Norwegian Breakaway Review

Norwegian Cruise Line AKA the 'GOTCHA' Cruise Line

Review for Bermuda Cruise on Norwegian Breakaway
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pretzelman
10+ Cruises • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Oct 2016

During the week leading up to our cruise departure, due to Hurricane Matthew and Tropical Storm (at the time) Nicole, I checked daily on possible itinerary changes up to and including Saturday night at 9 PM. We were consistently told that there was no anticipated itinerary changes. We arrived at the Pier at about 945 AM for a check in slot of 10-1030 AM. Again we inquired of any possible changes and again were told, 'of course not'. We boarded about 1150 AM. It was at 3 PM (when you would anticipate most if not ALL passengers were at least checked in) when the Captain announced that we were NOT going anywhere near Bermuda, that we would not sail today, that we would sail in the morning but we didn't know yet where we would sail?!?!?!? Later that night, miraculously, we received the news that we would sail to Port Canaveral and Nassau, 2 ports that were hit just days prior by Hurricane Matthew. To add insult to injury we would arrive late to both ports, noon to Port Canaveral and 3 PM to Nassau. Not only were neither port even closely comparable to Bermuda they also had very few excursion options and in fact Norwegian didn't even run any shore excursions in Nassau. In my opinion, ALL of the decisions made by Norwegian were based on THEIR financial interest and not the satisfaction of their customers. There is NO WAY that Norwegian didn't know exactly what they were doing and what they would do.That said I believe that were loaded onto the ship and were in essence held hostage for the week. In any case what they did was at best UNETHICAL and at worst FRAUDULENT!

Now a few words about the ship and my service during my week of captivity...the Breakaway was put into service in 2013...a newer ship you would think but still in the stone ages with design flaws (financial decisions again). There are over 18 million Americans that have been diagnosed with sleep apnea and yet there were no outlets at bedside into which you cold plug a CPAP machine. The result of this is that you have to borrow an extension cord and create a tripping hazard in your stateroom. The ship's main theatre was too small for a ship that has a potential 4000 passenger maximum. The seating capacity is slightly over 1000 but the real problem is that because Norwegian wanted to put the most people they could in the smallest area they could, the incline between rows is not steep enough...so much so that when a person of average stature sits in front of you they completely block your view to the stage. The jogging track is a joke; it is very narrow and in a very congested part of the ship, if some one is going slower and you try to pas them on the right or left you would have to navigate lounge chairs, what a joke!! Finally ALL of the general passenger areas are too small for a ship that potentially has 4000 passengers. People were on top of each other everywhere!!

The business model for Norwegian Cruise line is severely flawed because the Freestyle system does little to motivate the crew to offer good service let alone courteous service. I would say that about 75% of the crew could just about look at you and those that did were looking at you in disgust because you were an inconvenience to them. The only exception to this were those in the foodservice area. Again the Freestyle business model does NOT work when you look at the disembarkation where they put out multiple color luggage tags and passengers pick the color (time) that they want to join to disembark with no capacity controls...fine on paper but when the majority of the passengers pick the same color/time there are tremendous bottlenecks on the ship and the terminal as we experienced on the day of our release.

Cabin Review

Cabin outside with balcony
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