Just back from the Jewel Baltics 6/22

[leenie29]

Please ask questions and I'll try to answer them. I'm not going to review everything just give you my observations on the ship and what we did. I was traveling with my husband and two sons ages 9 and 14.

 

I loved the ship and crew and had a great time. The crew is very friendly and happy to talk to you. The ship is very similiar to the Dawn that we were on 4 years ago which we also loved. Soozy the cruise director was very visible, very funny and very friendly. Our cabin crew, Santiago and Leo, knew our names and say good night to us every night. They always left special surprises (good!) for the boys every night.

 

We were the sailing after the Noro sailings and there were constant warnings in the dailys about not shaking hands with people and constantly using the hand sanitizers. The sani-gel police were very visible and very strict about using the gel. There were a few cases of Noro but not nearly as many as they had in previous weeks.

 

The people I met from our cruise critic roll call were wonderful and saw each other frequently. I met many interesting people in the laundry room on Deck 9, which unfortunately I spent way too much time in there. The ports were wonderful and the weather was good, mostly sunny and not too warm.

 

My husband had many more criticism than I did and it's hard to believe that we were on the same ship. But then again he's the type of person one dreads traveling with and is most happy when complaining a lot. I'm much easier going and it really takes a lot to make me complain like he does. There was nothing on this cruise that was horrible, intolerable or anything else worth complaining about to any staff on board. It was a great way to see some of the most expensive cities in Europe without going bankrupt.

 

We were on deck 8 inside J cabin 2 adults and 2 children ages 9 and 14. It was probably the tiniest cabin we've ever been in on any cruise ship but there was plenty of space to put all of our stuff and clothes away even for 4 people. The location was great and everything was close by. It could have also felt so tiny because it was sideways instead of vertical which we've always had. The shoe bag with all our bathroom stuff hung from the closet door (towel bars in the bathroom got in the way) and that worked out fine.

 

It has always made we wonder why NCL uses only one top bunk and three lower beds instead of two top bunks and two lower beds with a place to walk in the middle. It does make it hard to get out of bed in the middle of the night if you are the one under the upper bed. Or what if you are traveling with another couple and sharing a cabin :rolleyes:.

 

Re: Nickel and Diming. I read about that complaint so I kept my eyes open to see what people meant. Yes NCL does charge for certain NCL "U" activities like sushi making and martini clinics but you do get to eat and drink your work when you are done. There are many other free NCL "U" activities that don't charge like port history lectures and towel animal making. Their Bingo rates are very high but then sometimes there are Bingo specials which are cheaper. Freestyle is all about freedom of choice to what you want to do when you want to do it not a free ride to every activity on the ship without payment. You can choose to pay for activities or you could just do the free activities which there were plenty.

 

Re: NCL tours. The loudest grumblings came from people who did the escorted tours of Berlin and St. Petersburg from NCL. Some people opted for the NCL train to Berlin and do an independant tour on their own once they got into Berlin. They were concerned about getting back to the ship on time but felt more comfortable going through NCL to get the back and forth to Berlin. They weren't the loud complainers. In St. Petersburg most said the guides spoke really poor English, rushed them through their tours and spent most of their time taking them from one souvenier shop to another (naturally on the official NCL shopping stores list). Similiar issues were reported from the escorted Berlin tours too. The people who did independant tours (DenRus, Red October and Alla in St. Petersburg and Original Berlin Walks and another company) were very happy and saw many sights that they wanted to see. We used Alla tours in St. Petersburg and were very pleased with our guide Valentina. She is a wonderful guide and is old enough to have lived through differences between the old Soviet system and the current system and could really explain it well as well as all the history that we saw. Don't be afraid to use the independant guides in St. Petersburg that are recommended on this board. You will happy that you did and your experience will be that much greater and more personalized.

 

Re: The food. I thought the food in the two dining rooms was okay, nothing great, not much variety but you wouldn't call it horrible or inedible either. We were on the Dawn in 2004 and the food was much better - much more variety, more taste, more choices - in the main dining rooms than we experienced on the Jewel. Tsar's Palace is the no jeans restaurant but every place else you can wear jeans. We ate in Cagney's one night and couldn't believe we were eating on the same ship, the food was so much tastier than anything we had eaten in the main restaurant. Surprisingly the food we thought was better in the Garden Cafe than in the main restaurants. There was more variety and the food was much tastier. The pasta chef made my husband a really unusual pasta sauce using all the ingredients he had and my hard to please husband said it was great. One thing that my boys noticed was that in the main restaurant the shrimp cocktail was the tiniest shrimp you had ever seen in this spicy mayo type sauce. Yet the shrimp cocktail in the Garden Cafe were large shrimp like Cagney's served plain with cocktail sauce. Tango's had Tapas every day at 5:30 PM that were very good and a good snack to eat on deck on a lounge chair. Blue Lagoon changes their menu at 5 PM and the lunch menu disappears which we thought was the better of the two menus. Did we starve no. Did we think the food was as good as Princess or Celebrity no but it's been a couple of years since we were on their ships and who knows what their food is like now. There is definately a push to eat in the pay restaurants but you will not starve if you eat only in the non-fee restaurants (Tangos, Blue Lagoon, Garden Cafe, Tsar's and Azura). If you are willing to wear khaki's there was never as long a wait in Tsars like there was in Azuras.

