1/21 - 1/28 Jewel - w/ 7 month old review+Pool staff no longer removes chairhog stuff

Overall the whole trip was wonderful. Our 7 month old baby was amazingly perfect, slept through the night, never really complained about anything, and let the rocking of the ship put him to sleep all of the time. He is never that good at home, we are going to need to figure out how to get his crib to sway.

Our room was fine, 8052, an obstructed OV room but the best one of it's kind as it just has a small 6 person boat in front of the window, we could see everything. One room to the right and it would have been almost a completely blocked view. I booked it because of other posts I saw about it being the best room to get in it's class. Room was right above the Fizz lounge. Could hear singing and music until 12:30 - 1am but we didn't care. We had a radio with us to play white noise for the baby, it mostly drowned out the stuff below but we were so tired that by the end of the night we all fell asleep with no problem.

This review is mostly about food because it's all I care about. With the infant we couldn't really go to shows, do lots of activities, or party. All I really wanted to do was eat, so I was happy.

Food was great, I don't see what there is to complain about. Unless you are some kind of terribly picky eater there was something for everyone, Indian food (shockingly there was beef curry. That should exist as much as Kosher pork), pizza that was more than fine (and that's coming from a NJ resident, we are snobs for our pizza), great sandwiches (I would like another salmon panini please), burgers, sausages, salads, stir fry, ice cream, and a whole lot more. I couldn't keep up with it all, and that's just the buffet. At the main restaurants, of which we at in Azura almost every night, there was a nice selection that was different each time we went and a service staff that was great.

The Best of All lunch was a waste, it was nice to try out a few things but nothing really worth spending extra.

Teppanyaki hibachi was fun. Just like on land. We knew what we were getting into with that one and weren't disappointed.

Avoiding the buffet on embarkation day was the best thing I ever learned from this board. We headed straight to Tsars. It was a nice relaxed meal, quiet, and gave us time to relax after the morning drive through snow. We checked out the buffet after we had finished to see what it would be like and as everyone here says it was a complete zoo. Most of the people we talked to later didn't even know they could have gone to Tsars.

The rest of the ship's crew was a joy. By the end quite a few of them knew our names and they would be greeting us by name.

Don't get tea or espresso at the Java bar. We screwed up with the tea not realizing we could get the same thing for free anywhere else. We thought it was nicer than generic black tea but the next day I saw the same tea box at the buffet open to the public with the same selection. Oops. I knew about the coffee but for those that do not there are two espresso machines in the buffet area, dont pay for it when you can just go upstairs and press a button.

The only minor annoyance was that the pool staff no longer removed towels when the seats are left for 30+ minutes. All the drink waiters said they should have, they had never heard of the new "Freestyle policy" of letting people leave there stuff for hours to claim seats. I had a waiter talking to a pool attendant and then even up to the main pool service guy on duty. Bar staff told them they should be removing towels after 30+ minutes if requested, pool staff said they stopped doing that because people would complain to them when they came back hours later.

"It's Freestyle cruising now, we don't remove things."

"So people can come at 6 in the morning, claim 5 chairs, and not come back until the afternoon?"

"Freestyle cruising, people can do what they want"

"Okay sure."

I wasn't having any of that, especially with a baby.

I had my stopwatch going and moved stuff myself when folks didnt come back for 45 minutes.. moved the whole chair as well so I wouldn't have to deal with people if they ever did decide to come back. But 3 hours later their stuff was still sitting where I left it so I had nothing to worry about.

The drink guys did get rid of stuff for people since the pool staff would not, I saw them toss a few things aside for a couple of elderly folks. Good jobs on them. I'm not talking about stuff that had been sitting for minutes, my stopwatch was at an hour and a half when a few things were moved.

Port Canaveral: Stayed on the ship.

Great Stirrup Cay: Woke up at 7 that morning to get an early tender ticket. Was 5th in line, got Tender 1. Didn't leave on 1 but a few hours later. Got a beach chair, sat, brought the baby into the water for the first time, had him cry at me because the cold waves scared him, had a cocktail, ate some food from the beach buffet, wandered the market and bought a shirt, headed back to the boat.

Nassau: Wandered the straw market, walked to the Fish Fry area, ate some conch and shrimp, got a cocktail in a coconut while we sat at Junkanoo beach for a few hours, bought some rum in town, went back to boat for dinner.

On the ship the captain's staff dinner was a highlight. Free wine! Yay! Our table went through 5 bottles, ate with the staff captain, 2nd in command. If you go to the cruise critic meet up see if they have the sign up sheet there. I think everyone who wrote their names down at our meetup ended up at the dinner. It's normally a raffle but they paid special attention to us CC folks. Either we all had good luck to get to go or they took our names right to a special list and avoided the general raffle.

