Jewel 2/28 review

[manderson2228]

Background: I feel like it's a good idea to give a quick note in these reviews about who we are, and our experience cruising. I believe it gives people a better idea of where we are coming from in terms of expectations. We are an early's 30's recently engaged (on this cruise actually) couple. We have cruised once on NCL before last June on the Sky. We are fairly active and we like to get out and do things. While we liked NCL on the sky we wanted to try something different, so we had booked a cruise on princess. Unfortunately due to last minute medical issues we had to cancel, and luckily got all our money back because they were overbooked. We only needed to wait a month before she could cruise so we booked on NCL because princess didn't have any balcony rooms left when we wanted to go and we had been with NCL before.

 

Ordering: We were going to use some of my fiancee's citi card points to get a discount, but we decided because the salesman was nice at NCL and he promised us a 400$ coupon book that we would go with NCL direct. It ended up being 40$ more per person but we felt we would get the 80$ back in the book and maybe more. We ordered our room without issue, but once we got the coupon book we were very disappointed. All the coupons were only worked if you bought something else. Buy 3 bottles of wine get 1 off. To get any of the coupons you would of had to spend more money than they were worth, and mostly on stuff we didn't want. You would of had to spend over 1000$ easily to get the full 400$ of savings, it was a real disappointment, we ended up not using any of the "coupons".

 

Embarkation Day: We arrived at the port just before they opened the doors. We waited in line for about 20 minutes and got inside. Once in the scanning process went smoothly and off to check in with NCL. We had a balcony room and we waited again for maybe 5 minutes to get to a person. Once up there we gave the nice lady my credit card and she gave us all the info we needed. We got our room keys, up to the boat and on. We looked around for the champagne that they promised during the sales process, and we had on the sky but it was no where to be found, and no one had any in their hands so it looks like they did away with this. We decided to head to our room to put our bags down, we had a room right across from the crew area and I saw our bags just sitting there. They were in the process of handing them all out and I asked if he minded if I grabbed mine and he didn't. He introduced himself and we spoke for a minute. Super nice guy.. We unpacked quickly, and headed to deck 12 for some food in the garden cafe. We ate and headed to the upper deck to get some sun and enjoy the sail away party. We also purchased the unlimited pepsi thing because we both drink soda and decided it was worth it.

 

Sea Day: Not a lot to report on sea day. We went to see the juggler in the evening which was pretty good. There were lots of activities going on. We decided to relax, enjoy the fresh air. We spend some time looking at the shore excursions, the staff was very helpful in helping us pick out where we wanted to go.

 

Roatan, Honduras: WOW I woke up to this gorgeous island. Mountains, beaches they had a local band playing music on the dock which I could see from the balcony. We were kind of up in the air on what shore excursion we were going to do. Nothing really grabbed us and I am not a big snorkeler. We decided to walk around a little and see what was going on. We got off and found an area that was selling tours and pretty much everything that they were selling onboard but for half the price. We decided to do an island tour with some of the locals. We spent 50$ for the both of us, had a driver and a tour guide and was able to go anywhere we wanted to on the island. Our guide was a "medicine woman" best I could describe it. She had all kinds of plants and explained to us what she did and how the cured things on the island. We drove through some local neighborhoods saw where her kids went to school, and went to a zoo. The zoo was basically someones backyard but we were able to see monkey and other wildlife local to the area. We then headed down to the beach area and they brought us to a restaurant called Half Moon. It was on the lagoon and I had the best snapper and grouper i've ever had in my life.. Honestly, it was so good and so fresh.. It just melted in your mouth. Out of this world!! Highly recommend if you are there.

 

Belize City, Belize: We picked the lamanai ruins and riverboat tour here. Another home run. We took an hour boat road north, then a 45 minute boat ride to the site down the river. During the river ride we stopped and the guide showed us a bunch of local animals, and mininite villages. Once at the site we had lunch, and began our tour. This was my first experience at a Mayan Ruin site and it was really really interested and good. I love stuff like this so I really had a good time. We were the last tender boat to get back to the cruise ship we were almost late, but NCL waited for us. Now for a disclaimer, I got a little nervous about the tender boat so I took some bonnie. I won't lie i was out COLD at 7:30. When they say it may cause drowsiness, they aren't kidding!!

