to focus on eating. I really think it would be better if they offered this show without dinner.

 

After the show we stopped by the Atrium for drinks and Movie trivia at 7:15, then we headed over to Ocean Blue for dinner around 8.

 

Ocean Blue was delicious! Not sure I would pay $39 each for it, but for the price we paid (even above the UDP package) we both though it was well worth it. I had the Alaskan King Crab Legs appetizer and the Sea Scallops for dinner (delicious, the pork belly it was served with was perfect) and two delicious martini specials. L had a salad and the filet, and she liked it was well. We shared a chocolate cake for dessert which was pretty good.

 

I was a little tipsy at this point – oh, first day with UBP ;) – so we decided to go for a walk around the waterfront since the weather was so nice.

 

Then we headed down to our first night of many at my FAVORITE spot on the ship from last time – Howl at the Moon - until they stopped performing around midnight. If you’re not familiar, Howl at the Moon is a dueling piano bar where they take requests (especially those with tips) and it is SO much fun. The first night was low key, but it definitely got better as the cruise went on (more to come on that).

 

Then we called it a night…

Edited December 23, 2015 by wanderlust81

[wanderlust81]

 

 

 

 

 

[brikee]

Enjoying the review so far and pictures. Thanks!

[krazy4kruisin]

I hope to read the rest of the story.....

[DMH15]

Very nice. I am hooked.

[Keith1010]

Enjoying your review/report.

 

Keith

[thistimeplease]

Enjoying!!

[Aerynea]

I love your review style, JUST enough info without going overboard, please finish :)

[Cruise-mom]

Great report!

[supergirlteacher]

Anxiously awaiting the rest of your review!! :)

[Sprasa03]

Also waiting, love the pix!

[Le Cruisester]

great review, looking forward to more. Going on the BA in September

[Sparkles87]

Great review so far!

 

I'm on BA this July and have a couple of quick questions.

My cruise sets sail at 4pm - was it the same for yours?

What time roughly were you sailing past the Statue of Liberty? I really want to get some pictures but I am a solo cruiser and don't want to miss the first solo gathering and really hope the timing doesn't clash! Do you perhaps recall seeing the solo gathering times listed?

 

Thanks!

:D

[khaide612]

Great review so far!

 

I'm on BA this July and have a couple of quick questions.

My cruise sets sail at 4pm - was it the same for yours?

What time roughly were you sailing past the Statue of Liberty? I really want to get some pictures but I am a solo cruiser and don't want to miss the first solo gathering and really hope the timing doesn't clash! Do you perhaps recall seeing the solo gathering times listed?

 

Thanks!

:D

 

I'm going solo in February and will let you know if no one else answers. But I think they aren't going to have that gathering during the Statue of Liberty pass or under the Verrazano Bridge pass.

[Sparkles87]

I'm going solo in February and will let you know if no one else answers. But I think they aren't going to have that gathering during the Statue of Liberty pass or under the Verrazano Bridge pass.

 

That'd be great... thanks! :D

I would certainly hope not but you never know - the solo gathering on Epic in the Med is always during sailaway.