Apsalar

We tried to go to ME Cabo a few weeks ago and we were turned away at the door. They said it was for hotel guests only.

We just sailed on the Jewel and had Teppanyaki one night with our 22-month old. It was fine. They replaced a regular chair with a high chair for her, and she got a salad, soup, and fried rice (we shared from our main course and veggies with her). No charge for her since she didn't order an entree.

Any updates on the current Jewel senior officers and staff? Thanks😃

Captain Pelle Fredriksson

Hotel Director Steven Jacobsen

Cruise Director Iain Bagshaw

Concierge Bruno Dentone

Sorry, those are the only ones I remember.

We just got home from the Mexican Riviera cruise Nov 6-13. We were travelling with our almost 2-year-old daughter, so we were back in the cabin by 7pm every night and we didn't see any of the evening shows so I can't comment on them.

The Good:

• Food - we had breakfast and lunch in the buffet most days, and we had the buffet, the main dining room (Azura), La Cucina, Teppanyaki, and Le Bistro for dinner. The food was good across the board. We've been on many cruises but this was our first time trying Teppanyaki and it was both good food and a good time.
  
• Crew - friendly and helpful as always. Our steward's name was I Dewa and he was very nice. Since we didn't need him to do turn down service most nights, he made several towel animals for us one morning late in the cruise. My daughter loved that. There were a lot of nice gestures from the crew, like the waiter who brought me an unasked for iced tea while I was giving my daughter a snack by the pool, and the hostess at the buffet who worked really hard to get her to sing along with the funny washy-washy songs. You can tell they love the kids.
  
• Guppies activities - Every day there are 2 scheduled activities for the under 3 kids in the Splash Academy with finger painting or dancing and usually a bubble machine. The activities were great, but I do wish they were scheduled at better times. The early one was always at 12:15, and that's nap time for my kid and a lot of other 1 and 2 year olds (I'm sure they can't help the scheduling much, they need to do it after it's closed for the other kids). There was also a Guppies playroom kind of hidden behind the kid's pool that we went to everyday.
  
• UBP - After being on the cruise and having the UBP, it's hard to take seriously all the complaints I've seen about this. There's plenty of selection. Several of the wines by the glass are actually pretty good (French rose, pinot noir, malbec). It's really easy to avoid the cocktails that cost $15+. If you don't drink $18/day of alcohol or sodas, don't get this package. It's that easy.
  
• The cabin and suite privileges - We splurged for a suite for the first time. We had a 2 bedroom penthouse, so we could put our daughter to bed and then stay up for a while by ourselves. I'll admit, I loved the extra space and getting the afternoon goodies from the butler (Rufino, he was very nice), but I really don't think we'd stay in a suite again if it was just my husband and me. Almost everything the butler brought you can get from the buffet or O'Sheehan's whenever you want. The coffee maker was nice, I guess. We ate breakfast in Moderno a few times, it was good because it wasn't crowded but the food was the same as you could get in the buffet or main dining room. We didn't stay in the Haven, so can't comment on that.
  

There wasn't anything "bad". So these are the nitpicky things:

• Lunch hours. Nothing opens before 12 including the buffet, so it's not the best when you've got a hungry toddler. O'Sheehan's was open before that but it had by far the slowest service of any restaurant we ate at.
  
• Activities. It seemed like there weren't really a lot of things to do, at least not compared to what we've had in the past. Aside from daily trivia and the Guppies stuff, we just hung out in the cabin or public areas.
  
• Inconsistent bartenders. Not about UBP stuff, but about whether you needed 2 cards to order 2 drinks. Some said yes, some didn't, so we just got in the habit of always taking 2 cards to the bar when we wanted a drink.
  

That's all. It was a lovely vacation overall!

We're in the same boat (haha). I looked in some Youtube videos of 2-bedroom suites and it looks like there is a wall console with a hair dryer that has an outlet. I'm bringing a night light and hoping we can plug it in there. There's also a TV in that room, there's possibly an available outlet there as well.

That's for the Jewel. I just looked at the same type of videos for the Epic and I see more of a desk type thing instead of on the wall, but still has an outlet. The tea lights are probably a better idea though!

We're going on the Jewel in November and our daughter will be 22 months. We're driving to the port so we'll bring both our car seat and pack and play with us. I'm looking forward to the Guppies room to give her a place to play, but she loves exploring new places and there's no shortage of those on a ship. This will be our first cruise with her so I hope all goes well and there will be many more after.

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We've managed to do Crossfit-ish workouts on ships many times, but usually not in the gym because they are small and crowded. On the Epic the gym was pretty big and we did workouts with a pullup bar, kettle bells, dumbbells, and a rowing machine.

On any ship you can go to the jogging track. Do something like in 20 minutes, as many rounds as possible, 1 lap, 5 air squats, 10 pushups, 15 walking lunges.

You can do many different bodyweight movements (situps, V-ups, plank hold, chair dips, jumping lunges, jumping jacks, etc) and mix them up with jogging laps. If you have your own jump rope, bring it and you can do single or double unders on the deck.

We were on that same cruise (hey guys!) and also had an aft balcony cabin, on deck 11. I admit we didn't hear a thing coming from Spice, and we tried, but with the sliding door open, the ocean noise drowned out any music that we might have heard. I didn't notice any movement either, until the last morning of the cruise and then it was like an earthquake with all the vibrations. But I'm apparently not at all sensitive to ship movement. My husband could notice it much more than me, and aside from some gentle rocking (which I thought was very pleasant) most of the time I couldn't even have said we were on the water.

I will second the opinion that the bed by the balcony works better. Ours was not, and there was no room to get around someone using the sink. The storage space is pretty awesome. I found a space under the coffeemaker right next to the sink on the 5th or 6th day, and it had nifty bins attached to the doors for stashing small things. I knew from talking to someone else that these bins are on the closet doors on the inside cabins.