 

Costa Maya, Mexico: We went out to do the "rainforst" ATV tour. We took a 40 minute or so bus ride to the place. It was on the water with a nice beach. They showed us how to use the ATV's and we went out. We went on this trail with nothing.. I mean nothing it was a rough path, no scenery no wildlife no nothing. We were disappointed overall with this excursion, we were expecting to see something but ended up basically just tooling around the ATV's for a few hours then 15 minutes at the beach and back to Costa Maya. Once back we hung out in the area they built for the cruise ships, protected with armed guards by the way. They had salesmen trying to sells us there wares everywhere. These guys were out of control, one guys was trying to sell my fiancee a plate he kept coming down in price but it was still to high. I talked her out of buying it and the guy was clearly aggravated. He followed us into the next store even saying he owned that one too. Tried to give us a great deal on a cross she liked for 10$. Told us it was half price.. Great price. I flip the thing over and it's labeled 5$.. Great paying twice is a good deal. These guys are desperate, and they try to act like they are giving you a good deal but aren't. Don't get taken!!!

 

 

Great Stirrup Cay: It was kind of cold. We decided to try and walk to the lighthouse but the path was blocked because of construction. Looks like they are expanding and putting something back there. Will be interesting to see what it is. We ate at the bbq and went back aboard the ship and relaxed and hung out by the pool. They have added a water slide since last year but besides that it wasn't any different.

 

 

Sea day: I woke up this morning and my back went out.. Old baseball injury.. Could hardly get out of bed!! What luck! Around noon the anvil kicked in and i managed to start moving around. That night we went to the highly talked about Cirque De Bijoux. This was the pinnacle of the entertainment on board. Now in fairness i've been to Cirque De Soliel and Cavalia. The show wasn't bad, but honestly I was seeing dancers out of sync and the guys on the ribbons were way out of sync. It would be one of thing if they didn't talk it up, but they did and they set the bar high and frankly they didn't hit the bar. It was disappointing. We also went to one of the comedy shows, a couples one and we enjoyed that. We always enjoy the silly couples shows.

 

Disembarkation: It went smoothly we walked off a little after 10, nothing to really report good or bad here..

 

Food: The part everyone wants to know about.. The food was mediocre at best. We aren't picky eaters but some of it was just no good. We noticed that Azura and Garden Cafe served the same food. Tzars seemed to have the same menu too not to much different than garden cafe. I ordered stead 3 times on this cruise.. Once at Tzars, once at Azura, and once at Cagney's. All 3 times I ordered it medium all 3 times it came rare, once it came cold.. The fish on the buffet was old, and tasted stale. The burgers were all heavily over cooked. The deserts were the same gelatin type thing flavored differently each night. Most of the food was ok.. But it's certainly nothing to excited over. Chin Chin was the only highlight we felt the food and value with having to pay a cover charge was the best. Mama Mias was TERRIBLE it was maybe some of the worst italian i've ever had. I love italian and like all kinds, and this was horrible. I ordered chicken pram, the sauce tasted like chef boyardee sauce, the chicken was breaded with fish breading, and there was no mozzarella cheese on it. It was awful. Tappenyaki was overpriced, 50$ for hibachi for a couple? We have Bennie Hanna back home and it barely costs us 50$ there. I know i am a captive audience on a cruise ship but the cover is to high here. I also have to mention that we did get the all you drink soda thing. I called room service one night late around 11 tired and just wanted a quick burger and a pepsi, they told me they didn't bring pepsi to the room via room service… WHAT?? Seriously? I paid extra for this and you will bring a burger or anything off the room service menu but not a pepsi???? Thats simply uncalled for. I had to go to blue lagoon to get something, and they wait was longer then it should have been. There is no excuse for this NCL needs to change this policy immediately.

 

Overall: We had a good time, but we want to try another cruise line next time. I would recommend against or for NCL after 2 cruises. They have some room for improvement. On both of our cruises we felt the cabin stewards were so good we filled out the comment card for them and made sure to hand deliver to the front desk and tell them how good they did. The staff is always friendly and helpful and there is always something going on. We did get pretty sick of the constant "Diamonds International" sales pitch by the end of the cruise everytime you turn on the tv, walk past somewhere, or walk around all you hear is about this jewelry place ENOUGH ALREADY!! I think we will cruise Princess or Royal Caribbean next time, we would consider going back to NCL if they step up the food a little bit.

