OCD Cruiser

I had to laugh at your "strong attention to detail" description when it comes to planning your travels. My wife and kids laugh at me when I am putting all the checklists together, making sure everything is in order to ensure a stress free vacation. My wife knew what she was getting into when she married me....my career as an architect is perfect for someone who plans and organizes everything.

 

We, too, are doing the "last big family vacation thing" in about 22 days. Son is 23 and ready to head off to law school with a wedding in the works, daughter is 19 and other son is 12. Sort of sad, but we decided to go out with a bang and do a new years cruise.

 

Thanks for your review and assurances that there are other planning lunatics like me out there.

Best of luck and hope that your "last big family vacation" goes off exactly as planned. After all, we compulsive planners need validatation that all our effort pays off and that if it were not for us ...well you know the rest.

We were on this trip too. We only found one souvenir shop (we didn't walk around for long or wonder too far into the city) and they did accept USD. Nothing was marked in USD, though.

Thanks! We wont have to worry about getting the Euros then. :). But I guess we better try to count/read to 20 in French. :D Lol.

I would definately get some Euros or be prepared to use your credit card to handle the conversions. The only place that I saw taking dollars and speaking any english was just off the ship in the welcome area. If you crossed the parking lots behind the welcome area towards town, my experience was French and Euros only!?

Vacation Background:

I am a 40 something husband with three children who has a bit of a travel bug and take my vacation planning very seriously with a strong attention to detail...hence my chosen OCD Cruiser screen name. I have two girls ages 23 & 17 and a son who is 16. I was planning for the LAST BIG FAMILY VACATION before the kids leave the proverbial nest and start their own lives. I planned our cruise around the kids school schedule and my wife's limited vacation time in order to find an agreeable time we could all do this in our current hectic lives let alone when they all get jobs. We ultimately chose an itinerary that left from San Juan and included stops at St Thomas, St Croix, Antigua, Martinique, and St Lucia then returning to San Juan as this afforded us the greatest number of unvisited and intriguing ports my wife and I desired starting out in the warm Caribbean. No need for two cold days at sea in November getting to and from the warm weather down south. We had prepaid for three family excursions through the ship for the first three ports of St Thomas, St Croix, and Antigua. Martinique was to be a "down" day with just some shopping and culinary sampling. On Thursday (Thanksgiving Day), we chartered our own "water taxi" to avoid the St Lucian roads and to be able to show the kids where we went for our 10th anniversary a few years back.

Getting to San Juan:

We had direct flights on US Airways from Philadelphia on the day of embarkation and disembarkation as we didn't have any additional time available to tour San Juan before or after our cruise. This added a significant cost to the overall vacation, but was a necessary evil in order to be able to make so many ports of call in the southern Caribbean. Both flights went fine and we didn't experience any delays due to weather or equipment. Some people flying to San Juan from the Midwest reported experiencing winter storms that caused significant delays from their home airport. This is definitely something you should take into account when deciding whether to fly in a day early just in case you experience weather or aircraft/flight issues. We were lucky!

Transportation to the ship:

Upon arrival at San Juan, we followed everyone to the baggage carousel, collected our bags with the yellow and white ribbons attached, and headed outside to get a taxi to our ship. A quick 15 minute van ride from the airport to the Pan American cruise terminal ($23 + baggage tip) found us ready to check in dockside around 1pm with minimal lines experienced.

Boarding the ship:

The ship begins embarkation usually around 11am.The baggage porters take your luggage outside once you have affixed your room tags and appreciate a tip for their services ($2 pr/bag is customary). We then proceeded into the building where there is a small liquor shop where you can purchase wine/Champaign to take onboard (two 750ml bottles pr/stateroom) as well as cases of water. If you purchase any liquor at this store, it will be surrendered at the ship's security checkpoint onboard until the last night of your cruise. Wine selections were VERY limited so you may want to consider getting your wine allocation taken care of before you arrive at the pier else be prepared to pay top dollar for it onboard. We then proceeded to check-in presenting our passports, boarding documentation, and credit card for all onboard charges. After about 10 minutes of processing, we were issued our Sea Pass cards and directed to the gangway to board the ship and go through the ships onboard security screening. Once aboard, we went to check on our two staterooms as it was past 1pm and the staterooms were available to all guests.

