Jewel OTS May 3-10 2014 Review by AZ Karaoke Girl

[BillOh]

On arrival at the hotel in San Juan, there was a bicycle leaning near the entrance and Bill without missing a beat said "watch out for the bike":D

 

I know no shame! Maybe this will help make up for it, though its not the best picture.

 

[BillOh]

 

I absolutely hate this shot! :D:p;)

[AZ Karaoke Girl]

Several of our AZ Cruisers are having to disembark today and take that long flight back to Arizona. They did a back-to-back with some different ports. Looking forward to hearing from them and I know Ginny will do a review too. She does much better reviews than me.

 

Next stop was St Lucia. One of my favorite islands. Ginny arranged a Serenity Island tour. I enjoyed this tour but was disappointed that they put us in 2 vans rather than a bus so we were split up. We were still together in that both vans rode to the same places & we met up with everyone at the next stop but we weren't in the same vehicle so we could be together. This tour took us all over in very windy roads. Not a good tour for the carsick for sure.

 

We stopped at a banana plantation where we ate the sweetest best banana I have ever eaten. They don't use any chemicals on their farms and protect the banana's in what they call a condom. Wrapped in plastic to keep bugs off.

 

These are some of the various shots I took on the way toward the pitons.

Note that the above picture looks like a womans shoe. People were jumping off the cliff into the water below. I thought I saw people up there but didn't realize they were jumping off until I heard someone else say it.

[AZ Karaoke Girl]

We stopped at a spot where we could buy a fresh coconut & drink the milk out of it and eat coconut candy. I hate coconut so nobody was gonna convince me try it no matter how good they said it was.:)

 

Here is DH drinking his coconut.

 

Making our way toward the pitons.

 

We stopped at the volcano & took lots of pictures and listened to a little history on it at the top of the hill. Many of us had mobility issues including me and couldn't take the trek down & up all the stairs but we still got to see plenty.

[AZ Karaoke Girl]

We stopped at a spot where they had lunch prepared for us. That is where we got a good shot of our Arizona Cruiser bunch.

 

From left to right we have Laura (Arizona Laura) and her DH Gene directly behind. Then we have Dave & Bev (Hershey Kiss). Then we have Sheila (Prickly Pear) & her DH Jerry to her left behind Rita (AZSwissGal). Then we have Nonnie (Irishnana) in the front row with the Nascar visor on. :) Then me & my DH Steve (AZ Karaoke Girl) then Ginny (Sunny_AZ_Girl) in front next to Nonnie & Ginny's DH Steve (AZ Illini) kneeling in the front.

 

We had a yummy lunch with a cool comfortable breeze. Then some of us went downstairs for a potty break and Ginny took a pretty bad fall. She didn't see the step down and it was a pretty big drop off and down she went. She hit her side on the pole there and had some pretty sore ribs. I would hate to see the bruise she got from that. Thank the good Lord that she didn't get seriously injured. We didn't need another injury to our AZ Cruiser bunch. We were worried if she would be okay that night or next day when she woke up as that is when you get the most sore. She was a little stiff but she's a trooper and didn't let it slow her down.

 

That night was the 2nd formal night. Early in the cruise I spoke to the maître d to find out when they were serving the shatake menu because that was one menu that didn't interest me and I wanted to go to Chops. He said that it would be on formal night. He said many people are tired from their day in St Lucia but still want the lobster so they make the lobster dinner the following night. So I had made reservations at Chops for the 2nd formal night and told some of the AZ Cruisers of our plans and they joined us so we had a table for 6 of us. I was glad to see that the changes to the Chops menu that has been all over cruise critic had not made its way to the Jewel.

 

To me, a steak has to have a baked potato with it. I'm a steak & potato kind of girl and there is a time and a place for tater tots and Chops is NOT the time or place IMHO.:rolleyes: Well let me tell you they brought me the biggest baked tater I had ever seen. Everyone at the table was laughing at the size of this thing. Then I had a very good filet mignon. The waiter brought every side imaginable to the table for all of us to share. Not a one of us walked out of that place without waddling.:D Ginny's leg or foot was giving her problems from the fall and needed to lay down so she excused herself a little early but not much before everyone was done. It was a great evening.

