Norwegian Breakaway Review
Average at best, but school age kids will like it
Rating by category
Additional details
I read pretty much all the reviews of this ship before boarding so I wanted to share my experience. I used to work as cruise staff for Princess years ago so I'm not new to cruising by any means. I read the negative reviews and figured that I'd see past some of the negatives because I know how things work behind the scenes. I wanted to share cruising with my kids who are 9 and 4 because they know that I used to work on a ship. This trip we sailed with my parents as well.
The choice to sail on Breakaway was pretty impulsive. I was searching around for something unique to do for my husband's 40th birthday and stumbled on the Breakaway. We are from California and none of us had been to New York City so it seemed like a great combo to get to explore the Big Apple for a couple of days, then cruise to the Bahamas. There was a kids sail free promotion going on so we took those savings and went for a mini-suite. I booked in early Aug. and after I'd paid the balance, I was very disappointed to start receiving e-mails from Norwegian offering lower prices and more on-board credit than what I'd booked. Of course they wouldn't make any adjustments. I also chose Norwegian because of Nickelodeon. My kids are still young enough to enjoy the character experience so I thought this would be fun.
Fast forward to Nov. We took a cab from our hotel to the terminal and arrived at noon to a complete madhouse. I had read in other reviews to arrive earlier, but we wanted to sight see a little longer in the city so we took our chances. It was a ridiculously slow embarkation process. It took an hour and a half just to get on board. We headed to the buffet which, as I'd read, was also a madhouse. Zero places for a party of six to sit. I'd read to head to the Uptown Grill so we arrived at 2 PM just as they were closing it for the lifeboat drill. We scrambled back down to the buffet and quickly ate some not-very-good pizza so that we wouldn't be starving by the time drill was over. Post-drill, we were excited to go to the Sailaway party. It's probably really fun in the summer, but in Nov., it was freezing and windy. I enjoyed it, but my 4-year-old was too cold. They brought out the Nickelodeon characters for all of five minutes. That was the only time we saw them all together and the only time you could really interact with them. I didn't pay extra for the Pajama Jam so I'm not sure if there are better opportunities there.
Cabin Review
Mid-Ship Mini-Suite with Balcony
Our cabin was sufficient for us. We had a mini-suite. The kids loved the bunk beds. The shower was great. There was enough storage for our four large suitcases. We just left them under the bed with our stuff in them and pulled them out as needed. I had read about the lack of hair conditioner, lotion, and bar soap and came prepared, but you'd think they could provide those items. The one ply tissue products could use an upgrade. One thing I wasn't anticipating was how creaky the room was. We were on deck 14 and I was initially worried about noise from above, but that wasn't a problem. The noisy room itself disrupted me numerous times. We had rough seas the first couple of days and the cabin really rocked more than I'd have expected on such a large ship. We brought a sound machine that helped disguise noise from the hallway.