kdzkatz

We just got off the Jewel yesterday from a very enjoyable 9 day Alaska cruise. This was our 7th NCL cruise to Alaska in 8 years. We did enjoy the food on this cruise but we did see a step down on many dishes. The chicken pot pie was amazing last year and this year I ordered it once (my DW ordered it 2 more times during the cruise and it was the same, ok, but not great) The mozzarella sticks weren't as good as last year either. They were good but not great. Bread pudding is something we only eat when we cruise and we tried it twice on this cruise. It may have been the chefs recipe but it was a bunch of slices of bread laid in the pan and not the usual bread pudding we have camped out for on many previous cruises.

I was fine with the pizza in La Cucina but I would imagine many many people would have sent it back. It would have been ok for an inclusive item but not for a specialty restaurant. Tiramisu and cheesecake in La Cucina has less flavor so only had once during cruise. Our favorite dessert on the ship is in Moderno, the Coconut Flan. It was still very good but was a step down from what we received last year.

I don't mean to sound so negative. This was what we noticed in comparison to our previous cruises with NCL. The crew was wonderful and the officers seemed to mingle more than we had noticed on previous cruises.

I know they are in the process of changes and things are far from where they want them to be. I hope their end goal will be in a positive direction for passengers and not just for NCL's bottom line. We are booked for next year and we are curious about how the changes are affecting the NCL experience by then.

Our total experience on this cruise did put it on top as our favorite cruise to Alaska. The areas that were a step down were a small step in our book. All the other wonderful things we experienced and the great people we met more than made up for them. It was a special cruise :D:D

We just got off the Jewel today. Florentina is the concierge. She will be on there at least through July. She is very friendly and we very much enjoyed having her as our concierge.

I Moderno is the location exclusively for suite passengers and VIP's to have breakfast and lunch on the Jewel class ships so I don't know if the OP saw people eating in there and assumed it is for anyone to eat there. Maybe it is different on the BA and GA.

Does anyone know who the current Captain on the Jewel is? Will he be staying on the ship once it reaches Seattle or will there be a change? Who are some of the other officers/staff?

lol...I was scrolling through a few pages looking for this thread and I go back to the first page and here it is thanks to your bump. Great minds think alike :D:D The countdown is going pretty quickly. A few more days and we will be down to single digits! :D

Looking at the expanded room service menu I am hoping it goes into effect on Jewel class ships before our cruise in a couple weeks. If you have ordered room service in the last few years you really shouldn't be too upset at this potential change. I would gladly pay a few bucks to get higher quality food (I hope its better than the current stuff on the RS menu). I would also like to think delivery will be faster as there will probably be fewer room service orders.

Mexican would be great but not that awful slop they tried to pass off as Mexican Tex/Mex. We have enjoyed just about everything on our ncl cruises but that place was a big YUCK. I would like to see them try it again. I would gladly give it a whirl.

Way better cards for most things except one.....the Double Meta Cross!! 60k points but wow! You pay for an inside and get a balcony. It is for 7 days or longer. You can make this cash in for points worth thousands with the right cruise. If you cashed it in it is a measly $600 but with the right cruise you can make it worth 5-10x that. We are more that halfway there. You can also do the Meta Cross at 30k and that bumps you up from inside to OV or OV to balcony. You cannot use it to upgrade you to a suite. I'm not sure if you can go from OV to Mini suite with the double meta cross.

If you go with an SF aft and there is a deck 10 room available, grab it! They have the largest balconies of the SF suites. We had one on the Pearl in 2012 (I think it was that year) on deck 10 and it was wonderful! We will have a first hand opinion of all parts of a Jewel class ship in a few weeks. We have been on both sides of the ship, the back, the top (Haven, so nice) and now we will have the opportunity to be on the front of the ship. So excited.

The nice thing about your decision...no wrong answer...you will be living the suite life on a cruise. :D:D

AGREED :D

 

 

We saw an amazing calving in 2009 come off of Margerie glacier! It was spectacular and hope to see something like that again. When we were there a couple years ago just a couple small pieces came off. I know it is rare to see much calving in May which is when we cruise but it has been warmer on the west coast this year so you never know.

New motto: NCL, the cruise line that will nickel and dime without warning, surprise!

It even rhymes kind of :D

Ahhh yes NCL, home of Feestyle cruising ;):p

All that said and we will be on our 7th one in 8 years with number 8 booked for next year. The verdict is still out in my opinion on how all these changes iron out.

