MamaS

Bringing a stroller here, or a wheel chair for that matter, is not really recommended. The sidewalk is narrow and every once in a while there are power poles in the middle of it, or there are merchants blocking your way, so we ended up walking in the middle of the street at times, which did not feel safe.

San Juan del Sur is relatively new as a tourist destination and it was a new port for the NCL Jewel. Most tourists who come here are surfers, and it was clear that this was the main crowd catered for. The town lays along a beautiful bay with dark volcano sand. The locals were swimming in the water, but according to me the water did not look clean or inviting for a swim.

There is a main road parallel to the beach, where the Nicaraguan Tourism Board organized local music and dancing for the cruise passengers. There were also a few vendors trying to sell their wares. Along the beach there were a few local restaurants which catered to tourists, and a parallell road or two up the hill there was a small center with some shops, a church and a nice playground. Further north along the bay the town continues and it was an interesting walk for getting an idea of what a Nicaraguan small town can look like, but there were no stores or restaurants in this part of town.

Originally our intention was to continue walking in this direction, up the hill to the Jesus statue (Cristo de La Misericordia) which is watching over the town and the bay, but it was too warm and humid that we decided not to. I am sure the view would have been great from up there.

Really enjoying your review and pics! Nothing makes this gal happier than food porn and you supplied a lot, thank you! Love how you are reporting in categories...most helpful. Much appreciated! Having done a recent review myself from a Celebrity cruise, (but have a Norwegian one booked), I know first hand how time consuming it is to post this review and pics!

Thank you! Yes, it certainly is time consuming to make reviews. Especially going through all the photos, sorting them, figuring out which dish the food pictures are of, etc. But I read many reviews before going on this trip and found them highly useful, so I feel I should give back.

In Guatemala we docked in Purto Quetzal, which is a cargo port. A lot of people went on a shore excursion to the city of Antigua, but we decided to stay in port. There is a very nice area built up for tourists at the port. There is a small welcome center where you can buy tours, get a voluntary stamp in your passport, or listen to a band playing traditional music on marimbas.

It said "free shuttle" on the bus, but it didn´t say where it was going to

Behind the welcome center there is a fair size market where you can buy souvenirs and handicrafts. We could easily walk around there for a couple of hours looking at the things that were for sale, watching women weave in the traditional way, looking at the traditional clothing the women were wearing, visiting a small jade museum, and taking a stroll along the water. There were also a couple of restaurants which had wifi.

We were surprised at how good English the vendors were speaking. It paid off to look around and investigate prices before buying. Some vendors used price tags (but you could still negotiate the price if you bought more than one item from the same vendor), whereas some vendors would negotiate the prices. We found that it helped to first check out some price tags to get a rough idea of the “real” price, before negotiating for a similar item.

We generally like doing our own things in port, and in Acapulco we had printed out a map and headed to the Central Market on foot (Mercado Municipal, which is located in the intersection of Calle Diego Hurtado de Mendoza and Av. Constituyentes). It was easy to find and the walk only took about 15 minutes single way, so do not trust the taxi drivers that try to tell you it is too far to walk on foot. However, you do need to have some sense of adventure in order to walk there, because the Mexican traffic is wild and there are several streets to cross on the way.

We did bring a stroller for the kids, which ended up being a bit tough. The sidewalks often have big holes, poles are sometimes placed in the middle of the sidewalk, and once we got to the market the isles were so narrow that it was tough to pass at times.

The market itself was very interesting. It was clear that it was the kind of market where the locals go to shop, which we find much more interesting than the standard tourist markets. Unfortunately we had not exchanged any money, and the merchants did not take dollars.

On the way to the market we stopped by a local grocery store to check out prices and availability. We also went to a department store where they did accept USD in cash as payment (of some reason our credit cards did not work here).

We also went to the Zocalo, old town, but found this area less interesting than the Central Market. However, there was a nice church and we had a stroll watching people.

As many people have noted, the port of Acapulco is guarded by several kinds of police with heavy weapons. However, once in town, we did not feel unsafe at any point.

So, now I believe it is time to tell you about the ports where we stopped. First up is Cabo San Lucas, which of course, is a pretty common tourist destination. For us, however, it was a first, and we enjoyed the stop. We arrived around 10 a.m., but since this is a tender port, it took some time to get to shore and the sun was already high and it was quite warm.

In this port we went for a walk around most part of the marina. Due to the blazing sun it was quite a walk, but it was an interesting one. There were plenty of animals to look at: There were sea lions that jumped out of the water to be fed by fishermen, colorful fish were swimming in the water, crabs were sitting on the rocks and pelicans and other birds were watching from above. The kids enjoyed it.

