Bigger but not better.

Our group of 16 sailed the Norwegian Breakaway from NY on August 2nd.  Dinner the first night was a nightmare.  When we arrived to dine, we were told that the wait was 25 minutes.  , an hour and a half later, the place was a zoo of angry and hungry passengers.  The staff seemed totally unprepared for the onslaught of guests.  It occurred to us that freestyle dining was not suited to ships with over 4000 passengers.  The customer service aboard the Breakaway was lousy.  From miscommunication with the agents to the customer service reps onboard, I got the sense that the staff doesn’t all read from the same playbook.  Either are too few staff meetings or there is a language barrier because an international crew is used.   When I asked a basic question, I either received different answers to the same question from several customer service reps onboard or was dismissed with a “go stand on that line” to have my question answered.  On the plus side, there were a lot of activities and the ship was beautiful and kept immaculately.  The food was pretty good - I have tried Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and Queen Mary - I found the offerings tasty and the selection diverse onboard the Breakaway.  Overall, we had a good time because we were determined to make the most of the trip in spite of the abovementioned issues but we collectively decided not to book for 2016 when we will probably have an even larger group.