A TOUR OF NCL BREAKAWAY AFT FACING PENTHOUSE SUITE 10312
Greetings!
We have recently returned from a cruise to the island of Bermuda, a trip chosen by our son Austin for his high school graduation present. Once he decided on this particular trip, a 7 day cruise from New York City to Bermuda, we then had to select our cabin on board NCL’s mega ship, the Breakaway that was launched in 2013. I am writing this lengthy post about our suite on this ship primarily as a service to those considering a voyage on this ship. NCL shows only one photo of this suite on their website and does not publish a floorplan of the suite either. Therefore, choosing this particular suite was a bit of a gamble. I hope this post will help take some of the guesswork out of your choice, if you’re considering an aft-facing penthouse suite on the Breakaway.
The room that I occupy anywhere, be it in a hotel or on a ship, is important to me. I have often heard people say that they don’t care about their hotel accommodations when traveling because, after all, they don’t plan to spend much time in their room. I am just the opposite. My mantra when traveling is why leave the comforts of my own home and bedroom to stay somewhere that is not equally as nice or better than my own home. I’ll admit it, I’m kind of a hotel/cruise snob, as only the best will truly satisfy me. Once you’ve had a taste of a comfortable bed with high thread count sheets, lovely, soothing decor and great service, it is really tough stepping down to anything less. So frankly, had it been my choice of cruises, this is not the cruise line or the ship I would have selected. But it wasn’t my turn to choose, it was our son’s, and he chose the Breakaway because of what this mega ship had to offer in the way of activities: water park, rock climbing, zip lining, walking the plank and lots and lots of pools and hot tubs, etc.
Plus he liked the idea of spending 3 days on a beautiful island where he could snorkel coral reefs, ride around on a jet ski and a catamaran, and, much to our chagrin, go to the local nightclubs where the age of admission is 18.
I, on the other hand, felt that what I would enjoy most about this cruise was the fact that it had a full 4 days at sea. That, of course, meant that we would in fact be spending a good deal of time in our stateroom. So cabin/suite accommodations would be very important to Brad & me.
So therein lay the challenge to select a suite aboard the Breakaway that would comfortably accommodate Brad and me and our son Austin and his BFF, while giving us a level of privacy and separation as well. Curiously, NCL’s website does not make it particularly easy to adequately explore each cabin’s layout. It takes a huge amount of effort to navigate the website and determine what suites are available, what they offer in the way of amenities, and the actual square footage of the specific staterooms and verandas, which is all very vague. The one thing that did become quite clear to me was that on a ship the size of the Breakaway, which has a guest capacity of 3,969 passengers, finding a place to escape the crowds would be vital. Thankfully, the Breakaway has a refuge hidden at the top of the ship on decks 15, 16 & 17 called The Haven, which also features its most luxurious and well-appointed accommodations nearby. Staterooms in The Haven enjoy exclusive platinum keycard access to a private sundeck with a pool and several jacuzzis that were never busy and truly were a “Haven” and a place to escape the throngs of passengers that overflowed the lounge areas on the decks below.
The Haven pool deck encompases two levels of the ship. By walking up that staircase you see in the background of the above photo you reach another lounging area which is shown in the photos below. The glass roof can be retracted depending on the weather conditions.
Honestly, this may sound hideously pretentious to some, but had it not been for The Haven, I would have hated every moment on this ship. At my age and station in life, wallowing with the masses of humanity that clamored for every deck chair, fought for a seat at the bar or a smidgen of space in the pool is simply not my idea of a vacation. I did, on the other hand, very much enjoy the quiet, peaceful environment of The Haven. It was in The Haven’s private dining room that we had our breakfast each morning…
and at the private Haven bar that we enjoyed a cocktail before dinner each evening. The service was terrific and very personalized.
OK, so now that we have established that I liked The Haven, let me take you on a tour of our Haven Aft-Facing Penthouse Suite #10312
The “10” indicates that our suite was on the 10th deck at the very back, “Aft” section of the ship. That’s our suite there with the pink square. NCL advertises this category of suite as being between 655-824 square feet. I was never able to determine the actual size of our suite.
If you were paying close attention, you might remember that I mentioned that “The Haven” is located in the very front of the ship on the 15th, 16th & 17th decks.
