Since there are plenty of friends out that that might be considering cruising on the Norwegian Breakaway, I thought I'd just put the gory details into a blog post for easy reference rather than answering, "So how was the cruise? Any suggestion if we want to go too?" whenever it comes up.
Sooo... Why did we go on a cruise?
Our kids have been asking ever since their cousins came back from their trip on the Norwegian Breakaway a few years ago, and my response had always been that such a travel opportunity would be challenging with Big One's egg allergy. So I always said it was off the table until Big One was cleared for "baked eggs" (muffins, cookies, pancakes, rolls, etc.). Well, just before Christmas, the allergist cleared him, so their big Christmas present was finding out that we were going on the cruise!
Cruise Purchase
You'd think that Sue the Bargain Hunter would be oh-so-frugal about cruise purchasing, but no - In hindsight, purchasing a cruise Christmas Eve night was a bad move. We definitely could have paid less about two weeks later. I went through BJ's Wholesale Club's travel website, which seemed to be the better deal at the time. So my suggestion is to stalk the Norwegian site for a good deal, or perhaps work with a human being travel agent to help navigate you through finding the better deal.
Oh, an in terms of "what room should I pick" since for most reservations you are picking your exact room, I think our room choice (room #10266) worked out pretty well for us, but some criteria to consider:
- Balcony or Interior: We opted for the balcony, which was nice for opening to check temperatures, and sitting when the kids had their "we just want to rest and watch TV" moments (will discuss the minimal TV options later).
- Forward (front of boat) or Aft (back of boat): Aft puts you closer to the primary buffet restaurant (Deck 15 Aft) as well as the Breakaway Theater if you are a bingo nut. With a bottomless stomached tween boy, proximity to the buffet was good! Forward puts you closer to the waterslides/pool/ropes course/ping pong table (Deck 15 and 16 forward), and the kids club (Deck 12 Forward).
- Size-wise, we opted for the cheaper balcony room rated for 3-4 people. I was nervous when we first walked in that I got the wrong room, because all I saw was the "king" sized bed (technically two twins strapped together) and the little couch. But fear not, your room steward will come each night and pull out a magic top bunk bed for your 4th person to sleep on (see photo below)
Packing
Did some research ahead of the cruise and read a few "insider" packing suggestions. Here are a mix of the ones that helped us the most and ones I'm adding as FYIs from our lessons learned last week:
(1) Having now spent a week using one of these over the door shoe organizers for sorting toiletries, I will never travel for an extended period with my kids without it. It's awesome for keeping all the toiletries sorted without taking over the counter space.
(2) I didn't know ahead of time, but from what I know now: Just a heads up that they DO have 2-in-1 shampoo/conditioner and a separate liquid body soap in dispensers in the shower. So if you're happy with standard hotel toiletries, it's a few less things to pack.
(3) While talking about the shower area, we grabbed a few big suction hooks that attached perfectly to the glass shower enclosure or the mirror near the sink. Why would you want suction hooks? They were perfect for drying bathing suits in limited space! Another cruise item that is good for use for dry land vacations as well!
(4) Yes, there is a fridge in your room, but it's 80% full from the mini bar. Enough room for a few mini bottles of Coke or bottled water from home though. Note: We drank plenty of tap water from the buffet/bars, so personally, other than excursion days, the cases of bottled water that folks bring on board seems silly to me! We did skip any of the drink "packages" in order to encourage ourselves to drink primarily water. If we needed non-alcoholic and non-water, there was always lemonade, fruit-flavored waters, iced tea, coffee, and select juices in certain locations that were "free" (built into the cost of the cruise).
(5) Don't be afraid to use a massive wheeled suitcase - There was a ton of space for storing bags under the one bed.
(6) They have an deal where if you fill your laundry bag before Thursday morning they will return it Friday with your clothes cleaned. We actually couldn't find the laundry bag in our room, so we didn't take advantage, but definitely helpful if you didn't pack enough clothes or had an "oops". They were charging only $19.99 on Norwegian Breakaway, but searching the internet, Norwegian charges $24.95 on some of the other ships.
(7) So one suggestion was strong magnetic hooks like these. Yes, it's true - The room walls are metal and the magnets can be attached to the wall easy-peasy! We found that weight-wise though, the hooks we had were just good for lightweight bags and kids' lighter jackets. We did not get a lot of use out of them, but others might.
(8) I saw a friend had towel clips on a previous vacation, so I looked around on Amazon and ordered a lower fills set of clips as well. If you haven't seen them, they are like giant clothes pins for keeping your big beach towel on your chair while you're in the pool. They do come in handy and help for identifying "your" chair, but I must admit the the set we got, multiple clips didn't survive the trip just due to things like kids wanting to use the beach bag as a chair (so they sat on the contents).
Embarkment
So Day 1 of the cruise finally arrived! My father-in-law has a pickup truck that seats 5, so he generously offered to be our limo driver to/from the cruise terminal. Driving from NJ, it's maybe 15 blocks total driving from the Lincoln Tunnel. I am quite far from being a "city" girl, but I think even I could have handled driving the small amount required. Some mental notes I made:
- The "scheduled arrival time window" they ask you to register for is not checked as far as I could tell.
- I think higher class cabins have the option of pre-printing luggage tags. I saw no such option for our cabin. So we got tags to write our name/room number on from the baggage guy at the baggage drop off before you enter the terminal. We even checked an open reusable shopping bag that had about 8 mini-Coke bottles and 6 water bottles in it without a problem. The bags you checked are brought to your room later that night. I'd suggest keeping the bag with any medications with you. If you are cruising out of a port where the temperature is warm enough to swim, you might as well keep the swim suits handy as well. There will be beach towels available in your room when you get there, so no need to bring your own.
- Pack a pen, as you are expected to fill out a pre-boarding health questionnaire. Thankfully Big One's random stomach bug was outside the 48 hour pre-boarding window, or he would have been quarantined the first few days :-(
- If one of your checked bags does not make it to your room, fear not! It happened to us. Just walk down to the guest services desk (Deck 6 Mid, across from the Atrium) and they'll take you to the secret room where the bags that lost their tags go. I quickly found ours and headed back up to the room.
Will share more about the trip in separate posts, so stay tuned!
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Referral Disclaimer: Nope, no kickback from Norwegian for this. However, I did include some Amazon links above that will give me a tiny kickback if you purchase through my links.
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