A nice week

To celebrate our 49th anniversary, we booked the Norwegian Breakaway for a 3-day stay in Bermuda.  We had a balcony mini-suite, which was similar to rooms we have had on Royal Caribbean Oasis and Allure, except that the Norwegian bathroom had a walk-in shower.  Leaving from NYC is very different than we are used to.  We drove to the pier (we live in MD, only 3 hours away), paid $40/day in advance and schlepped our luggage across the parking lot to a freight elevator, where we met the porters.  Back on the elevator, we went up to the check-in area, which was totally satisfactory.  We boarded around noon.

Lunch was being served so we tried the buffet.  Not bad at all, actually better than the Oasis and Allure.  We had purchased the Ultimate Dining Package, so we only had breakfast at the buffet.   The specialty restaurants are excellent - Le Bistro, La Cucina, Cagney's didn't disappoint.  However, Ocean Blue (where we paid an additional fee) was very good, but somewhat disappointing.  This was the restaurant where we planned to have our special anniversary dinner.  The wine list (yes, we're wine snobs) was smaller than we had hoped for, although every wine was available by-the-glass as well as the bottle.  The biggest rub came when we were looking over the wonderful dessert menu.  Our waiter brought over a 6-inch cake as an anniversary gift and proceeded to cut a small slice and serve it to us.  So much for dessert.  We did leave there somewhat disappointed, believing that we would be "wowed" by the Geoffrey Zakarian restaurant.  There is also a Brazilian Steakhouse, a habachi restaurant and a raw bar.  O'Sheeans pub has excellent food, but doesn't have Guiness on tap.  Plenty of beers are available, though.  We booked the Chef's Table - worth every dollar!  3 hours of eating and drinking in a wonderful setting, in The Haven.

The ship itself is pretty easy to navigate and has tons of activities for kids and adults.  The biggest minus was the lack of swimming pools and availability of deck chairs.  Since we were at sea for 5 days, we wanted to spend leisure time lounging in the sun.  If we got to the adult area after 10:30, or so, we were shut out of deck chairs.

The shows are among the best we have seen.  The Cirque dinner show was great as was Burn the Floor (a history of dance).  Rock of Ages was brilliant, but DO NOT bring children to this adult-themed show, as some people did.  The theater is very comfortable with good views from almost any place in the theater.

If you are going to play slots, do it on the first night.  Everyone seemed to be winning big (we did).  But after the second day, they "tightened up" the slots and tried to get back most of what they gave away the first night.  We stopped after the third day.  We also went on the Behind the Scenes tour.  It was just so-so after we had done this on the Allure the year before.

The staff, as on most cruise ships, were friendly and helpful.  The disembarkation was without incident and really fast.  We will probably go on Norwegian again in the future.