NCL Jade - 1/16/16 to 1/23/16 Nature's Wrath

[mabones]

Enjoying your review of the Jade. We'll be on her in 32 days! Keep the pictures coming. Still trying to decide if we are going on excursions in Cozumel & Belize City.

[abcmom123]

Thank you thank you for this review and wonderful pictures. As others have said there are very few reviews about the Jade from Houston (and some scary stories :eek:)

After a long day at work reading this thread has been like opening a Christmas present! Looking forward to more!

[coldferret]

I am greatly enjoying your review. We were on the Jade Jan 9th and although it was cool the first day, nothing like you had. We did not have the UBP and it seemed that the bartenders were overwhelmed. I had never seen so many people in the atrium area bar as soon as they embarked.

 

Do hope J & M got to use their balcony. We had a front one a couple of cruises ago and were so thrilled with the size etc but couldn't use it as often. Too windy and cool.

[mimmy52]

I'm so glad you're doing a review. I'm really enjoying it. Your pictures are great and I love your sense of humor. Your wife is a really sweet person for helping the new cruisers.

[anonmom]

That rum cake cocktail looks amazing! Keep the pictures coming, I've got 3.5 days to kill before I can board the Jade...

[FloatYourBoatSince2003]

Great review - thanks for all the hard work. The pictures are great, as well as the running commentary!

 

 

 

I am greatly enjoying your review. We were on the Jade Jan 9th and although it was cool the first day, nothing like you had. We did not have the UBP and it seemed that the bartenders were overwhelmed. I had never seen so many people in the atrium area bar as soon as they embarked.

.

 

Hi there ColdFerret - hope you guys are doing well - we shared some tours on the Canada/New England cruise in the fall of 2014. Fancy meeting you here :)

[coldferret]

Hi there ColdFerret - hope you guys are doing well - we shared some tours on the Canada/New England cruise in the fall of 2014. Fancy meeting you here :)

 

Yes, hello. Hope you are fine as well. I see you are on the Epic this year. We have tried to avoid large ships but sail her Jan 2017 due to the shuffle that went on last August.

[bgauger]

Please keep the review coming. I am leaving for this cruise in 10 days. I may bring an extra sweater or two, and long pants, if the weather is as cool as you say near Houston. Please tell me it warmed up.

[Keith1010]

Enjoying your review.

 

Keith

[Oakman58]

Thank you sooo much for this awesome review. Like others have said, the Jade out of Houston doesn't have many reviews.

Also, I am an onion ring-aholic. Those onion rings look wonderful!! Do you think I will be able to get them as a side dish without ordering the steak at some of the other restaurants?

Thanks again for your review.

 

I don't know about the specialty restaurants, but I would think if you asked nicely in the main dining rooms they would bring you some.

 

I don't recall seeing onion rings on the menu at the Blue Lagoon but it seems to me since it's 24/7 restaurant that would be the perfect place to find them.

 

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

[Oakman58]

Please keep the review coming. I am leaving for this cruise in 10 days. I may bring an extra sweater or two, and long pants, if the weather is as cool as you say near Houston. Please tell me it warmed up.

 

I would look at the 10 forecast for Houston a couple of days before you depart. We knew going in it would be cold on our departure day.

[jimbri]

Enjoying your review.

[bluehawks47]

I don't know about the specialty restaurants, but I would think if you asked nicely in the main dining rooms they would bring you some.

 

I don't recall seeing onion rings on the menu at the Blue Lagoon but it seems to me since it's 24/7 restaurant that would be the perfect place to find them.

 

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

 

Thank you! You have been VERY helpful. I love the review!! Keep it coming :)

[hawk1972]

You are doing my kind of review. I'm 62 and reaching grumpy old man status. Just the right amount of photos and information. Keep it up. You're writing the kind of review I might write if I ever worked up enough energy to write one.

[Oakman58]

DAY 3 – COZUMEL, MX

GOING, GOING, GONE

 

Yea!! When I woke up this morning and stepped out onto our balcony the air was warm but it was still very windy and cloudy. I did enjoy a beautiful sunrise as I sipped my coffee on our balcony. By 7:15 the temperature was 69 degrees.

