Port Intensive and Picture Intensive Trip Report for Jewel's E Mediterranean cruise

Officer watching the festivities below.

We went to the concierge lounge. They had pigs in a blanket today!!!! Our favorite!

Then to MDR for dinner. Again, we had impeccable service. I was so tired, I went right to bed, while P went to casino.

Fantastic. You can never take too many pictures. Thanks for sharing.

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We're doing Italy and Greece in October. It looked like you mostly wore jeans/pants and long sleeves/jackets when off the ship. What did the temp feel like outside on the decks during the day?

We can't wait to get on Jewel!

Nice pictures. I love Barcelona. A few years ago we booked a 11 day Med cruise out of Barcelona. Didn't really know much about Barcelona. We arrived three days before to help get over jet log. However we fell in love with Barcelona. So last year when my wife told me her aunts/uncles (we were already planning a different trip) were doing Med cruise and can we go. One of the reasons I agreed to make a change in our vacation plans was the cruise was going out of Barcelona. So once again we arrived 3 days early.

Thank you for the wonderful review. Our group will be on Jewel of the Seas next May for the nine-night Greece cruise that begins in Rome. I was particularly interested in your Rome photos...they are gorgeous. Seeing inside photos of Jewel makes me more anxious!

Funny, on our cruise on the Harmony of the Seas the year before this one, we were sitting in the suite lounge one night and a representative from Next Cruse was there with a laptop “helping” people set up their next cruises. We had already booked our next 2 cruises so we did not need any help (we only cruise once a year). She was very nice and was talking to us. She asked us where we were going next and we told her to the Mediterranean. Immediately, her face brightened and she said, “Oh, you will love it! It is beautiful!!” Then, she asked.“What ship are you taking? I hope you are on the Brilliance of the Seas.” We said no, we were on the Jewel. She crinkled her nose and shook her head a little and said, “You would love the Brilliance so much more.” I explained that we had booked the Jewel solely because it went to Sicily and the Brilliance did not. We wanted the Sicily port because my sister and her husband live there,and we were hoping to see them somehow. She still did not approve of our choice. However, I certainly did not see anything wrong with the Jewel. She is well maintained, and we did not see any clear differences between her and our 2 cruises on the Radiance, a newer ship in the same class.

 

 

 

I know I have too many pictures in here, but who knows what someone else might want to see. Here is our itinerary!

 

 

 

You know that Jewel is the newest ship in this class and Radiance and Brilliance are the older once, right?

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Haha Debbie!!!! I saw this thread pop up while I was trying to get through my current review and totally confused me for a few secs... you got me ;p. Better late than never! Great photos... I have not gone through them all yet but will bookmark and go back to them when I finish my Brilliance story. Keep it going :D

Up to Monteserrat – OMG beautiful! This was such a beautiful sight and just surprising how gorgeous it was. The basilica up there is stunning. It was one of the most unexpected beautiful sights of the trip.

It is indeed. I might have to visit Barcelona again and go to Monteserrat :D

We lit a candle. I have been throwing holy water on Phil at some of these churches… After the year he had, can you blame me?

NO. Faith plays a big part in recovery and healing. Just drench him in holy water...

Fantastic. You can never take too many pictures. Thanks for sharing.

 

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Thanks! I did take over 12,000 so this is just a sampling! Lol! [emoji23]

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We're doing Italy and Greece in October. It looked like you mostly wore jeans/pants and long sleeves/jackets when off the ship. What did the temp feel like outside on the decks during the day?

 

We can't wait to get on Jewel!

Sounds awesome! Yes, it was hard to decide what clothes to bring. We ended up having a mixture, some warm, some chilly days. Have a great trip!

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Nice pictures. I love Barcelona. A few years ago we booked a 11 day Med cruise out of Barcelona. Didn't really know much about Barcelona. We arrived three days before to help get over jet log. However we fell in love with Barcelona. So last year when my wife told me her aunts/uncles (we were already planning a different trip) were doing Med cruise and can we go. One of the reasons I agreed to make a change in our vacation plans was the cruise was going out of Barcelona. So once again we arrived 3 days early.

Agreed! I would definitely go back for a few days!