 

I also wanted to take a second to thank all here at Cruise Critic this site helped us A LOT though both cruises. I spent the extra time to write this review just to add to this wonderful community. This site is priceless with the information. Thanks for having me as a member!!

[Warmer Climes]

Thanks for your review. We were on the Jewel the week before you and also ate at Half Moon in Roatan (WOW!!!) and did the Lamanai ship excursion.

 

Congratulations on your engagement!

 

Barb

[CruisinMaterial]

Thanks for posting your review. Everyone has their opinions on the experiences onboard. I do have to say that the JAR had a replacement of half their cast members the week you sailed so yes the choreographers might have been off. They got on their A game for us though and while there was still some choreography issues they were fantastic for our sailing. I've seen Cirque Bijoux 6 times and have loved it every single one of those times!

 

I love the Norwegian Jewel and am sorry to hear that the experience was not up to your liking 100%. I do hope that you addressed the non-entertainment but food-related matters with John onboard. He bends over backwards to make us CCers happy because he knows we'll come on here and be the first to say if the experience was bad. I couldn't have had a better cruise because of his excellent hospitality to all the CCers in our sailing who he met at the first day's M&G.

 

Hope you return to NCL in the not too distant future! :)

[manderson2228]

Thanks for posting your review. Everyone has their opinions on the experiences onboard. I do have to say that the JAR had a replacement of half their cast members the week you sailed so yes the choreographers might have been off. They got on their A game for us though and while there was still some choreography issues they were fantastic for our sailing. I've seen Cirque Bijoux 6 times and have loved it every single one of those times!

 

I love the Norwegian Jewel and am sorry to hear that the experience was not up to your liking 100%. I do hope that you addressed the non-entertainment but food-related matters with John onboard. He bends over backwards to make us CCers happy because he knows we'll come on here and be the first to say if the experience was bad. I couldn't have had a better cruise because of his excellent hospitality to all the CCers in our sailing who he met at the first day's M&G.

 

Hope you return to NCL in the not too distant future! :)

 

Everyone does have their opinion and we all come from different backgrounds. Like I said overall we had a good time, it wasn't good enough to make us want to come back, but it wasn't bad enough to make us never want to go again. At the end of the day every minute away from my micro managing jerk of a boss is worth it's weight in gold ;)

 

I am very disappointed I missed the the CC M&G. I foolishly checked the freestyle daily for it expecting it to be there and it wasn't.. I assumed there wasn't on on my cruise only to find out later from another cruiser that there was one.. Where are they organized so I can know for future cruisers. I knew they existed but I assumed it would be on my daily sheet and it wasn't, or at least I didn't see it.

[Tyskie]

Everyone does have their opinion and we all come from different backgrounds. Like I said overall we had a good time, it wasn't good enough to make us want to come back, but it wasn't bad enough to make us never want to go again. At the end of the day every minute away from my micro managing jerk of a boss is worth it's weight in gold ;)

 

I am very disappointed I missed the the CC M&G. I foolishly checked the freestyle daily for it expecting it to be there and it wasn't.. I assumed there wasn't on on my cruise only to find out later from another cruiser that there was one.. Where are they organized so I can know for future cruisers. I knew they existed but I assumed it would be on my daily sheet and it wasn't, or at least I didn't see it.

 

Your best bet would be to check your Roll Call for that particular cruise. It's a way to meet people before you cruise. Each cruiseline/ship have their own Roll Call. Check it out for the future!:)

[CruisinMaterial]

Everyone does have their opinion and we all come from different backgrounds. Like I said overall we had a good time, it wasn't good enough to make us want to come back, but it wasn't bad enough to make us never want to go again. At the end of the day every minute away from my micro managing jerk of a boss is worth it's weight in gold ;)

 

I am very disappointed I missed the the CC M&G. I foolishly checked the freestyle daily for it expecting it to be there and it wasn't.. I assumed there wasn't on on my cruise only to find out later from another cruiser that there was one.. Where are they organized so I can know for future cruisers. I knew they existed but I assumed it would be on my daily sheet and it wasn't, or at least I didn't see it.