Edited May 17, 2014 by AZ Karaoke Girl

[rednancy1]

Great review Lisa. Thank you for sharing. :)

[AZ Karaoke Girl]

Our last port stop was Barbados. I think this may have been my favorite island. Okay I can't make up my mind on which one I likes best. It was just an all around perfect vacation. What can I say. I think I like this island because it was more like the US. They drive on the right side of the road :D and it seemed nicer, cleaner if you will.

 

Ginny hung our flag from her aft balcony on this port day and I think a lot of people got a shot of this...including BillOh that posted his pic.

& another wider angle with our flag flying in the wind.

 

Here is shot from the Barbados port.

 

 

We had the Calabaza Sail & Snorkel Lunch cruise scheduled for several of us. The catamaran only takes 12 people per trip and they are pretty strict about the number. When there are too many people, it can get more crowded and people stepping on each other so I really like this one a lot. We've done other snorkel excursions in the past and they were crowded and nowhere to sit so this was much more comfortable to me and I always had a spot to sit.

 

This is a shot of our catamaran that I took with the Gopro2.

 

and a shot of us sitting on the boat.

 

Yummy rum punches were flowing freely but I started our journey with the first cup of "good" coffee I had on this trip. The crew were super friendly and took good care of all of us. It is a pricey excursion but we really enjoyed it.

[AZ Karaoke Girl]

Our first stop was with the turtles. I had my gopro2 on my had rather than the wrist so most of my still shots & video's were of the water surface as it wasn't positioned properly so I didn't get any good shots of the turtles. I had a few video's that turned out okay but it takes forever to upload so not posting today. I only saw about 5 turtles there and they were down at the bottom most of the time not up by us. A couple times they swam near us but I of course didn't get any good shots.

 

Next stop was at the shipwreck where we saw tons of fish. I had readjusted my gopro & got several good video's & still shots of the swarms of fish and reef.

 

Here is a reef shot

& shipwreck

 

Next snorkeling trip I will have a better Gopro where I can see what I'm filming and probably a good underwater still shot camera with flash as these pictures didn't seem very good compared to what I was seeing with my eyes. Oh well. I'll just say it was much better in person and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

We then went to separate location for us to eat our lunch and swim around until it was time to come back to port. Lunch was fabulous. She is an awesome cook & of course rum punches were still flowing freely. They would always say, "can I get you another rum punch.....I'm buying?":D

[Arizona Cruz Chic]

Thanks Linda. One of these days you will spend your children's inheritance with us. :)

 

Would love that!!! I can't remember if you are on the Jewel coastal Oct 2015?

 

Loving all your pictures!!

 

***

[AZ Karaoke Girl]

While returning to the port, we were in a race with Kaitlyn & Griffin's sailboat. We were winning I might add.

 

Here is Kaitlyn (Courtsavvy) in the blue in front right waving to us:

 

Sadly our day in Barbados had to come to an end. We got back to the ship and enjoyed our balcony time. We watched people coming back to the ship. We spotted Ginny & Steve and waved to them & they waved back. I saw Ginny pulling out her camera to get a shot of us on our balcony so I took a picture of her taking a picture of us. :D

 

By the time we got back we were feeling the effects of several days in the sun. Even with sunscreen applied heavily. Steve went down to the port stores to buy some after sun aloe and I took a shot of him by the Barbados sign.

Edited May 17, 2014 by AZ Karaoke Girl

[AZ Karaoke Girl]

Would love that!!! I can't remember if you are on the Jewel coastal Oct 2015?

 

Loving all your pictures!!

 

***

 

No not at this point. We thought about booking it while on the Jewel but we got such a great price drop on our May 2015 Oasis cruise that we think we may stick with that. We are still uncertain if we will do either of them. We may have to do a cheaper cruise. Lots of home repairs are needed that require a lot of money so we may have to turn to a Carnival Mexico cruise again instead since their prices are so much cheaper & no airfare needed. But if we can swing it financially, I really want to go on the Oasis since I absolutely loved the Allure and since I was dealing with a head injury, I didn't get to enjoy it nearly as much as I should have. I really wanted to zipline across the ship. But I'm not completely ruling out the Pacific Coastal but it is unlikely.

