Review: Jewel 10/21 | Garden Villa | Chefs Table | Bridge Tour | 100+ Pictures

Here’s my review of the NCL Jewel 10/21/12. We were supposed to visit Port Canaveral, GSC and Nassau but Hurricane Sandy changed our plans quite a bit. We stayed in a Garden Villa (14500) and took lots of pictures, I have over 100 to post, hopefully I’ll get to all of them in the next week. If you have any questions just ask. P.S. I’m not a writer so please excuse my excessive use of commas and run on sentences. :)

Day 1 - Embarkation

It’s normally a 90 minute drive to the pier but because of the bike race it took almost 3 hours, we got to the pier at 11:00. Check in was easy, we used the VIP line but the regular line only had 2-3 people in it. After check in we were escorted to the VIP waiting area where there were some snacks, sandwiches and really bad coffee. Around 11:30 we met Ruth (Concierge) who gave us our room keys and Cris (Butler). Cris escorted us on the ship and directly to our room, then spent about 30 minutes showing us how everything worked. At first it seemed like Cris was very new at the job, it was like he was reading from a script and if I interrupted him to ask a question he got flustered and didn't always have the answer. In the end he was an amazing butler and catered to our every need. On day 2 I gave him a list of things we used most and he made sure we always had plenty of everything (Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, limes, regular coffee pods, milk, two buckets of ice, etc.) Cris then brought us to Cagneys for lunch which was very good. We spent the next few hours exploring the ship, had dinner at Tsars, saw the Welcome Aboard show and got back to our room to catch most of the Steelers game (they won!)

Here’s a time lapse video I took of us leaving port until we pass the Verrazano.

The Star is docked next to us:

The Space Shuttle on the Intrepid:

I am patiently waiting for more. I will be boarding the Jewel a week from Sunday!!!

Nice start!:)

Can't wait for the pictures!

Freedom Tower:

A Carnival ship goes under the Verrazano:

Nice, what did you shoot the time lapse with? Did you have it mounted to a rail?

Makes me want to go back. I was on the Jewel the week before you.

Pilot boat comes to pick up the harbor pilot:

At first our butler said no substitutions but after I asked nicely and offered to pay an up charge if there was one, he came through with Captain Morgan (with no upcharge). Cris was the best!

Nice, what did you shoot the time lapse with? Did you have it mounted to a rail?

I had my P&S camera (Canon S95) on a tripod in our room while we were up on the sun deck. It recorded for about 55 minutes.

It's the first time I've taken a tripod on vacation. It's so nice being able to take pictures of my wife and I together without having to balance the camera on a chair on top of a coffee table with a book under the back legs. :D

Love the review & pics Brian, can't wait to see the rest! :) Did you have your camera at the Chef's Table, as well? I'm somewhat disappointed with the pictures I took there...

Thanks for the review!

Love the review & pics Brian, can't wait to see the rest! :) Did you have your camera at the Chef's Table, as well? I'm somewhat disappointed with the pictures I took there...

I have pictures of most of the courses but since I didn't want to use the flash they're not perfect. I'll post what I have.

Im enjoying your review. And your photos are excellent! Looking forward to more. Thanks for sharing.:)

Looking forward to more-great pictures!

I did a ship tour the day you embarked. You're lucky you didn't find me hiding in your closet. The Garden Villa is amazing!

Great write up, the video is coll and love the pictures. We sail the Jewel in two weeks (11/18) and very excited. Hoping to catch the Steelers vs. Ravens the night we sail. Go Steelers!

Thanks Brian

I'm LOVING your pictures. Great composition and color. I'm looking forward to seeing a lot more of them. Thanks for sharing your trip!

DAY 2 – Sea Day

Cris (our butler) brought breakfast to our room every morning; it usually took 20-30 for delivery. Throughout the week we tried everything on the menu and it was all good; the eggs benedict and pancakes were my favorite. The portions are small so we usually ordered 3 or 4 items for the two of us.

After breakfast we got ready and went to the meet & greet at Le Bistro, thank you tokidoki for organizing it. One of the members there talked about his luggage getting put on the Star, I couldn’t imagine not having my luggage but it seemed NCL was doing everything they could to accommodate the dozen or so people this happened to. I heard that after we got to Port Canaveral he had received one of his bags.

Later in the afternoon we went to the martini tasting. For $15 you get four almost full martini’s, well worth the money, we really enjoyed it. They did a game (men vs women) where you had to transfer olives from one glass to another using a straw, the women won. We were told the women always win. ;)

Dinner was at Teppanyaki, the show was great although it may be a letdown if you’ve been to a similar place on land where they’re able to use open flames. The food was good, overall I think it’s worth the money.

We were told the women always win. ;)

 

hahaha

We never ate much for lunch, usually ordered from the room service menu, Cagney’s menu or skipped it altogether. I remember a heated discussion a couple months ago about whether butlers serve room service course by course. We never had dinner in our room but when we ordered lunch from Cagney’s it was always served course by course (about 5 minutes apart), which seemed a bit silly for lunch but that’s the way our butler wanted to do it. When we ordered from the room service menu it was brought all at once.

One day I got two hot dogs from the room service menu, one was fine and the other was inedible, it was hard in the middle. Everything we got from the Cagney's lunch menu was good.

Day 2 Sunrise:

Is there any better way to start a day?

8:45am - Lots of chairs available.

Later in the afternoon we went to the martini tasting. For $15 you get four almost full martini’s, well worth the money, we really enjoyed it. They did a game (men vs women) where you had to transfer olives from one glass to another using a straw, the women won.

Having been part of the winning women's team a word of warning: if you, like me, are a $15 date, you shouldn't necessarily participate in the games. If you win the price is a shot - just what I needed after all those martinis... :D

The olive game at the martini tasting:

Really enjoying this review, can't wait for more!