Norwegian Breakaway Western Caribbean Cruise We celebrated our 38th wedding anniversary on this April 2019 cruise on Norwegian Breakaway

On this page, you'll find information about our 47th cruise...  a 7-day Western Caribbean cruise in The Haven on Norwegian Breakaway.

Compared to the very detailed reviews I've posted here on my web site of some of our other cruises we've been on, this review is going to be fairly thin.  I'm spending so much time these days making videos for YouTube that I simply don't have much time to spend on these reviews on my web site.  But I do want to use this page to collect all the YouTube videos I shot on Norwegian Breakaway, plus the few still photos I shot.  (And I didn't shoot very many!)  I'll also use this page as a sort of "director's commentary" for some of the videos...  giving you a few more details here about a few things you'll see in some of the videos.

Let's start out with a 12-minute video tour of the Norwegian Breakaway.  I start up at the very highest deck of the ship, and work my way down, one deck at a time, until I've shown you all the great things Norwegian Breakaway has to offer.  This tour will be helpful not only to people who are planning a cruise on Norwegian Breakaway (or her sister ship, Norwegian Getaway) but also to anybody that's never been on a cruise ship at all...  and wants to see what kind of amenities are found on a modern-day mega ship.

To start the video playing, click the triangle in the middle of the video screen
To make the video fill the screen (recommended) click the little symbol in the lower right corner of the video player

Kellyn and I were cruising on this particular week in order to celebrate our 38th wedding anniversary!  Here's a photo of us from the big day 38 years ago...

I'm actually somewhat embarrassed by that wedding photo, because I think I look absolutely ridiculous with that horrible mustache and the brown tuxedo.  Kellyn looks fantastic, and we still laugh over the fact that she made her wedding dress from scratch, on the cheap.  We had no money in those days, and had a budget of just a few hundred dollars for the entire wedding, including renting the venue!

Now, compare that 1981 wedding photo with this current photo of us in our suite on Norwegian Breakaway...

Obviously, the years have been kinder to Kellyn than they have been to me!
It doesn't help that I'm about 80 pounds heavier now than I was back in those days.
Amazingly, Kellyn could probably still fit in her wedding dress.

In the next video, which runs a whopping 24 minutes, I'd like to share some of the highlights of the cruise with you.  These include:

• An amazing 3-point basketball shot I happened to capture on video at the ship's sports court, made by a kid you'd never expect could do it!

• Kellyn's favorite game in the ship's arcade, including a random encounter with one of my YouTube fans.

• Sailing for hours down the Mississippi River out of New Orleans, to get in to the Gulf Of Mexico and eventually the Caribbean.

• A fun visit to a walk-through aviary in Costa Maya, Mexico...  where we got to spend some time with big, colorful macaws.

• One of the best shore excursions we've ever had in all of our cruises:  a beach day on Passion Island, on the north coast of Cozumel.

• A look at some of the most noteworthy meals we had during the week, including something we were surprised to find on a cruise ship:  tasty Mexican food.

• A full tour of our unusual suite, and an explanation of all the interesting perks that came with it.

Here's the video:

In that last video, I mentioned that there was a longer version of the beach limbo video.
In case you'd like to see it, here it is:

There's also a longer version of the Mississippi River time lapse video.
If you'd like to watch it, here it is...

There's a bit of a view of the Mississippi River in this video
I shot out the window of our airplane as it was landing in New Orleans...

One of the fun parts of cruising out of New Orleans is all the music you can enjoy there.
Sometimes, the most amazing performances are found when you least expect them.
This next video features a small portion of a very original interpretation of
"House Of The Rising Sun" that we just randomly stumbled on to on Bourbon Street...

Internet access on Norwegian Breakaway was OK.  Not great, but OK.  Royal Caribbean has the best Internet access because they have a deal with O3B Networks, which uses a series of low-orbit satellites to provide Internet service.  Most other cruise lines, including Norwegian, use satellites that are in a higher orbit around the earth, which creates more latency in the signal, and slows down the feel of accessing the Internet.  I did frequent speed testing use Speedtest.net to measure how good the Internet service was on Norwegian Breakaway, and here is a typical result:

You can tell from the ping test that Norwegian Breakaway was using a satellite in a high orbit around the earth.  On Royal Caribbean, using the O3B network, that ping number would be several hundred milliseconds faster.  Of course, if you were at home, using a cable modem, the ping number would be ridiculously small...  like 6 or 10.  That's one of the reasons that the Internet feels so responsive at home...  low latency, as measured by the ping time.

