Jewel review Nov 11-23 GOOD, .BAD, & FLOOD

[Fragile-Beauty]

Just back from Jewel of the Seas, November 11-23. 

I can’t begin to do such an awesome review as the last few posters have done regarding this ship. I enjoyed their reviews and pictures.  I have not been on a Royal Caribbean ship for 5 years so when I found this great itinerary for the Holy land and the Mediterranean, I booked 2 cabins one for Mother and son and one for my husband and myself to celebrate our 40^th Anniversary.

I am a 4-star Mariner on Holland and Elite on Princess so I was anxious to see how I would like the Jewel of the Seas.

THE GOOD AND THE BAD

Nice size ship, easy to get around.  Watch out for cabins 7594-7604 and 8594-8604 they are above the Centrum where they have loud music a good part of the night, they do close a main door after 10:00 p.m. but if you are sensitive to noise it will be loud.

Food very good overall. 

Steak house, steak filet not that good.  Glad I did not pay for it – it was complimentary.

Casino actually paid off better than most casino’s I have been in.  One day they will keep people from using it only as a smoking room as many were in there just to smoke.

Internet was the fastest I have had …ever on any ship

Beds a little hard but I slept great.

RCI nice to let us early flight people off the ship before the 6:45 a.m. early walk off group.

Those crew members I dealt with were very friendly.  

 

THE FLOOD STORY

Eight days into our trip we stopped at Kusadasi, Turkey.  We had been to Ephesus several times before, so I just shopped at the port.  I came back to the room about 2:00 p.m.  A few minutes later I heard water running.  I went into the bathroom and nothing was turned on.  So, back to bed to read until the water sounded like it was really getting louder.  This time it was too loud.  I took 3 steps from the bed and jumped back onto the bed.  The floor was covered in water and it was boiling hot.  My husband called the front desk and told them to send someone ASAP.  I grabbed my suitcase from the underside of my part of the bed.  By now the water is several inches high and I am debating on trying to run for the door.   Finally, my husband runs and opens the cabin door and the steam outside the door made it impossible to see out, and the water was pouring from the ceiling in the hallway.  He shut the door and looks on the floor and see’s the electrical cord that WAS plugged into the desk.  This was the only day in 7 days that my room steward had unplugged our extension cord for our CPAP machines.  God is good or we could have really had issues.  My husband calls back down to the front desk as he realizes others will be having electrical cords sitting in water too and by this point is yelling at them to send someone NOW.

Several more minutes later our door opens and there are tons of ship personnel.  They get the hot water turned off and instructed us to leave the cabin.  A major hot water pipe burst.  All our shoes were soaked so we ran barefoot down the hall in scalding hot water.  I felt like that I was doing that “hot coals” ritual.

My mother’s room was 10 doors down, so we went into their room and stayed for about an hour.  We then realized our CPAP cords were under the bed and thought we needed to check on them.  We met a ships officer named Collen and she said we could not go down to our rooms but that she would go get our CPAP cords for us.  She was nice and informative to us.    

Meanwhile those just getting back from their tours were not allowed to see or go to their rooms until much later in the night. 

Another hour goes by and they inform us that each of us will have a day room for a few hours but by 10:00 p.m. most of us will be in our rooms again as they are changing the carpets and cleaning the rooms.  I did not use the day room as I stayed with my Mom and son in their cabin.

I must give them 100% kudos on their working crew diligently lugging out dripping wet carpets.  RCI’s staff told us we could return to our room around 9:30. P.M.  However, our AC system was right above the pipe that burst outside our door and we had NO AIR CONDITIONING.

They sent maintenance personnel down who spoke another language, but the jest was AC - it was broken due to computer board inside getting wet, he over-rid something and he got it working for the time being. 

RCI was trying to be accommodating to us with damages or if we needed to see a doctor.  

Our room smelled of glue and new carpet.  Should have been great, but they did not dry the floor underneath, so we had puddles of water coming up through the new carpet.   Over the next few days we maneuvered around the puddles.   

Collen was nice as I told her my husband’s adapter electrical plug-in for his Microsoft surface no longer worked after being submerged.  We checked Best Buy website and they credited our account for the cost of the plug.  I also sent a load of laundry like our jeans we were wearing that had 6 inches of water on the legs and other items that got wet to the laundry and wrote “No charge” flooded.   They took care of that.

As far as the A/C it was now on full freezing. We called them back and he came and said it needed a part, but he would turn A/C off.  That night was the hottest night we ever spent.  I finally opened the balcony door (I know….. a NO NO) but it had to be 85 -88 degrees in that room.

They did not replace the hall carpets they just used those air dryer machines.   Three days later it was still damp to the touch.   

They had moved everything out of the rooms to replace the carpets.  My husband’s suitcase that was under the bed was brought back to us in our room.  I figured that they had dried it for us.  On Thursday, 2 days before we leave, I start packing as it was a sea day.  I opened my husband suitcase and it still had items in it – and they were soaking wet. I guess I was wrong that they would have dried the suitcase.  Thankfully we had a balcony.  My items dried in the 2 days out there and the suitcase dried quick as I always scotch guard my suitcases.

The next day the front desk officer contacts us to see how we were doing.  I told her everything from the beginning.  I praised her team for their hard work but told her the difficulties and issues that we dealt with the A/C.  We could not go through another hot night.  Very shortly someone arrived to put us in a new A/C part.

There were 13-18 cabins affected.  Some cabins had  just a little wet damage and some like mine had several inches of hot water in them.  The cabins affected were approx. these cabins numbers 7578-7562

CONCLUSION

Our room only smelled of heavy glue and carpet when we left on Saturday morning.  Other cabins were starting to smell like bad fish.  Don’t quote me but others said they did not replace their carpet molding strips along the sides of the wall and that is what is smelling.  Don’t know for sure.

Since we were the only ones in our cabin had my husband and I been out on a tour that water could have continued to flood for several more minutes or longer really causing more damage.

RCI management on board wanted to offer us a compensation package. 

$25 each of us OBC to be added to our account

25% off another cruise.

Some of you will think that it is a good offer, others will think that is a bad offer.   

It was an experience to say the least.

 

 Notice in the picture the large mirror in our room is covered in steam.  Also notice bubbles on floor from the steam coming up the carpet,  my husbands shirt is wet as the hot water started leaking through our lights in the ceiling in our room also. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Biker19]

3 hours ago, Fragile-Beauty said:

Internet was the fastest I have had …ever on any ship

It will be even better if you sail on a ship equipped with O3B internet.

[NateUpNorth]

Curious if the 25% off future cruise is combinable with the "advertised sales"? 

[Ourusualbeach]

18 minutes ago, NateUpNorth said:

Curious if the 25% off future cruise is combinable with the "advertised sales"? 

It would be a FCC in the amount of 25% of the cruise (less taxes and fees) that they were on and could be applied against any pricing.

 

I’ve never seen just a blanket 25% off issued for any problem. 

[critterchick]

17 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

It would be a FCC in the amount of 25% of the cruise (less taxes and fees) that they were on and could be applied against any pricing.

 

I’ve never seen just a blanket 25% off issued for any problem. 

I have. I once received 30% off the price I paid for a cruise  to be applied to a future sailing.

[Ourusualbeach]

1 minute ago, critterchick said:

I have. I once received 30% off the price I paid for a cruise  to be applied to a future sailing.

Did you 30 % off the cruise that you were on or did you receive a coupon for 30% off the new cruise.

[Fragile-Beauty]

Yes it is combinable with all sale and advertised prices.  I checked