Jump to content
Cruise Critic Community

First time cruiser currently on Jewel of the Seas reviews

Utahbelle
 Share

Recommended Posts

Utahbelle

Utahbelle

Posted
Posted

My family of 5 is currently on our way to Mykonos Greece aboard the beautiful Jewel of the Seas. This is our first cruise and we decided to do this to celebrate my 20 year anniversary. I always wanted to go to Italy for our 20 years and my husband said go ahead and plan it. I already knew my husband was not the cruising type, but I wanted to make going to Europe as painless as possible and cruising sounded like the perfect way to navigate it. He agreed and saidhewould give it a shot. We have 3 teenagers that were dying to come with us so we booked two superior balcony staterooms. I didn't want the closet to our room lol so we got them both on deck 9 but far apart. This decision was one of many mistakes lol.

I wanted to share my likes/dislikes so far and I will keep it updated throughout the cruise

Link to comment
Share on other sites
jsickels

jsickels

Posted
Posted

We are going on the Jewel next June to Greek Isles. Interested in your experience as this will be our first time overseas and we are planning on bringing our boys who will be 12 and 14 by then. Curious how old your teenagers are, if they are enjoying the ports, and if there are teen only places on the ship for them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Utahbelle

Utahbelle

Posted
  • Author
Posted

So my teens are 19,17,14

We flew into Rome a day early and spent the night in a lovey guest house in Via Dei Condotti which is right next to the Spanish steps. Unfortunately no one was able to sleep on our red eye flight and were so exhausted when we landed that the kids just wanted to crash on the beds. I wanted to go explore Rome, but they were all asleep for hours. We had reservations with Dark Rome for underground colosseum tour at 7:00. I really suggest getting into Rome at least 2 days early so you can have a day to just rest and catch up on sleep!

We were all excited about the tour but when we started, we stopped about 25 different places on our way to the colosseum and listened about 10 minutes at each stop. This lost my kids...they just wanted to get in that colosseum, we didn't know about all the tour before it. Again we were so tired and it was so hard to follow along. The tour ended at 9:00 and we walked all the way back stopping for some dinner and went back and crashed! Again, allow an extra day to get that rest in if you will be dealing with jet lag.

We hired Rome Transfers for all of our transfers for this trip and so far they have been perfect. We have not had to deal with trains, buses or shuttles. We will also use them when we get off the ship.

Getting on the jewel was a breeze. We did arrive early, around 11am and there was no lines at all. We walked right in, got our sail pass, our internet codes, and walked on the boat. We went straight to the windjammer and had some lunch. I will admit we are foodies and were disappointed with the food. Look, this is a buffet made to feed a lot of people quickly, there is not going to be farm fresh organic eggs, I understand that. We didn't care for it so we just don't eat there. Done.

I got the Internet codes and we got connected right away. So far for us it has not been fast. In the early morning it's okay but day and evening there is a ton of lag. It's pretty cool to be able to be on the Internet in the middle of the ocean though, it is what it is and it's hard to complain about it.

I will review our staterooms and Sicily tomorrow!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Utahbelle

Utahbelle

Posted
  • Author
Posted

So for our staterooms we didn't want a connecting cabin with our kids. Come on, this is our anniversary! ;) so I booked two balcony rooms both on deck 9. Because my oldest was only 19, I had to put my husband with him in one room and me and my daughters in another. I never thought anymore about that until we got our sail passes and had the wrong keys to the rooms. I went to guest services and the only thing he could do is give us additional room keys for each room. Now some of us had to carry around a room key and the sail pass. And when they dropped off the luggage we were running them back and forth to the right rooms lol. The first night there we realized that the sofa in the kids room was not a sofa bed and our room had the extra bed in the ceiling. We thought about switching rooms but we had already unpacked and the room attendants were already confused with our arrangements lol. So my son has been sleeping on the couch and said it isn't so bad. He has never complained.

I love love love having a balcony (this is my first cruise and can't compare it to not having one though) I love watching the ship coming into port, leaving port, sunrises, sunsets, etc!