At 6 Mbps, the download speed was OK for a cruise ship, but nothing to write home about.  The upload speed, however, was surprisingly good...  and that made it easy for me to upload large HD videos from the ship to my YouTube channel.

Norovirus and Other Bugs

The media always makes a big deal about a norovirus outbreak on a cruise ship, and I'm sure it scares some people away from ever going on a cruise.  In reality, norovirus outbreaks are pretty rare on cruise ships.  We've only been on ships with an outbreak a couple of times in our 47 cruises, and neither of us have ever come home with norovirus after a cruise.  In fact, Kellyn pretty much never comes home from a cruise with any kind of illness or virus.  My health habits aren't quite as good as hers, so about 20% of the time I manage to come home from a cruise with a head cold or a sinus infection.  But then again, that means 80% of the time I come home with no issues at all.

Somewhere during the course of this cruise, I managed to get influenza...  also known as the flu.

Influenza is highly contagious, so that meant that I had to take an additional work off from my "real job" at the nuclear power plant, following our cruise.  I felt bad about making my co-workers fill in for me for an additional week, but in a way getting the flu was fortunate for me because it gave me an additional week to edit video and post new content to YouTube.  I did get the flu vaccine several months before our cruise, which probably helped to keep my case of the flu a mild one.  There was only one day...  the first day we were back home after our cruise...  where I was very badly under the weather and had to spend most of the day in bed.

Need A Travel Agent?

Booking a cruise can be confusing, especially if you haven't been on many cruises before.  There are lots of first-time cruiser mistakes that a travel agent can keep you from making.

If you're interested in booking a cruise with any cruise line...  please feel free to use the services of my travel agent, Caitlin Gallagher.  She's extremely pleasant to deal with, easy to talk to since she lives in the United States and speaks without any kind of an accent, and quite experienced and knowledgeable about different types of cruising.  Caitlin is the owner of Ambren Travel.  Visit her web site, check out the Ambren Travel Facebook page, or contact her using the information below.

Downloads

Here are links to a couple of pdf files that I think you would find useful:

Norwegian Breakaway Deck Plans

All 7 Norwegian Breakaway Daily Newsletters  (known as the "Freestyle Daily")

List of all the shore excursions offered  including prices

The Cruise Ships We've Been On

If you've enjoyed this page, you would probably also enjoy reading my web pages about:

January 2019 Caribbean cruise on the Viking Sea
December 2018 country music cruise on the Norwegian Getaway
May 2018 Panama Canal cruise on the Norwegian Bliss
January 2018 cruise on MSC Seaside in a suite with a private Jacuzzi
September 2017 Carnival Vista cruise in a Havana Suite
October 2017 Norwegian Sky cruise in the owner's suite
The $1600 per night owners suite:  January 2017 Norwegian Pearl
An Un-crowded Small Ship Experience:  Viking Star
One Of The Best Waterslides At Sea:  Liberty Of The Seas
Quite Possibly The Best Cruise Ship In The World:  Anthem Of The Seas
January 2017 Allure Of The Seas
One of the best cruise ships we've ever experienced: The Norwegian Escape
2015 Carnival Breeze back-to-back cruises
Back-to-back cruises on Independence Of The Seas
World's largest cruise ship: Allure Of The Seas
2015 Carnival Freedom repositioning cruise
Our first VIP cruise in The Haven: The Norwegian Getaway
Our June 2014 Alaska cruisetour with Princess
Our first cruise with Princess!  January 2014 Sapphire Princess
2014 back-to-back eastern/western Caribbean cruises on the Carnival Glory
The completely refurbished Carnival Sunshine
One of Carnival's best ships, the Carnival Breeze
A sister ship to the Breeze, the Carnival Magic
Our 2013 cruise on the Carnival Conquest
One of the oldest ships in the fleet, the Carnival Inspiration
Our first Caribbean cruise:  the Carnival Glory
Our many cruises on the Carnival Spirit
Our February 2010 cruise on the Carnival Splendor
Our January 2008 cruise on the Carnival Elation
Our April 2008 cruise on the Norwegian Star
Our first cruise!  1996 on Carnival Cruise Line's MS Holiday

Click here to see the complete chronology of all the cruises we've ever taken.

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