 

Here! Here! On that boss comment! Know exactly what you are talking about! :D Glad NCL is still in the running for you too. I love them a lot after this last Jewel cruise. The CC M&G is up to the ship's discretion as to where they put the group but generally the meeting is on the first sea day at 11AM. Both times I organized it on the Jewel it was at 11AM but the location was different each time and it was dependent on the size of the group. One time we were at the Whiskey Bar in Bar City (Maltings) and just this past week we were in Azura Main Dining Room (larger group). They don't put it in the FreeStyle Daily because we're considered a group activity and not an actual open event for everyone to attend onboard. Sorry you missed it but hope to see you again on a future NCL sailing! :)

[manderson2228]

Good info I will have to look at the roll call next time.

 

The thing that really drew us to NCL was the freestyle eating. We are not interested in doing the assigned seating time, with other random cruisers. It's my understanding that other cruise lines are starting to offer freestyle type dining these days so I think we will try them out. We may be back to NCL, we may not.. It comes down to how much we like the other cruise lines. We really wanted to try princess, and RCCL looks good too. I guess that gives me an excuse to go on another cruise!

[tls630]

Carnival is the best bang for the buck. We were on the cruise the same week as you. The food quality is mediocre at best. The wait service in the main dinning room and blue lagoon is below average. The deserts are just not close to Carnival. I would go again though but have these things in mind. We did really like the ship.

[LynneL]

A friend & I are going on the Jewel in May and I'm looking forward to trying a new line (My family & I have been on Carnival 15 times, couple of times on Royal Caribbean, Princess, etc.)

 

One thing I'm curious about...a co-worker of my friend stated she went on the Gem and there was a $100. a week charge for those wanting to use the indoor pool & bikes in the gym were $10. a day to use. She was not happy with her experience. I've never heard of such a thing & am thinking maybe the bike charge was part of a spin class & the pool...I just don't know what would warrant a $100. a week fee....Something doesn't seem right with the co-worker's statement and usually when something just doesn't sound right, it isn't!

 

Can anyone shine some light on what we've been told?

[njhorseman]

A friend & I are going on the Jewel in May and I'm looking forward to trying a new line (My family & I have been on Carnival 15 times, couple of times on Royal Caribbean, Princess, etc.)

 

One thing I'm curious about...a co-worker of my friend stated she went on the Gem and there was a $100. a week charge for those wanting to use the indoor pool & bikes in the gym were $10. a day to use. She was not happy with her experience. I've never heard of such a thing & am thinking maybe the bike charge was part of a spin class & the pool...I just don't know what would warrant a $100. a week fee....Something doesn't seem right with the co-worker's statement and usually when something just doesn't sound right, it isn't!

 

Can anyone shine some light on what we've been told?

 

 

Use of the gym is free. If someone was charged $10 to use a bike it was for a spin class, as you suspected.

 

There is a $99 per week spa (thermal suite) pass. This allows access to much more than the indoor pool. There is a central coed area that has the pool and lounges (including terrific heated tile lounges) as well as separate male and female thermal suites with hot tubs, saunas, lockers and showers. We find it well worth the money as a limited number (about 85) passes are sold, only adults are permitted, and it provides a place to relax away from the crowds on sea days, and is particularly useful on cold or rainy days.

[LynneL]

Use of the gym is free. If someone was charged $10 to use a bike it was for a spin class, as you suspected.

 

There is a $99 per week spa (thermal suite) pass. This allows access to much more than the indoor pool. There is a central coed area that has the pool and lounges (including terrific heated tile lounges) as well as separate male and female thermal suites with hot tubs, saunas, lockers and showers. We find it well worth the money as a limited number (about 85) passes are sold, only adults are permitted, and it provides a place to relax away from the crowds on sea days, and is particularly useful on cold or rainy days.

 

So is there an indoor pool guests can use without having to buy a spa pass (which sounds nice but I don't think I'd get my money's worth) or is that the only indoor pool? Thanks for clearing things up.

