We’ve come to expect better from NCL

Embarkation was a breeze when we entered the terminal around noon, we got right on the ship, and that’s when things started going downhill. Immediately upon entering the Breakaway you can tell that the ship is in need of refurbishment. We noticed torn up carpet in a main dining room, our bathroom floor had what appeared to be duck tape holding down the trim. There’s many doors and walls with large dents in them. Cleanliness was another issue that we encountered for the first time ever on an NCL cruise. The tile wall behind the Thermal Spa pool was disgusting and many walls in the hallway had stains on them. Our room however, was clean. The breakaway and breakaway plus class ships I have noticed are consistently rocky ships and a smooth ride seems impossible. The ship must have been at or near capacity as the buffet was overly crowded most of the time and it was impossible to find a table to eat at numerous times during our cruise. The service in nearly every restaurant we went to, whether MDR or Specialty was poor, with ridiculous amounts of time spent waiting on the next course or even for a drink refill. Our dinner at Cagney's took over 3 hours and most of that was spent waiting. In nearly every dining venue it seems as if there are far too many tables being serviced by the same waitress/waiter which is leading to slow and poor service. Two out of four of our excursions were cancelled on us, one of which was canceled after waiting an hour to get on a tender and arriving at Bar Harbor. They even charged us a fee for canceling an excursion, one that they canceled and then they went on to tell us that it’s in the contract that they may charge us a fee, even if the excursion is canceled. These cancellation fees totaled almost $100. A third excursion, the Hop on Hop off in Halifax had a two hour line waiting upon disembarking the ship, so we did not get to tour the museums that we had as part of the excursion as we did not have enough time. The buses were supposed to arrive in 15 minute increments but we found ourselves waiting an hour to get back on after only the first stop so we weren’t able to get off again. It may not have been so bad if our ship hadn’t been delayed getting into Halifax by an hour. We also had to skip our stop in Newport, RI. From one hour lines to see guest services and the same for the excursions desk, to having to wait an hour for dining, to hardly being able to walk around the ship without being in a line, to a casino that has no available slot machines, to lines just to walk around the buffet and having to stand up and eat. This ship had way too many people on board.