There were shopping of all kinds, everything from a traditional Mexican market where our daughter befriended a little girl of similar age, to a modern mall with air conditioning. Prices were high though.

Once we got tired of walking around we headed back, past the tender dock, to Playa la Empacadora. It is a nice beach quite close to the tender dock, where mainly locals are swimming. There were no sellers disturbing us, even though since it was a Sunday afternoon, it was quite busy. We managed to find a spot in the shade - yes, the temperature was such that we preferred being out of the sun – and went swimming. If anybody is wondering, the sand was nice, the water got deep rather quickly and I would not recommend it for snorkeling. At least when we were there it was too busy for any fish or other sea creatures to stay around.

Playa la Empacadora

Thanks for posting! I feel like there isn't a lot of info on the Jewel on these boards (compared to other ships), so this was super helpful. We'll be on the Jewel in March.

 

I've not heard of Chin Chin .... and always thought it was Cagney's only that was open for breakfast and lunch for suite guests ... not Moderno as well. We're in a suite again this time so I'm looking forward to some of that VIP treatment.

 

Also, love the food pictures. My old boss once said that cruising really is all about the food. It is! (At least for us!) I've seen a lot of food porn on the NCL board, but not as much here - so I was glad to see your pictures and can't wait to try them. I love tapioca so I'll have to hunt that down too.

I am happy to hear that you find the review helpful!

The promenade around the ship

The Stardust Theatre

The art gallery

The Internet café is sharing space with the art gallery

The photo gallery

The Fyzz lounge

If you loose your way, remember that the fish on the carpet always swim toward the front of the ship

On deck 7 was the theatre, a few bars, Chin Chin, Teppanyaki, the atrium with its café, customer service and shore excursion desk, as well as the art gallery, Internet café, photo gallery and the shop. But the best part, according to me, was the promenade around the full ship.

The atrium with the Java Café

The customer service desk

The onboard store

In the hallway there were nice seats by the windows

Next up is deck 12, which is the pool deck and also the deck where you find the buffet, the Great Outdoors, La Cucina, as well as the library, the game room, the fitness center, and the Splash Academy.

Time for exercise!

The library

The card room. It was actually busy most of the time.

Games in the card room

In the very front part of the ship, on deck 11, there is the bridge viewing room, which we found quite interesting. Besides from watching the people on the bridge work, there was also a movie on the construction of the ship, and a few screens with maps, weather forecast, etc.

Bridge viewing room

The bridge

Now I think it is time for a virtual walk around the ship. Let´s start from deck 14. This is where the Haven is located, as well as a sundeck.

Deck 13 is where you find the sports court, the jogging track (where most people were actually walking :)), several games out in the open air, the Spinnaker Lounge as well as Cagney´s and Moderno. I have already posted photos of the restaurants and the sports court, so here come the rest:

The jogging track and some games

Spinnaker Lounge

Thank you. I'm. It sure how to post menus. I know other pics of menus I have to click on and expand. May I ask, how did you get VIP status? We are in a suite anyway, but just curious. We are also gold latitudes members.

You are never told why you get VIP status. It is completely given at the discretion of the officers of the ship. When entering our room for the first time there was a letter on the bed explaining the VIP privileges. We never questioned why. :p But I am suspecting it could be connected with the fact that I coordinated the Cruise Critic meet & greet.

And yes, I almost forgot. There was also the captain´s cocktail party. Actually there were two such parties that we were invited to, but we only attended one of them. We are not much for drinking, but the party provided a good opportunity to see the Haven, and also to have a chat with some of the officers who attended.

Here are more pictures of lunch from Moderno:

Turkey burger

Bruschetta with roasted peppers and fresh mozzarella. It was good!

Banana cream pie

Warm espresso chocolate brownie

Other VIP treatment

According to us the most useful VIP benefit was priority tendering and priority disembarkation. On the day we visited San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, it was quite windy and only one tender could load and unload people at a time, which made the process quite slow. We were able to get onto one of the first tenders and by the time we got back to the ship, after about 3,5 hours, people who were still waiting for their tender was starting to become upset. I will tell you more about disembarkation at the end of the review.

Another pleasant feature of VIP treatment is the almost daily deliveries of snacks in the afternoon. My favorite was the chocolate covered strawberries, but the plates of chocolate and cheese were also quite good. :D

Thanks for the review and the pictures. I will on the jewel for a full transit on feb 19. I can't wait. By any chance did you get pictures of the menus? Also, I know there weren't many kids but were any of them teens? We are traveling with two 15 year old girls.

You are welcome! Actually I did take pictures of most menus, and my plan was to post them here. But unfortunately I cannot figure out how to post them big enough to make it possible to read. I have tried both posting them as pictures and as attachments, but they always shrink so much that it is not possible to see what is written. If anybody know how to do it, please advice.