 

And to the OP...congrats on your engagement. What an exciting place to get engaged!

[manderson2228]

Carnival is the best bang for the buck. We were on the cruise the same week as you. The food quality is mediocre at best. The wait service in the main dinning room and blue lagoon is below average. The deserts are just not close to Carnival. I would go again though but have these things in mind. We did really like the ship.

 

I agree overall with your statements. Honestly, Mama Mia's was so bad that they need to start over I haven't had Italian that bad in a long long time. We did notice slower service as well, but for us we just went to the garden cafe and served ourselves because it was quicker the menu is the same so might as well. The only time I went to Blue Lagoon was when I couldn't get a pepsi delivered to my room, and it was really slow there as well, but in fairness is was really late. I agree with the deserts too, below average. I won't have gelatin type deserts again for a long time. It was essentially the same thing with different flavoring.

 

I did like the ship too, but I find it hard for me to say it was good or bad considering i've only been on NCL. That being said since the cruise we have been discussing our next adventure and find that we really like the look and feel from what we have seen of the RCCL ships especially the promenade.

 

What really attracts me to NCL, and still does. Is the freestyle, I don't want to be locked into an eating time.

[manderson2228]

Use of the gym is free. If someone was charged $10 to use a bike it was for a spin class, as you suspected.

 

There is a $99 per week spa (thermal suite) pass. This allows access to much more than the indoor pool. There is a central coed area that has the pool and lounges (including terrific heated tile lounges) as well as separate male and female thermal suites with hot tubs, saunas, lockers and showers. We find it well worth the money as a limited number (about 85) passes are sold, only adults are permitted, and it provides a place to relax away from the crowds on sea days, and is particularly useful on cold or rainy days.

 

I had no idea.. If I had known this I might have gotten it. Sounds great will have to look into it next time! Thanks for the tip!

[cmh]

Background: I feel like it's a good idea to give a quick note in these reviews about who we are, and our experience cruising. I believe it gives people a better idea of where we are coming from in terms of expectations. We are an early's 30's recently engaged (on this cruise actually) couple. We have cruised once on NCL before last June on the Sky. We are fairly active and we like to get out and do things. While we liked NCL on the sky we wanted to try something different, so we had booked a cruise on princess. Unfortunately due to last minute medical issues we had to cancel, and luckily got all our money back because they were overbooked. We only needed to wait a month before she could cruise so we booked on NCL because princess didn't have any balcony rooms left when we wanted to go and we had been with NCL before.

 

Ordering: We were going to use some of my fiancee's citi card points to get a discount, but we decided because the salesman was nice at NCL and he promised us a 400$ coupon book that we would go with NCL direct. It ended up being 40$ more per person but we felt we would get the 80$ back in the book and maybe more. We ordered our room without issue, but once we got the coupon book we were very disappointed. All the coupons were only worked if you bought something else. Buy 3 bottles of wine get 1 off. To get any of the coupons you would of had to spend more money than they were worth, and mostly on stuff we didn't want. You would of had to spend over 1000$ easily to get the full 400$ of savings, it was a real disappointment, we ended up not using any of the "coupons".

 

Embarkation Day: We arrived at the port just before they opened the doors. We waited in line for about 20 minutes and got inside. Once in the scanning process went smoothly and off to check in with NCL. We had a balcony room and we waited again for maybe 5 minutes to get to a person. Once up there we gave the nice lady my credit card and she gave us all the info we needed. We got our room keys, up to the boat and on. We looked around for the champagne that they promised during the sales process, and we had on the sky but it was no where to be found, and no one had any in their hands so it looks like they did away with this. We decided to head to our room to put our bags down, we had a room right across from the crew area and I saw our bags just sitting there. They were in the process of handing them all out and I asked if he minded if I grabbed mine and he didn't. He introduced himself and we spoke for a minute. Super nice guy.. We unpacked quickly, and headed to deck 12 for some food in the garden cafe. We ate and headed to the upper deck to get some sun and enjoy the sail away party. We also purchased the unlimited pepsi thing because we both drink soda and decided it was worth it.