My kids got the refreshment package which they have used a ton. We bought the 5 night specialty restaraunt package which I am so glad we did! Chops was amazing and Izumi was even better. We are trying out Giovanni's Table tonight for my daughters birthday. I will let you know how that one is...when I made the reservation I asked to buy a cake to have brought to our table for her birthday. I hope they come through with it! She will love it! We have the my-time dining which we like and Tides dining room has been pretty good.

In Sicily we used the ships excusion to have a shuttle up to Taormina to explore on our own. Then the bus would take us back to the ship. It took longer than I thought it would to get up there, and the roads are very narrow and terrifying. driving around Europe in general has been terrifying....it's not for the weak like me! My husband is cool as a cucumber and you have to scrape me off the roof of the car! I.just.cant.even.

Taormina is sooooo beautiful, we walked, had a delicious pizza lunch, shopped, walked more until the Greek theater. Just amazing! Walked back and got gelato on our way. It was a great day!

The next day we were at sea. This was a rough day for us. I told you we really aren't the cruising type, we don't drink, gamble, or care for large quantities of unhealthy food 😬 I guess you can call us boring. This smaller ship doesn't have enough going on I feel like. My girls were so excited for the teen club, and I did hear of a lot of teenagers coming on this cruise from the roll-call board. Where are all the teens at? Lol, I have two really cute, fun girls here! They are a little disappointed there isn't more for them to do. We sat by the pool and watched the bellyflop contest. The movie theater is cool and there has been some good movies! You have to pay extra for popcorn though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 3 weeks later...
Jazzzy

Jazzzy

Posted
Posted
We are going on the Jewel next June to Greek Isles. Interested in your experience as this will be our first time overseas and we are planning on bringing our boys who will be 12 and 14 by then. Curious how old your teenagers are, if they are enjoying the ports, and if there are teen only places on the ship for them.

 

Are you going on June 18th sailing? I just booked that itinerary... will be going with our 14 year old son.

We were on Serenade of the Seas last year for a Baltic cruise. He had a blast. There were not as many teens on that particular sailing (compared to Caribbean itineraries) but he went to the kids club and met some teens his age. There were not as many organized activities at the club and they had combined the 13-15 with 16-17 year-olds... but the teens his age would meet up and hang out ... He met some wonderful kids and still keeps in touch by email with some of them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jazzzy

Jazzzy

Posted
Posted
My family of 5 is currently on our way to Mykonos Greece aboard the beautiful Jewel of the Seas. This is our first cruise and we decided to do this to celebrate my 20 year anniversary. I always wanted to go to Italy for our 20 years and my husband said go ahead and plan it. I already knew my husband was not the cruising type, but I wanted to make going to Europe as painless as possible and cruising sounded like the perfect way to navigate it. He agreed and saidhewould give it a shot. We have 3 teenagers that were dying to come with us so we booked two superior balcony staterooms. I didn't want the closet to our room lol so we got them both on deck 9 but far apart. This decision was one of many mistakes lol.

I wanted to share my likes/dislikes so far and I will keep it updated throughout the cruise

 

Excited to read you review!

 

Bon Voyage!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
fragilek

fragilek

Posted
Posted
So for our staterooms we didn't want a connecting cabin with our kids. Come on, this is our anniversary! ;) so I booked two balcony rooms both on deck 9. Because my oldest was only 19, I had to put my husband with him in one room and me and my daughters in another. I never thought anymore about that until we got our sail passes and had the wrong keys to the rooms. I went to guest services and the only thing he could do is give us additional room keys for each room. Now some of us had to carry around a room key and the sail pass. And when they dropped off the luggage we were running them back and forth to the right rooms lol. The first night there we realized that the sofa in the kids room was not a sofa bed and our room had the extra bed in the ceiling. We thought about switching rooms but we had already unpacked and the room attendants were already confused with our arrangements lol. So my son has been sleeping on the couch and said it isn't so bad. He has never complained.

