And guess who will be on the first sailing???  That’s right, we will! 

Biggest ship we have ever seen

Photo from NCL.com

I only found out about this repositioning a few weeks ago and my mind started whirling.  We first saw this mega ship a few years ago as it was being built and was featured on Smithsonian Channel’s ‘Mighty Ships’.  There were two episodes: one of the build and one of the maiden voyage.  The ship was huge and magnificent and we immediately said we wanted to sail on that ship! 

Smithsonian channel’s description of the Norwegian Breakaway:

Three times the size of the Titanic, the mega cruise ship Norwegian Breakaway is the largest vessel ever to call New York City home. And the challenges involved in her construction were equally massive. Go behind the scenes for a rare, exclusive look at the building of this Mighty Ship, as Germany’s Meyer-Werft Shipyard takes on their biggest and fastest build ever. With only 18 months to complete the job, and ticket sales for the maiden voyage already going fast, the high-stakes race is on for Breakaway to sail into ship-building history.

After watching, I saw where she would port from and was a bit disappointed to learn it was New York.  So when I found out this ship was coming to our back door I was ‘all aboard’!  For extra excitement, the ship will go through a two-week dry dock before the transition happens.  We sailed on the Carnival Dream not long after her dry dock and it was like being on a brand new ship!  I am curious to see if the ship will get a new exterior paint job to reflect a New Orleans skyline instead of New York.

This ship is truly amazing! 

Photo from ECruising Travel

It has five HUGE water slides, two pools, a kids water park and lots of hot tubs.  The sports complex boasts the ‘largest-at-sea ropes course’ where you will maneuver through 40 elements in this multi-level structure, part of which even extends over the edge of the ship!!!  Yes, you can ‘walk the plank’!!! And there is also a climbing wall.  Let’s see if we are brave enough for these… 

One of the events we are most excited for is to see ‘Rock of Ages’!  We absolutely love the movie and have always wanted to see it on Broadway, but have never made it to New York.  This will be the next best thing!!!

So many food options!!!

Photo from NCL.com

Let’s not get started on all of the restaurants on board…   

• Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville at Sea to get the perfect ‘cheeseburger in paradise’
• O’Sheehan’s Neighborhood Bar & Grill which boasts great pub food at no extra cost
• Shanhai’s Noodle Bar for ‘fresh noodle dishes that are prepared just the way you like them’
• Teppanyaki for the perfect Japanese Hibachi at sea
• Le Bistro featuring signature French and Mediterranean food
• Cagney’s Steakhouse or if you want your meat with some flair try Moderno Churrascaria Brazilian Steakhouse right next door – both have waterfront seating
• La Cucina Italian ristorante – has waterfront seating

And this is just the specialty dining!!!  Needless to say, we won’t go hungry!

The Breakaway’s arrival

The Breakaway will arrive in New Orleans from a 14-day repositioning cruise on November 11, 2018.  We will board on this date and sail away for seven days to Cozumel, Mexico; Costa Maya, Mexico and Norwegian’s private port at Harvest Caye, Belize.  The 4,000 passenger ship will then begin regular seven-, ten- and eleven-night cruises to the Western Caribbean, visiting additional ports such as Ocho Rios, Jamaica; George Town, Grand Cayman, and Roatan, Honduras.

New adventure for EECC Travels

Harvest Caye, Belize – Photo from NCL.com

We are extremely excited for this cruise as it will be a lot of firsts for us!  First time on a ship other than Carnival.  First time to Costa Maya, Mexico and to Harvest Caye, Belize – Norwegian’s private island.  It will be the first time cruising without the kids (yes it will be just the two of us).  And first time with a balcony room!  I am a bit nervous on this one because people have told me that once you have a balcony, you can’t go back to an interior… Hope that is not true.  But we got such a good deal on the balcony room that we couldn’t pass it up! 

Now we have over a year to sit back and plan. We can figure out all of the places on the ship where we want to eat, which shows are a must and see if we can find some videos of those water slides… truth be told a couple of them look pretty scary.  We also have plenty of time to properly research the ports and decide what excursions will be best for us.

Have you evern sailed on the Breakaway?  If so, let us know about your experience!

Happy cruising!

Want to see more from our cruising adventures?  See these previous posts.

Here is the official press release from Norwegian Cruise Lines.

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Thanks,
Alisa
EECC Travels

The post Norwegian Breakaway is Moving to New Orleans appeared first on EECC Travels.

Travel day is always so exciting because of all of the anticipation of your upcoming trip!  We were so excited to go on the Carnival Dream that we loaded the car the night before. We got up at 6:30 am to begin our drive to New Orleans!  The boys were so excited that they actually stayed awake for the first half of the drive. This is amazing because they normally go to sleep immediately in the car that early in the morning.  It was Easter Sunday so there were very few cars on the road and we did not run into any traffic at all.  Also unusual because traffic in Baton Rouge can be a nightmare!  We made great time and arrived in less than three and a half hours into the ‘Crescent City’ aka NOLA aka New Orleans.

We drove by the port and the parking garage to get our bearings.  Then headed over to the French Quarter to walk and enjoy the beautiful day and kill a couple of hours until it was our set time to board the ship.  We parked right along the Mississippi River near Jackson Square so we only had a very short walk to the heart of the Quarter.  But first, we crossed the trolley tracks and walked up on the levee to get our first glimpse of our ship not far off in the distance.  The Carnival Dream and the Norwegian Pearl (I think, or maybe the Dawn…) were the two ships at the Port of New Orleans this morning.  

What we love about New Orleans

Walking into the French Quarter we immediately encounter one of the things we love so much about New Orleans. That is the local musicians!  They are all over and are wonderful!  

Also on the levee was some fun entertainment in the form of… Saints Vader.  What is ‘Saints Vader’ you ask?  Well, this is a guy with a costume that is a mix of Darth Vader and the New Orleans Saints.  He was very entertaining!

Beignets anyone?

The game plan for the morning was to go to Cafe Du Monde for some beignets… But I guess everyone else had the same idea as the place was packed and there was a line a block long to get in!  Needless to say, we decided to bypass our original destination and just go for a walk.  Luckily, just a couple of blocks down, we found yet another café selling coffee and beignets!  This was called ‘New Orleans Famous Beignets & Coffee’ so we decided to give it a try as there was almost no wait at all.  They did not disappoint. The Beignets were hot and yummy and we looked like we took a bath in powdered sugar, but that is to be expected.  

Tummies full and everyone hopped up on sugar, we continued our walk around Jackson Square over to St. Louis Cathedral.  Being Easter, there were lots of people all dressed up to attend church.  But there were also plenty of us in casual clothes so no one felt out of place.  There was some great calliope music playing somewhere in the area although we could never seem to pinpoint where it was coming from…  We found something I know had to have been there a while but we had never noticed and that was a huge tree completely covered in Mardi Gras beads!  Pretty cool!

Hmm… This is interesting

Around the corner was another new find for us which was a hot sauce bar…  Never seen anything like this before…  It was a store with one side all shelves of spicy items like seasonings and jellies and the other wall is nothing but hot sauce!  In every pepper, name, variety, anything you could think of this store has it!  And in the center is a tasting bar where you can try if you are brave enough, some of the different sauces and jellies.  So we managed to use up all of our free time exploring a very tiny portion of a very amazing city!  On to the ship…

Want to see this story come to life?  Here is the video: YouTube EECC Travels – New Orleans

Want to see more from this trip?  Here is the full Carnival Dream Playlist. 

The post Traveling to the Dream & New Orleans’ French Quarter appeared first on EECC Travels.