lennyfitz

Just booked the June 2 Alaskan cruise too! Aft balcony (first one!). Thought about the spa balcony but it was $1300 more. I'd rather have the aft balcony view and pay for the spa passes! I sailed Alaska on the Jewel with my mom, suzieq28, (Hi mom!) in 2015. This cruise will be for my fiance's birthday and our first wedding anniversary! He doesn't know yet. 507 long days to go!

We were also on this cruise. We had a great time overall. We weren't impressed with our room steward or Modernos this time around but had a great time at Teppanyaki. The food wasn't the best but our chef sure was! We got VIBE passes again and I will always say it is money well spent. That with the UBP promo - we had a good time while on the ship :)

Like you, on the first day we wound up at the Swizzle Inn. We went to the aquarium first which is a great $10. We've been to the Swizzle Inn before, I'm actually not a fan of the swizzles but we love the nachos so we went back. We found a pretty large roach infestation. I will not be going back. We took the bus to St George and took the ferry back to the ship. We really did get rained on all day! That evening we walked to Seaglass beach and a local did not believe us when we told him how much rain we had all day. We love that beach and it is sad to see how much glass has gone since we were last there 3 years ago!

As we headed out on the second day to go to the beaches, the captain announced the earlier all-aboard time for Friday and I was BUMMED! But when we got to Horseshoe Bay and got beat up in the waves, I wasn't so bummed any more! The smaller bays further down are MUCH quieter and one was far calmer, we were able to get in the water with out taking a beating :)

Also like you, we had a terrible time getting off the ship. We headed off at 845. It took just under 2 hours to get to the car. Customs was a joke. When 2 of the agents returned from their break our side applauded. I noticed the porters getting through much faster like a previous poster mentioned, so lesson learned. Either wait until the very end to get off or tip the porters generously.

Well that turned in to a mini-review. Whoops! I always get back from cruises and stalk the boards to see what reviews pop up from our trip. I love to see what other cruisers on our trip thought and if we had any similar experiences.

Dan Dan was there last week.

Harriet

Thanks!

Lennyfitz,

 

I can honestly tell you that while we were waiting, the boarding numbers seemed very random. After at least 2 hours of waiting, we saw people coming out of the check in lanes with numbers 1 and 7. However, they were different colors.

 

Being new to NCL, I thought maybe the colors meant something different. To my horror, they called only numbers (not colors) for boarding. In my opinion, there was no rhyme or reason to the numbers anyone received at the check in counter. That is what made it so frustrating.

 

Prior to my saiing, people on CC said that the earlier you get to the port, the lower the number. For me, this statement is FALSE. Not so. People got there at least 2 hours after we did,, and boarded first. (FYI: my check in time online at NCL was 9 am... the earliest you can check in). From my experience, at least, per the groans and cheers at the pier, it seemed like the majority of passengers on the ship had number 19.....

Thank you. That's really a bummer :( I'm sorry you experienced that

Does anyone know the cruise director of the Breakaway? We sail in 5 weeks, just curious. I did a few searches and came up with nothing. We had Dan Olsson last time (2013) and loved him but I know he's on the POA (I think) now.

 

Embarkation was a nightmare for us as well. We were at the pier and checked in by 10 am. Got number 19 (not good). Did not board til 1 pm.

 

Did you get number 19 because there were that many people there before you or are they giving out the numbers randomly? I read in another post that they're doing that now at the NYC port. I'm sailing the Breakaway in September and planned to get there early for a shot at Vibe. I will not be doing that if they're just giving out random boarding numbers instead of based on arrival time.

Can't say I blame them, and I've noticed too.

 

 

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I guess eventually that was going to happen. No one is going to post on CC forever.

I'm glad he's ok and hopefully still enjoying many cruises!

Yeah, that was a fun cruise. Met a lot of great people. I was still a newbie at cruising back then. I've been cruising a bit more since finishing grad school... platinum with NCL after my next cruise. :)

 

Remind me of who you were, may'be in the photo.

Which photo? If you went bowling with us & have the group picture from that, I was in the long purple dress, I won! I got a bottle of wine from Kyle/Ben for that! Not long after, Kyle (not Ben) sent out a FB message with some of our email addresses. That message is gone somehow, weird.

Kyle's a great guy... this post kinda worried me at first, glad to hear that he's ok. :)

He is!

Hey we were on the Gem together in 2013! Were you involved in that roll call and all the activities? That's the cruise we met Ben & Kyle!

He posted recently on his real Facebook page.

Thanks! I looked for it recently and thought it was gone. Glad they're around!

Didn't he recently do a review? I'm thinking in May -- Ben didn't make that cruise but the review was still really good.

Really? I don't remember that. Last FB review by Ben was over a year ago, and last posted here was related to the Escape back in Oct, that I could find anyway.

Just hoping they're ok. It was fun to cruise with them and I always looked forward to Ben & Kyle's posts!

I'm posting this in the NCL board even though I know Ben the Bendyman, aka Kylenyc, was very active on lots of boards.

Does anyone know if Ben & his writer are ok? My mom and I followed his reviews for years and then we got to cruise with them in December of 2013 on the Gem. We've noticed the lack of activity for a while on here & Ben's facebook & we've been worrying. I did a search on here & came up with nothing recent :(

Anyone know anything? Bendyman? Kyle? We miss you!

We did Glacier Bay on the Jewel last year. If I'm remembering correctly, we placed our drink orders at the Atrium the evening before. We assumed our drinks wouldn't be covered by the UBP. Imagine our surprise when we saw we were only charged the difference. Was it a mistake? Who knows!? We drank our drinks, kept our mugs and paid the difference :)

I'm going on the Gem on Saturday. If no one has posted any by the time I get back, I will. I save them all for my scrapbook.

Just saw we were on the Jewel together in 2011!