I love love love having a balcony (this is my first cruise and can't compare it to not having one though) I love watching the ship coming into port, leaving port, sunrises, sunsets, etc!

My kids got the refreshment package which they have used a ton. We bought the 5 night specialty restaraunt package which I am so glad we did! Chops was amazing and Izumi was even better. We are trying out Giovanni's Table tonight for my daughters birthday. I will let you know how that one is...when I made the reservation I asked to buy a cake to have brought to our table for her birthday. I hope they come through with it! She will love it! We have the my-time dining which we like and Tides dining room has been pretty good.

In Sicily we used the ships excusion to have a shuttle up to Taormina to explore on our own. Then the bus would take us back to the ship. It took longer than I thought it would to get up there, and the roads are very narrow and terrifying. driving around Europe in general has been terrifying....it's not for the weak like me! My husband is cool as a cucumber and you have to scrape me off the roof of the car! I.just.cant.even.

Taormina is sooooo beautiful, we walked, had a delicious pizza lunch, shopped, walked more until the Greek theater. Just amazing! Walked back and got gelato on our way. It was a great day!

The next day we were at sea. This was a rough day for us. I told you we really aren't the cruising type, we don't drink, gamble, or care for large quantities of unhealthy food 😬 I guess you can call us boring. This smaller ship doesn't have enough going on I feel like. My girls were so excited for the teen club, and I did hear of a lot of teenagers coming on this cruise from the roll-call board. Where are all the teens at? Lol, I have two really cute, fun girls here! They are a little disappointed there isn't more for them to do. We sat by the pool and watched the bellyflop contest. The movie theater is cool and there has been some good movies! You have to pay extra for popcorn though.

 

Hope it picks up for your girls, but your oldest may find it hard as in Europe she is actually an adult - Most 19 yr olds on the ship may be there with friends or partners and as it is an expensive type of holiday most young adults in the EU will probably choose a different kind of holiday. We went last year with our 18yr old and our 22yr old (a treat for ones 18th and the others graduation) luckily they had each other as there wasn't much for then to do or people for them to meet. However, the itinerary is so good they still had a fab holiday.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
stefanny28

stefanny28

Posted
Posted

Looking forward to read your review.

We have a 17 y ( will be 18 next year) and we are booked July 2017 on the B2B.

I would love to find out more how your older teens like the cruise.

 

If you are booked on the Jewel July 9th and 16th, 2017, please come and check out the roll calls. I know it is still early but it is never too late to start planning and get to know each other.

Here are the links:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2336678

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2336677

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Utahbelle

Utahbelle

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Sorry to leave everyone hanging. We have been home for two weeks now and I figure I need to get this done.

As far as having my teens opinion on this cruise....they were 14,17,and 19 and I had told them that there were going to be a lot of teens on this cruise so they were pretty excited to meet new people. My girls went to the teen club a couple times only to return back to their room saying there were only a couple of 12 year olds running around. So that was it for the teen club. My kids never really saw other teens (except maybe at dinner) and really only met other people on our excursions. My 19 year old really loved spending the days in port but really didn't care for the cruising part, except the food lol.

The sea days were long days with not much to interest them. They really just wanted to be on their phones and the wifi we paid for was hit and miss.

I will review more tonight!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing
  • Forum Jump
    • Categories
      • Welcome to Cruise Critic
      • Hurricane Zone 2024
      • Cruise Insurance Q&A w/ Steve Dasseos of Tripinsurancestore.com June 2024
      • New Cruisers
      • Cruise Lines “A – O”
      • Cruise Lines “P – Z”
      • River Cruising
      • ROLL CALLS
      • Cruise Critic News & Features
      • Digital Photography & Cruise Technology
      • Special Interest Cruising
      • Cruise Discussion Topics
      • UK Cruising
      • Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
      • Canadian Cruisers
      • North American Homeports
      • Ports of Call
      • Cruise Conversations
×
×
  • Create New...