[AZ Karaoke Girl]

One of the things I loved about our aft balcony was when the ship pulled away from port. Many ports we backed in so we had excellent port shots as we pulled away.

 

 

Two yachts as we pulled out of Barbados:

Edited May 17, 2014 by AZ Karaoke Girl

[AZ Karaoke Girl]

And shots as we pulled into port....or backed into port or sailed away:

 

 

San Juan

[BillOh]

 

Two yachts as we pulled out of Barbados:

 

This morning I googled - TOPAZ YACHT and found the one on the right belongs to a Sheik from the UAE.

[Piepkorn]

I've noticed that Steve is not wearing his proverbial Hawaiian shirts on this trip. Bet Ginny was thrilled :)

 

Debbie and I are thinking of a land vacation to Barbados this year to swim with the turtles.

[AZ Karaoke Girl]

An AZ Karaoke Girl review would not be complete without a word about karaoke. One of the reason I often prefer Carnival is because they know how to do karaoke....usually anyway. RCI is lacking in this respect. Their karaoke is way too late at night and usually too short. There were 3 of the nights I went to karaoke in the Hollywood Odyssey club on the 13th deck and it was standing room only. It was very popular on many nights and had some great singers. But it only lasted about an hour and usually didn't start until 10:30, 10:45 or 11 and always ended by midnight at the latest. There was one night that it started at 9:30 but again only lasted one hour. They have clubs that are not being used so I'm not sure why they felt the need to do this. Also, their song books need much improvement. I think the most recent song they had in the book was probably from the late 90's. I have a wide selection of songs I sing from the Scorpions, to David Allen Coe. You name it, I do most genre's but prefer country. I love to sing some of the more recent stuff like Pontoon, Better Dig Two or Tornado. They didn't have anything like that. Oh well, I did have a lot of stuff I found to sing although not my favorites.

 

One night I was up singing one of my favorite Shania Twain songs when right in the middle of the song, their equipment went dead. There I stood on stage waiting for them to get it back up & running. After about 5 minutes or so of dead time, they finally got it working again. Oh well.

 

Okay enough of my karaoke complaints. :cool:

[AZ Karaoke Girl]

After leaving Barbados, that was the lobster night in the MDR. Yum. It was a good size lobster tail. I love lobster. There may be some people that think it is horrible cuz they are used to getting fresh seafood. Um, I live in Arizona. There ain't much fresh seafood there. We're happy with Red Lobster cuz that's as close to fresh lobster as we get. :D Dinner was awesome in my opinion and I left very full.

 

Next day was our one & only sea day. What a relaxing nothing scheduled to do kind of day. I had a plan. Park myself at the adult pool first thing in the morning & stay all darn day. That's exactly what I did. We got breakfast, some beach towels & parked it. I read a lot of my book I had started reading on the flight to San Juan. We enjoyed the hot tub a couple times and I swam in the pool a little.

 

One thing that I don't like about the Jewel adult pool area is that they don't have enough lounge chairs. They have tables & chairs on either side by the windows. They should line that whole area with nothing but loungers. Many people like that and chairs were hard to come by. When one person would get up & leave, 3 more were come & claim the one chair. Literally we had 3 people sharing one chair next to us.:rolleyes: Get a clue RCI. Very few were using the tables & chairs and I believe that was only so they could sit since there were no loungers available. I also noted many empty loungers with towels but nobody in them. Not that many people were in the hot tub or pool so I believe they arrive at 7am, plop their stuff down then go to the Windjammer or whatever so they have a spot later in the day to sit when the sun is warmer. What a waste. Can we all say chair hogs? Okay I'll break out the popcorn.:D

[AZ Karaoke Girl]

It was time to start packing. NOOOOOOOOO!:(

 

I DON'T WANNA GO HOME!!!!!!

 

But all vacations must end. Karaoke started earlier this last night & went from 9:45 until 10:45. Everything was packed except what we were wearing so we raced back to the cabin to undress & pack our dinner clothes. We got our luggage out right at 11pm after karaoke ended. When we got back to the cabin, we saw the porters gathering all the luggage and the hallway was practically empty. It was 10:50pm and they said it had to be out by 11 so we kind of panicked a little. We called the front desk and they said they would make another round to pick up any other bags. So we placed our bags outside our cabin and sure enough they got them.

