RXC

Anthem of the Sea is a great ship if you like large ships that have lots of activities and entertainment options. As a brand new ship with a new dining option, there is an issue that restaurants are obligated to folks making reservations even if they dis not show up while others on the new dynamic dining option cannot make a reservation or wait for a table. For a short itinerary, folks could be upset since they would not be able to try out these restaurants. Hopefully, RCI will fix it in the near future. Other than that, we had a great time.

It is our third time on the NCL Breakaway and we enjoyed it each time. The itinerary is great and we had wonderful weather at each port. The food and service at the specialty restaurants (particularly on Cagney's, Wasabi and Le Bistro) are very good. If you like dining at the specialty restaurants, you should get the dining package that, after NCL changes the prices, would be less expensive. The food at the MDR and buffet are also good. Except for the first couple days, it is easy to get a table for 2 at most dining rooms after 7pm since most passengers prefer eating between 5-7pm so that they can go to the 7pm show. The thermal suite is among the best on all cruise ships. Overall, the entertainment are decent. Rock of Ages is a show that either you hate it or like it. There are many excursion choices and they are very well organized.

For this particular cruise, we ran into stormy weather the last 2 sea days coming back to NY and the ship was delayed for a little less than 2 hours. The captain did an excellent job keeping us informed. But the problem is that many passengers who normally would let NCL handling their luggage bags during disembarkation, now chose to take the easy walk off approach. Many cruisers that are (by all measures) physically unfitted and had ways too many bags to handle them themselves, not only created an unusual long "easy walk off" line waiting to get off, blocked the hall ways on the ship and jammed up the gangway and the waiting areas near the elevators and escalators at the Custom building. They actually did not get out any faster than they would have if they let NCL take care of their luggage bags. Fortunately, no one got hurt but the easy walk off is neither easy nor quick. I would sincerely pledge to these fellow cruisers not to do it again since they may get hurt or get someone hurt if one of their giant sized luggage bags fell and rolled down the escalator and hit another cruiser. We will appreciate and thank them for their consideration.

Overall, it was an excellent cruise and we will do it again soon.