Norwegian Cruise Lines

With the exception of a two-day cruise to nowhere in 2012, our cruise in the Baltic Sea was our first cruising experience. Looking back at past Pillsbury Press posts (say that three times fast), I did not even blog about the Disney Cruise we took out of New York City, which does surprise me, it was a pretty miserable experience in that the 37 hour cruise was billed as a three-day cruise -- we boarded the boat at 5 PM on Friday afternoon and had to be off by 6 AM on Sunday morning. We spent more time sleeping than anything else on that cruise. It definitely turned us off to future cruises.

There are pros and cons to cruising. In our case, we wanted to see certain places without having to lug our suitcase, check into different hotels, worry about pickpockets as we tried to catch sleep on trains ... basically I wanted a floating hotel room. And that is how I approached our voyage.

The ship (Norwegian Breakaway) was HUGE -- 16 floors huge. It was built in 2013 and refurbished in 2018, though it did not feel that new to me. There were 3,983 passengers (at capacity) and 1,500 staff members. Our room steward, Roma, had nine rooms to tend. Our room was in the center of the 9th floor, near the Aft staircase. A good location for us since most of what we wanted to do was on the Aft side, such as the buffet and running track. We easily managed to get our 10,000 steps a day, even while on board.

Our room was much larger than we expected. It helped I took the advice of our travel agent and upgraded from an inside room with a bunk bed and twin to this spacious room with a balcony. The couch (close to the window) converted into a bed for Ashley. It stayed a bed the entire cruise.

My favorite feature was the library. I didn't spend nearly enough time in this sixth floor gem.


Ashley's favorite part of cruising was being able to order her meals the night before to ensure they would be dairy-free. She loved being able to eat without worrying about butter being added to vegetables, or some other hidden dairy that would flare up and make her sick later. She also loved the early morning yoga stretch sessions.

I did not like the captain waking me up every time I tried to take a nap. Sightseeing is tiring work. So is staying up late most nights because, well, we were on vacation and because it was only dark between 11 PM and 2 AM that time of year.

There were an overwhelming amount of activities to do, but my favorite was walking and running the track. It is an eighth of a mile. My training schedule called for an 11 mile run. I met a woman training to qualify for Boston who did a 20-mile run on the track -- or 160 laps. The track's measurements seemed off. 

Running on the track was both annoying and amusing at the same time. There were people who would stand on either side of the track taking pictures of each other as we ran past. The runners faster than me were passing the same spot once a minute. There were a bunch of us running. I tried to explain to them if they walked down about 15 feet, they could take the same picture of them with the Baltic Sea behind them, but without people running in their picture, but they knew best (or didn't understand English, or were lazy). The track also intersected with the main entrance to that part of the boat, so people would step on the track and try to figure out if they should go left or right, since straight put them in the climbing rock wall.

After dinner we'd watch the sun set around 10:30 PM. Wake up early the next day to do it all again in a new city.


The one disappointment I did have with the cruise was how early we would have to be back in the ship in order to start our adventures for the day. I would have liked being able to stay in port and have dinner or see a city at night. 

Spoiler alert ... of all the ports we visited, Stockholm is the only one we really want to return to as an extended trip. That was our last port. Many blog posts to write and read between now and then.