Good but not as great as past cruises
Norwegian Breakaway Cruise Review to Caribbean - Western
7 Night Western Caribbean (New Orleans Roundtrip)
Sail date: March 24, 2019
Ship: Norwegian Breakaway
Cabin type: Balcony
Cabin number: 14112
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 5 years ago
Review summary
We love cruising with NCL. We are going to try one of the smaller ships next time as we have only been on the larger ships so far. Overall the ship was clean and the staff good. We had a few small issues, but speaking with an officer they were quick to explain to us the situation or remedy it and make us happy. We will continue to cruise with NCL. The one thing that I noticed on this cruise was the number of teenagers that were left unattended and created havoc on the ship. I know many parents will say "not my kids", but they were somebody's kids. We watched two children taking serving utensils off the buffet and play with them at the tables. We had to "parent" them and ask them to return them to ship staff so they could be used by other people on the cruise. We also watched poor staff have to clean up after some kids who decided it would be fun to have a ketchup and mustard fight in the buffet dining room taking out several seats at a busy breakfast time. It was also overheard a couple of teenagers deciding to have a party in their parent's room while their parents were out doing who knows what. While it feels like our children can't be taken because they are on a ship, let's not be foolish, things can still go wrong. Children should not be running around unsupervised at 1:00 am as I saw on our last cruise.Embarkation
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
Ocean Blue
New menu when we were there. The appetizer which was the pork belly was amazing! Food was great. I had the Chilean sea bass which was excellent. Service was amazing! If you do this as part of your meal package there is an additional upcharge but worth it. They do serve chicken and steak if you don't want seafood.
Shanghai's Noodle Bar
Good food, books fast. If you want to try this I suggest booking a meal at the start of the cruise. We got stuck eating at 5:00 as there were no other times left to pick from. Limited seating. It is part of the complimentary dining.
O'Sheehan's Neighborhood Bar and Grille
The restraunt side was good and has a bigger menue. The pub side service was just bad most of the time. Also, the pub side does not serve food after midnight. Perhaps after this contract the service may change, I think the contract will change after June 2019. But if you eat or get drinks on the pub side, don't expect great service.
The Manhattan Room Restaurant
The food and service was very good!!
Teppanyaki
Always fun, food is good.
Garden Café
Was good, their scrambled eggs don't seem like real eggs. I end up getting scrambled eggs from the omlet bar instead.
Cagney's Steakhouse
Excellent as per usual. Service was great!
Onboard Activities
Spa Thermal Suite
So, this is a smaller thermal spa. There are signs asking to not "reserve" stone beds and to limit your time to 30 minuets yet people posted their towels down are will camp on the beds for a very long time when it's busy. It's frustrating.
Pool
VERY crowded. They will kick the kids out of the pool as it's for adults only but the kids will crowd into the adult hot tubs. The pool is missing some tiles which is surprising since the ship was just in dry dock last year. People will come out and reserve seats early. Great for people watching though.
Spa Salt Room
It's good, not crowded
Entertainment
Spice H2O
We didn't spend a lot of time here this time. Their water feature was closed. I assume it's because it was missing A LOT of tiles. Again, with it just being in dry dock just last year I am surprised.
Syd Norman's Pour House
This is now Syd Normans Pour House. The show is EXCELLENT. Get there early for a seat. They don't perform on Wednesdays and do kareoke earlier in the evenings. We ended up going to watch them three times in the week.
Headliners Comedy Club
This will be hit and miss based on the comedian. Ours was great!
Breakaway Theater
We saw Rock of Ages here and it was an excellent show. There was PLENTY of warning about the adult content of this show via signs and announcements prior to the show.
Service and Staff
Ship Quality
Cabin / Stateroom