Statarooms & Attendants:

Our three children had a balcony (E1 #8544) stateroom and my wife and I had an aft stateroom (D2 #8170). I was able to upgrade both of these cabins, kids and ours, by closely tracking the prices of my sailing after paying it off and contacted my travel agent to request stateroom upgrades for both when the next level up became a lower cost than what I paid for my original cabin classes. The kids went from inside cabin w/ no windows to a balcony E1 and we upgraded from an E1 to a D2 aft balcony. The kids stateroom was very tight for the three fully grown children with one having to use a small love seat that converted into a bed, this blocked egress into the room and access to the stateroom bathroom area when it is fully extended for sleeping use. Their stateroom attendant Dalton was excellent and would brave cleaning their room, which was littered with discarded clothing, trinkets, and bathroom supplies for two young women and one 16 year old son. We frequently would run into him in the various ports and he would always take the initiative to stop to say hi and briefly chat... even when on his own personal time off the ship.

Our stateroom attendant, Shawn, was also excellent. He provided us with ice twice daily after our initial request, even if we did not use any for a couple days. Additional pillows were also provided within the first 2 hours of our boarding the ship after we took stock of our new home for the next week. Shawn's timing was always excellent and stealth like as he always completed his full set of services while we were out, but also always available in the hallway as we traversed our way to and from our stateroom at the stern of the ship. We are not very demanding guests and kept our cabin clean anyway. I loved the AFT Cabin! The Radiance class ships have a great view from the back of the ship and very little wind to deal with. It is a bit of a hike down the long hallway from the nearest set of elevators, but the ship is quiet back there away from the noise of the more highly traveled areas and you just cannot beat the extra-large decks you get that you don't have on the side balcony of the ship.

Muster drill:

The ship held a single muster drill (yes...only 1) at 8:00pm for this itinerary. Early dinner seating was held promptly at 6pm as usual, but I believe the late dinner seating that night might have been briefly suspended to accommodate the drill. You just show up to the location specified on your Sea Pass card. You need not bring your life jackets from your stateroom. I believe the single muster drill is new and may be a result of the newly appointed captain (more on him to come later).

Scheduled Dining:

We had planned for the 6pm nightly dining and were assigned to a private table for five in the middle of the floor in Tides dining room on deck 4. We had table number #449 with Michael (Headwaiter) and John (asst. waiter) who were just fabulous and never failed to quickly accommodate any of our requests. Michael and John frequently anticipated and provided whatever we might request, even before we requested it. Michael was on top of our needs every night while John would support him fully while bedazzling my son with nightly tricks, puzzles, and other challenges that most of our family could not figure out how to do either. I can't sing enough praises for these two people who fulfilled my family’s every "gluttonous culinary fantasy"...can you say (5) orders of escargot for one nights appetizer? While I know there is a world-wide supposed shortage and our ship didn't provide them every night, I only had one night to get my escargot fix and was not going to miss out on my only chance to contribute to the shortage.

Menu selections and quality in the main dining room for dinner service were excellent. My food was always served at least warm if not hot. As previously stated, I am a foodie and enjoyed the opportunity to be able to select multiple choices and quantities for my entrees, main courses, and desserts for any given seating. The food was very good, but some of the portion sizes appear to have gotten smaller since the first time I sailed on RCCl.

The Ship:

The ship is not new but still maintained in excellent condition. It had all the attributes and size I was looking for in my cruise experience. It is a beautifully designed ship with lots of glass appointments and has a beautiful area called the centrum that flows from the fourth deck up to deck twelve. The ship is small enough to be able to get into most ports, but large enough to have all the bells and whistles associated with a large cruise ship except for those appointments reserved for only the newest and biggest ships. This ship has some special features such as outdoor seating at the Windjammer, great unobstructed ocean views from most locations on the ship, and generally just a beautiful ship with very nice lines.

The Solarium, the adult pool area on deck 11, was very nice and had lots of ambiance for those who wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle of the main pool area. I especially liked the sound effects of birds and crickets that were played as background noise depending on the time of day. It was effective at creating a very soothing environment in conjunction with the motif of the pool area.

Excursions:

We book the first three days in port with ship offered excursions and booked our own excursion on Thanksgiving Day in St. Lucia.

The first day in St. Thomas we took the Adventure Snorkel with Stingrays and Turtles on Sea Blaster. This was a 3 hour speedboat tour to two separate locations. The first stop was snorkeling with green sea turtles on an off-shore island and the second location was on the island of St John. This excursion was excellent and was not overly crowded which made it very nice.

The second day in St. Croix we booked the half day Frederiksted Sail and Beach Break excursion. The excursion was nice and went to Rainbow Beach after an hours sailing, but was very crowned and sitting on the fiberglass boat hull was a bit uncomfortable. The kids renter jet skis at Rainbow beach for 30 minutes while I sat at the restaurant bar and watched. Intermittent rain showers (liquid sunshine) had some effect on how much we could enjoy this excursion.

