If you missed Part 1 of #VE2023: A Pre-Cruise Visit To New Orleans you can read about it here ß
Boarding the NCL Breakaway was a tiny bit chaotic,
partly due to having a group of six and needing to split up into two different
Ubers and partly due to the number of passengers on cruise ships being back at
full capacity following a global pandemic.
This is the busiest it has been since in a long time and I expected it
to be busy with it being the Vloggers Extravaganza Cruise 2023 (#VE2023).
This was the first cruise for Kenyon and I since
reaching platinum status and even though our other four traveling companions
were not the same status, I figured it didn’t hurt to ask. I’m glad I did because we were all whisked through
check-in together through shorter lines and all able to board before general
boarding due to our platinum status.
WhoooHooo! We were finally on board
the NCL Breakaway.
The first item on my agenda was to book our
entertainment and get my dinner reservations swapped around. It just so happened we boarded right by the
theater so the girls and boys split up so they could start in on the food and we
could book our shows. Despite the long
line, we got it all booked with ease. Dinner
reservations were also sorted out and I needed a Starbucks coffee and an
alcohol drink ASAP! I love the NCL now
has Starbucks on board.
Our free at sea promotion came with the drink package
which is a must when traveling with a group of friends. We also had a $100 on board credit as part of
the cruise partner booked and a $100 on board credit from our NCL stock. We enjoyed drinks at various bars around the
ship including Shakers Martini Bar and Maltings Whiskey Bar. Oh man so many delicious drinks.
Our platinum status came with a free Wines Around The
World tour, which I took Phoneix along.
We tired eight different wines and had an enjoyable time. They were bringing back the Behind the Scenes’
tour the cruise after ours. DOH!
We were so close to seeing what goes on behind a ship so I’m dying to
get onto another ship soon. I just have
to convince The Hubs.
The travel partners had a few pre-planned events as
part of #VE2023. First up was a meet and
greet at Spice H2O. It was surreal to
see these celebrity-type people I’ve been following on You Tube for so many
years. It felt like when you are walking
around Disneyland when you spot a character.
I don’t think it got any less weird the entire trip. They were all just so nice and I wanted more
time with them! The main group of four
that put the event together were:
Sharon and Jamie from Sharon at Sea
Jason and Alisa from EECC Travels
Tony and Jenny from La Lido Loca
We also had the pleasure of meeting so many other
cruise content creators including Don from Don’s Family Vacation, Jared andJordan from JJ Cruise, and Dee and Jay from ParoDeeJay, just to name a few,
and many others.
I attended two very early Q&A sessions, a travel
talk, a photo opportunity, and the BIG final group photo. It was a very memorable experience that I
will never forget!
As usual, the food on NCL is THE BEST! We had four specialty dining perks, two from the
free at sea promotion and two from our platinum status. We even got an included bottle of wine which
was a great extra perk. We redeemed that
at Cagney’s on our first sea day with the entire group. I love the food and the OMG cheesecake for
dessert is amazing.
We actually reserved Cagney’s a second time during
this sailing and since Kenyon came down with the same intestinal bug that I had
in the day prior, I took my friend Wanda to dinner on our last night of the
cruise.
We ate with Wanda and Michael at Teppanyaki for the
first time on NCL. Sadly, I got sick
after so I’m not sure we would eat there again.
Even if it is unrelated, the grill butter and oil was quite heavy. We spent our fourth free specialty dining at Moderna
Brazilian Grille. Again, I wasn’t feeling 100% the day we dined
here but I prefer our local Tucanos so I don’t think we would dine here again. We ate in the main dining rooms Taste, Savor,
and Manhattan and also in the included O’Sheehans. Breakfast each day was in the buffet.
As far as entertainment on NCL Breakaway, we saw the Broadway
musical Six two nights, rocked out to the dueling pianos one night, saw a
hilarious comic one night, and after standing in the longest line possible to
get into Syd Norman’s, we saw the Fleetwood Mac tribute for their album
Rumors. Syd Norman’s was packed pretty much
every night. We attempted the 80’s Party,
but that was the night I had way too much to drink, and the Glow Party, which
the rain had just let up and everything was sopping wet. We also visited Bliss night club one
night. As with most cruises, everything feels
so late so it is hard to stay up all night.
We captured one beautiful sunset.
And one beautiful sunrise.
I will for sure plan to catch the sunrise again on a
future cruise. It was great.
The only critique the entire trip was this weird smell
coming from all public bathrooms and the lack of interaction with your cabin
steward. I really like being able to
mingle with our steward/ess but with the reduction in staff/pay, you can feel
it all over the ship. Oh, I guess one
more…laundry! A perk of our platinum is a
free bag of laundry each our first bag got lost in the shuffle so it took an
extra few days to return. None of these
things will make me not sail NCL again but was a bummer.
I’ll wrap up our travel with our ports of calls.
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