NCL Jade December 17-24, 2018 Review

[sailandcruise]

This is a review, not a travelogue as are many so-called reviews on this site.  In other words it is not a day-by-day description of what happened and what I did on this cruise; rather, it is a discussion of good and bad points from this cruise critic’s perspective. Not that I don’t appreciate and enjoy reading travelogues — I do — but that is not what I am writing and posting.

 

I am a middle-aged man (i.e., not yet retired) who cruised with his adult son. We were in a hull balcony cabin and we chose the UBP and 250 minutes of internet as our perks.  We have sailed on many (>20 in my case) cruises before on several different lines, including mostly NCL (8 cruises including this one), HAL, and Celebrity. We usually choose based on schedule, itinerary and price. The purpose of this cruise was to take a relaxing break from work and cold.

 

We have been to three of the four ports before so we didn’t feel compelled to see or do anything just because it was a “must do” while there.  (Similarly with respect to on board activities, dining, etc.). Harvest Caye was new to us (having been to Belize City twice) but we’ve been to Costa Maya, Roatan and Cozumel multiple times.  Other than saying that the mix of ports met our needs, that we were fine with the substitution of Harvest Caye for Belize City after we had made our reservation, that we liked the mix of early (7am-3pm at Harvest Caye) and late (11am to 7pm in Cozumel) port days, and that we had to tender in Roatan, I won’t cover the ports in this review. (I may post about them in the ports of call section later.)

 

TL; DR: Overall this cruise perfectly met our needs due to a combination of what NCL provided and what we chose to do or not do.  Not the best, not the worst experience on board, but the most relaxing week I’ve had on a ship in over 10 years of cruising.

 

The Good

1. Freestyle — not having to schedule meals in advance or change into long pants and a collared shirt for dinner if I didn’t want to, but being able to do so when I wanted a slightly more formal atmosphere, made the vacation so relaxing and stress free. Not having to make or follow a plan was great.
2. Scheduling — in addition to the mix of early and late port days, NCL adjusted the on-board schedule to match.  So, for example, the Garden Cafe served lunch until 3pm on days when people wouldn’t be returning from port until between 2-3pm, avoiding the “there’s always food available at the grill if you chose not to eat in port” problem that I’ve observed on other lines. We arrived 30 minutes early at Cozumel and were given the extra time ashore — no “return early because you arrived early (so we can save fuel)” on this voyage.
3. UBP — we didn’t have to think about whether to order a drink nor did we have to to sign anything. The 20% service charge on the (when booked) list price of $89 per day is easily exceed with only two drinks per day, so there was no pressure to drink too much to “get our money’s worth.”  Bar service was always quick, with no more than a few customers ahead of me at any time.
4. Spa Pass — at $139 for the week, purchased on line prior to the cruise, this was well worth it.  Never crowded, only once did I have to wait for a heated tile lounger.  The men’s side never had more than 4 people in it at a time, and the steam room and sauna were almost always empty. The men’s jacuzzi also never had more than one person in it, and the 5 lounge chairs occasionally had 3 or 4 people.  I watched football on TV and read in this area, as well as napped a bit in between reading on the tile loungers.  This was a quiet and relaxing getaway that avoided kids, loud noises (e.g., music on deck), and crowds.
5. Itinerary — As mentioned above, but included here for completeness, I liked the combination of early and late days.
6. Cabin — I love the hull balcony.  Less windy and more private than open balconies, and slightly less expensive too. Adequate storage and multiple outlets.
7. Breakfast at O’Sheehans.  This is a hidden benefit.  I ate here the last two mornings including the morning of disembarkation.  Quieter and much less hectic than the buffets, and much faster and less fussy service than the main dining room, I was able to get a custom made egg white omelet with smoked salmon and vegetables just as I like it much more quickly than in Grand Pacific or than in the Garden Cafe on previous days. The lesser variety offered compared to the buffet didn’t matter to me; in fact, it probably helped to stick to normal portions. But the bar was closed on the morning of disembarkation, so no final bloody Mary with my breakfast.
8. Outlets in rooms — even in a standard balcony cabin, there were more than enough outlets.  Over each bed was a USB port.  In the corner near the balcony below the television were two US style outlets and another USB port.  And on the interior corner on the vanity was yet another outlet — one US and one European.
9. NFL football — all the games during the cruise — Monday and Thursday evenings, Saturday and Sunday, were broadcast on channel 38.
10. Trivia participation awards:  Rather than encouraging overly aggressive competition for, as the Assistant Cruise Director put it, cheap made-iin-China trinkets, all competitors were given stamps on an activity participation card, with the winners given double stamps. These could be redeemed for the cheap made-in-China trinkets at the end of the cruise.
11. Fitness center — good mix of machines, never crowded, no waiting.
12. Fellow passengers, especially those I met at the CC Meet and Greet.  Everyone with whom I interacted was friendly and courteous, with a shout out to noche_caliente (who graciously let me share a taxi with them returning to the ship in Cozumel), mycakewalk (with whom I had several pleasant conversations), and Mysto (who organized the meet and greet).

