Fantastic cruise mostly due to itinerary and the ship

Item: Norwegian Breakaway
Rating: 4.2
Author: htownyankeejim

Norwegian Breakaway Cruise Review to Europe - Mediterranean

htownyankeejim

Contributor Level: Second Mate

377 Days Till Next Cruise

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Reviews: 7

Helpful Votes: 102

Overall rating:

4.2 out of 5

Verified Review

10 Night Greek Isles: Santorini Athens & Florence (Rome Roundtrip)

Sail date: November 02, 2023

Ship: Norwegian Breakaway

Cabin type: Balcony

Cabin number: 11888

Traveled as: Family (older children)

Reviewed: 1 year ago

Review summary

NCL corporate has cut back to the extreme. Lots of screwups: no excursion tickets, promised fruit, or dinner vouchers in my room. Pre-cruise concierge (Platinum & up) did NONE of the things they promised to do. Two ports cancelled due to ‘weather’: Athens (only 7 knot winds) and Livorno (3 other cruise ships in port, but our captain decided not to). A cruise is what you make it, so we had a great time despite the negatives. NCL now at the bottom of my cruise choices.

Embarkation

5 out of 5

Easy & fast

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

3 out of 5

MDR was good, specialty restaurants were excellent. Buffet sucked, as we couldn’t ever find a place to sit, indoors or outside. Staff worked hard, but NCL cutbacks made everything slow & long lines

Onboard Activities

4 out of 5

Slides and waterfront were fantastic

Entertainment

4 out of 5

Great musicians; if you liked musical shows were good (I don’t)

Children's Programs

No kids

Service and Staff

3 out of 5

Staff was good, understaffed. Guest services, restaurant reservations & room service all putyou on hold & hung up on you!

Ship Quality

4 out of 5

Other than buffet lack of seating

Cabin / Stateroom

5 out of 5

Very good

Ship tip

Expect delays and long lines. Otherwise a good ship.

Thumbs up

Ports of call

Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy

5 out of 5

Mykonos, Greece

5 out of 5

Santorini, Greece

3 out of 5

Tenders, cable cars had long waits. Donkey poop trail was unlit and nasty.

Thumbs Up 1

Valletta, Malta

5 out of 5

Messina, Sicily

5 out of 5

Naples, Italy

5 out of 5

Disembarkation

5 out of 5

Very well done

7 Comments

Sogmoore 1 year ago

Lot of information to soak up. Thanks for sharing

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willwork4cruz 1 year ago

Why do you think they would cancel ports if there was no safety reason? A ship looses a lot of money when they have to refund all the shore excursions, people can’t spend money at their port shops, need to feed all the people, use fuel sailing instead of being docked, etc. A captain would be fired quickly if he/she was skipping ports for no reason. I assume that the ships that were already in the port you missed because they docked when the conditions were better.

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javawoody 1 year ago

Appreciate the review

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dreniere 1 year ago

As an avid ncl cruiser(25) and platinum lattitudes member, I agree. I have always booked midship balconies and gave found that since covid the ncl priority is to those who book the haven and suites. On my last 2 cruises the amenities that one expects are difficult to come by. There is little to no relationship between the guest and steward since they decreased to only one cleaning and no turndown service. Also hardly see any officer's on deck supervising. Have my kast future cruise credit scheduled but now l[king at other lines for future cruises

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cruising2004 1 year ago

Glad you had a wonderful cruising experience. Thanks for sharing.

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Gwbigdog 1 year ago

Thanks for sharing

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bubbles60 1 year ago

Great itinerary. We have taken that itinerary on NCL and had a great experience.

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