 

They gave us #24 for debarkation. We were supposed to meet our pre-arranged shuttle driver at 9:30 and based on the schedule, we would not make it off the ship by 9:30 & thru customs so we marched to the front desk before dinner that night to get an earlier tag. #9 it was. It's a good thing we did that too because the ship didn't clear customs when they were supposed to and debarkation was delayed one hour. Nonnie had the number to our shuttle driver and called him to let him know we may be late getting off the ship. Once the ship cleared to let us off, we made up time by getting a porter right away that helped us get thru customs much faster than those without porters. They had a special line set up for us with porters. That was well worth the money and highly recommended.

 

We waited outside for our shuttle bus to arrive. Within 5 minutes our chariot had arrived and we were off to the airport.

 

San Juan was socked in with rain. Lots of streets were flooded due to rain for 3 days prior and no signs of it letting up for a couple more days. We had nothing but perfect weather on all the islands and the only bad weather was on our final day leaving. I can live with that.:)

 

There has been much talk about the agriculture line at SJU. Some people have said there are huge lines and some have missed it and had to go back for inspection after getting to the gate x-rays. There is really no way to miss it and it wasn't a line for us at all. It is right inside the door. The shuttle dropped us off right at the entrance and within about 100 feet was the entrance with the x-ray right there. You couldn't really go around it and a porter wasn't even necessary from the drop off location cuz it was so close. Once our closed bags were checked (they don't need to check open bags) we went to the Southwest counter to drop off our checked luggage. Then we went off to the terminal x-rays for our carry on inspection. That took the longest to get thru but still only about 10 minutes. Then we had a couple hours to kill. We made the mistake of waiting to get a bite to eat because service was really slow and Steve & I ended up having to take our overpriced food onto the plane to eat. I ordered a cheesesteak sandwich & he got a burger. They were $15/each. I gotta say that was one of the worst cheesesteaks I've eaten and then I had to eat it on the plane.

 

Lots of turbulence on our flight back due to the weather. One poor girl in her twenties was scared to death and crying and trembling the entire way to Tampa. We felt so bad for her cuz she was terrified the plane was going to go down. It wasn't that bad to us but someone that isn't used to flying it can be traumatic. That was our excitement and a long flight home where I finally finished my book at we approached Phoenix. Then a drive home to Tucson from Phoenix and our vacation was over. Oh my gosh, my bed never felt so good.:D

[AZ Karaoke Girl]

I've noticed that Steve is not wearing his proverbial Hawaiian shirts on this trip. Bet Ginny was thrilled :)

 

Debbie and I are thinking of a land vacation to Barbados this year to swim with the turtles.

 

OH trust me, he wore them every day.

 

I didn't take many pictures of Steve and most of the ones I posted were from water excursions where he was covered to avoid the sun. Trust me he wore his Hawaiian shirts every day at some point.

[AZ Karaoke Girl]

More random shots of us.

 

 

and closet storage in our cabin:

 

our towel animals:

 

I usually get one everyday on other cruiselines and I love when I get them. DH always laughs at me cuz I have to get a picture of them every time. haha

[AZ Karaoke Girl]

 

and my last sea day:

 

When can I go back? I'm sad its over.

[AZ Karaoke Girl]

I just remembered something funny. While we were on our Serenity Island Tour in St Lucia, we saw a cow off the side of the road and when I said oh theres a cow, the tour lady said we call that hamburger. Then I saw another cow and she said we call that steak. When we passed another I said is that a roast? It was funny.

[AZ Karaoke Girl]

My review dropped back to page 3. Some of the AZ Cruisers should be back tonight from their back to back and I'm looking forward to them chiming in. I can't wait to hear about their past week.

[surfnsun]

Loved your review, Lisa! It was fun reading about your trip having been on the same cruise. Great, new ideas for us as I'm sure we'll visit these islands again some day. :):D

[Karma5]

Thank you for your trip report……..I enjoyed reading it……….