 

The ports we loved them all except Helsinki which there isn't a whole lot to see and do other than shopping which didn't interest my boys too much. But it was a needed relaxing day. We did eat in Stockman's Department store on the lower level and their sandwiches were inexpensive based on how poor the Euro is towards the dollar and very tasty. There is one store in Helsinki that is recommended by the cruiseline that has very colorful wooden bead necklaces, bracelets, earrings and things like napkin rings made out of the same beads. They are unusual and not terribly expensive.

 

The only organized shore excursion we did were in St. Petersburg and I would highly recommend using a private company. Everything else we did on our own and had no problems. They are very easy port to see on your own. We saw Rosenborg Castle and the crown jewels (my boys were amazed with the jewels) in Copenhagen. If you have kids with you don't miss the changing of the guard, grab an ice cone for lunch and see the Vasa in Stockholm. We rented a car in Warnemunde from Europcar that was very easy and drove to Lubeck. Tallinn the old city was beautiful with very interesting architecture. If you stay away from the cruise recommended stores for amber you will find more unusual and cheaper pieces if you wander around. We liked the amber best in Tallinn.

 

Also there is only one shuttle to town and that's in Helsinki which drops you off at the state theater. It's $10 or 6 Euros round trip and I would say it's a far distance from the downtown area. Where we docked in Stockholm (Frihamnin) there should have been a shuttle but wasn't. It's a long walk from the ship to the public bus stop (very easy to hop on a bus 76 to get to the bridge where the Vasa museum is) or you get right on the Hop on Hop off bus right near the ship. If you have a group traveling with you you can buy a 16 journey clip card at the Stockholm Tourist office in the pier with a credit card for a 180 SKK (don't let them talk you into a kid's card for 110 SKK it's a waste of money they can use your 16 clip card).

 

Eileen

[tuffy88]

If you know were free drinks offered in the casino if you used your players card.?

 

Charles

[leenie29]

If you know were free drinks offered in the casino if you used your players card.?

 

Charles

 

Yes they are offered free if you were in the casino but you could not take drinks out of the casino. My husband said the casino was cold all week but I'm not a casino person and never walked in there.

 

Eileen

[tuffy88]

Eileen,

 

Thanks. I guess that is something new with "2". Have been on 8 NCL cruises and always had to pay for drinks in the casino.

 

Charles

[JUSRN]

You mentioned the laundry room.

 

We will be on the 12 day repositioning cruise in Oct. With airlines charging premiums now for luggage, I'm wondering how to pack for 12 days!!!!

 

Is there only one laundry room? many machines? does it get very busy? How much? do they sell laundry detergent?

 

Also, did the prices of the specialty restaurants go up? The Italian and Mexican restaurants used to be free. Are they still?

 

Thanks for your help!

[Len3]

Casino - NCL has given us $200 in free slot play - I guess that we're better off tossing that one overboard.

I'm really happy to hear that your private tour was as success in St. Petersburg. We have a mini-group of 8 with Alla that we booked months ago. Happy sailings and thanks for the post.

[lhall85917]

Thanks for sharing your review, I know I found all of the reviews incredibly helpful as we planned our Baltic trip.

 

For those of you still planning, I've read a couple of reviews where the people didn't enjoy Helsinki. This was our absolute favorite port and surprisingly it was due to the NCL excursion that we took! You might want to consider doing the Town and Country excursion. You get a quick bus tour of Helsinki then head right out to the small town of Porvoo. This is a very quaint, scenic town and we enjoyed it immensely. The highlight of this tour is the next stop at Savijarvi Manor - http://www.savijarvigard.com/savijarvi_manor.htm. The family is very welcoming and shares their history with visitors.It was a delightful day! We don't often do cruise ship excursions but this time we made a great choice.

