Another long review of Jewel of the Seas cruise June 8-15

[prekcruiser]

This is my first ever trip report so please bear with me. I have received so much advice and information from Cruise Critic that I feel obligated to pay it forward per se. This is also a report that clearly indicates that things don't always go according to plan and you have to be flexible. I booked this trip last December and actively planned every day of the cruise, but best laid plans.....

Our cruise was set to leave on Saturday June 8th at 8:30. We were to fly into San Juan from New Orleans with a brief stop in Miami on Friday night. Here is where it began getting crazy. There was bad weather in Miami and we couldn't land. After circling around for a while, our plane had to turn around to go to Fort Meyers to refuel. We had to wait a while there to refuel, but we finally got clearance to go to Miami. When we arrived in Miami, we learned that our connecting flight had already left. So much for getting into San Juan on Friday night. :mad: The plan was to get to the Plaza de Armas hotel Friday night so that we would have Saturday during the day to walk around Old San Juan and see the forts and other sights. After waiting in line for several hours to rebook, we finally reached the rebooking desk around midnight and luckily got two seats on a 7:20 am flight for the next morning. So it was off to a "distressed traveler" nearby airport hotel for the night. Thankful that we had an early morning flight we headed for the Miami airport hotel for a few hours sleep. We couldn't get our luggage as it was being held by the airlines..... so glad we had some things in our carryon bags.

Saturday morning-- Up at 5 am to get to airport to catch flight. Made it to San Juan by 10:30 or so. Worry #2---- One of my husbands' pieces of luggage was missing. The airline said that it would be on the next flight in from Miami due to arrive by 1:00 and that they would send it straight to the cruise ship. Something else to stress about. We were supposed to be at a Downtown San Juan hotel that would hold our luggage, but that didn't happen so now we had most of our luggage and still wanted to tour Old San Juan. I had remembered reading on Cruise Critic that Barrachina's restaurant would hold luggage for visitors so we headed there in a taxi. Sure enough they held our luggage while we walked around. We were able to do El Morro and some of the sights. We didn't use the trolley system as planned. We just walked where we wanted to go. We had lunch at Barrachina's as I was grateful that they held our luggage. Their mofongo was good, I had wanted to try this Puerto Rican dish somewhere and was glad I did. We found a Walgreens and we bought some water and soft drinks to bring on the ship and headed to the port at around 3:00. Getting on the ship was very easy and we were off to our room. Some luggage was there but not the missing piece (with my husband's suit). I was thinking no formal nights for us. We notified guest services and had them get in touch with the airlines and we were assured that it would get to the boat before we left. we walked around the boat and was impressed with how pretty it was, I was especially impressed with the Solarium area. A pool and hot tub just for adults, yea!!! My previous cruises had been a Disney cruise and a Carnival Cruise and both had lots of children. Now don't get me wrong, I love children....I teach Pre-K for a living.....I just wanted to get away from them on my vacation. DH and I relaxed in the Solarium for a while and DH took a much needed nap. We did the Muster drill.....it took way to long!!!!! :( Time for dinner, it was casual dress the first night so we were OK for the MDR. We enjoyed dinner and continue to explore the ship. We kept going back to the room to check for DH's luggage and it finally made it to the room around 8:00. Yea!!! ......we would be able to do formal nights. We watched our departure from our balcony and then toured around the ship some more. We were so tired from only a few hours sleep the day before that we decided to turn in.

A few other mishaps-- we had put the soft drinks in my carryon and then checked it. Big mistake, some of the cans got crushed and Coke got on my clothes. Also, I had put my jewelry in the safe to hold it and when I went to take it out, my earring got caught on my necklace and fell behind the TV. No big deal, I would just pull out the TV and get in out. But nooooo, it fell inside a grate and our cabin attendant had to unbolt the refrigerator underneath to get to my earring. What else was going to go wrong? I was almost in tears. If this is what the rest of the trip was going to be like, I was ready to turn around and go home. I think I just needed to sleep.

 

