Norwegian Breakaway Review
WONDERFUL SHIP and AMAZING CREW! Great vacation!!
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Additional details
Just arrived from a 7-week cruise to Florida and the Bahamas and had an amazing time on the new and beautiful Norwegian Breakaway. Before embarking on the cruise I read a lot of the reviews here on cruise critic and was a bit skeptical about certain things. Many of the reviews here complained about things that I would have a difficult time dealing with on a vacation. This was my 4th cruise and 2nd with NCL. We were a group of 13 of which I was the "leader". All of us in the group enjoyed this ship and would definitely sail both on Breakaway and NCL again. I will mention things in this review that I was told by members of my group as well and will try to be as detailed as possible so I apologize in advance for the length of this review.
Embarkation in NYC was a breeze. Breakaway uses Pier 88. If you have sailed on Gem before then you may be familiar with Pier 90. Pier 88 is much longer and allows Breakaway to use 2 gangways for embarkation. If you don't mind walking a little then you can avoid the congestion directly in front of Pier 88 and get dropped off a bit further back. You'll also get a great view of Breakaway from there. Once our baggage was given to the porter we quickly proceeded through security. Immediately after security there is a desk for checking in alcohol. We had one bottle of wine for which we paid a $15 corkage fee. From there you are directed to a line for check-in. Latitude members have a shorter line but for those that are not members the line went fairly quickly. You board based on a number that you receive prior to check-in. From car to ship it's about 45 minutes.
Once on board our rooms were not ready for us to access until about 1pm. So we had an hour before we could access our rooms. We saw some individuals carry a lot of luggage on board. Thankfully the crew had dedicated the Bliss lounge as a temporary baggage drop off so that you could have lunch in peace. We had lunch at the Garden Cafe. The food was cooked perfectly, just a glimpse of future meals we would have on board.
Cabin Review
We had a spa mini-suite on deck 14. Room number was 14154. Here is something that I noticed that may benefit someone. Every other cabin has different bed setups. The room we were in had the bed closer to the entrance and not the balcony. That allowed us to have the balcony door open during the night and hear the ocean without having wind bother us. Note the diagram on Breakaway's deck plan and that will tell you what your setup is. I read a lot of reviews complaining about the size of the balcony. Although the balcony is smaller it's not SUPER tiny. One afternoon we were able to have 4 people comfortably sit/stand on the balcony and have a conversation. Another afternoon my wife and I had dinner out on the balcony and we were more than comfortable. If you would like a bigger balcony Breakaway has dedicated some larger balconies on deck 8 and 9. This was something I thought that I would be bothered with but when we got to the room we realized it was not such a big deal. The spa mini-suite was decorated in a very modern theme. This is something that we enjoyed about the entire ship. The decorations are impeccable. No tropical theme here. Feels a bit classy and elegant. Back to the room, there was storage in the closet and underneath the mirror/TV. We typically pack extra for our 7-day's and we had more than enough space between the two of us. In addition my wife would bring day and night outfits and everything fit perfectly between the closet and the space under the mirror/TV. We unpacked everything and fit our luggage in the closet. You could also fit it underneath the bed. The spa mini-suite comes with a nice large bathroom with a spa-like shower. The shower has adjustable jets and a nice shower head. The pressure is adjustable as well. Other than the larger bathroom we did not notice a difference in room size between our mini-suite and our friends' balcony. The balcony stateroom has a much smaller bathroom however the room size (living area and beds) are the same. In our mini-suite we were able to fit 10 people one evening to just hang out (of course using the sofa and balcony). Our stateroom steward would prepare our room twice a day. There is a card slot that you need to put something in to turn on electricity to the room. I've seen this in hotels as well. I didn't see this as a hassle but instead a place where your card could be kept (sometimes it may get lost in the room :) ). There is a make up room and do not disturb switch on the wall to let your steward know what is going on inside. There are 3 lights above your door that signal this. Being in room 14154 we were closer to the front of the ship. Right above us on 15 is the fitness and spa center. The spa-suite gives you access to the Thermal Spa area. This is for the Sauna, Saunarium, salt room, hot tubs and massaging waterfall and jacuzzis. Also the large area has many heated lounge beds. For the most part this area was quiet.