This was my 13th cruise with Norwegian and my 5th on the Breakaway. I chose this ship because it was a local trip for me to get to the ship, as I live in NJ. We were at the pier by 9:30am (because we had to depend on a ride into NY who had prior commitments later in the day). It took a total of 20 minutes to check our luggage at the curb, go thru security and then check in. I was on the ship by 11:45am, with full access, including our stateroom. Normally, you have to wait to get into your stateroom, but as I said, we went right in. The only issue of taking a cruise in colder weather is that you lose the first day sailing and the last day coming home. Since our room was a spa mini suite, we had access to the spa, which normally cost $199 per person for the week.

While we did not eat at the buffet at all until the last day, we had breakfast and the breakfast food was very good. They had several different stations with the same food. We of our dinners in the Specialty restaurants, as we had the Dining plan for nights and as a Platinum member, they added more nights, one of them with a bottle of wine. For the first time, we ate at Ocen Blue, which is an ala carte restaurant. While the food was amazing, the bill was $100 and there were no drinks involved. While I agree that it was pricey, the meal was amazingly good. They changed the menu at Cagney's. I ordered surf and turf and the fillet mignon came with 3 pieces of shrimp on a skewer. I was expecting lobster. So, I asked the server if this is what I ordered and she said it was. I feel that she thought I was complaining because when she came back to our table, she brought another skewer with shrimp and 2 glasses of wine on the house. This meal was really good as well, but I was expecting lobster, not shrimp. If you like French onion soup, order it at Le Bistro, as this item changed also, but I think the change was for the better. Its always a great experience at Tepanyaki for us, but somehow I felt the "show" they put on while they are cooking was one of the best I had seen. We also ate at La Cucina. While it was good, its not my "favorite" on the ship.

We took the Behinds the Scenes tour and I have a new found respect for the people who work in the laundry facility. They are extremely hard-working and while the process seems automated, there is still a lot of manual bending and lifting. Overall, I love NCL and am booked on another cruise in July.