Sunday, June 9th--St. Croix We had a great breakfast at the Windjammer and headed off the ship. We were supposed to meet up with a taxi driver who would bring us to a Buck Island Snorkeling trip with Capt. Heinz. The driver was there but informed us that Capt. Heinz would not be taking us out, we would be going to Buck island on the Jolly Roger instead. What?????? :confused: I actually asked the driver if he was kidding me. He explained that Capt. Heinz only had my husband and I for that day and he wasn't going out with just two people so he arranged for another boat operator to take us out with his tour. He assured us it would be the same tour. I was feeling like I had received the old bait and switcheroo, but what could I do? Again best laid plans....... So we headed off with the taxi driver. We arrived at a different place than we had originally supposed to leave with Capt. Heinz and was told that the Jolly Roger would be coming at 11:00. Again what???? Our trip was supposed to be at 9:00. Now we had to kill two hours before going out. I could have slept in!!!!! The Jolly Roger arrived and we went on this trip. Buck Island was beautiful and the snorkeling was great. I did feel though that there was a lot of dead or dying coral. I was surprised at this with it being a National Underwater park. Our taxi driver met us as planned and brought us back to the ship. We went straight to the Solarium area and got in the hot tub. With a very port intensive itinerary, this was the plan for everyday. Relax in the hot tub before dinner. Sunday was our first formal night and dinner was good. We went to the show, but didn't care for it too much. We were tired so we headed back to the cabin to turn in.

Monday, June 19th--St. Maarten OK, this was a great day. :D Nothing went wrong!!! We did a tour with Bernard's tours. They were great. We stopped at an Iguana farm, then spent a few hours at Orient beach. The beach was beautiful and we it was only $10 for two chairs with umbrellas and you even got two drink coupons. Although we were not on the nude section of the beach, the woman next to us was topless. No big deal for us, but it may have been an issue with young children. We also went to Marigot on the French side of the island and went to a french bakery, Seraphinas. Then it was on to Maho Beach to see the planes coming in. This was really cool and I highly recommend this to anyone going to St. Maarten/St. Martin. We shopped a little in Phillipsburg and then it was back onto the ship. My DH and I are not big shoppers. Most of the stores are all selling the same things. There are jewelry stores, perfume stores and the like. We really didn't take the cruise to shop......we were more interested in seeing the islands. Same routine on the ship, relax in the hot tub and get ready for dinner, which was again very good. We went to the Divas of Motown show and enjoyed this one. We also checked out our pics from the first formal night. We decided to head back to the cabin for a quick nap before the commedian's show. DH was able to get up from the nap, but I had crashed. When he returned, he said that the show was good and he was glad he went. I just said good and fell back asleep.:rolleyes:

Tues. June 11th-- Antigua On this day we planned a Stingray City tour with the cruise ship. We had a leisurely breakfast and headed off the ship around 9:45. We went to Stingray City and thoroughly enjoyed this excursion. The stingrays were sooooo big and it was really cool to hold them and swim with them in the beautiful water. It is a very good tour as you don't even have to know how to swim......the water was only waist deep. We snorkeled here as well and saw some fish, but not a whole lot of variety of fish. After the tour, we weren't yet ready to return to the ship so we took a taxi to Valley Church beach. This was another beautiful beach and there were not many people here, maybe because it was later in the day. We negotiated a price of $15 for the driver to take us to the beach and wait there for us until we were ready to leave. Back on the ship, we did the hot tub and dinner. We watched the show Sideshow Bert. It was entertaining, he did comedy, magic and juggling. Next we went to the Love & Marriage show. It was hilarious like always. Then we turned in as we had an early and long day planned for the next day. I kinda wished we had done an island tour and I didn't feel like we saw much of Antigua. with 365 beaches, we only saw 1. I guess we'll have to go back there one day.

Wed. June 12th St. Lucia--I was very excited about touring St. Lucia. We had arranged a tour with Cosol tours....they are highly recommended on Cruise Critic. There was a large group of us and we got into around 5 vans or so. We lucked out and got the Mailman for our driver. He was great and told us lots about the island. We stopped at a banana plantation, we snorkeled between the pitons (some of the best snorkeling.....saw really pretty fish here....if you go wear some good beach shoes as it is really rocky), went to the volcano, did a mud bath and visited a waterfall. A really beautiful place that I would like to visit again. I think that St. Lucia was the most beautiful island IMO. Beware the ride around the island was very winding. We were glad that we had taken our Bonine. We take it whenever we cruise to prevent to motion sickness. Back to the ship and again hot tub time. Then clean up and off the dinner....our second formal night. Disappointed that some around us did not dress up. Don't get me wrong, we weren't in tuxes and long dresses ourselves, but I don't understand how someone thinks a tie die T-shirt is appropriate for formal night. I definitely think that the dress code needs to be enforced more for formal nights. My DH wasn't happy about wearing a suit and tie, but come on....it was lobster night, I feel like everyone should make an effort. After dinner we watched a little bit of the show, but left and enjoyed the ZigZag band instead in the Safari Club.