24 days 30 minutes 55 seconds (iConcierge countdown clock) and we will be at the door at the pier waiting for them to open it and begin our 9 day cruise to Alaska! :D

We are only about 20 miles from the pier and this is our 7th Alaska cruise so we are early birds to maximize our vacation expierience. ;):p:D

I'm sorry to hear about your experience too. I would have thought there was a late policy and reservations for a late party would be cancelled.

 

Given my experience and yours, I would be very cautious about using Hanno.

 

 

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Thank you for the heads up. We are not 100% sure he will still be on the Jewel when we board May 7th but if he is, it will be nice to be aware. It is just 2 of us and we don't normally care when we eat so I don't think that will be a problem. We do plan to make reservations with Hanno (if he is still on board) during embarkation for Teppenyaki for lunch both sea days so we will verify with Teppenyaki directly after we board just to avoid any issues. :)

Does anyone know if any of these desserts are available on the Jewel? We were the second cruise after her dry dock last year and things will not yet 100% finished yet. I'm hoping the menu wasn't complete and at least a couple of these will be available on the Jewel for our Alaska cruise in a little over a month.

I was on the Jewel last week. I think he's only been on the ship for a couple weeks. He is very tall -- at least 6' 5".

 

I had some issues with dinner reservations that he made for my family. I made a reservation for Teppanyaki several weeks before our cruise. When I got on board the ship, I asked Hanno to make other reservations for several restaurants. Long story short, my reservation for Teppanyaki was cancelled. In the end everything got worked out -- we got a new reservation for Teppanyaki and was able to eat at all the other restaurants we wanted. Hanno really went out of his way to make it up to us. He invited us for a tour of the bridge on the last day -- it was a really great experience. The captain was in a meeting during our tour and he stepped out to talk with our group and take photos with my family.

 

I hope you have a great cruise, kdzkatz. You shouldn't have any problems, but if you do just be sure to let them know.

 

Our butler was Erlindo -- he was wonderful. Spoiled us! I'm having withdraws this week without my 3:30 pm snack that he would always bring.

 

 

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Thank you so much for sharing your experience! :D We don't foresee using him too much (except for priority tender in Icy Strait :D ) I will share on our roll call that he may be our concierge. Our roll call is pretty darned active and many on there are in suites.

lol...it is so difficult to adjust back to normal living....have to buy your food and cook it....no turn down service....sigh...it is fun to be so spoiled if even for a short time. :D

The Jewel Concierge is Hanno Meyer from Germany.

 

 

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Do you know when Hanno arrived on the Jewel? We will be on the Jewel in about a month and a half. Just curious if they will still be there when we arrive. Does anyone have any experience with Hanno?

If you notice the light is constantly on next door, talk to your room steward and see if they can be sure to turn it off during turn down service. if your neighbors turn it back on and leave it on without being out there then you can always ask them nicely if they could turn it off at night, when not in use, if you see them on the balcony.

A small paragraph explaining why there will be a difference in the DSC when there never has before between suites and non suites would sure go a long ways to quash rumors and assumptions. F- grade to NCL on their explanation of the DSC price increase.

If NCL's front office was half as competent as those that run the show on the ship they would be the top dog of cruise lines. I think it is pretty much the same for all/most cruise lines. The front office is the polar opposite of the people on the ship. If the ships were run like the front offices there would be no cruise industry.

There's no need to tip the Butler and Concierge either.....some do, tho.

 

However, the kids counselors are providing a 'service'.

 

To each their own. I only mentioned it because, as you said....some tip and some don't.

 

Harriet

If you are in a suite and have access to a butler and the concierge you should tip them. It is not required but be prepared for a whole bunch of bad karma points. We generally start at $50 for the concierge and $100 for the butler. We then adjust up for exceptional service and/or we use them quite a bit. If the service were to be very substandard we would adjust down and be sure to speak to a superior about the issue. This has never even come close to happening.

Harriet I don't know if you were just explaining that it is not required to tip the concierge or butler but you sure made it sound like not many people do. If you are one that doesn't tip them I really hope you never cruise in suites.

A lot of work, and totally appreciated. Thanks!!!

This is a very old thread and you should go ahead and forget what you have read. This is not current information. It's a bummer when such old threads get churned up and unsuspecting CC members think it is current. It would sure be nice if CC would put some sort of flag on a thread that has not had a post added to it for over a year.

Are you reading this CC?

Thanks for the info, Judy. Yes, I know there are many wonderful NCL officers and crew members. We have been lucky enough to be in suites (3 Haven) on our last 8 cruises and have met many of the officers & crew.