 

Bad

1. Beverage pricing — while the UBP was a good value, many liquors were priced at $16.95, just over the limit of $15 for the UBP.  While it’s only $2 more than the limit, these could easily have been included.  Clearly NCL is attempting to generate additional revenue by making it appear as if the complementary liquors ($9.95 for those in the premium category compared to $16.95 for super-premiums) are significantly lower quality than the next tier up, so people will figure “it’s only $2 extra” and order the more expensive option.  And “ask you server” for ultra-premiums?  How about disclosing prices so we don’t have to ask and then decide whether or not something is worth paying for?   This isn’t a major flaw; there was a wide variety of cocktails, liquors, wines, and beer available and included — just a minor annoyance.
2. Complimentary food: O Sheehans half-dozen chicken wings came with only ONE piece of celery, although more were provided when requested.  Inexpensive ingredients and quality in main dining rooms — the always available steak was full of gristle; there was no lobster (not a surprise), no smoked salmon on breakfast buffet (also not a surprise), minimal shellfish entrees, ingredient stretching (e.g., beef entree was medallions one evening, kabobs another), minuscule servings of vegetables (only three broccoli florets?), etc.  One evening when nothing on the main dining room menu appealed we went to the buffet only to discover that it was taco night.  Roast meats had been replaced by quesadillas.  Usual burgers, salad, vegetarian items. I just had a Caesar salad with some grilled chicken breast, tomato, chickpeas, and cucumber added which was adequate and healthy.  (My son said that this was the worst food of any cruse he had been on.)
3. Food service:  several mistakes in the included dining rooms.  Monday evening I arrived solo at Alizar shortly after 9pm.   I was seated at table 16, right in front of a kitchen entrance and close to and in full view of the host stand.  Despite many waiters rushing to and fro, no one brought a menu, water, or bread for over 15 minutes.  I finally went to the host stand and asked to be served.  An assistant maitre d’ then personally apologized and took my order, and a menu and water appeared (I declined the bread).  A waiter came by afterwards and was very apologetic; I assume that he had been spoken to.  On Tuesday my son’s order at lunch in Grand Pacific was mistaken — the server delivered a salmon sandwich on pretzel roll when he had ordered the open faced omelet.  And on the morning of disembarkation at O Sheehan’s, he was delivered the breakfast order of another table.  Finally, Friday evening in Grand Pacific we saw a waiter carefully stacking water glasses from a tray onto the service stand, then removing them back to the tray, and then restocking them again onto the same stand.  This not only served no purpose, but prevented him from serving diners.  Was he being punished for some infraction?  Clearly more training is needed for the service staff in these included dining rooms.
4. The future cruise consultant. There were two people, a male whose title was manager and a female whose title was consultant.  The evening I stopped by to purchase my certificates she was on duty.  I asked to purchase two certificates.  She responded by asking what cabin I was in and telling me that because I was in a balcony I should purchase three.  Why?  A balcony cabin with the double up offer can use only two.  When I repeated that I wanted to purchase two she then offered to give me four for the same $500 cost if I would forgo the on board credit.  I repeated that I wanted two and asked her how her offer was different than if I were just purchasing four certificates for $1000 with a $500 credit — because of course it wasn’t.  She replied that many people don’t realize that they can use the on board credit against the cost of the future cruise certificates.  In other words, she told me that they deliberately try to fool people into purchasing more than they want!  I was so disgusted by this tactic that I almost walked away to cause her to lose the sale, but I wanted to make my purchase so I went ahead with it.  These FCC’s are a good deal as offered — if purchasing more than one, the return on investment is 100%.  Why does NCL have to spoil it with these overly aggressive and potentially misleading tactics?
5. Reservation/NCL web site— the NCL web site never showed my prepaid gratuities.  I had to ask the travel agent for a copy of the confirmation. Not only that, but the web site kept offering me the opportunity to prepay even after this had already been done, suggesting that it may not have been recorded.  Fortunately this wasn’t needed — everything on board was as it should have been,
6. Paper — no recycling bin separate from trash can in cabin, unnecessary paper delivered to cabin — I don’t need anything more than the daily, and should be able to opt out of all the advertisements.  And shore excursions — why do I have to hand in 6 pages of forms when I just want to buy one specific excursion and I show up in person at the desk to do so? (i.e., the ferry to Placencia)?  Cant this be done on the computer with no paper, except possibly a confirmation print out if desired?
7. Rule enforcement, or lack thereof — I observed men in t-shirts at dinner in the Grand Pacific despite the published and posted dress codes. Why couldn’t these men be gently directed by the hosts to Alizar?  We are fine with NCL’s minimal standards, but if there is a published rule, it should be enforced consistently so all rules don’t become meaningless. Similarly with respect to unsupervised kids in hot tubs, or kids in the adult hot tubs, or (dare I say it?) chair hogs.
8. The free bottle of sparkling wine left in our cabin as a Latitudes benefit.  Unnecessary and somewhat worthless when we had the UBP.  We didn’t open it and it remained in the same place on the shelf when we departed at the end of the cruise. I know we could have exchanged it but we didn’t bother.
9. Trivia — yes, this is a trivial complaint.  But the late afternoon trivia was almost impossible on Monday and trivially easy on Tuesday.  We didn’t return, but passed by and on the last day they were reusing questions from earlier in the week. How hard is it to come up with more trivia questions?

