Overbooked & understaffed means unpleasant moments & bad memories (& possibly dangerous), but there were some good things.

Norwegian Breakaway Cruise Review

MarkXDStops

Contributor Level: First Mate

20 Days Till Next Cruise

Cruises: 4-6 cruises

Reviews: 23

Helpful Votes: 331

Overall rating:

3.7 out of 5

9 Night Western Caribbean (New Orleans Roundtrip)

Sail date: December 30, 2022

Ship: Norwegian Breakaway

Cabin type: Suite

Cabin number: 9834

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 1 year ago

Review summary

so onboarding and embarking was rough... unless you have a haven suite or diamond or above status, it almost always is, unless you arrive extra early to avoid the mad rush, it almost always is, unless you sail from an extremely efficient port, such as San Diego or Port Canaveral, it almost always is, and if you are ever sailing from New Orleans on ANY cruise line, guess what, it pretty much always is, and none of it can be laid blame of ncl or the breakaway staff and crew. Be mad at New Orleans city council and the Port Authority, but leave it out of your cruise review please. oh wait! darn it! sorry! There us good and bad on every cruise, do not expect perfection in any vacation. RCL does seem better than NCL so far, but it still bests working that week! :)

Embarkation

1 out of 5

NCL crammed 4700 people onto a 3900 capacity ship. Unloading line for luggage required 1 hour+ waiting in idling car. Regular ship parking lot was full, so we had to park in 'overflow' parking lot 5 blocks away. You better have the $153 in cash as it is all they will take & there is no way to turn around. If you finally get a shuttle, you have to wait 2+ hours standing in waiting & security lines to board. Nightmare. They were not honoring Suite or NCL Status or casino status to make line shorter. A madhouse of coughing people & screaming children. So bad that they skipped the muster station requirement (possibly a safety violation) and offered a remedial class days later. Once aboard, we went to our cabin and were met with the most delightful cabin steward named Alvin. Our luggage was already there, conveniently. We booked the club level balcony room and found it to be entirely satisfactory in all respects.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

3 out of 5

Specialty restaurants and O'Shanahans are great. Main dining room is too loud, cramped, bad food, bad service. Seriously the loudest dining room or restaurant in 55 years of travel.

O'Sheehan's Neighborhood Bar and Grille

5 out of 5

One of the lifesavers on this cruise was this charming Irish Pub that had delicious food in large quantities delivered personally and included for free. When we did not want to scream at each other to be heard in the loudest main dining room on the 7 seas, and when we did not want to have to elbow our way through the buffet only to find no tables, we found ourselves returning to this great neighborhood-feeling pub and bar area with music and darts and 9-pin bowling and other charms. Great location too.

Garden Café

3 out of 5

Overcrowded madhouse with bad food and no service. This is the only poor experience we have had with the buffet in our five cruises. It is hard to find a seat, hard to get to your food, disappointing once you do, and do not expect any help, you won't get any. Better bring your own beverage beforehand, no functioning bar, no soda machine. The food is not dangerous or disgusting, it is just not as good as Royal Caribbean or Celebrity.

Shanghai's Noodle Bar

5 out of 5

We had dinner at one of the complimentary included specially restaurants the first night called The Noodle Bar, wonderful Asian fusion simply delivered and served with sushi style check the box menu. Taste and service and atmosphere were ten out of ten.Outstanding and wonderful, just too small. As previously stated, the cruise was overbooked, the main dining room was a loud/bad food/bad service nightmare, and the buffet was a hockey game of body checking to get to the mediocre food and nowhere to sit. This made more important all the free option cafes and pubs and this little asian fusion oasis of fun! Awesome asian food, no bad item on menu, fun dining style, you make friends here, multiple courses served well and courteously. Delicious and memorable. However, you better go on the first night at opening time. Word travels fast in an overbooked cruise. Every night thereafter, you better be there 20+ minutes before opening to get in the line already forming. All seats and all pagers to call you within an hour and a half wait will be gone five minutes after opening.The rest of the night there's a long line just for pagers to get the privilege of the two hour wait. Why? it is WORTH it! and everyone knows it or learns it.Go early, get your pager, go to casino or have a drink at the video poker bar right behind you there. You will be glad. Thank me later. Mark me as "helpful" please.

Room Service

4 out of 5

four and a half good foodwarm foodon timegreat coffee and juiceno charge (that I ever saw anyway)the only tiny negative is they got order's wrong every other dayhowever they are willing to make it rightif you have time to waitwhich u often don't on a port excursion day

Dolce Gelato

5 out of 5

Do yourselves a favor...find this gem, order a scoop or cone at sunset, step right outside the door to your left. Lounge in a comfy chair to enjoy your Dulce leche mother's milk of ice cream, the view, and one of the very few uncrowded, quiet places on board breakaway. May become a nice daily calming habit for you.

Café at the Atrium

3 out of 5

does not existreplaced by a Starbucks that you must have the Premium package to use.

Le Bistro

5 out of 5

Best restaurant on board this ship, one of the best at sea. They are outstanding in all respects, food quality and taste and freshness, service, wine list, pampering, they even time their plate presentations!We were wowed!

Bar 21

5 out of 5

We loved this cute video poker bar which provided quick service and provided a welcome break from a noisy casino at times.

