Semi Live NCL Breakway March 17 to March 24

[Swiss76]

We are boarding the NCL Breakway tomorrow in New Orleans for 7 days. Will post some daily updates. I know that there have been a lot of Live updates from the Breakway lately, but might as well.

 

My partner and I and the in laws have two balcony cabins on deck 14.

 

We were on the Escape for New Years Eve and overall had a good time.

 

if anyone has any questions or needs some specific info from the ship please do not hesitate to reach out…

[Swiss76]

First off, my apologies. I am not sure why I am calling it the Breakway, should be the Breakaway. lol 

 

Just a little planning background. We booked through Casino at Sea. This gives us a discount, free drinks in the Casino, (already have FAS) and bottled water and sodas when the casino is open, (upgraded to the premium plus package). We started cruising in inside cabins, and now we like balcony cabins. On the Escape we had upgraded to the SPA Balcony, and it was very nice, unfortunately on this cruise, they were already sold out. We would love to cruise in a Haven suite one day, but we feel that the price increase and what is offered is really not up to par. I have been reading some recent haven experiences, and while it is nice to board first and get priority handling at ports, I feel that more could be done for those passengers, but that is just my personal opinion.

 

i work in a 5 star/5 diamond resort in Southern California, so I always look at things in a different manner. While the whole lack of hash browns and cookies can be bothersome for some, we look more at the overall picture.

 

As mentioned earlier, we have upgraded to the Premium Plus package. At a cost of $343 per person, we get unlimited internet, an extra $50 shore excursion credit per port, 2 extra speciality dining and most importantly, upgraded drinks and bottles of wine. We did the same thing on the Escape and we felt that we got good value. We had a bottle of $120 every night for dinner, my partner was drinking shots of Hennessy XO for $58 and I was chugging Chopin Martinis. We also had a constant flow of San Pellegrino bottles.  I did not particularly care for the wines offered by the glass, so we were happy to have access to more wines. Also, we were not overly impressed with the “free” dining venues, so we were happy to have extra access to more speciality restaurants. 

 

On this cruise we already have reservations at “La Cucina” and Le Bistro and once on board will try to get reservations at Cagney’s and Oceana.

 

We are taking it very easy today, got in to New Orleans at 1am, had some home made Gumbo at 2am and went to sleep at 3am. We are planning to be at the port at 1.30pm. We never felt the need to be on the ship early. Yes, you get access to food venues, but after that, you just hang around waiting for your cabin to be be ready. So we like to get on, eat something and then go an unpack. Plus right now it is pouring here, it will be a wet sail away for sure.

 

Stay tuned..

 

 

 

 

[Swiss76]

Boarding took a while. We got to the port at 1.55pm and we made it to our cabin at 3.05pm. 
 

We were lucky that we have Casijo at Sea, as once we got through the document check, security check we were able to get to the front of the slow moving line. 
 

We thought that by 2pm must people would be on the ship.

 

We already reserved Cagney’s for the last night .Ocean Blue is booked and we are waitlisted. Might try to walk in tonight… 
 

Muster Station was a breeze… 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 17 by Swiss76

[Miss Ellsworth]

What time was your sail-away? If boarding was congested at 2:00, how far ahead of departure was that? I have a sailing in April and am in a conference until noon (15 minutes from the port) and thought I'd get there at around 1:00 for a 4:00 departure

[Swiss76]

23 hours ago, Miss Ellsworth said:

What time was your sail-away? If boarding was congested at 2:00, how far ahead of departure was that? I have a sailing in April and am in a conference until noon (15 minutes from the port) and thought I'd get there at around 1:00 for a 4:00 departure

We left right at 5pm. The last guests were boarding at 3.45pm. From what we saw… Honestly it all depends on the port. We were on the Escape for New Years Eve out of Port Canaveral, boarded the same time and pretty much breezed through everything..

[Swiss76]

Sail away stayed dry. It is always great to leave New Orleans on a cruise ship and float down the river. Surprisingly we left before the Carnival Glory… 

 

We went to see the comedy show at 7.30pm which was pretty good and then had dinner at La Cucina. The food and service were not as good as on our “Escape”experience, but still nice.

 

Afterwards we went to the casino and the Bliss lounge. 
 

 

[cruiseny4life]

I'm following along! Great to see you joined and are starting a live right off...Perfect way to say hi! 🙂 

[Swiss76]

Sorry, I am way behind.. Just been busy with tours and partying.

 

Here are a couple of comments from the last 3 days..

 

Cozumel: 

 

We djd the Xplorer park excursion and it was great. It does take a little while to get to the park, since you have to do the ferry crossing…

But the park is great, we did the zip lines, ATV and cave rafting and swimming. The tour is expensive but totally worth it..