Thurs. June 13 Barbados--This day we toured the island with Tyrone Griffith. It was just my DH and I and we enjoyed our tour with Tyrone. He met us outside of the cruise terminal and took us to see some sights on the island. He will do a customized tour if you like. We saw lots of sights, for some we got out of the van and others we just passed by. Like the spot where Tiger Woods got married on the golf course or Rihanna's father's home. We saw a windmill and he took us to Bathsheba beach and several old churches on the island. Our tour ended at Carlisle bay, which was beautiful. We paid a guy $20 pp to take us out to a spot in the bay where there were 3 shipwrecks to snorkel and turtles. Best money spent as this was really cool and we got some really good pics with our underwater camera we bought for the trip. Tyrone waited for us at the restaurant on site until we were ready to leave. We ate flying fish at Carlisle Bay. It was really good.....apparently an island must have. Just a side note, IMO Tyrone had the best rum punch. Just about every tour we took had rum punch. We are not big drinkers and some of the rum punches were very strong. We liked Tyrone's rum punch the best, you could taste the alcohol, but it didn't bite you. Back to the ship and hot tub, and dinner. After dinner we saw a Beatlemania show that was pretty good and then I participated in a 70's music trivia game.....and I won a much coveted Royal Caribbean key chain.....Don't be jealous now, LOL. We also watched the 70's disco party....that was fun. After that we turned in and were glad that the next day was just a day at sea. Maybe we could finally do some relaxing. Sorry we didn't do the Quest Adult game show. We just couldn't make it to 11:15, but it looked like a lot of fun.

Friday, June 14th-- At Sea. Slept late and skipped breakfast. Had a great lunch in the Windjammer and videoed the ship to try to convince family members to come on the next one. We didn't even put on a bathing suit on this day as we had been in bathing suits the entire cruise. We pretty much just relaxed on this day. We did catch the Sexiest Man contest on the pool deck. It was quite funny. We did our last dinner in the MDR and enjoyed the serenade by the waiters. We went to the show, and watched for a little while, but decided to do the 80's music trivia instead. It was hard to believe that our dream cruise was almost over.

 

Saturday, June 15th--Puerto Rico We ate our last breakfast on the ship and then it was time to disembark. This went pretty smooth and we were off of the ship by around 9:45. We rented a car with Charlie's car company and they picked us up from the pier. We drove to the El Yunque rainforest and enjoyed the beautiful views. We hiked the El Mina trail and it was kinda challenging for us both. Noth that we're that out of shape, we just don't hike that often. After hiking the El Mina trail and seeing the waterfalls there we decided that we were ready to head back to the hotel. We stayed at the Hampton Inn and Suites near the airport. It was a nice hotel and within walking distance to several restaurants. We actually saw a couple from the ship at the restaurant we went to. We had met them and talked with them while waiting in line to take pictures on the 2nd formal night.

 

Sunday, June 16th--Back home Flights home were uneventful and with it being Father's day, we were glad to see the family back home. Our vacation started out rough but turned out great. I would definitely book another Royal Caribbean cruise.

 

I tried to attach pictures to this report, but I guess they were too big or something. I know this was a lengthy report, but I just wanted to put our experience out there so that perhaps it will help someone else who is trying to plan their dream cruise. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at yen70072@yahoo.com

Happy Cruising ya'll

[juanrod]

On Jewel in September, thanks for your review..:)

[travellovers]

I can't wait we are on jos in July

Would live to see pictures

Thanks for your time it is a lot of work writing these reviews

 

 

 

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[Keith1010]

Great review/trip report.

 

Keith

[drarill]

Great review!! Glad your suitcase made it to the ship on time!!:):)

[KirkNC]

Great review, thanks for taking the time to write it.

[SECdawg]

We were on the Jewel the week after you. Same Itinerary except we had St. Kitts instead of St. Croix. We also went to Maho beach and the Dads and teen boys loved it. Watching people fly into the water when a 747 took off was pretty amazing. We also thought St. Lucia was the most beautiful place we have ever been to. Jewel is a beautiful ship and we had wonderful service from the dining staff, room attendants, and bar staff. Luckily we did not have as much excitement getting to the ship. We were amazed at how smoothly everything went, but we did have a direct flight. Glad you enjoyed your cruise!

[clott]

We got of of the jewel on the 1st of June. The ship was in great ship and the staff and food were wonderful. It had been a long time since we were on a smaller ship. We are so used to the bigger ones last one being the oasis but we loved it. Would not hesitate to do it again.

[travellovers]

Did they have a lot to do for you teen boys? I have teen boys that like to stay VERY active. How can I find out what teen activities they have on board before we go? Do you have anything you can post?

We are on the cruise that includes St. Kitts.

Great review thanks again

[prekcruiser]

There is a rock climbing wall, basketball court, mini golf course and weight room. They also allow 16 year olds in the solarium pool area. There's lots to do. To be honest with such a port intensive itinerary, there's not a lot of time spent on the ship.