 

It was only on our last cruise, May 31st of 2014 on the Jewel, that we were really disappointed in our butler and also the concierge. They both were way below expectations (and we are not very demanding or needy). Even the HD wasn't quite as good or personable as the others we have met on past cruises.

 

At the Captain's cocktail party, Captain Kenneth Harstrom introduced us to Niklas Persson who had just come onboard to start his new job as Captain of the Jewel on the next cruise out of Seattle. We had some great conversation with him and would love to see him as Captain on our May 7th cruise on the Jewel.

 

I'll check back as we get closer to our cruise to see the changes in staffing.

Thanks again!

I am sorry to hear your butler and concierge were substandard. We had Virginia as our concierge and she was great! So helpful and available. It was funny, on embarkation day when we first met her I was aware it was her last week and I asked her if she was excited for vacation. She was taken aback, like, how the heck did I know that. lol. Our butler was also wonderful. Roland and he was so fun! When he got off the ship in Ketchikan he bought gluten free cookies for one of our group that requested gluten free meals. That was very nice of him! We have been in suites 3 times (4 times soon) and 2 of the 3 concierges were steller. Anything you needed and they will take care of it. Our butler experiences have been better each time. None were bad and we didn't use our first one at all so we can't really judge him fairly. We are learning to utilize our butler. It takes some adjustment to pretend you are a rich person for a week (or in our upcoming case 9 days) and ask things of others that you are accustomed to doing yourself.

Maybe we will get lucky and Virginia will be back aboard by the time of our cruise. There are a couple other crew members that were on our cruise last year that we are looking forward to seeing again this year. We are going to bring pics with us to try and remind them as they have seen thousands of people over the last year. If they don't remember us we will not take offense and will still enjoy seeing them again.

That is the beauty of competition. We love NCL but if the changes that are implemented are not to our liking that opens the door for us to explore other cruise lines. If we do that maybe we will be back maybe we won't. Change is certainly not necessarily a bad thing. If they are changes that are bad for us it is just an opportunity for another change in the form of another cruise line getting our business.

Please NCL read this thread! I think it says something when I am more excited in my planning on getting the chicken pot pie and mozzarella sticks from O'Sheehans on embarkation day. I am looking forward more to that then the suite lunch menu. I will probably get shrimp cocktail and the berries and mango so I can save room for what I am really looking forward to.

The ambience is nice for breakfast and lunch but after being in a suite several times with the same menu every single day the food has lost much of its allure. I agree with the other posters. It doesn't need a total overhaul but a little variety would go along way. It keeps it interesting.

My experience is from 2009 when we were in a Haven PH and my parents were in a mini suite. They had to do their check in out in the main area but were allowed to stay with us in the priority lounge and board the ship with us. I think it is a case by case basis. I would talk to your concierge once you get to the priority lounge and see what they are able to do for you. If they can do nothing I would not be upset with them as I am sure there are many variables that they base their decision on.

There isn't a good dessert on Norwegian. Although the bread pudding at the buffet is really tasty.

What a rude post. You should learn some tact. With over 7k posts I would have thought you would have learned to properly answer a question. The OP didn't ask IF there was a good dessert but what the best one was. Obviously they are looking for opinions of what people like. Saying there are no good ones does nothing to help with the question. Why couldn't you actually be positive and just mention the bread pudding (which is sooooo good!!) and not be someone whose pallet is so refined that there is no food in this world that will appease it. I'm not impressed.

BTW to the OP - My DW and I really enjoy the coconut flan in Moderno. I also really like the tiramisu and my dw the ricotta cheesecake both available in the Italian specialty.

Suites are larger than regular cabins, hence staff has more work to do. I don't believe that the increase will now include the Butler, concierge, or child care staff. They were not part of the tipping pool. Passengers tip them separately if they use their services.

I have contacted NCL and they are trying to figure out why the $2 more for suite passengers. They have confirmed it is not going towards the butler, consierge or dedicated wait staff. The email received makes it seem like the DSC price increase will cover all staff that you utilize. I think NCL has made a bad mistake by not including a reason for the price difference between suites and non suites as well as including a statement that the price difference does not cover gratuities for butlers, concierges and the dedicated wait staff. Unless they clarify this before it is implemented I see many unhappy suite staff members on the NCL ships. I am hoping they heed the advice I offered them and they clarify to all. I do not have an issue with a price increase but there needs to be a better explanation while doing so in the manner where they have certain rooms pay more.