Norwegian Breakaway - New England/Eastern Canada Cruise Review (10/30/22 - 11/05/22)

This post is constructed from notes I made while taking this cruise before I planned to start blogging.  As a result, it is incomplete, and reflects what I thought of the cruise at the time.

(Norwegian Breakaway - Courtesy of Wikipedia)

The NCL Breakaway is the first in the "Project Breakaway" class of ships.  Both the Breakaway and Getaway are comfortable ships to sail on, but feel much different from the Jewel class ships that used to make their home in New York.

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Ground Transit:

Given that my partner and I were still getting used to traveling together, we had to make a choice: Do we leave for the cruise from my house or hers?  We ended up choosing to travel from her place, as she was more comfortable with the ability to summon an Uber inside NYC limits. Our ride to the cruise terminal was much smoother than the last cruise, as there was no activity on the East side of Manhattan that would get in the way of our trip to the terminal.

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Embarkation

Once at the terminal, we found much shorter lines than our last visit. After experiencing the usual bottleneck at security, we proceeded to the check-in area to pick up our cruise cards.  From there, we were on the ship in less than 5 minutes.

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Stateroom

Just like our last cruise, we chose a balcony cabin for this cruise. My partner considered it important to have access to the outside, as she remembered cruise ship horrors from the days when cruise lines were shutting down due to the pandemic.

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Itinerary:

We chose this cruise on the spur of the moment.  Even though we took a cruise the month before, we saw a price that was just too good for us to pass up.  So again, we booked a cruise on a "standard" New England / Canada route.  It would be nice to see Bar Harbor again, as well as Portland and Newport.

There was one issue with this cruise - ports would be visited after the normal end of seasonal cruising.  Normally, the season for New England / Eastern Canada cruises ends in mid-October. This cruise would take place at the end of October and run into November.  So, the crowds would be gone, and many of the stores we might visit would be closed.

Newport, RI

Newport is a tender port, meaning that the ship's motorized lifeboats will tender people from the ship to a small pier at the port.  This isn't always a bad thing.  But it always slows down the movement of people to/from the ship. And when the weather threatens to be bad, being tendered can be uncomfortable for the cruiser.

It wasn't the nicest of days when we visited this port, as it threatened to rain all the time we were there.  So, we walked around the port area and visited the Museum of Newport History.  Knowing that we didn't want to wait on long lines to get back to the ship, instead of exploring the port, we hoofed it to the tender station and returned to the ship on an uncrowded boat.

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Portland, ME

Having been to this port a few times, we had a couple of things on our mind: To ride the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad and get something to eat.

Although the railroad no longer is able to run the full length of its route, the area still traveled by its train has pleasant waterfront views, and makes the price of a ticket worth paying.  When the ride was over, we walked around town a little and had something to eat before returning to the ship.

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Bar Harbor, ME

Bar Harbor is another tender port on this route.  It has improved its tender port, and larger ships like the one we were on can contract with local tourist boats to move people between the ship and Bar Harbor. 

Once on shore, we decided to walk around town and find a place to eat before returning to the ship.  Not having any interest in any of the tourist shops, we walked into a local general store and bought a couple of books before returning to the ship.

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Saint John, NB

This is a port we visited on our last cruise.  Our original plans for the day were to walk from the ship to the Reversing Falls. But we found out that we weren't up to that walk.  Instead, we walked around town a little and returned to the ship.

Years ago, when I was a child, I visited the Reversing Falls and was underwhelmed. However, if one visits this port, I would recommend the visit to Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park, where one can explore the sea floor when the Bay of Fundy is at low tide.

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Halifax, NS

This is another port we visited on our last cruise.  Instead of taking another tour, we decided to walk around the port area.  One of our stops was the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21.

Even though we were docked in walking distance of the museum, few cruise ship visitors have even heard of the place.  I feel that it is a nice contrast for those who have visited America's museum at Ellis Island, NY/NJ.