Therein lies the first disappointing feature of our particular suite. While it is indeed considered a “Haven” suite, complete with all of the accompanying bells, whistles and premium amenities, it is not located in The Haven. A chart of those suites can be seen below.
If I were to repeat this cruise I would definitely select a suite located within the confines of The Haven which is a private enclave that gives you the feeling that you are on a small ship within a ship. Why? First and foremost, all suites on the Breakaway are purported to have 24-hour butler service. On other ships we have sailed, our butler made himself very visible, accessible and omnipresent. In the case of the Breakaway, our butler was nowhere to be seen. When we did call him by phone, he rarely answered and after leaving a message, he took hours to respond. For example, on our first day at sea, we called him to ask for ice so that we could prepare a cocktail in the room. He informed us that he was very busy helping other passengers and would get to us as soon as possible. He showed up 1 1/2 hours later. Mysteriously, he would show up in our room when we were not present to refill our coffee bar and to leave appetizers in the afternoon. That was the full extent of our butler service.
The only time we actually saw our butler was when we were in The Haven, where he was attending to suites located within the The Haven. Our suite at the very back of the ship was located a very long walk away, and our butler clearly did not like the exercise he had to expend to reach our suite. Speaking of exercise, the Breakaway is 1,068 feet long. Therefore, to reach The Haven from our suite, required climbing 6 flights of stairs (or taking the elevator) and then walking the length of over 3 1/2 football fields. Granted, we enjoyed the exercise, but our Butler clearly did not. In hindsight, I think that having a Penthouse Suite in The Haven would have insured us much better service, and we would have been able to take advantage of all that The Haven had to offer on a more regular basis because of the proximity it would have afforded.
By the way, one of the amenities NCL advertises is that suite occupants will be personally escorted to their cabins. We were not provided with this service and had to find our own way. So, come on into our suite and let me show you around. The entry door opened into a short hallway that you can glimpse on the left side of the photo below. Turning left, you enter the living and dining area.
There we discovered an ice bucket with a complimentary bottle of champagne and a large bottle of water. We learned later that all bottled water on the ship is provided at a charge, even to suite guests. So, unlike other cruise lines, such as Oceania which provide bottled water free of charge, that one bottle of water was all we were getting for free for the duration of the cruise.
The suite had a small dining table with 4 chairs that we never used. Apparently you can have your Butler provide you with “white tablecloth in-suite dining” but we never attempted to do this given the poor butler service we experienced for far lesser tasks. The odd shaped couch in the living area converts into a king sized bed that our son did not find comfortable. There is also a coffee table and a chair with an ottoman. Adjacent to the couch is a flat screen TV where you could watch a few channels of TV and there was a selection of both free and pay-per-view movies.
On the table we found this tropical floral arrangement sent by our travel agent, Laurel Leidner, from PictureYourselfTraveling.com.
There was also a small flower arrangement provided by the ship that at first glance I assumed was fake, but upon further inspection, found them to be real. That was a nice touch.
Adjacent to the dining table is the coffee bar and a cabinet that houses a mini refrigerator. The fridge had a selection of alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages but, even though we had the “Ultimate Alcoholic Beverage and Soda Packages,” the contents of the mini fridge were not included. The upper cabinets contained a small selection of plates, glasses and coffee cups.
This Italian beverage maker was at first a bit complicated to use. In fact, it was malfunctioning until we rebooted it and then got it to make a reasonably good cup of espresso. There were capsules provided for both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee and, by selecting the various functions, you could prepare both American style and espresso coffees. I asked for milk to be placed in the mini fridge so I could prepare a Cafe Latte each morning by using the steam function. While this machine was a nice touch, the tea made from it was very sub-par. I had requested both green and chamomile tea, but both were presweetened and, frankly, awful.
The main living area has floor to ceiling sliding glass windows that open onto the VERY large veranda. The immense size of this veranda is what sold us on this particular aft-facing suite, and it is why we decided to forgo a suite located in The Haven where all of the verandas in this category are quite small.
