Waiting in long lines is NOT my idea of a vacation
Norwegian Breakaway Cruise Review to Caribbean - Bahamas
Contributor Level:
Purser
Cruises: 7+ cruises
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 47
7 Night Bahamas & Florida (New York Roundtrip)
Sail date: December 15, 2017
Ship: Norwegian Breakaway
Cabin type: Balcony
Cabin number: GTY
Traveled as: Family (young children)
Reviewed: 6 years ago
Review summary
I can honestly tell you I will never sail with NCL again. I have been on Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Holland and Costa before, and I will make it a point to advise my friends against traveling with this line. Interesting to note that as we met people and asked them about their experience, they shared similar stores. I just wasted a lot of my time and money.Embarkation
The man who worked on the two room check in for my family and my parents was VERY slow. We were at his counter for 45 minutes. The ladies on either side of him checked in 4 or 5 people while we were still waiting. All passports, birth certificates and green cards were provided at the start to him. One lady to his left asked him how long he'd been away as he kept asking for help. At one point he called for help, and the lady said I, who booked the trip and paid for it, was not even on the reservation. She asked if I was "Michelle" and mentioned some other cabin number. This was 30 minutes after he was checking us in. Not sure what he did wrong, but she figured it out and fixed it. Then we were finally able to get our room keys and move on. Our handbags and coats got trampled on so many time by people trying to move past us. It was not a good start to the vacation.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
The bartenders were surprisingly unfriendly. My husband and I noticed that they rarely smiled. I had to call attention to myself at many times as they would have their heads down making drinks and not look up and take new orders or acknowledge people.
The food quality at Taste, Manhattan room and Saveur was good, but SO slow. One morning we tried breakfast at Taste to avoid the cafeteria lines. For a party of six, it took 57 minutes to get our food after being seated. I spoke to the maitre'd who apologized profusely and mentioned the kitchen was backed up. Even he was carrying trays of food in. Unfortunately, keeping a 7 and 9 year old occupied for that long was difficult, they were starving, and the food was cold when it arrived. This was on Sunday morning. We never did the dining room again for breakfast.
For a ship of this capacity why is O'Sheehan's the only place open to eat later at night? We picked up our kids from splash academy around 12:30pm and they were hungry. We go to O'Sheehans, only to be told we had a 15-20 minute wait. The people before us and we inquired about why since over half the tables were empty, and the hostess just kept smiling and repeating, "we are full". I even had my husband take a video of the empty spaces if you want to see it. Obviously not full, and she directed us to room service a couple times. We didn't want to have to wait again for that.
In the 9 other cruises we have been on, your food service was by far the most limited and the slowest. Why do parts of garden cafe close down at different times? Why is there such limited "complimentary" food after 9:30pm?
O'Sheehan's Neighborhood Bar and Grille
Only place open for complimentary food after 11:30pm. Very poor service by the hostess.
Moderno Churrascaria
Excellent food quality and service. Highly recommend.
Onboard Activities
Ropes course does not say that you need to wear a shirt with sleeves. My 7 year old daughter waited in line for 50 minutes, only to be told that her sleeveless top would not be ok. When we told the attendant about the missing information on the sign, he just smiled. No apology.
Why are some of your activities open for such limited times? 2 hours at a time for the bungee trampoline??!! I had to watch my time on this cruise constantly to get to stuff so that was not relaxing at all. While you have amenities, you don't have the right staffing level to keep the amenities open so that's such a waste!
Entertainment
Upon check in, I had my kids cards blocked so they couldn't charge anything on them. No one told me that this meant I could not make any online reservations for them. So when I tried making show reservations, my kids were denied. Stood in line at guest services for 25 minutes, only to be told they cannot help me and I must go to the box office. I waited in line for 50 minutes to get my kids added to my reservation.
Upon walking away, I noticed a number of $13.99 (one per person for each of 3 shows!) charges on my NCI app which you all promoted and asked us to download. The name of the charge was "entertainment fee". The box office could not help me because per them all the shows I had booked were complimentary. I was sent back down to guest services, where I waited in line for 45 minutes, to be told: "the app does not work properly and is not correct all the time". Spending over 2 hours in lines to book shows is a WASTE of my vacation time. The shows themselves were average. Entertaining but nothing exceptional.
There was a wedding on our ship and there was a newlywed game show in the atrium. We were passing by a few minutes before 10pm, headed up to our room with our 7 and 9 year old kids. I have to tell you that I enjoy adult humor, but the highly sexual games they were playing and showing on the big screen in front of young children was highly inappropriate. A public space like the atrium is NOT an appropriate venue for that type of content.
Children's Programs
I would give Splash Academy and the staff there 5 stars. Your process for check in and check out of the kids, along with the open and close times every few hours required me to spend mover 90 minutes in line on days I kept my kids in splash academy. There are so many process improvements you can make here.
Service and Staff
Bartenders were unfriendly (1 star)
Dining room staff was great (4 stars)
Room steward was unfriendly compared to past experiences, and only made three towel animals the entire cruise (we are used to getting a new one each night) (2 stars)
Garden cafe staff seemed disengaged. Many times there would be no coffee cups, plates, bowls, spoons, etc. Had to walk to other stations to find them. They simply could not keep up with the capacity. Also, they did not clean up spills on floors quickly. There would be signs, but with very narrow passages anyway, it would slow the flow of foot traffic even more. I watched one spill happen, and it was not cleaned up for the 20 minutes I was there. The asst maitre'd had even walked by a few times. On my way out, I told him it would be in his best interest to clean that up so no one would slip and hurt themselves.
Ship Quality
Overall, your process flows on the ship can use Six Sigma lean process engineering. You are absolutely not able to manage the capacity of your ship.
Cabin / Stateroom
Ports of call
We did our own thing in NYC
Thumbs Up
1
Would have had 5 stars as the port was great, but it took one full hour to board the ship when we returned. My kids were miserable. The cruise director tried to mask it with a "block party" which seems like a nice concept but it really did not distract from the hour long line.
Great Stirrup Cay (Cruise Line Private Island), Bahamas
NCL did an excellent job of managing the drinks, food and experience on the island. Plenty of chairs and a great setup overall. This was truly my only relaxing day on the cruise.
Disembarkation
Again, super long lines which were not well managed. One of our luggage pieces with a pink tag was misplace with the red tags. It took about 15 minutes of walking thru all the luggage to find it.