 

Sea Day: Not a lot to report on sea day. We went to see the juggler in the evening which was pretty good. There were lots of activities going on. We decided to relax, enjoy the fresh air. We spend some time looking at the shore excursions, the staff was very helpful in helping us pick out where we wanted to go.

 

Roatan, Honduras: WOW I woke up to this gorgeous island. Mountains, beaches they had a local band playing music on the dock which I could see from the balcony. We were kind of up in the air on what shore excursion we were going to do. Nothing really grabbed us and I am not a big snorkeler. We decided to walk around a little and see what was going on. We got off and found an area that was selling tours and pretty much everything that they were selling onboard but for half the price. We decided to do an island tour with some of the locals. We spent 50$ for the both of us, had a driver and a tour guide and was able to go anywhere we wanted to on the island. Our guide was a "medicine woman" best I could describe it. She had all kinds of plants and explained to us what she did and how the cured things on the island. We drove through some local neighborhoods saw where her kids went to school, and went to a zoo. The zoo was basically someones backyard but we were able to see monkey and other wildlife local to the area. We then headed down to the beach area and they brought us to a restaurant called Half Moon. It was on the lagoon and I had the best snapper and grouper i've ever had in my life.. Honestly, it was so good and so fresh.. It just melted in your mouth. Out of this world!! Highly recommend if you are there.

 

Belize City, Belize: We picked the lamanai ruins and riverboat tour here. Another home run. We took an hour boat road north, then a 45 minute boat ride to the site down the river. During the river ride we stopped and the guide showed us a bunch of local animals, and mininite villages. Once at the site we had lunch, and began our tour. This was my first experience at a Mayan Ruin site and it was really really interested and good. I love stuff like this so I really had a good time. We were the last tender boat to get back to the cruise ship we were almost late, but NCL waited for us. Now for a disclaimer, I got a little nervous about the tender boat so I took some bonnie. I won't lie i was out COLD at 7:30. When they say it may cause drowsiness, they aren't kidding!!

 

Costa Maya, Mexico: We went out to do the "rainforst" ATV tour. We took a 40 minute or so bus ride to the place. It was on the water with a nice beach. They showed us how to use the ATV's and we went out. We went on this trail with nothing.. I mean nothing it was a rough path, no scenery no wildlife no nothing. We were disappointed overall with this excursion, we were expecting to see something but ended up basically just tooling around the ATV's for a few hours then 15 minutes at the beach and back to Costa Maya. Once back we hung out in the area they built for the cruise ships, protected with armed guards by the way. They had salesmen trying to sells us there wares everywhere. These guys were out of control, one guys was trying to sell my fiancee a plate he kept coming down in price but it was still to high. I talked her out of buying it and the guy was clearly aggravated. He followed us into the next store even saying he owned that one too. Tried to give us a great deal on a cross she liked for 10$. Told us it was half price.. Great price. I flip the thing over and it's labeled 5$.. Great paying twice is a good deal. These guys are desperate, and they try to act like they are giving you a good deal but aren't. Don't get taken!!!

 

 

Great Stirrup Cay: It was kind of cold. We decided to try and walk to the lighthouse but the path was blocked because of construction. Looks like they are expanding and putting something back there. Will be interesting to see what it is. We ate at the bbq and went back aboard the ship and relaxed and hung out by the pool. They have added a water slide since last year but besides that it wasn't any different.

 

 

Sea day: I woke up this morning and my back went out.. Old baseball injury.. Could hardly get out of bed!! What luck! Around noon the anvil kicked in and i managed to start moving around. That night we went to the highly talked about Cirque De Bijoux. This was the pinnacle of the entertainment on board. Now in fairness i've been to Cirque De Soliel and Cavalia. The show wasn't bad, but honestly I was seeing dancers out of sync and the guys on the ribbons were way out of sync. It would be one of thing if they didn't talk it up, but they did and they set the bar high and frankly they didn't hit the bar. It was disappointing. We also went to one of the comedy shows, a couples one and we enjoyed that. We always enjoy the silly couples shows.

 

Disembarkation: It went smoothly we walked off a little after 10, nothing to really report good or bad here..

