My reason for choosing cruising over other forms of travel is for the personalized service. On many ships you can feel like you are staying in a 5 star hotel for very little money. Whether in an interior or the captains suite- you are made to feel like you are the most important person on board. This was not present on the NCL Breakaway! After cruising Carnival in the past I left a little disappointed. Please don't get me wrong, it was a lovely vacation. My expectations based off of past cruises made this cruise surprisingly sub-par. The interior of the ship is modern, not overly fancy but pretty. It is extremely clean, and I loved the washy washy requirement. VERY disappointed in the smoking areas- they were not well contained and smoke would travel to many non smoking areas (I have asthma- it can RUIN a cruise). They would do well limiting smoking to one or two enclosed bars.The biggest thing that stood out to me was the poor quality of food. Most people enjoyed it very much, however, the main dining rooms food was not as fancy as I had expected. This is no doubt a ploy to push cruisers into their specialty restaurants. I will pay for many things on a cruise, but food is NOT one of them. (making this cruise ship the wrong choice). We had a free unlimited beverage package which was awesome- very pleased with that offer. The staff was very pleasant, but again not very personalized. Other than the room steward we did not have interaction with many staff more than once. This takes away the "Ms. Smith would you like your usual drink today" aspect from the cruise. Entertainment on the ship was lacking to say the least. They had the usual trivia, bingo, ect. As for the casino- I couldn't go (again a smoking area). It was mainly the nightly shows where they have failed. For a ship with 4000 people on-board the theater was very small. For this reason shows need to be reserved ahead of time (personally I like to go where the wind takes me, avoiding making any reservations). It definitely limits the amount of freedom for nightly entertainment. We reserved our shows on the first day, which became a problem if on the night before there was something on the next days schedule that you would rather do. We did not travel with children. From the families we met on board though the kids seemed to be having a fantastic time and loved the kids clubs. We did not buy any shore excursions, but instead got a 2 day transportation pass and rode the buses and ferries to anything we wanted to do. It worked out very well. We saw most of the island in the 2 days we were there and did a few attractions (one being the crystal caves- very cool). Being October the beaches were rough, but not terrible.

Overall, even though I had negative things to say, it was a fair cruise that would be good for families. If I had not had prior expectations the cruise would have been excellent.

As an FYI- they had AA, LGBT, 18-25 yr old, and solo traveler meets everyday.