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Manhattan, NYC

Eventually, we had to return home.  Disembarkation day, and the pier was crowded as usual.  We got lucky for our return home, finding a limousine driver who was willing to take us back to Queens for less than a cabbie would charge.  

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Food Venues and Availability: 

Main Dining Rooms (Taste, Savor and Manhattan Room): 

Manhattan Room:

This venue is very noisy.  One time we are here for dinner, we were at a shared table and couldn't hear our dining companions speak due to the noise in the room.  My notes mention nothing else about the dinner, so it likely was a good meal.

However, service in these restaurants was spotty.  After having a good meal on our first visit to a complementary restaurant, we tried the same place - and were totally ignored.  It seems like NCL has always had a problem with staffing its complementary dining rooms, as the wait staff quality always seems to be hit or miss.

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Specialty Dining Areas:

I have platinum status with NCL, and receive 2 specialty meals on each cruise.  In addition to that, our cruise package included 2 extra specialty meals.  That meant, that out of 7 meals we would eat on the ship, that 4 of them would be in specialty restaurants.  However, I have no pictures of the menus or the meals we ate, as I was not yet planning on writing this blog.

Ocean Blu:

This was the ship's seafood restaurant at the time we took this cruise. The service was excellent, the food was prepared and presented well, and the portions were plentiful.  Sadly, this restaurant has been replaced by Palomar after the latest dry dock.

Cagney's:

This was the second specialty meal we had on the cruise.  My notes mentioned that we both loved the meal we had there.  I had the Lamb Chops, and my partner had the Filet Mignon. And both of these dishes were prepared well, presented well, and had enough "meat on the bone to feed an army."

Moderno:

This was the Brazilian Barbeque found on NCL ships,  When we cruised on this ship in 2022, it was located in the starboard dining area opposite Cagney's.  Sadly, when we cruised on this ship in 2026, Cagney's had taken over this space.

Unlike Cagney's, Moderno was a restaurant which would like to feed you as if you were that army.  Although it's salad bar (for lack of better terms) had enough variety to allow several armies to find food they liked, it was the table service of meats which was the star.  Various cuts of meat kept coming to the table until one lost the battle of "Man vs. Food."  These cuts included: Chicken legs, Rib Eye Steak, Filet Mignon, Sausage, and other beef cuts all delivered to the table on skewers.  Every thing was well prepared here, and was very tasty.

Le Bistro:

Finally, our last specialty meal on the ship was at the ship's French restaurant, Le Bistro.  If there was anything amiss about the meal I had here, I'd have noted it.  However, everything was perfect - especially the Coq au Vin that I almost always order at this venue.

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Disembarkation:

NCL's disembarkation process starts before disembarkation day, as cruisers need to select appropriate luggage tags for their disembarkation group from a station near the Guest Services desk.  This may be confusing to the first time cruiser.

Like other cruise lines, cruisers attach luggage tags to their bags and leave them in the hallway for ship's staff to bring them to the ship's hold so that they can be moved to be the pier on disembarkation day to be picked up by cruisers. This process is relatively simple, and each line provides its own instructions for disembarkation.

On disembarkation day, we waited for our group to be called, walked off the ship, and found our bags at the pier.  Then, we had to get on line for the US Customs to check our passports, and from there, out to catch a cab,  Easy-Peasy - as long as one could deal with long lines.

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Postscript:

Things have changed since we took this cruise. The most notable changes for me were:  

• Two of the specialty restaurants we enjoyed have since been removed from the ship - Ocean Blu and Moderno.  
• US Customs now uses facial recognition, and the process of clearing customs in much quicker.  This makes disembarkation day much easier.

I'm glad that we had the opportunity to take this cruise shortly after our prior New England / Eastern Canada cruise.  We were able to enjoy things in some ports that we missed the first time around, as well as to enjoy different things which weren't available to us on the first cruise.