 

Food: The part everyone wants to know about.. The food was mediocre at best. We aren't picky eaters but some of it was just no good. We noticed that Azura and Garden Cafe served the same food. Tzars seemed to have the same menu too not to much different than garden cafe. I ordered stead 3 times on this cruise.. Once at Tzars, once at Azura, and once at Cagney's. All 3 times I ordered it medium all 3 times it came rare, once it came cold.. The fish on the buffet was old, and tasted stale. The burgers were all heavily over cooked. The deserts were the same gelatin type thing flavored differently each night. Most of the food was ok.. But it's certainly nothing to excited over. Chin Chin was the only highlight we felt the food and value with having to pay a cover charge was the best. Mama Mias was TERRIBLE it was maybe some of the worst italian i've ever had. I love italian and like all kinds, and this was horrible. I ordered chicken pram, the sauce tasted like chef boyardee sauce, the chicken was breaded with fish breading, and there was no mozzarella cheese on it. It was awful. Tappenyaki was overpriced, 50$ for hibachi for a couple? We have Bennie Hanna back home and it barely costs us 50$ there. I know i am a captive audience on a cruise ship but the cover is to high here. I also have to mention that we did get the all you drink soda thing. I called room service one night late around 11 tired and just wanted a quick burger and a pepsi, they told me they didn't bring pepsi to the room via room service… WHAT?? Seriously? I paid extra for this and you will bring a burger or anything off the room service menu but not a pepsi???? Thats simply uncalled for. I had to go to blue lagoon to get something, and they wait was longer then it should have been. There is no excuse for this NCL needs to change this policy immediately.

 

Overall: We had a good time, but we want to try another cruise line next time. I would recommend against or for NCL after 2 cruises. They have some room for improvement. On both of our cruises we felt the cabin stewards were so good we filled out the comment card for them and made sure to hand deliver to the front desk and tell them how good they did. The staff is always friendly and helpful and there is always something going on. We did get pretty sick of the constant "Diamonds International" sales pitch by the end of the cruise everytime you turn on the tv, walk past somewhere, or walk around all you hear is about this jewelry place ENOUGH ALREADY!! I think we will cruise Princess or Royal Caribbean next time, we would consider going back to NCL if they step up the food a little bit.

 

I also wanted to take a second to thank all here at Cruise Critic this site helped us A LOT though both cruises. I spent the extra time to write this review just to add to this wonderful community. This site is priceless with the information. Thanks for having me as a member!!

 

I sailed on the Jewel two years ago, and they had 1/2 price dinners in the alternative restaurants after 9 pm. We are sailing on the Jewel again next month and was wondering if there were any specials like this on your cruise.

[bubbachief]

Here! Here! On that boss comment! Know exactly what you are talking about! :D Glad NCL is still in the running for you too. I love them a lot after this last Jewel cruise. The CC M&G is up to the ship's discretion as to where they put the group but generally the meeting is on the first sea day at 11AM. Both times I organized it on the Jewel it was at 11AM but the location was different each time and it was dependent on the size of the group. One time we were at the Whiskey Bar in Bar City (Maltings) and just this past week we were in Azura Main Dining Room (larger group). They don't put it in the FreeStyle Daily because we're considered a group activity and not an actual open event for everyone to attend onboard. Sorry you missed it but hope to see you again on a future NCL sailing! :)

 

Hi-- We're on the Jewel 4/11 for a 13 day Repo. NCL has us scheduled in the Azura Dining room for our M&G. Is the Azura the dining room they use for lunch and if so, what time does it open. We got 140 signed up for the M&G from 10:30-12:00 and I'm hoping they don't kick us out if we run over.

[LaurieCM]

M&Gs don't last all that long- you sign in, get any name tags, etc that you have planned, the cruise director, hotel manager and comedian greet the group and introduce 7 or 8 other crew members. You have cookies and coffee, etc. An hour and a half should be plenty of time- ours were both held in the Tsar which has no lunch seating, where Azura always did. If people want to stay and they are serving lunch, a big table or several should do.;)

[manderson2228]

I sailed on the Jewel two years ago, and they had 1/2 price dinners in the alternative restaurants after 9 pm. We are sailing on the Jewel again next month and was wondering if there were any specials like this on your cruise.

 

There were no half price dinners at all on our cruise. Not that I saw.. And I look out for stuff like that!!