It's been more than a year, since I've done a long photo essay about a family vacation, but some vacations are more exciting than others.
The boat in question was the Norwegian Breakaway. I'd been on a cruise ship once before, but that was back in 2000 before the kids were born. Back in 2000, I specifically decided to go on the largest cruise ship in the world, which at the time was Royal Caribbean Voyager of the Seas. This time, my requirements were a lot more simple; I just wanted to go a cruise I could take without having to fly to the boat's port of departure. Back in 2000, flying to Florida was both cheap and hassle-free. Today, not so much, so we decided to take the Norwegian Breakaway out of the port of New York. While the Breakaway is nowhere near the biggest cruise ship in the world, it is bigger than the Voyager of the Sea, so I was still excited to be on the biggest ship I'd ever been on. The ship's stats are listed in the photo below.
I took the picture of the Breakaway below when we were docked in the Bahamas.
We started our journey on March 27th. Here are the boys before we entered the boarding terminal.
Our room wasn't ready as soon as we got on the boat, so we had some lunch and then joined a guided tour of the boat. After that, we checked out our room.
I was a bit worried about how much space we were going to have in our cabin. Unless you are prepared to spend a shitload of money, a cabin on a ship isn't going to be anywhere near as big as a regular hotel room. Back in 2000, Ruth and I got what was considered to be a relatively upscale room for two ( it was a nice balcony room ) and it still felt pretty cramped. There wasn't much walking space in our Voyager of the Seas room and the bathroom was tiny. Our room in the Breakaway was only 218 square feet which doesn't seem like a lot ( The free throw lane college/high_school basketball court is 228 square feet - that doesn't include the extra 2 feet on each side of the lane on an NBA court ), but I was pleasantly surprised by how much space we had.
I was also thrilled to see that the bathroom was relatively HUGE ( I don't think out bathroom in our Manhattan apartment was much bigger than this ).
I couldn't believe we had a full-sized shower. Back in 2000 our room had a tiny cylindrical stand-up shower that was only abut 30 inches in diameter.
After checking out the room we headed to the top deck to join a party celebrating the ship's departure. It was there that Peter started to boogie.
After a little while the kids got bored with the party and wanted to head back to the room. While Ruth and the boys headed back to the room, I stayed on the top deck to watch the ship pass under the Verrazano Bridge.
At some point in the evening, we took a picture with the captain.
He clearly doesn't have time to take photos with everybody, so if you blink, you miss your chance to get a picture. However, Ruth was all over this.
She also found an opportunity later in the week to get a picture of the boys with the Cruise Director Dan Dan.
BTW, Cruise Director Dan Dan turned out to be a talented singer. Here's a sample of what he can do.
The first entertainment we enjoyed on-baord the ship was a dueling pianos act called "Howl at the Moon". Ruth took the picture below, soon after we arrived in the piano venue ( It's empty because we were the first people there. ).
The ship had all kinds of entertainment, but "Howl at the Moon" was probably my favorite entertainment on the boat. After the Ruth and the boys got tired and headed back to the room, I sat and enjoyed the music for any hour or so more. As I sat there in the dark listening to great songs played by skilled performers, I felt more relaxed than I'd felt in a very long time. All the pressures of life and work melted away and I just say back and enjoyed myself. There were 4 or 5 "Howl at the Moon" shows during the cruise ( from about 10 PM to 2 AM, except on the fist night when they started at 8 PM ), and I spent at least hour at 4 of the shows. I love my family and enjoyed all our time together on the cruise, but the "Howl at the Moon" show really gave me the "me" time I needed.
Now, that I'm a veteran of 2 cruises, I'd like to quickly compare my Norwegian Cruise Line experience with my Royal Caribbean experience ( with the understanding that the Royal Caribbean cruise was 16 years ago, and Royal Caribbean has certainly upped their game since then ). The Norwegian Breakaway ( NB ) and Royal Caribbean Voyager of the Seas ( VOS ) are roughly the same size, so I think it's fair to compare them.
The biggest difference between the NB and the VOS was the dining experience. The food was quite good on both ships, but I enjoyed the NB experience more. On the VOS, you had an assigned dining time and needed to eat with the same people each night ( So each night, Ruth and I ate with 6 strangers on the VOS. ) The NB has a "freestyle dining" policy which gives you the option to eat whenever you want, wherever you want. The NB had all sorts of restaurants you could go to. It had a wonderful buffet ( far bigger than the VOS buffet ) and great sit-down restaurants with plenty of choices of the menu ( Each night the complimentary sit-down restaurants would have a new menu with 6 different appetizers, 9 different entrees and 6 different desserts. I'm pretty sure the VOS main dining room only gave you 2 entree options each night. ).
The one thing I will say about in the VOS's favor is that the main dining rooms on the VOS looked spectacular. They were like the dining rooms Cal and Rose enjoyed in Titanic. While I'm sure the dining rooms in the newer Royal Caribbean are even more spectacular, I much prefer Norwegian Cruise Line's "freesytle" dining experience.