That's it for now. Mostly a ramble of thoughts but I can answer questions if anyone has any. Good times. We'd go again. Next time though our baby wont be anywhere near as cute and garner all of the attention from everyone that he received this trip.

Awesome review, thanks & my oh my what a cutie pie!

Good to know about the officers dinner, I am hoping to get to that. We have a very active roll call that has an organized meet & greet. So will see if we can sign up there for the lottery thing!

Thanks for taking time to write a review and sharing your cruise experience and the photo of your adorable baby! He is a cutie pie and will garner attention for a long time.

Question about the Teppanyaki.....did they have the "yummy" sauce? The mayo-based seafood sauce...sort of pinkish/orangeish...?

I know Japanese steakhouses on the West Coast don't offer it...but on the East Coast....yay!!!!

Question about the Teppanyaki.....did they have the "yummy" sauce? The mayo-based seafood sauce...sort of pinkish/orangeish...?

 

I know Japanese steakhouses on the West Coast don't offer it...but on the East Coast....yay!!!!

There were two sauces... one was a mustard based yellowish something and the other was an orangeish sauce. Waiter said one was for meat, one was for seafood. Don't know exactly what they were but that was the explanation we got for them.

One other thing about Teppanyaki, it was the only extra cost restaurant that was almost 100% full the entire time. All the rest of them it wouldn't have been too bad to get a seat but the hibachi, because it only seats about 40 people, was sold out the whole cruise. So if you do want to go at a specific time be sure to book it early. We booked the second day for the last night of the cruise.

Great pic of the baby with ships in the back round. Looks like a post card :)

I have a question about Junkanoo Beach. Are there loungers/chairs/tables with umbrellas? What else is there? Are there clean restrooms that are open? Where did you get the coconut drink from is there a little concession stand or something? Is it free just to use the beach there? I would love to see any other pics you may have of the beach area.

Thanks....

What were most people wearing at the Captains Dinner? We are not planning on taking any formal type clothes. Perhaps a decent pair of pants and collard shirt would be the most formal thing that I would have. We would love to do the Captains Dinner but I would not want to feel way under dressed.

Great pic of the baby with ships in the back round. Looks like a post card :)

I have a question about Junkanoo Beach. Are there loungers/chairs/tables with umbrellas? What else is there? Are there clean restrooms that are open? Where did you get the coconut drink from is there a little concession stand or something? Is it free just to use the beach there? I would love to see any other pics you may have of the beach area.

 

Thanks....

At the beach area there are chairs, lounge chairs, and tables. To use them you will need to buy a drink or some food from one of the stands and they will tell you which are theirs. There are a bunch of places to choose from, some serve just beer or soda, some have grills set up cooking jerk chicken or other hot dishes, some have full size bars. If you just want to plop a towel down on the sand then you can do that too with no problem, we saw plenty of people with their ships towels just laying about, its a public beach. Coconut drink was from one of the stands. They chopped one open, poured in some rum and fruit drink, and we sat at a table and enjoyed the sun. Tons of people from the 4 ships that were in port that day all doing the same sort of stuff.

There is a bathroom, I didn't use it but my wife did. She didn't come out horrified like she has at other public rest rooms so I assume it wasn't too terrible.

I don't have pictures of the beach itself but there are a bunch on Flickr, like this one of one of the food/bar places I mentioned.

Here are more.

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=junkanoo%20beach

What were most people wearing at the Captains Dinner? We are not planning on taking any formal type clothes. Perhaps a decent pair of pants and collard shirt would be the most formal thing that I would have. We would love to do the Captains Dinner but I would not want to feel way under dressed.

I was in some linen pants and the one button down shirt I had with me. Other people were in khakis and a polo. No one was wearing a suit or a tux. You could if you wanted to but it's not necessary at all.

For the captain's dinner, is it free wine for everybody or only at the tables where you have to sit with the crew?

Great picture of the baby.

FWIW, I can't recall the last time NCL's pool crew removed belongings from a chair...it's nothing new.

Your baby is sooooooo adorable!

For the captain's dinner, is it free wine for everybody or only at the tables where you have to sit with the crew?

Nope.

Most people in the dining hall didn't even know it was going on and for those that did most didn't even know it was possible to enter a drawing for the crew dinner. Everyone we talked to about it was clueless as to it even being an option.

The baby is cute! Everyone on the island thought he was the coolest guy ever with his shades and a hat we had on him as we pushed him around.

thanks for the review we are going on the Jewel on the 25th of this month and I was getting worried about the food, you are making me feel much better. Your baby is so cute he looks like he is having a great time! thanks again.

Overall the whole trip was wonderful. Our 7 month old baby was amazingly perfect, slept through the night, never really complained about anything, and let the rocking of the ship put him to sleep all of the time. He is never that good at home, we are going to need to figure out how to get his crib to sway.