 

Puzzling

1. The Assistant Hotel Director’s job seemed to be to yell at passengers. Especially at disembarkation, when he kept telling everyone to “form two lines” way before there was a natural splitting point.
2. At the senior officer question and answer session, one passenger gave a long speech about how she just had to have her coke and asked why NCL wouldn’t switch from Pepsi products.  The Captain gracefully ignored her request for a show of hands, stated up front but humorously that “Pepsi pays us more” but he also said that NCL used to have Coke products, as recently as 5 years ago.  I’ve been sailing NCL since 2005 and it has always been Pepsi.  Perhaps he hasn’t been with NCL that long, or perhaps he’s been with NCL so long that he’s lost track of the years.
3. I finally figured out how the showers work.  Not how to operate them, which is obvious, but how they work.  (anyone curious can see my other post on this topic; everyone who’s not an engineer can ignore it)
4. Spa Attire — there was a sign in the men’s section just before the door to the co-ed area asking patrons to wear swimsuits (which everyone did).  But why place this sign here if it is meant to refer to the single-sex area only?  Shouldn’t it be at the main entrance to that area?  If it is meant only for the co-ed area, then why not say so specifically?
5. Sun decks:  there were no lounge chairs on these top decks so no one ever used them.

 

Overall the negatives were minor and significantly outweighed by the positives.  While NCL could make some improvements in staffing, training, and food, the cruise was exactly what I wanted, needed, and expected, and was good value for the money.  Definitely one I would repeat.

[Captain-John]

2 hours ago, sailandcruise said:

1. Spa Attire — there was a sign in the men’s section just before the door to the co-ed area asking patrons to wear swimsuits (which everyone did).  But why place this sign here if it is meant to refer to the single-sex area only?  Shouldn’t it be at the main entrance to that area?  If it is meant only for the co-ed area, then why not say so specifically?

Overall the negatives were minor and significantly outweighed by the positives.  While NCL could make some improvements in staffing, training, and food, the cruise was exactly what I wanted, needed, and expected, and was good value for the money.  Definitely one I would repeat.

 

Thanks very much for your review. Interesting thoughts and funny how people pick up on little details (you are not wrong to, I do similarly, and this should be message to the cruise lines that passengers are discerning and do notice the small things as much as the 'big' things).

 

I have never taken a spa pass on a Jewel-class ship (although I love Jade and have sailed on her 4 times). It seems there is sex-separated facilities in the spa - which are shared and which are separated? On Breakaway-class, all the facilities are shared and every other cruise line spa I've been in has been mixed facilities.

[sailandcruise]

14 minutes ago, Captain-John said:

 

Thanks very much for your review. Interesting thoughts and funny how people pick up on little details (you are not wrong to, I do similarly, and this should be message to the cruise lines that passengers are discerning and do notice the small things as much as the 'big' things).

 

I have never taken a spa pass on a Jewel-class ship (although I love Jade and have sailed on her 4 times). It seems there is sex-separated facilities in the spa - which are shared and which are separated? On Breakaway-class, all the facilities are shared and every other cruise line spa I've been in has been mixed facilities.

The therapy pool and the heated tile loungers were shared.  All other facilities -- the jacuzzi style hot tub, the steam room, the sauna, the plunge pool, the rain showers, and of course the locker and toilet facilities, were in the single sex area.

 

Another little thing -- the TV screens had an announcement that said disembarkation options had to be selected by November 14.  (I may have the specific date wrong, but it was definitely in November.)  I noticed this right before starting a workout in the gym, and also on the cabin TV later when flipping channels.  Yes, no one would be confused by this, but it's the little things that show a lack of attention to quality that also becomes apparent in bigger things such as the lapses in dining rooms service.