Ncl jewel 1/2/2011 short review

[knitwitt44]

Over 10 cruises with NCL and I consider the Jewel among the top 3. Really great cruise with many pros and very few cons

 

Pros:

 

Embarkation was the easiest yet. Perhaps we are a certain level but arrived and parked the car at 10:30 and boarded at 11:30. Went straight to Tsars for lunch and cabin was ready by 1:30. I was worried about the cabin because it was an obstructed view and a side-ways cabins. Turned out terrific. Although we had a life boat directly in front of us, the doors of the lifeboat were directly in the middle of the window so our view was directly to the sea through the doors. The cabin is next to service closet and opposite the service elevator but posed no problem. Did hear voices about 8:00 AM but it was like a wake up call. The cabin number is 8066 in case anyone wants to know. Also almost mid ship and same leave as the Blue Lagoon.

 

Blue Lagoon is far superior to those on the Dawn and Jewel. Service was excellent and better than the Tsars which I will get to later. Great for a fast breakfast. Snacks like burger and wings and sandwich. All great tasting.

 

Entertainment was really good. Le Bijou Cirque was terrific. Sit near the back so you can see the arialist and the Adage dancer Alissa and Mellesion were incredible. Singers were a little weak but this is not Broadway. The Dawn and Germ had bigger production numbers but the Band on the Run was pretty good. Older guys who had the big band sound down pat. Can't tell you about the CD or special night events because we are seniors and don't bugggie no more. Cruise Direct Silias Cooke was pretty good. Not pushy. Somewhat visible and ran a few trivia games which were pretty good because you get cruise tickets for a prize at the end of the cruise so for those who are trivia crazy and vicious, no more nick pitting for the grand prize of a key chain. We are not big gamblers and found the slots tight and too many 1cent and nickel machine were you wind up spent $3.00 a play w/o realizing it. Good choices of video poker plus slots on the new game machines.

 

More Pros: cleanliness. Always on NCL ships. Unfortunately, there was an outbreak of something and they went to "crisis mode" on the second day which super washy washy. No condiments on the table. Could not walk up and get your own coffee. Hear about 80 people were sick. We stayed a this mode till disembarkation.

 

Food is generally was very great. We are New Yorkers so we get real picky but no compliants other than service in the Tsar's and Azure. Something goes terribly wrong with their assistant servers. You have to remind them to bring bread and butter. They would bring the coffee and 10 minutes later maybe bring the coffee. One time we waited over a half an hour to get our main course. First time I had to go the the Maitre to complain. Don't know why there are so many assistants and nothing is consistent. All waiters were charming and very nice but very disspointed in the service. Bistro was super and the Italian restuarant improved a great deal. Now, the service meatballs as an entree. I just can't see why they charge an extra ten a person when it was free before. We didn't eat in the Latin resturant again because it was not worth the exta $10. Again, we don't do the Chin Chin or sushi because we get better stuff in NYC. Althiugh others said the sushi was worth it.

 

Cons: Small and some only pertain to us. We can't understand why they had the Cigar Club open but you can't smoke cigar there because they took off the doors. The ventilation system was super all over the ship. You hardly smell smoke in the casino but if you smoke cigars, you had to go all the way up to the SkyBar and smoke in one area but in the open so on cold days: No cigar smoking unless you were wrapped up.

 

Disbarkation was not messy but weird. We have priority disembark but were not schelpping our own luggage so we have to wait till the walk off left. Since we had to vacant the cabin at 9:00, we waited int he Atrium. It looked like the entire ship was taking off their own luggage so we waited and waited but in comfort, I may add, till 9:45 till we could disembark. The handicap also had to wait.

 

Sorry this is long but maybe it will help you if you are interested.

 

I love NCl and will continue to cruise with them.

 

Safe journeys to all.

[nhquilter1]

Thanks for the review - we're on the Jewel Feb 27. It will be our 2nd cruise (first was on NCL Majesty) and we're looking forward to checking out the Jewel!

[shepherdqueen]

Thank you for the review! We are looking forward to sailing on the Jewel in September!

[knitwitt44]

Forget to mention I found the staff to be super! Always friendly and helpful. Our stewards always greeted us by our names. Not having a bar of soap in my room or shower cap, I just went to the front desk and ask if I can these items and within 5 minutes, my steward gave me the items.

 

One thing, we didn't get ice every day. I think they want you to buy the bottle water package. Sometimes they get annoying with the small cuts but still a great cruise because of staff. The bartenders are not pushing the drinks and once I asked if I could have glass of ice water in the theater because the air conditioning was drying up my thoart and they brought it to me without charge.

[YankeesFan224]

Knit

 

We were on to, Not sure about the Ice either it disappeared from everybody around day 6 and I was in a penthouse. Was a good time but weird if you ask me. The buffet is so played out by day 3 its the same old thing over and over. The virus precauction really made getting food a pain in the neck on deck 12. Watching these guys try to make an icecream cone was laughable. Seems they had a difficult time trying to serve everybody. We did all the speciality restraunts as you have to now a days. If you exspect food that is avg or better you just cant go to the regular dinning room anymore its horrible if you ask me food quality and service is well below par. If you ask me the whole automated tipping thing does not work. The service is no where what it used to be. The bar guys do a great job and most of the others but the waiters just have no incentive to go above and beyond and for the most part they dont. I always give extra to those who deserve it and the only ones who got extra were my butler and the conceraige Adrian who was great.

 

Even Cagneys which is only open for Suite Guests for breakfest and Lunch was losing its touch.

 

As far as entertainment it was horrible. This is a 10 day cruise and you gave me 2 shows by the entertainment staff? Like Knit said the show the final night was great and by far the best but on this cruise we must have seen Alissa and Mellesion moves over 3 times by the time this show was preformed. The non stop recycleing of comdeians was horrible some of them 3 times. Plus its the same old names NCL has had for 3 years already time to fresh up. I liked the acoplella group they were new and fresh as far as I was concerned the rest left a lot to be desiered seems to me like either the budget is cut to hardly anything or they just dont handle the 10 day crusie well. Plus it seems now the dancers have other jobs on the ship as they only pre-form 2 shows every 10 days.

 

Much more when I do a full review but I just wanted to add. But I can tell you this the watering down of everything on these ships seems to continue. Not like 90's anymore when we first started sailing.