Cruising on the Norwegian Breakaway

We transferred to the Norwegian Breakaway to start our Caribbean cruise earlier than anticipated because roads out of the Marriott were due to be closed at 10 am. The transfer was boring, with a lot of waiting around. It was a good time to get acquainted with fellow cruise mates, we were a pretty big group of 54, many of whom have taken multiple trips with STI. We finally got onboard, sampled lunch at the buffet and explored the ship. I got some nice photos of the New Orleans cruise terminal and skyline as we sailed off.

This was my first NCL cruise, my most recent experiences were with Celebrity, a few years ago, Holland America and a long time ago, Disney. Sad to say, I did not like this ship nor the cruise itself. Too many things did not go well, starting with a mobile app that was not the most user friendly, and that was not updated as soon as information changed. I enjoyed the company of my group; it was nice to cruise with STI members, eat and do things together. But the ship was noisy, the bars were usually crowded, smoking was allowed in the casino which you had to pass through when going to the main dining room (unless you divert by doing via a different floor), children hogged the hot tubs all day, many of the ship's crew did not appear happy to be working there, food was un-inspiring and entertainment (i.e. shows) was not great.

I liked the studio cabins which had access to a lounge for solo travelers that had a fancy coffee machine, juice, pastries and cookies. It also came with a very friendly and customer oriented bartender on duty 6-7 pm. Our group ended up staying in the lounge for most of our happy hour gatherings; everyone wrote Joseph (the bartender) up for a "hero" award.

The not so great weather did not help. The first sea day was rough, with quite a number of passengers getting sick. I was a little quesy when I got up in the morning, and I don't tend to get seasick. But getting out and about helped a lot. The first port of call, Cozumel was cancelled at the last minute. We were all waiting to disembark when it was announced that the choppy waters did not allow for safe morring at the port. So it was on to the next port, Roatan Bay, Honduras. Fortunately, we got to dock at Roatan where I had a shore excursion followed by a port call at Harvest Caye, Belize the next day. But Costa Maya in Mexico was cancelled, instead the ship turned back and stopped at Cozumel which we missed going out. Cozumel was where STI had scheduled its "signature experience", a day at a beach resort. STI was able to get it back on the new schedule which turned out to be a pretty good excursion. My shore excursions with photos are in separate posts.

The most negative part of the cruise came on the last day (at sea) when we were told we needed to get our refunds from cancelled excusions at the desk, in person. It appeared that NCL was unable to just reverse the charges to our credit cards (when whey were able to charge same cards directly for daily expenses), and that any refundable charges on our shipboard accounts will be lost if we don't claim them before the end of the cruise. As you could probably imagine, the lines on that last day were long. I stood in line for 1.5 hours, apparently I chose the wrong line despite the sign that said cruise credit desk. We were not aware that the guest relations line with 7 terminals could have helped us with refunds as well, and that line went a whole lot faster than the single terminal at the cruise credit desk. There was no staff to direct guests, and there were a lot of very unhappy guests, some threatening to vent on social media. When it finally got to my turn, the poor harrassed solo staff counted out $183 bills and handed them over as my refund for the cancelled Costa Maya excursion. After that, I had to go and have a few drinks to calm down ...

But, to end on a positive note, our STI concierge arranged for our group to visit the Ice Bar on the ship (for a fee) on the last evening. That was quite a COLD experience! We donned a thick hooded poncho, put on the provided gloves, and went into the bar that was made of ice inside. The visit included two drink coupons for martinis served out of glasses made of ice. Most of us could last only 5-10 minutes: it was fun but not something I'd do again.