 

Our room was fine, 8052, an obstructed OV room but the best one of it's kind as it just has a small 6 person boat in front of the window, we could see everything. One room to the right and it would have been almost a completely blocked view. I booked it because of other posts I saw about it being the best room to get in it's class. Room was right above the Fizz lounge. Could hear singing and music until 12:30 - 1am but we didn't care. We had a radio with us to play white noise for the baby, it mostly drowned out the stuff below but we were so tired that by the end of the night we all fell asleep with no problem.

 

This review is mostly about food because it's all I care about. With the infant we couldn't really go to shows, do lots of activities, or party. All I really wanted to do was eat, so I was happy.

 

Food was great, I don't see what there is to complain about. Unless you are some kind of terribly picky eater there was something for everyone, Indian food (shockingly there was beef curry. That should exist as much as Kosher pork), pizza that was more than fine (and that's coming from a NJ resident, we are snobs for our pizza), great sandwiches (I would like another salmon panini please), burgers, sausages, salads, stir fry, ice cream, and a whole lot more. I couldn't keep up with it all, and that's just the buffet. At the main restaurants, of which we at in Azura almost every night, there was a nice selection that was different each time we went and a service staff that was great.

 

The Best of All lunch was a waste, it was nice to try out a few things but nothing really worth spending extra.

 

Teppanyaki hibachi was fun. Just like on land. We knew what we were getting into with that one and weren't disappointed.

 

Avoiding the buffet on embarkation day was the best thing I ever learned from this board. We headed straight to Tsars. It was a nice relaxed meal, quiet, and gave us time to relax after the morning drive through snow. We checked out the buffet after we had finished to see what it would be like and as everyone here says it was a complete zoo. Most of the people we talked to later didn't even know they could have gone to Tsars.

 

The rest of the ship's crew was a joy. By the end quite a few of them knew our names and they would be greeting us by name.

 

Don't get tea or espresso at the Java bar. We screwed up with the tea not realizing we could get the same thing for free anywhere else. We thought it was nicer than generic black tea but the next day I saw the same tea box at the buffet open to the public with the same selection. Oops. I knew about the coffee but for those that do not there are two espresso machines in the buffet area, dont pay for it when you can just go upstairs and press a button.

 

The only minor annoyance was that the pool staff no longer removed towels when the seats are left for 30+ minutes. All the drink waiters said they should have, they had never heard of the new "Freestyle policy" of letting people leave there stuff for hours to claim seats. I had a waiter talking to a pool attendant and then even up to the main pool service guy on duty. Bar staff told them they should be removing towels after 30+ minutes if requested, pool staff said they stopped doing that because people would complain to them when they came back hours later.

"It's Freestyle cruising now, we don't remove things."

 

"So people can come at 6 in the morning, claim 5 chairs, and not come back until the afternoon?"

 

"Freestyle cruising, people can do what they want"

 

"Okay sure."

 

I wasn't having any of that, especially with a baby.

I had my stopwatch going and moved stuff myself when folks didnt come back for 45 minutes.. moved the whole chair as well so I wouldn't have to deal with people if they ever did decide to come back. But 3 hours later their stuff was still sitting where I left it so I had nothing to worry about.

 

 

The drink guys did get rid of stuff for people since the pool staff would not, I saw them toss a few things aside for a couple of elderly folks. Good jobs on them. I'm not talking about stuff that had been sitting for minutes, my stopwatch was at an hour and a half when a few things were moved.Port Canaveral: Stayed on the ship.

 

Great Stirrup Cay: Woke up at 7 that morning to get an early tender ticket. Was 5th in line, got Tender 1. Didn't leave on 1 but a few hours later. Got a beach chair, sat, brought the baby into the water for the first time, had him cry at me because the cold waves scared him, had a cocktail, ate some food from the beach buffet, wandered the market and bought a shirt, headed back to the boat.

 

Nassau: Wandered the straw market, walked to the Fish Fry area, ate some conch and shrimp, got a cocktail in a coconut while we sat at Junkanoo beach for a few hours, bought some rum in town, went back to boat for dinner.

 

On the ship the captain's staff dinner was a highlight. Free wine! Yay! Our table went through 5 bottles, ate with the staff captain, 2nd in command. If you go to the cruise critic meet up see if they have the sign up sheet there. I think everyone who wrote their names down at our meetup ended up at the dinner. It's normally a raffle but they paid special attention to us CC folks. Either we all had good luck to get to go or they took our names right to a special list and avoided the general raffle.

 

That's it for now. Mostly a ramble of thoughts but I can answer questions if anyone has any. Good times. We'd go again. Next time though our baby wont be anywhere near as cute and garner all of the attention from everyone that he received this trip.

 

Your child is adorable.:)

My last cruise I created my own space by placing another lounger on the end which still allowed people to pass by. The three loungers next to me were empty for hours until a cruiser came over and removed the towels. Tsk,tsk.

You just have to do what you have to do especially when the workers are afraid to do their job.