 

Roatan:

 

Huge cluster in the morning for the tours. The Harmony of the Seas and Enchantment of the Seas were in port as well. The whole meeting area was poorly set up, NCL Shorex team, was pretty unfriendly and just the whole thing was a huge mess. We went to Tabayna Beach and it was very nice. We had the snorkel gear included and lunch. Lunch was BBQ chicken, hot dogs, hamburgers and fresh fruits. Lemonade and Ice Tea were also included. Alcoholic drinks were $5 to $7. Snorkeling was amazing. There were 5 ships in port so it was busy. We waited 30 minutes for the ride back to the ship…

 

Harvest Caye, Belize:

 

We really did not get to enjoy the island that much. We had booked the River tubing tour which was great. It is a one hour bus ride to get there and another hour back.. tubing was about 80 minutes long..

One of the tour buses was running late. So we got back to the island 10 minutes after all on board. They were literally pushing us back to the ship…

 

Costa Maya:

 

Today we are in Costa Maya, and we booked the Escape beach break. It is very windy, beach is full of seaweed, they did warn us before hand. But service is good. 

[Swiss76]

Overall impressions of the cruise. Honestly, I feel that the Breakaway is ok. The flow is not that great. The ropes course is open only 3pm to 6pm every day. The pools and jacuzzi are always packed. 
Garden Cafe set up is strange and they use a rope system to block of areas. Food is good and the servers are very nice. But overall the staff looks tired and exhausted.

No more eggs Benedict, or even a poached egg. No Smoked Salmon. Everything is at the sit down restaurant.

 

We have eaten at La Cucina, Le Bistro and Ocean Blue. All meals were great, but when we asked for more bread at La Cucina we were told that they try to limit the bread per table. 
 

We ate the  “Taste” and the server had difficulties in understanding and then he served the Lobster ravioli to my father in law who is highly allergic to shellfish.

 

Last night we ate at the Manhattan room. We sat down at 8.30pm and at the beginning service was great. We ordered some cocktails and a bottle of wine. At 9.00 they pulled up all the light switches and made it super bright, we were barely finishing our appetizers. I asked our server for another bottle of wine and I was told that the bar was closed. So I got up and went down to Taste to see if I can get a bottle of wine from there. The hostess said that I had to check at the Mix Bar and there they told me to go to the Atrium bar. At the Atrium bar I got a lot of run around and was told that they were switching the wine list and that they did not have too many wines left. We have the premium Plus package so we get certain bottles of wine included. After waiting for 10 minutes and 5 staff members scrambling to get a bottle of wine. One of the guys came back with a bottle of wine and told me that I had to pay for it and that I had a 40% discount on the bottle. I asked him which wines he had that were included with the package, and he did not know. So I left.

In the meantime my food was served and it was getting cold.

We skipped dessert and coffee and felt that the whole experience was pretty crappy.

 

2 days ago we went to the Martini bar and asked for an Espresso Martini and a Lenon drop Martini and we wanted them with Chopin. The bartender said that he could only do it with Absolut vodka. He also said that he did over a 1000 Martinis a day and that Absolut was just fine. So we left. We tried to get Martinis on the outside and were told that they were not serving Martinis at the outside Martini bar.  When we were leaving, I went up to the bartender and asked him why he could not make a Chopin Lemon Drop Martini. He said that he needed lemons??? I said, I am sure you have lemons at a martini bar. He got really upset and said “ Jesus Christ” and walked away pissed off. So we went down to the Mix where we got some nice Martinis. I asked to speak to the Beverage Manager and he was surprised about the whole Martini bar experience. He apologized and sent a bottle of Vuevue to our room. Later before we went to the show, we went to the Attium bar and I asked for a Lemon drop Martini, only to be told that I had to go to the Martini bar.i asked the bartender what the Martini glasses were for and he said that he was only doing Cosmos… any other Martini drink we had to go to the Martini bar.

 

As mentioned before they are apparently switching the wine list, so most of the wines are not available anymore. But instead of offering a comparable wine in the same price category we were offered the cheapest wine possible.

 

Entertainment is poor. The burn the floor show was great. But they have had a comedy show for 3 nights now. One night they showed a movie in the theater. We don’t care about “wheel of bankruptcy” or Deal or no Deal. The nightly parties on the Spice H2O are mainly music videos… no More life bands on the sail aways.

 

i don’t know. We are still having a great time. But I can definitely understand some of the opinions and expressions on here.

 

 

Edited March 22 by Swiss76

[ometauru]

On 3/17/2024 at 3:43 PM, Swiss76 said:

We were lucky that we have Casijo at Sea, as once we got through the document check, security check we were able to get to the front of the slow moving line. 

 

 

Is this implying that you get priority embarkation for Casinos at Sea? I have an upcoming cruise on the Breakaway but I thought NCL basically no longer did this for Casinos at Sea guests? How did you get it? Are there signs at the port?

[Swiss76]

2 hours ago, ometauru said:

Is this implying that you get priority embarkation for Casinos at Sea? I have an upcoming cruise on the Breakaway but I thought NCL basically no longer did this for Casinos at Sea guests? How did you get it? Are there signs at the port?

For the document check and security line it is the same cattle line for everyone. Once you get to the check in area, they have different lanes. One of them is for Casino at Sea.  I do not know if you get priority boarding once you checked in or not… when we arrived it was already 2 pm and we went straight on the ship.