 

This is why I love having a balcony.

 

 

The Jade would arrive in Cozumel at 10:00 this morning so we had plenty of time for a leisurely breakfast. Our Shore Excursion today was the Jose Cuervo Tequila Tasting Experience that we had booked through NCL. We had a meeting time on the pier at 12:20 PM. Good, that would give me time to put an early lunch in my belly before I would be forced to taste tequila. J & M booked a different shore excursion so we probably wouldn’t be seeing them until dinner tonight.

 

Because of the wind we ate breakfast inside at the Garden Café. Once breakfast was finished we walked out to the Great Outdoors to enjoy the warm temperatures. It was starting out to be a beautiful day.

Dang, stripes make me look fat, wait, I am fat...and old. No wonder I'm grumpy.

 

I’m going to stop here for a moment to talk about breakfast on the Jade. My opinion: The Jade offered a great selection for breakfast from cold cereals to delicious eggs benedict and everything in between. They offered two types of bacon every morning, one pile of soft bacon and one pile of crispy bacon. This was the first time, whether cruise ship or all-inclusive resort, the pork sausage offered at the buffet tasted like real pork sausage, they also offered turkey sausage. The eggs benedict weren’t already put together and sitting in a warming tray, instead the eggs were in a pan of warm water and a chef would put a piece of Canadian bacon and muffin on the grill for a bit then put the three together and finally put hollandaise sauce over it. It was perfect with a runny yolk and delicious.

 

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day.

 

 

Back to the report. My wife went back to the cabin and I decided to walk off breakfast for a bit on the Promenade deck. Two and two thirds laps on deck 7 is equal to one mile. There are a few deck chairs on the Promenade Deck and I actually counted them but forgot to write down the number, less than 20 for sure. There was a smoking area that had two or three small tables and chairs available.

 

 

 

The Promenade Deck was my favorite place to walk for exercise.

 

 

With a mile walk under my belt I went up to deck 13 to stroll around. Although it was still early, there were already some people in the hot tubs and some kids in one of the pools.

 

 

 

 

Day 3 Cozumel will be continued in my next post.

[kosweeps]

Truly enjoying your review!!

[rcstrot]

Great review! We're on the Jade in less than a month and can hardly wait!

 

THANK YOU for posting and I'll watch for more!

 

 

Robert

[Oakman58]

After my walkabout on the ship I went back to our cabin to get my wife and we headed up to the Spinnaker to watch the ship come into Cozumel. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, the views are great from the Spinnaker. Once I realized our balcony would be alongside the pier we headed back to our cabin to watch from our balcony. I made a mistake in my previous post, we were scheduled to arrive in Cozumel at 11:00 AM not 10:00.

 

The MSC Opera was already in port as we arrived.

 

 

I always find it fascinating to watch cruise ships sidle up to the piers.

 

Pier workers grab the ship's ropes to tie up the Jade.

 

 

Once docked, my wife and I headed to the buffet for a light lunch. We didn’t want to be drinking tequila on an empty stomach.

 

On the pier I had to take a photo of the Jade. She really is a beautiful ship on the outside but I personally found some of the Hawaiian décor on the inside to be a bit gaudy. More on this later.

 

 

 

We had no problems finding our meeting place for the tequila tasting and lo and behold, there was J & M waiting for us. It seems their catamaran beach and snorkel excursion had been cancelled because of the high winds and rough waves and they were able to join our excursion and just pay the price difference. That was a bonus for us.

 

Our guide Carlos gathered us into a group to introduce himself and tell us what we would be doing on the tour. He told us we would be taking taxi vans for the short ride to Discover Mexico where our excursion would begin.

 

Our group was shuttled to the park in 3 or 4 eight passenger vans. Once there Carlos gave us a seminar on where and how Blue Agave plants were grown.

 

Carlos explaining where the Blue Agave plant is grown in Mexico.

 

 

Carlos telling us how the Blue Agave plant is grown and harvested.

More of our Day 3 excursion in my next post.

[orioles74]

What a great review. My family will be doing this in March for spring break. Love the pictures. waiting for more.

