Norwegian Breakaway Review

Boarding was a nightmare, but after that I was pleasantly surprised!

Review for Nowhere Cruise on Norwegian Breakaway
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JF12345
2-5 Cruises • Age 40s

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Sail Date: Jan 2014

I've never cruised in the US before, so when my sister and I decided to do a "weekend escape" from NYC I wasn't sure what to expect. It was mostly fun and I was pleasantly surprised, although they were a few hitches on the relatively short trip.

Boarding was an absolute disorganized nightmare. I'm not sure if this is always the case with Norwegian, or things were weird because the breakaway was in the neighboring dock and had been turned into the Bud Light hotel for super bowl weekend. We were told we could get on the boat between 12 and 4, but when we arrived at the cruise terminal at 12:30, the waiting area was packed with passengers and we were told the ship wasn't ready. We were given a boarding card with a number on it and waited for at least another hour. There was some semblance of order once they began boarding and they started by calling sections by number, but after the first set of numbers it was chaos and nobody had any idea if and when it was their turn to go. After about another half hour, we just got up and walked past the guy checking boarding card numbers and got on the very long line to go through security and board the ship. About 40 minutes after that, we were on the ship- close to 3 hours after we were told we could board.

After that, it was mostly smooth sailing. The food was good, even the buffet (which, as a vegetarian and a picky eater I was prepared to be disappointed in), the service was mostly good (though our room could have been cleaner- we found hairs in our bed that weren't ours!). The cabins were small but fine, definitely not what we expected for a mini-suite. The atmosphere was fun, clearly people came to party and they did so pretty much non-stop! The piano lounge was nice, and some of the other bars were great. The 24-hour irish pub (whose name I can't remembered, but I nicknamed O'shitshow) was a mess, though, clearly understaffed and they couldn't keep up with the crowds. It was constantly full, dirty, out of glassware, etc, and we tried to order food there once and were told that they were so backed up that we couldn't even place an order unless we waited 20 minutes. I hated rock of ages, but the crowd seemed into it.

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