In Antigua, we did the Stingray Kayak Double Adventure which was the best of all of the ship offered excursions. After a 30 min car ride to the eastern side of the island, we were put on small boats and whisked off to an offshore area where the Stingrays gather to be fed and for tourists to interact with them. For anybody who wants an up close and personal Stingray experience in very shallow water (you can stand), this rivals the same offering as that of the Cayman Islands. They will take some great photos too that you can purchase if you like. The kayaking was a bit more problematic as the two person kayaks had no backrest which made paddling very painful for the lower back without any support.

In St Lucia, where my wife and I had been previously, we chartered our own water taxi service with Isreal King for 6 hours, which afforded us the ability to do whatever we wanted as a family. He was absolutely great, as all of his Trip Advisor reviews stated, and we got to show the kids everything along the west coast of the island that we wanted them to see all the way down to the Pitons.

Specialty Dining:

On the last night at sea, we had scheduled to eat at Portafino as a special treat. I must say that while the food was good, it wasn’t worth the additional cost…especially when you still have to pay extra for a soda and/or wine. I would rather have spent my last dinner in the Main Dining Room with Michael and John. That’s just my opinion.

The Crew:

As I mentioned previously, the new captain was very friendly and I had multiple occasions to meet/chat with him during the weeklong cruise. By his own admission, he is the first RCCL Latin captain and took over the Jewel on November 2nd of this year.

Conclusion:

This cruise was everything I had hoped and planned for as our last BIG vacation! I have no complaints other than Portafino not meeting my expectations. It is a very port intensive vacation and you may want to brush up on your French if you plan on having ANY conversations with any of the locals in Martinique. It took me a few days to get caught up on my sleep after this busy vacation, but I found myself wishing I had booked a back to back on this ship in the AFT cabin. Already looking at my next cruise with just the wife a fewer ports.

-OCD Cruiser

Thanks for claryfing. Thats what I tried to say :p

But what time is the muster drill as the ship departs at 8:30pm? You must also be back in time for the muster or they wont let you sail.

While I am now intimately familiar with the RCCL policies governing purchasing of alcohol while in your port of embarkation or one of the ports of call during the cruise, can anyone tell me if I can bring food back aboard that I get in a port (i.e. a nice Brie cheese or other local food) to go with my 2 bottles of wine allottment?

I haven't seen any threads about this yet

Thanks,

Hi,

 

If anyone has the Jewel of the seas compass for one of the current alternating routes, specifically St. Thomas-St. Croix-Antigua-Martinique-St. Lucia, I would really appreciate you sharing that with me.

 

Thanks!

I too would like the compass for this itinerary as I'm sailing in just over a week.

Thanks!

Hi folks,

I'm hoping someone might be able to provide a floorplan of the Tides MDR table layout for Jewel of the Seas (specifically deck 4) as I just received my table assignment for the Nov 23rd sailing after requesting it be next to a window. I was provided the table number but not informed if my request for a table by the window was honored or how many will be seated there.

I know the table configurations change sometimes, but does anybody have any maps of how tables are "usually" setup in the Tides MDR that I may be able to reference to see where we will be located.

Any help is greatly appreciated, and I know if it exists you all will point me to it.

Thanks,

As two smokers who only book balcony cabins so we can smoke we do the following. Pack two empty jelly jars. Half fill one with water to put butts in & close cap. When the jar is full, strain water into other jar, put the butts in a zip lock bag to put in trashcan on open public deck and flush water, DO NOT FLUSH BUTTS THEY WILL CLOG THE TOILET! With this method you are sure the butts are out, much safer this way then an open ashtray. NEVER, NEVER THROW ANYTHING OFF OF A BALCONY. The only lines that still let you smoke on balcony are HAL & NCL. I was told today that Carnival no longer allows smoking on balcony. Haven't checked to see if that is true or not. I have had high and low decks, mid ship and aft and I have never smelled smoke from above below or from the side.

Technically you can still smoke on Royal Caribbean until January 1st 2014. I have an AFT balcony on the Jewel for Thanksgiving and plan on taking full and final advantage of my first and last balcony smoking experience. I will...however be sensitive to the people around me.

We sailed the Jewel on Sept. 14 and there was no escargot. Muster drill was at 8 pm for us - only 1 muster drill on our sailing.

 

BTW - stateroom 9014 was great!

No escargot? Cancel my cruise <just kidding>. I think the unlimited escargot on the first night of my first cruise it what got me hooked in the first place. Too bad...was hoping to recapture that memory again. Oh well...I'll have to find another item on the menu to order 5 of.

Hi everyone,

Taking the Jewel out of San Juan week of Thanksgiving :) and just wondering how the self disembarking is handled on this ship and port.

Do I need to fill out a form to request it or just do it by not putting my luggage out the night before? What obstacles will I have to traverse with family to get off the ship carrying my own luggage at san Juan?

Thanks in advance....