The other big difference between the boats is that the VOS was far more impressive architecturally than the NB. Despite being slightly smaller than the NB, the VOS felt much bigger. The theater in the VOS felt bigger, the gym was bigger, the public spaces in the VOS were bigger, and the VOS had spectacular things like a large ice rink on the ship. I can't prove this, but considering how big our NB cabin was, I think the designers of the NB may have sacrificed public space for cabin space. That's actually not a bad thing if you are traveling with a family of 4, but people traveling as couples might enjoy the extra public space rather than the extra cabin space.
The public spaces on the VOS were so spacious, that sometimes you didn't feel like you were on a ship. I can't deny that I was impressed by VOS public spaces like the "Royal Promenade" ( a large public space hundreds of feet long that feels like a fancy indoor mall ), but there is something to be said about feeling like you are on a boat. The NB has all sorts of places that let you get a good view of the sea.
After we noticed the shuffleboard area, we had to give it a try.
It was too cold to take advantage of the pool when we left New York, but once we got a little more south we took advantage of the pools ...
... and the waterslides!
Too hot in the hot tub!!!!
Also, this ...
Not exactly Esther Williams, but I work for scale.
My favorite moment of the entire cruise happened during the "Rock of Ages" show. Ruth and I weren't sure if the boys were going to like the show, but early in the show one of the characters made an extremely juvenile penis joke. As I turned my head and watched the boys crack up, I knew they were going to have a fun night.
On the night we went to Rock of Ages, there was was a 7 PM show and a 9 PM show. Because the performers had to get ready for the next show, they didn't come out for pictures after the 7 PM show we went to. Ruth and I wanted to get some pictures with the performers, so we came back later ( when the boys were hanging out in the room ) to get some pictures after the 9 PM show. Here's one of them ...
Needless the say, the scenery in some the Caribbean locations was spectacular. Here are some example of the great views we had while docked in the Bahamas.
As you can see from the photo above, the views from the dining areas were great. The photo above is from the buffet area, which was the boy's favorite place to eat. They had soft serve ice-cream machines in the buffet and the boys must have had at least 20 cones each during the 7-day cruise ( Peter must have had at least 30 ).
However, as much as the boys loved the buffets, we also had had lots of nice meals in the fancier restaurants. On most evenings, the whole family went to both the buffet and a fancy restaurant. Peter would eat a lot in the buffet and a little in the fancy restaurant ( except for the two nights the fancy restaurant had PB&J's on the menu ) and Ruth and I would eat a little in the buffet and a lot more in fancy restaurant. Michael, who's in the midst of his big growth spurt ate a lot in both the buffet and the fancy restaurants. On two nights, the boys felt like hanging out in room after having an early buffet dinner, so Ruth and I had a couple of date nights.
The trip was also a good time to have a couple of family pictures taken.
The Breakaway also had an automatic camera that emailed photos back to you. This was the result.
The biggest highlight of the cruise may have been "walking the plank". The Breakaway has a large ropes/obstacle course on the top deck. The highlight of the course is the opportunity to "walk the plank" 18 decks up. Michael, Peter, and I all tried it when we were docked in the Bahamas. I tried it again on the way back New York because I forget to pull the string to take a photo of myself the first time I walked the plank ( That's why my photo has a different background ).
While all three of us walked the plank, Michael put us all to shame by doing what he did up there:
After watching this a few times I noticed that the kid in green behind Michael reacted by saying "Oh my God!" and putting his hand over his mouth.
The ropes course also had a zip-line type thing. I've decided to just show a photo ( of Peter ) instead of Ruth's video of the "zip-lining", because none of us were moving particular fast in the video.
And thus ends the part of this blog post that has any narrative continuity. For the rest of this post will just consists of random photos with random comment under them.
Every cruise ship needs to have lifeboats as well as lifeboat drills. Both time I've been a on cruise ship they've made go to safety training with the other people assigned to same lifeboat as me, and both times I found myself thinking "Jeez, these are the people I might have to eat!"
At some point, when we were docked in the Bahamas, they lowered this lifeboat outside our window to do some safety tests. Actually, I think ( hope ) they did these tests with all the lifeboats.
Speaking of lifeboats, considering that we were at sea on April 1st, I think the captain missed a great opportunity to pull one of the greatest April Fool's Day jokes of all time.
"May I have you attention please. This is your captain speaking. I regret to inform you that the ship is sinking, but don't worry, we have almost enough lifeboats for everyone. ....... April Fools!!!!!"
Yeah, he'd get fired, but it would almost be worth it. BTW, the quote above works better if you imagine the captain saying it in a Scandinavian accent.
It was fun watching the chandelier change colors. ( Thanks you, LEDs )
Michael showed the magician on board( Chip Romero ) his "pull my finger off" tricck. The pro showed Michael the right way to do it.
The deep blue sea.
I already miss seeing this every day.
Rich