[Huntingdon1701]

Thank you for a review that is both informative and humorous! I am looking forward to the rest.

[ohyes]

You are a super reviewer! Loving reading this...will board the Jade this Saturday. :)

 

Thanks so much for putting this together for us. My DH is 62....that is NOT old.

Edited January 27, 2016 by ohyes
adding NOT old part

[zencruisers]

I am really enjoying the review and the pictures. Thank you for taking the time to do it. :):):)

[Oakman58]

Thanks again to everyone for the kind comments. I hope everyone that is leaving on the Jade this season has outstanding weather.

 

Day 3 COZUMEL (Cont.)

 

With the outside presentation completed, Carlos herded us into a small building with tables and chairs for the tequila tasting. There were eight place settings on each table and each setting had three glasses of tequila. I was surprised at the amount of tequila in each glass; these were my kind of samples.

 

 

Each glass contained tequila in various stages of ageing. Our guide went into great detail about the ageing process of tequila and the proper way to drink tequila. According to Carlos, licking a dash of salt from you hand, drinking some tequila, and then sucking a lime is just wrong. Good tequila is to be sipped sans salt or lime.

 

Drinking on the job is all in a day's work for Carlos.

Finally it was time to taste the white (clear) tequila which was just 15 days old. Yikes, the white tequila burned all the way down. It was all I could do to finish my glass and then the remainder in my wife’s glass. I didn’t want any to go to waste ya know.

 

Carlos continued his presentation on various tequilas and then it was time to taste the next sample. The second glass contained tequila that had been aged two months in a wooden barrel, hence the color change. Wouldn’t you know it, my wife was able to finish all of that tequila.

Finally we tasted the third sample which had been aged at least one year. That tequila went down very smooth. Funny thing, by the time we were into the third glass everyone was laughing and having a good time. Obviously tequila helps you make friends.

 

Back outside we were taken to an area for a Mayan ceremonial demonstration of pole swinging. There was one long backless bench for everyone to sit on that was very close to the pole. Once the swingers had climbed to the top of the pole I leaned back to take a photo of them. Unfortunately I leaned back too far and I felt myself going over, I had passed the point of no return. I was trying my best to bring myself back upright but I was still going over. Finally my feet left the ground and I was gone from the bench. I landed squarely on my back behind the bench. I wish I would have stood up and thrown my arms out to the side and yelled, TA-DA. I didn’t do this of course because I was too embarrassed. Instead I quickly climbed back over the bench and sat down assuring everyone around me I was alright. I guess the tequila affected me more than I realized.

The pole swinging demonstration was entertaining and I did manage to get some photos in spite of myself.

 

 

 

 

Next up was a margarita class on how to make the perfect margarita. On the way over to the bar area we did an optional photo op with a donkey. I actually bought the picture because I knew it would be one of the few photos with all four of us in it.

 

I think we look like rejects from a Juan Valdez Columbian Coffee commercial.

 

After the demonstration on how to make the perfect margarita everyone was given a free Mango Margarita. It was quite delicious.

 

The rim of the glass was coated with a spiced salt.

The last stop on our excursion at the park was an all you can eat taco meal that included one beverage. The meal was delicious and afterward we were taken back to the port in taxi vans.

It was 5:15 by the time we were back onboard the Jade. We all really enjoyed this excursion.

 

 

Day 3 continued in my next post.

[mickeyplanner08]

LOL-sorry that bench just couldn't hold you up! Thanks so much for your wonderful review. Being one of those first time cruisers, it has been great seeing pictures and reading your review. Too bad we are going with young teens-no tequila tasting for us. Can't wait to read more.

[kosweeps]

Oakman58: "Yikes, the white tequila burned all the way down. It was all I could do to finish my glass and then the remainder in my wife’s glass. I didn’t want any to go to waste ya know."

 

LOL!! Awesome. Just awesome. I think I shall be sad when your review is over. I will only be happy again when my and DH's feet step upon the Jade in a month. :)

 

I was never interested in this excursion, but I am curious. Will be showing it to DH tonight. Keep it coming! :)