Breakaway-smelly aft

[acct1975]

Hi,

I just got off the Breakaway (Jun 19- Jun 26 sailing) and had a aft balcony for the 1st time. The smell of diesel exhaust was so pervasive that using the balcony was nearly impossible. It was also present in alot of the public spaces (like Spice H2O). In all my research on the aft cabins this smell was never mentioned so I was very surprised.

 

Things I'd love to know from the community:

 

1) anyone who sailed on the Breakaway previously, did you notice the smell?

 

2) is this something I should come to expect on other ships? I's been a while since I've sailed NCL and I don't remember noticing it before.

 

TIA

[Dcoy]

May I ask which deck you were on?  

[SimplyAlbert]

We had an aft balcony on the Breakaway in February (Deck 10) and never noticed any smell.  We were out there a lot and at all times of the day/evening.

[acct1975]

1 hour ago, Dcoy said:

May I ask which deck you were on?  

Deck 13 but I had heard from others that they could smell it as far down as deck 10

[acct1975]

46 minutes ago, SimplyAlbert said:

We had an aft balcony on the Breakaway in February (Deck 10) and never noticed any smell.  We were out there a lot and at all times of the day/evening.

I wonder if there was a more recent engine issue then? 

[tgloersen]

2 hours ago, acct1975 said:

Hi,

I just got off the Breakaway (Jun 19- Jun 26 sailing) and had a aft balcony for the 1st time. The smell of diesel exhaust was so pervasive that using the balcony was nearly impossible. It was also present in alot of the public spaces (like Spice H2O). In all my research on the aft cabins this smell was never mentioned so I was very surprised.

 

Things I'd love to know from the community:

 

1) anyone who sailed on the Breakaway previously, did you notice the smell?

 

2) is this something I should come to expect on other ships? I's been a while since I've sailed NCL and I don't remember noticing it before.

 

TIA

Sailed BA in November was on Deck 10 Aft, yes the smell was really bad.  We complained almost every day.  SOme new exhaust wash system they installed is causing this.  Not an easy fix.  I would stay awy from the Aft cabins on BA.

[spanishguy1970]

3 hours ago, acct1975 said:

Hi,

I just got off the Breakaway (Jun 19- Jun 26 sailing) and had a aft balcony for the 1st time. The smell of diesel exhaust was so pervasive that using the balcony was nearly impossible. It was also present in alot of the public spaces (like Spice H2O). In all my research on the aft cabins this smell was never mentioned so I was very surprised.

 

Things I'd love to know from the community:

 

1) anyone who sailed on the Breakaway previously, did you notice the smell?

 

2) is this something I should come to expect on other ships? I's been a while since I've sailed NCL and I don't remember noticing it before.

 

TIA

We were on an aft Balcony on the Gem once and we smelled diesel fuel too, but only at certain times, didn't bother us much. However, on  the Jewel we experience worse smells, our whole deck 11 smelled like sewage pretty much throughout 10 days of our 17 day cruise. We asked for a different stateroom but unfortunately at the time the Cruise was full, It was an inside cabin. talk about miserable.

[Pat.D]

Not a balcony, but last March on the Epic out of San Juan the Spice H2O area was often unusable when the ship was on her way.  We were constantly rained on with smelly nasty greasy black soot and chunks of what looked like limescale coming from the exhaust chimneys. 

For the ship with arguably the best Spice H2O of the fleet it was a shame it was often unusable. 

[Pie]

UGH  We are aft on BA in Sep (Haven)

Edited June 29, 2022 by Pie

[HuliHuli]

I've only encountered soot from the funnel on decks like the Great Outdoors.  Both Breakaway and Getaway have new scrubbers installed to reduce emissions.  But it should not come as a surprise to encounter exhaust odors downwind from the stacks.

Edited June 29, 2022 by HuliHuli

[hallux]

Here was a thread regarding a similar smell issue on the Getaway in March - 

 

[ShipsAreTheBest]

One of the challenges of these extremely large ships is that the funnel (smokestack) is not as tall as it probably should be.  Stack height is key to having the smoke clear the decks.  But when a ship is as large as Breakaway you are limited on stack height in order to keep the air draft of the ship low enough to clear bridges (think the Verrazano Narrows in New York).  Ever notice how squat the funnel looks on Queen Mary 2, given her otherwise large size?  It was so that the ship could clear the Verrazano.

[bstel]

last time I sailed on the Breakaway (last year) definitely smelled exhaust in the Spice H20.  No soot that I saw.  But with all the smokers at the bar and taking up half of Spice H20 I didn't stay very long.

[redwave]

Unrelated q, if you happen to have a dailies from one of the days you can share, wondering what the splash academy hours are?

ty

[Muffin Slayer]

We went on this ship a few years ago. The aft smelled so bad they had to move our cabin. Not like fuel oil but more like sewage 

[CruisinMaterial]

The NCL Breakaway and Getaway had a smoke stack reconfiguration during COVID to add the scrubber system by them. They were fine before COVID and now afterward, the Norwegian Getaway Spice H2O area was impossible to be in day or night with the way the winds were caring the exhaust fumes. The wind wasn't carrying the exhaust over the big screen TV so it would trap it in that area. How it was getting pulled into the decks below, I don't know.

 

I would suggest NCL lengthen the smokestack heights on those two ships since the upgrade wasn't a smashing success it seems.

[hallux]

1 minute ago, CruisinMaterial said:

I would suggest NCL lengthen the smokestack heights on those two ships since the upgrade wasn't a smashing success it seems.

They would need to implement retractable stacks like some RCI ships have, in order to fit under some bridges into ports.

[Shellbelle28]

On a number of aft suites I've been in, all we could smell was the ship's bakery! Much nicer than exhaust. 

[acct1975]

19 hours ago, redwave said:

Unrelated q, if you happen to have a dailies from one of the days you can share, wondering what the splash academy hours are?

ty

unfortunately I didn't save my dailies. I think recall that the Splash Academy was open 10a-12p the 2p-4p and maybe 7p-10p on sea days with only the evening times for port days. I'm fairly confident on the day times but the evening hours are a little more fuzzy since we only used them during the day