First time NCL cruiser just off the Jade...thoughts!

Just got off the Jade which sailed around Norway for 10 days including an overnight in Oslo. This was our 6th cruise as we have mainly sailed with Carnival in the past and love them...also sailed Royal which we also love so NCL was always a next to try for us. We are a couple in our early 30s and mainly do long 10+ day cruisers in different parts of the world. We had the all inclusive package with UBP and grats/coffee/water.

I always try and do long reviews and get too busy to start/complete them so I will make this quick...

Food

We pretty much ate only the free stuff and were impressed. Really enjoyed the variety and quality of the food in both main dining rooms and the buffet. Cakes were usual tasteless fare but thats the norm for cruises I guess. I had really tasty sushi for a fee in Jasmine and my husband enjoyed the food there but their ramen was bad and they didn't change the menu which was a surprise. Husband liked Osheehan's but I found it just ok and for the most bizarre reason the fries all over the ship weren't great. I pretty much ate mostly asian from the buffet and this was good especially the veggie curries. One thing I did notice about some buffet dining options as they could be quite similar offerings day to day compared to other lines. Husband thought the food was the best on any cruise...even X although X is still my favourite for food.

Service

Really top notch.Our steward was visable but not intrusive and was obviously a little shy so we tried not to bother him too much...he noticed we kept taking towels from the deck as these were bigger so provided them for us when we needed them. All our waiters and food staff were also amazing and friendly without ebing too forceful...we had a grumpy waitress in O-sheehans but noticed she was the only one of her nationality on the ship. This brings me onto the very high proportion of the crew being Filipino (70% plus) and this seemed to foster a real togetherness of the staff on board (or maybe itsa NCL thing) and was wonderful. I heard that NCL really takes care of its staff and offers a lot of opportunities to its crew of any rank and this was confirmed during an officers QandA. Its the only cruise where we didn't visit guest services for little bits and bobs. Applause particularly to the dry humoured waitress on our final night and the rather amazing camp washy washy guy in the buffet.

More later.....

Glad you had a good experience!

Can't wait to hear more! Will be on the Jade in October!

A great review; looking forward to more. Will be our first NCL cruise on Jade in November.

Great start.

Looking forward to the rest of your review.

Keith

We were on the same cruise and echo your thoughts so far, although we have been on NCL before this was our 5th NCL cruise, we found the staff on this cruise better than epic.

Cabin

We booked a guarantee OV and ended up with a very forward normal unobstructed oceanview on deck 5 which was great (we expected a porthole or obstructed). As it was low and forward we had noise pulling into port on some days but nothing bad....it was a good gamble! As it has been refitted everything was new but the new black TV units look very out of place in what are quite small cabins anyway. Although we would happily stay in the cabin again it is my least favourite OV I have stayed in due to the size and the layout of the vanity which meant one sleeper had to squeeze past it before bed each night. We also thought the divided bathroom set up (middle section with sink and a doored shower and toilet areas) felt cramped and pokey compared to a open bathroom. Thumbs up for the new USB ports by the bedside and the bluish understated decor and we also thought the cabin had lots of storage space although a lot of it was open shelf style so maybe not great for a messy cruiser.

Ship

We loved the size of the ship and found her easy to navigate and her refit has left her looking for modern with some old vegas style left for a bit of fun (Dining rooms and stardust theatre). The bliss lounge had been painted all black and felt a bit too dark but all the public spaces were a good size and often small enough for a good atmosphere. Comparing the small atrium to the Vista's small atrium the Jade won due to decor and amount of large glass windows although the colour changing lights got a bit much and a few staff said it made them feel sick. The buffet is a bit too small for everyone (especially in bad weather) even though the food area itself had a lot of space but the great outdoors aft area helped with this a lot and was our spot on most days. Lifts were great with hardly any waiting too. I also must mention that our favourite indoor area apart from the wonderful glass surrounded Spinnaker lounge was the seating area with the piano on deck 6 just below Jasmine...very elegant and next to a row of bars. Even with the misses mentioned we were impressed with the ship and felt me may even have liked her before the refit the only thing that really bothered me was the apparent love of dull/minimal lighting in many areas as there is a lot of dark colours/wood on her and it just felt a bit dim sometimes.

entertainment

We were quite impressed with the evening offerings and how they were spaced out (for us anyway). There would be a trivia around 5/6ish and a gameshow type thing at 8.30 and dance parties at 10-11ish this meant that even when the show wasn't our thing we had lots to do and thats not even mentioning the great musicians around the ship that were placed well for the flow off traffic and seating areas. Maybe we just really like trivia and music but this structure worked for us. The shows in stardust were more hit and miss as we enjoyed both russian performing pairs (one gymnastic and one more circus) but were not impressed with the magician (usually a hit with us) as he spent an hour doing the same escapist tricks in different containers. For some reason NCL had booked 2 motown shows on our cruise which was a bit odd and we didn't bother to go to these. To say our cruise was ten days we only had 2 production shows which seemed NCL possibly were not getting their money's worth out of their production team who were of a good and normal standard for cruises. Blazing boots was apparently new and not great as it seemed to freestyle a lot and be a bit messy. Elements was great and had a mix of performers on the cruise...it could have been sensational if it didn't have so many tricks from the previously mentioned magician. I learnt that elements was long running and always had the same set up which makes me think NCL is limited with how it books guest acts in that they have to book magicains and gymnasts so they can be in the show at the end. This gives them limited choices for booking in my opinion and was probably the reason why we had no comedian on this cruise. The day entertainment was a bit more sparse but had a few trivias (not as much as Carnival) and some really good food demos and drink tastings which are always a hit with us. I also think the entertainment staff did well encouraging a quiet crowd in cold Norway weather!

Loving your review! We had our best ever NCL cruise on the Jade in 2010 and she has a spot in our hearts because of it. We have always thought that NCL had great entertainment if you include the live musicians in the lounges, etc.

Sorry for the grammar and spelling errors...I am on rather strong hayfever medication!

Staff

This does link into service but I thought it deserved its own section. The officers and senior ranks were visable around the ship and apart from X, very personable and friendly. The staff seemed to have enough intuition forwhen to have a chat and when to customers were more reserved and didn't let any rain let this slip. An example was sailaway when the pit stop bar waiters were making up songs and asking passengers to give them the lyrics and a bar manager dealing with a rude guy who was complaining that a bar tender wouldn't get the whiskey he wanted from tankards. She was polite to the weasel and then was seen laughing about it with said bartender after....you go girl! We also had great whiskey pairing session with a passionate foodie from India who wouldn't stop pouring us drinks. We had a mexican cruise director called Sin who wasn't visable but definately grew on us as the cruise went on and we quite liked him....especially when he turned the dry humour on.

Drinks

Needless to say we had the ubp so I made it my mission to drink every free cocktail on the ship. Did I manage it? YES! I had heard they watered the drinks down and while this was obvious with some a large amount of drinks were just right. My main bugbear were that the mixes were kept in tap jugs so tasted a little bland sometimes but were still tasty. Wine selection was quite good and theres even a dessert wine included....hubby missed his Rjoia though. Beer was standard fare which was a shame so I stuck to blue moon and lil sumpin. We liked how bartenders just poured on sight so it was pot luck on how strong your drink would be. Best cocktails were Mango meltdown and the Passionfruit Mojito. Bartenders happily made cocktails off the menu (AMF, Carnival's Twilight zone and old fashioned) and swapped out ingredients as long as they weren't premium.

Good start, looking forward to the rest.

Thanks for posting....:)

Enjoying your experiences very much! Thank you for sharing.