It is hard to make a guess about the number of teenagers on the ship. On our cruise there were a handful of them. However, on the sailing after ours, there were supposed to only be 17 kids under the age of 18, so it varies.

As you might be aware Moderno has a set menu. First you eat as much salad as you want from a buffet (with many interesting items). Then you get as much meat and sausages as you want and you also get a few side dishes on the table. It was good. And as I mentioned before, their grilled pineapple, which is served with the meat, is extremely good.

The salad buffet

The Brazilian cheese bread was very tasty

VIP restaurant

We had the honor of being given VIP status on this cruise, which among other things meant we could have breakfast and lunch in Moderno, which is generally reserved only for suite guests.

We really enjoyed having breakfast in Moderno. There is a small buffet area which includes surprisingly many different items to choose between. Some things were of course the same as in the main buffet, but there were also a few additional items such as smoked salmon, fresh berries, etc. In addition, there were also a menu to order from with both sweet and salty dishes.

The breakfast buffet at Moderno

We only had lunch at Moderno´s twice. We found both the food and service very similar to the Tsar, and the Tsar had a more varied menu, so we could not quite see the point of going to Moderno too often.

Anyway, here is some of the food from Moderno´s lunch menu:

Mixed greens

House smoked salmon

Next up is Chin Chin. It was a nice new restaurant for us to try out, but it was not good enough for us to return. We actually considered going back there just for a desert - their tapioca was quite good - but we never ended up doing so.

Here are the photos:

Harvest spring roll

Spicy seafood udon noodles

Kung Pao chicken with plain rice. You could choose between several different sides for the chicken.

Tapioca with mango. It was quite good!

Here are some more side dishes: roasted mushroom, steamed broccoli and grilled beetroot.

And now on to the deserts at Cagney´s:

Apple crumble

Raspberry crème brûlée. Unfortunately it is not as good as it looks like. Most other crème brûlées served on the ship were better than this one.

I cannot find the proper name for this one in the menus, but it was some kind of chocolate brownie.

Arugula salad

Grilled bison strip

Ribeye

Some of the sides: Cagney fries with truffle oil, gratin potatoes and onion rings

Porterhouse

Grilled sea bass

We had a dinner package that included four restaurants. We decided to go to Moderno, Le Bistro, Chin Chin and twice to Cagney´s. The specialty restaurants all had very good food, had a nice calm ambiance and the service was superb. The latter two was especially true for Le Bistro and Cagney´s. However, if we would need to pay a la carte prices, I am not sure we would choose to go as often. Tastes are different, but the main dining rooms have good enough food and service for our taste.

Let´s start out with Cagney´s:

Beef short rib confit. It was very good, but small.

Wagyu beef sliders. They were good, but kind of big considering there were many more courses to go

Lump crab cake

Shrimp cocktail

Mexican caesar salad. The crust of the bowl was very good and crunchy.

I love your review. We have been on the Jewel in March 2015 and going again March 12, 2017, but I am enjoying your pics and stories. Thanks for the review!

 

Can you tell me when you had the chicken nachos - lunch or dinner? Also, how was the steak? I remember them being tough in the main dining rooms.

I am happy to hear that you like the review. It takes some time to write and go through all the pictures, but little by little I am getting there.

The chicken nachos was served for lunch. It was quite good! Also the steak was good. We actually had it twice. The first time it was excellent - the same level as the one served at Cagney´s. The second time the cut was a little bit worse, but it was still quite good.

Mango swirl cheesecake. Yes, I do like cheesecake... :D

Madagaskar vanilla bean creme carmel

O'Sheehan's

A couple of times we went to O´Sheehan´s. It´s good if you just want a quick bite. You can either watch sports on the TV-monitors, or follow whatever is going on in the atrium, where many activities are held. The food is good, even though largely unhealthy. The service is not in par with other restaurants on the ship though. The happiness and the drive to try to give good service was often lacking. At times service was slow, and we needed to ask for things like our water glasses to be re-filled.

Grilled vegetables

Flounder Milanese. This was another item that was always on the menu. It was pretty good and I had it twice.

That was all the photos I had of appetizers and entrees from the main dining rooms. Next come the deserts:

Crème brûlée

Chocolate volcano

Blueberry cheesecake

Lime and dill shrimp

Spinach beignets. I am afraid I can not recommend this dish. Some pieces were not cooked properlyin the middle.

Mushroom stroganoffp

Steak frites. This is one of the items which is always on the dinner menu of the main dining rooms.

Chicken nachos

French onion soup. It is much better than it looks like.