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President's week is about a week later than your dates--you should be fine. Even last year's President's week on Celebrity there were about 5 kids (I'm a teacher so I'm sensitive to this on vacation lol!)

Thanks so much for your pics of Barbados! My mouth is watering: we're going there for a week in February (instead of a cruise) and now I'm feeling too like I made a good choice!

Maybe she means one dessert a day? I can see that.

Current BOGO 60% off gave me a bit of a price drop so took it and ran.

To kill some time until the Consecutive Cruiser meeting, I wandered taking photos.

 

 

The Royal Promenade.

 

The library. I'm all for literacy, but does the ship really need a library?

Hooray for libraries!

BTW what's your upcoming itinerary? Can't wait for the vicarious pleasure!

Great review: thank you! This is called escaping from reality for me as we are not going until 2/2018. One thing to note: last time we were off of Celebrity in Grenada, we went to a small beach near Grand Anse (of course I can't remember the name) and it was beautiful and deserted, with us and a few people at a restaurant. No vendors at all. We were able to rent loungers too. We found out about it on the Ports of Call Forum.

I'm so glad RC is renovating a small ship instead of retiring her. I for one will keep sailing the smaller ships in the hopes that i will always be able to do so. Not for me the megas!

So would it stay in Havana with the ship as hotel, kind of like Bermuda cruises? That would be awesome! Plus one of my favorite Royal cruises was on the Empress...

Tangential but related: how much is the soda package? I think it went up recently...

Thanks!

Looking back there are some references to a counter-current or resistant jets in in the solarium pool on Jewel. Ward and Berlitz both mention it in their books, and a couple of cruisers prior to 2006 mention it as well. One cruiser said there was a button to push in the pool that turned on the jets. But no one seems to have talked about this since 2006, so I don't know if it still exists. It would be nice, but it's not a deal breaker!

If you can snag an aft-facing D1 balcony on Jewel, you'll get a much bigger balcony.

We did a snorkeling trip in St. Thomas with the schooner Silent Lady to two snorkel sites, including a stop with amazing turtles, then on to Honeymoon Beach for two hours of BBQ and sheer beach bliss--it was an excursion through Celebrity but I'm sure you can find and book them separately. One of the best snorkel boat excursions I've ever done: no comparison to the cattle boats. We'll definitely try to book with them the next time we're in St. Thomas.

On St. Maarten we've sunned and relaxed on Dawn Beach--nice but crowded the day we were there.

We swim for exercise and would love to know if this still exists (in the solarium). Thanks in advance for your help!

Thanks MADflyer. I'll be disappointed if there is NO Radiance Class ship out of San Juan. However, my last two cruises out of San Juan have been on Jewel, so maybe it is time for a change. At this point, I can't afford to venture beyond the Caribbean and love port-intensive cruises, so the southern itineraries tend to pull me in. I'm hoping for some new itineraries, including some of the less visited ports like Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts, etc. It seems like every ship out of San Juan touches Barbados, which to be honest is not a port I have a huge desire to see AGAIN! I kind of view it as the Cozumel of the South!!

Agreed! But I've seen some absolutely gorgeous Barbados beaches...

We also love the Southern Caribbean out of San Juan. We have sailed Celebrity twice out of this port and are booked on the Jewel in 2/17. Honestly we really disliked Adventure: the cavernous mall in the middle, few cozy nooks. Hope the Radiance class is more to our liking.

The Southern Caribbean ports I long to see are: The ABC islands and Trinidad/Tobago...Grenada I'm excited about!

Indy doing the 7 day San Juan run for 2018?

355 days until the Jewel! 25 more days until airfare opens up...

It isn't a 9 night cruise, it is only 7 nights. The place where these are itineraries are shown includes the flight out, 1 night pre-cruise stay, 7 night cruise and the overnight flight back to the UK = 9 nights

 

7 nights visiting St Thomas, St Kitts, Antigua, St Lucia and Barbados.

Same ports as celebrity summit?

Thanks for all the helpful comments and the pic!

i have a bit of vertigo--still, I love balconies for the air and light. We're booked on the Jewel in 8170--do any of the experts know if there's anything beneath us if we look over the edge? If there is, it helps! Thanks in advance for your input.

Thanks for your review! We are booked on the Jewel in Feb. 2017 and just have a few questions. Did you notice the Caffe Lattetudes or will that be new with the refurbishment? I'm glad there will still be an Italian restaurant--Giovanni's Table. We haven't sailed on RCI in a while and are looking forward to seeing the changes.

We have 8170 on the Jewel next February. Thanks for everyone's posts, comments and pics--looking forward to it even more!

Enjoying your review--we sail on Summit in a week so really looking forward to hearing more! As she's due to go into dry dock very soon, how does she look?

We've sailed in cabin 9092 on Summit and it was very quiet--no noise overhead. And though it was near the elevators, which was convenient, there was no noise from them either. I might go for the aft balcony on 11 next time, though.

Whether you read 'real' books or e-readers, a library is a quiet, comfortable place to read. I do not think they are a dying breed. Our local library is often packed, with people on the computer, doing research, browsing magazines, checking out the shelves, reading art books, etc. etc. On ships I've found the gamut: sometimes empty, but often without a seat to be found. There is something to be said about the collective experience of sitting and quietly reading books together with other people that I enjpy. I see it as a great loss that ships are losing their libraries.

91 days to my Celebrity Summit cruise, and 372 more days after that to Jewel of the Seas!