Bar at the Atrium

5 out of 5

Excellent bartenders and quality service but always packed and crammed into the fourth floor centrum.

Onboard Activities

3 out of 5

Breakaway Casino

5 out of 5

I spent most of the rest of day, after dinner and show on day 1 in the casino as is my custom, believing that sea casinos pay out on the way out, suck it back on the way back in. So I spent all of day 2 there as well. I had no trouble being served and in fact, turned down way more free drinks than I accept. The lemon drop martinis and the black russian and the Kailua coffee I had were delicious. I won a large hand-pay and hit $1K-ish a couple of other times on slots.Casino hosts and staff were wonderful.

Entertainment

5 out of 5

Service and Staff

3 out of 5

cruise was overbooked and understaffed Word is that NCL is in financial trouble and it certainly shows Cruise tip: if you need Guest services early in a cruise, it means something is horribly wrong: they put you in a wrong cabin, your sea card doesn't work, you need to change credit cards so your sea card will work, your card does not reflect the drink package you already paid for and other nightmarish scenarios. How does NCL Breakaway redpond to their apparently epidemic level of booking or service accuracy errors? They have on duty a 3 to 100 ratio of staff to guests-in-line. Meanwhile they had five people standing there in CruiseNext or whatever they call it trying to sell more cruises! All of this was crammed into an Atrium or Centrum that was the loudest place aboard. There was a minimum of 100 people in line at Guest Services for three full days before they even sent a triage person to walk the line asking what you need in case other help was needed!

Ship Quality

3 out of 5

Horrible design! Every place that needs you to be able to clearly communicate (guest services, internet wifi help desk, shore excursions, next cruise info) is all crammed together in the Atrium where the overly loud cruise director staff is yelling, playing loud music, loud game shows, loud trivia, even though there are many unused venues, every darn where, every darn day on this huge AFT ship! Insane! Maybe they don't care or even want you to understand why they screwed up your reservation or overcharged you or forgot something you bought or else they would not have these worst foreign accent barely-English-literate people at the loudest place aboard making everyone violently angry.

Cabin / Stateroom

4 out of 5

If you want towel animals sail RCL instead, but if you like nice larger cabins for the price-class, always cleaned and functioning with great views and balconies and nice shower size: a telephone booth-sized square (much larger than RCL's tiny circled-cocoon-style), I gotta give it up to NCL! Service may not be personalized due to overbooking and understaffing, but the stews work their tails off and deserve appreciation and extra tips. I really do not want to read more about tiny things as in these reviews as though blaming your cabin steward. Open your eyes, watch, ask how many cabins they are responsible for, learn their name, speak kindly, offer respect. Many things we complain about are caused by decisions at a greedy corporate level at NCL home office, due to financial trouble which has nothing to do with your guy or girl. They are doing their best to serve you. Please try gratitude's blessings. You will be happier as a person. Thank me later dear readers.

Ship tip

We were easily able to make fine dining and show reservations on our NCL app once aboard. It is very easy to resolve any internet issue, just go to the internet cafe. They are there to help. The spa requires a visit to book your treatments, so go early on day one. I am very impressed with NCL Breakaway services, staff, and crew. Remedial safety meeting in lieu of muster drill was held dec 6 forward in the speigal tent. Elevator banks are not always connected, so make sure all buttons are lit, as right elevators are often two banks of four, so walk over to push the other arrows too. Also, fish on the floor in the cabin hallways always swim to the front or forward of the ship.

Thumbs up

Ports of call

Harvest Caye, Belize

5 out of 5

nothing to add that others have already said (private island area is nice but expensive and inconvenient and not included in your package, etc., the rest of the island is poor with bad bumpy roads and surprisingly unattractive, and the mainland is too far away) all of which is true so I can only share my experience on this cruise we did the Herb Farm tour excursion which was lovely and memorable at the place we wish we had known the hour long bus trip there and the hour long bus trip back would be hot and bumpy and muddy and uncomfortable and basically a school bus N and possibly dangerous with slipping and sliding etc avoid excursions away from port beach during rainy season if you ride on a bus the back is the bounciest so sit as close to front as possible

Thumbs Up 1

Ocho Rios, Jamaica

5 out of 5

do not travel solo or without a paid excursion group as this is a dangerous island tourism industry knows it and makes up for it with great excursions and attractions safely guarded we loved our tour and nature park with botanical gardens and guided shopping excursion

Thumbs Up 1

Disembarkation

1 out of 5

Dude, you better have a plan! As with all cruises, you will be unceremoniously thrown off the ship and into an airplane-hanger-looking building to fight your way through a Mongol Horde trying to find luggage in various piles with no help. True of all cruises, unless you have a plan. This NCL Cruise-line ship is being currently overloaded and understaffed, so this becomes even worse. You do not want to be standing in the taxi/uber/lift line for three hours, trust me! (please mark me "helpful") Have-A-Plan ideas include (share more plz): 1.) Take advantage of anything the promises priority debarkation, including suite concierge help, loyaly status, casino status, etc. 2.) be first off whenever possible. 3.) park at the airport instead of the terminal, shuttle in so on debarkation day you can take a coty excirsion that drops you and the airport (meaning they handle your luggage until there!).