Norwegian Breakaway Review
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Just returned from a Florida/Bahamas 7 day cruise on Breakaway from NYC. All in all, we had a nice time. Ship was beautiful…cabins were well appointed, public spaces were lovely. Entertainment was fantastic…Rock of Ages not to be missed.
We found the food to be inconsistent. Some meals felt like Diner quality while others were top notch. The Uptown Hamburger grill was amazing: best burger I ever had. The Garden Buffet restaurant was a nightmare. Way too crowded: had to walk around the restaurant multiple times to find an open table. Food in buffet was just ok (but should you expect more from a buffet?). We ended up going to the sit down restaurants for breakfast and dinner and found the food and atmosphere to be significantly better. Never had any wait coming to dinner in main restaurant (Manhattan Room) at 7:30 which is amazing considering the 4000 guests on board.
Main problem with the Breakaway is space…with 4000 people on board, many times felt cramped….4 hot tubs (2 not allowing kids) and 1 small pool was just not sufficient. I think this is a function of NCL looking to fill every inch of space with "for fee" activities/restaurants rather than open space for guests to use. Always felt crowded. This was a real issue at NCL's private island. Had to walk 20 minutes to a back-up beach as the main beach was filled by 10:30AM. Had to wait in line at the bar 15 minutes to order a drink…15 minutes for the lunch buffet on the island as well. Returning to the tender area at the end of the day was also crazy with a 20 minute line for the shuttle to take us to the tender dock. It was hot and cramped (people pushing, cutting in line, and no one from NCL managing). One woman in line collapsed with Heat Exhaustion with no one from NCL offering assistance and people almost trampling her to get onto the tram (which ran way too infrequently). Then another 20 minute line to get on the tender and then a third 20 minutes just to get off the tender and onto the ship. NCL should have had this all figured out to minimize this kind of craziness.