[leenie29]

We will be on the 12 day repositioning cruise in Oct. With airlines charging premiums now for luggage, I'm wondering how to pack for 12 days!!!! We were gone for 2 weeks because we spent 3 nights pre-cruise in Windsor, England. I packed for a week (with 4 people you hit the 23 kilo weight limit on luggage pretty quickly) but ended up not wearing some of my clothes because I did so much laundry. On our cruise I was comfortable wearing capris, short sleeve shirt, and a lightweight polar tech sweatshirt that sometimes I would take off the sweatshirt in the afternoon. The only "really" warm temps were in St. Petersburg which was 75 and 80 degrees. Most of the time it was sunny and cool probably between 60 and 70 degrees and sometimes a very cool strong wind off the seas. Pack a pair of jeans, lightweight capris, a skirt if it gets warm, a pair of heavier weight capris, about 4 short sleeve shirts, and a lightweight polar tech sweatshirt and you should be fine. I brought sandals but never wore them off the ship because I would have killed my ankles on the cobblestone streets. My sturdy Merrill low hikers were great and wore them every day.

 

Is there only one laundry room? many machines? does it get very busy? How much? do they sell laundry detergent? There are laundry rooms on deck 5, 9 and another one on either 10 or 11. The one I used on deck 9 is across from room 9088 and it has a port hole in the door on the left side. There are free 3 washer and dryers that are very small by American standards (to give you an idea of size 3 pairs of adult jeans filled the washing machines and frequently one had to use all 3 machines to do a load that would fit into 1 American sized washing machine). Laundry detergent is available in the laundry and costs 4 quarters. Sometimes the laundry is very crowded and sometimes it's not, it's all luck. During the popular shows is a good time and very early in the morning.

 

Also, did the prices of the specialty restaurants go up? The Italian and Mexican restaurants used to be free. Are they still? The Italian restaurant now has a fee but the Mexican is still free.

Le Bistro $15

Cagney's $20

Sushi Bar $15

Chin-Chin $15

Teppanyaki $25

Mongolian Hot Pot $15

Mama's Italian $10

 

Thanks for your help! Your welcome, enjoy your trip

[leenie29]

Casino - NCL has given us $200 in free slot play - I guess that we're better off tossing that one overboard.

I'm really happy to hear that your private tour was as success in St. Petersburg. We have a mini-group of 8 with Alla that we booked months ago. Happy sailings and thanks for the post.

 

My husband said it was the coldest cruise casino tables he's ever been at. He didn't play nearly as much as he has on previous cruises. Since it was frequently too windy on deck many of the smokers couldn't go on deck to smoke so they would go into the casino and smoke, so it was very smokey some days.

Eight is a great number and was very easy to get in and out of museum and churches. I cannot say enough wonderful things about Alla's guide Valentina. She was very sweet yet extremely tough with the museum police who decided who would get into the museum and who wouldn't (it's not a big deal you get in but the guides have a little routine they have to suck up to the entrance police who only allow a certain number in per hour). My 14 year old son is very intellectually curious and has a huge history and political science interest. He asked her so many interesting questions about the two eras, politics, what we were seeing and the Tsarist history and compared it to what he has learned. She was so patient answering them and enjoyed having him ask her the questions. What I really loved about this guide is that she is 48 years old (and a grandmother of 1.5 year old boy twins) and has lived through the Soviet era, through Glasnost, and now the capitalistic era and can really compare and contrast the eras beautifully because she experienced them. If you get a chance to eat in Stolle pies do they are very tasty and rather inexpensive (my son and husband had the rabbit and mushroom pie, I had the mushroom pie and two diet pepsis and the bill was less than $15.00). Alla also used a restaurant just outside of the Peterhof entrance in the back of a hotel called Alexander that was a pre-order 4 course meal that was so good we couldn't believe it was only $25 per person.

Eileen

[Bazil]

Hi Leenie

 

Email me at mail@southferriby.com and I will send you the best and easiest chocolate cake recipe.

 

Sally

[tuffy88]

Len3,

 

We are on the October repo cruise, NY to Miami, and we were also offered free $200 dollor slot play OR $100 table play. We accepted and got a E-mail from CAS that the $200 would be there when we checked in on October 28th. I assumed it would be a match play (we would have to put up $200, the free $200 would be added and we would get to play $400 in slots when only putting up $200. Not sure if that is the way it will be. Why do you say you might as well throw away the free $200 play? If my understanding is right it looks like a good deal provided you can play any machine in the casino. If the play is restricted to certain machines I would not put up any match money to play it but would still play their free $200. Would like to hear what Len or anyone else who has received this offer has to say about it.

 

Charles

 

PS: I notice several posters on this thread say they are on the same October repo cruise. If so come on over to the Roll Call page and check in to the Roll Call for this cruise there.

[gugie]

how ddo you get the free slot play credit, going on the baltics, jewel 7/28

[leenie29]

how ddo you get the free slot play credit, going on the baltics, jewel 7/28

 

I don't use the casino but my husband does and when he signed up with the casino card onboard they gave him a slot credit but it wasn't that much. Your travel agent can often get you one.

 

Eileen