NCL makes it impossible to determine the exact square footage of a particular veranda because they vary from cabin to cabin within the same class of cabin. They published our cabin type as having a 257 square foot veranda. However, as it turns out, in the case of the aft-facing cabins, the lower the deck, the bigger the veranda. That’s because the ship slopes down from narrower at the top to wider at the bottom as you can see in the photo below. So, since the aft-facing penthouse suites start on the 9th deck and end on deck 14, I believe our 10th floor suite had the second largest veranda for this particular stateroom type. I still don’t know how many square feet it was, but it was enormous and we got a lot of use out of it. It was like having an additional large living area and most of it was protected from the sun and elements by the upper deck overhang.
The left side of the veranda had a table with 4 chairs, while the right side sported 2 lounge chairs and 2 more club chairs with 2 small side table.
I am sure the views were unparalleled from our veranda because we had both rear and side views.
Stepping back inside, let me show you the master bedroom which was located off of the dining area. It had a comfortable king size bed with what NCL calls their “Bliss Collection by Norwegian” pillow-top mattress. It featured high thread count sheets, a feather duvet, and we were offered a pillow menu to select from in advance of the cruise. There was also a second flat screen TV featured here as well as adjustable reading lights and a bedside clock and telephone.
NCL is very proud of the their cabin lighting, which changes colors and can be dimmed by way of a very complicated system on the wall that I never did take the time to master. Frankly, I disliked the lighting because it was not at all flattering. Somehow, it brought out every flaw and pronounced every blemish and wrinkle. No one wants to feel less than their best when on vacation and, therefore, I think NCL needs to rethink their cabin lighting.
I will give them kudos for the enormous amount of closet and storage space in our stateroom. I of course took the larger closet shown above while my husband occupied the one shown below. There were drawers and shelves galore that we didn’t come close to filling. In fact, you would have had to be traveling with multiple suitcases to have a need for even half of the overall storage provided. An additional closet and drawers were located in the living room, and was used by our son.
The master bedroom opens into a spacious master bathroom which has double vessel sinks. The one thing we found odd was that instead of a door to the bathroom there was simply a curtain. This not only failed to provide much privacy or soundproofing, it also let light into the bedroom which is unwanted early in the morning. Unless you were very careful to close the curtain before going to bed, light would flood into the bedroom in the early morning.
As you can see, the storage provided in the bathroom was overkill as well, unless you were taking a year-long, around the world voyage.
Adjacent to the sinks was a lighted vanity area with a magnifying mirror. To the right of the vanity area was the WC.
They were generous with the Elemis toiletries which were replenished daily. Bathrobes, slippers and somewhat lack-luster towels were also provided in abundance. The quality of the facial tissue and toilet paper was, not mincing words, absolutely horrible.
At the back of the bathroom was a soaking tub that looked out onto the veranda. The glass was tinted which allowed for a lovely view out, but not in, so that there was a measure of privacy. Bath salts were also provided.
Just to the right of the tub was a walkin shower with 4 body jets, a handheld sprayer and a rain shower head.
If you were so inclined you could take a seat in the shower and peer out to sea through that large glass window.
Finally, let me show you the 2nd bathroom in our suite. It was located just off the living room and while it was compact, it housed a shower, sink and toilet. Frankly, having this 2nd bathroom is what made it possible for us to travel in comfort with our son in the same stateroom.
In closing, I don’t want to forget to mention that the concierge services provided to Haven guests was superb. An attractive young Filipino woman was cheerful and very helpful in many ways during our voyage. By the way, concierge services are also offered to Haven guests prior to the voyage, through which you can make reservations in the specialty dining rooms, book a spa appoint or reserve a shore excursion. I took full advantage of these services which helped to insure smooth sailing.
So there you have it: A TOUR OF NCL BREAKAWAY AFT FACING PENTHOUSE SUITE 10312
PS – As you may have gathered by my frank and not always flattering comments, this was not a sponsored post and I received no compensation from NCL. In fact, you might be curious to know what we paid for this 7 day cruise. It was a total of $11,985.00 for 4 persons in our Aft-Facing Penthouse Suite. We sailed from August 2nd to 9th, 2015.
Please stay tuned and in my upcoming posts I’ll tell you about our dining experiences aboard the Breakaway and I’ll take you on a tour of lovely Bermuda.
Thanks for dropping in! Do please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you!
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