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Haha Debbie!!!! I saw this thread pop up while I was trying to get through my current review and totally confused me for a few secs... you got me ;p. Better late than never! Great photos... I have not gone through them all yet but will bookmark and go back to them when I finish my Brilliance story. Keep it going :D

Yes! Get back to your trip report! It is awesome! The pics are beautiful! Definitely putting that cruise on the bucket list...

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It is indeed. I might have to visit Barcelona again and go to Monteserrat :D

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NO. Faith plays a big part in recovery and healing. Just drench him in holy water...

[emoji23][emoji23]

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Today, we were in Valencia with the full day tour planned with Spain Day Tours (740 euros). We had an early arrival but not much of a sunrise.

We were picked up at 8 am by Giuseppe (a different Giuseppe from Barcelona) and Carlos. The vehicle was a very nice van with the 2 rows of back seats facing each other. Very cool! We had a tour guide and driver combo, which I had not expected. The cost for Valencia and Palma (tomorrow) were much higher than the other ports, but I did not know it was because we were getting a 2 person team. We found the driver and guide combo to be very good because there was less walking (they could drop you off and pick you up instead of walking to the parking place or dropping you off and meeting you later) and the guide could concentrate on talking rather than other crazy drivers…

The tour did not start off on the best foot and that was kind of Royal’s fault. They did not explain clearly enough that we had to take a shuttle to the port entrance. The tour company did explain in their eMail what would happen if “in rare circumstances” we were at the “other” port side, but Royal never told us we were at that “other” port side and would have to take a shuttle to the terminal if we were meeting private tours. They said there were shuttles to town, but that was all. M even asked a Royal representative, who was outside in the port area, but she said no, we didn’t have to take the shuttle. Then, I heard her explaining differently to someone else, so I asked her again, and yes, we did have to get on the shuttle. There were several shuttle buses there waiting. By this time, a shuttle had left, and we had to sit on the next shuttle for 15 minutes while the drivers chatted. I get not wanting to waste resources without a full bus, but no other passengers were coming out for the shuttle. The shuttle was on the dirty side. M had to help some couple, who thought like we did that the tours would come get them and they didn’t even have the clue I did from their tour company that they might have to take a shuttle. F went to ask the shuttle drivers when we were leaving, but they barely looked at him much less gave him an answer. (Maybe they didn’t speak English, of course…) Finally, even though that other couple that M helped were the only other people to board, the driver left and took us to the main terminal.

Valencia was a nice surprise to us! (As I mentioned, all of the Spain ports were!) It was beautiful, open, clean. It had new architecture mixed with old. Quite gorgeous! We went to the Cuidad de las Artes y las Ciencias, where we just looked at the outside of the buildings and landscapes. Gorgeous!

My posse.

We went on to the San Jose Caves. LOL, it was a bit dicey because we had to get in a very small boat with other people crammed in and it was rocky; however, it was an interesting cave tour. The gondolier did not speak English, so I don’t know what the whole boat of English speaking people would have done without our translator (guide), who stepped up to translate when we had to duck or watch out or tell us what we were looking at… LOL! Guess the gondolier probably knew enough to say duck if he had to. And he would have had to since there was a lot of ducking necessary. I think Frank may have actually banged his head once. We got out of the boat at one point to walk through the caves and then rejoined the boat. It was a very cool experience. Unfortunately, you could not take pictures inside – I am thinking because the boat would have tipped with tourists trying to get a good shot! These are the size of the boats we had to get in and there were at least a dozen passengers and a captain.

I did try to get a couple of pics with my cell phone when we were walking in the caves. They didn’t turn out well.

Phil got his nap in after the caves.

A little scary considering the crazy traffic… No where near as bad as Rome, though

Our driver:

We went to Hard Rock to get a t-shirt. It was too early for lunch the guide said – lunch is around 1 pm in Spain, but the restaurant had just opened and we were hungry, since no time for breakfast that morning, so we stayed for lunch. Please don’t judge too harshly - it was good. There was a couple there and the guy was funny, joking with us and asking us to take his picture, so we had him take our picture. Americans!

Decorated for Halloween!

Then, there was a looooong walking tour. It was very interesting and we saw a lot of sites. Phil was pretty tired and Maria had a torn Achilles heel that was very painful this day, so it was a difficult walk. We went to the Mercat Central – a huge market. A few very disgusting sights in there! LOL!