Great ship! Excellent Cruise Line! Love the free-style cruising experience. We are really happy with the experience of New Orleans being much more convenient for west cost folks and now direct flights being offered (we live in Seattle so Florida is a major challenge with travel). Having done over 10 cruises with Celebrity (another excellent cruise line), we were very impressed with NCL and especially the ship layout of the Breakaway had very good flow and amenities and we especially liked the multiple outdoor open walking areas (the waterfront was really nice since it also offered shade!). We were sufficiently impressed that we bought 2 cruise credits on board mid-trip so we are definitely going to go on NCL again.
Embarkation
5 out of 5
Very smooth and fast embarkation,
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
5 out of 5
Loved the variety and flexibility of the free-style dinning options!
Onboard Activities
5 out of 5
Obstacle course and waterfront with multiple outdoor walking decks in open air were really pleasant and enjoyable.
Entertainment
3 out of 5
Disappointed with the live shows but was not an issue since this freed up our evenings :) It would be better to have higher quality entertainment repeated multiple nights to give more "free-style" entertainment while improving the level of performance. The movies were great on the various large screens so these are more enjoyable than the live shows.
Children's Programs
5 out of 5
Entourage was great for our teen! She had fun with her own free-style experience making friends and "hanging out".
Service and Staff
5 out of 5
Great cleaning and waiter services and customer service. Good attitude with just the right level of engagement and attentiveness without being overbearing or avoiding. Professional and pleasant!
Ship Quality
5 out of 5
Fantastic ship layout with very smart and practical attention to detail like hand-washing sinks and freestyle dining and waterfront and multiple outdoor walking decks.
Cabin / Stateroom
5 out of 5
Great layout and surprised about the "large" bathroom fit into the small space.
Ship tip
Skip the shows and focus on free-style dining and strolling the ship and enjoying the many amenities around the ship.
Probably the longest Disembarkation I've experienced (took 2-hours!). Seems to be a bottleneck at the port so need to iron out some of the bugs to make a smoother experience. This was a surprise and big contrast to the Embarkation which went very smoothly and quickly.
Esm54687, I called NCL yesterday and they said the government shutdown would not affect getting on or off. But I do agree, we have only cruised once and the embankment was a disaster because one person was playing hide and seek with the crew and we heard a lot of the crew walked off without finishing their jobs.
Debarkation: NOLA is notoriously bad for this PLUS add in a partial government shutdown that impacts CBP and you have a recipe for looooooong lines, etc
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