Review: Jewel 10/21 | Garden Villa | Chefs Table | Bridge Tour | 100+ Pictures

[brian99]

Having been part of the winning women's team a word of warning: if you, like me, are a $15 date, you shouldn't necessarily participate in the games. If you win the price is a shot - just what I needed after all those martinis... :D

 

I think the second tasting was better (or worse depending on how you look at it). In addition to drinking 4 martini's the game was to drink shots of vodka and since there was a tie, both teams got a victory shot. :):):)

[Anna32]

I think the second tasting was better (or worse depending on how you look at it). In addition to drinking 4 martini's the game was to drink shots of vodka and since there was a tie, both teams got a victory shot. :):):)

 

Oh, don't remind me...:eek: However, I lucked out and got one of the water shots, so only had to cope with the victory shot and no additional vodka...;) You would think that I had learned my lesson after the first tasting...:rolleyes:

[david_sobe]

WOW

Amazing color pictures. Cant get enough

MORE PLEASE

[brian99]

I did a ship tour the day you embarked. You're lucky you didn't find me hiding in your closet. The Garden Villa is amazing!

 

How do you get to tour a ship while it's in port?

[Journey11]

Great review and stunning pictures! Thanks so much for sharing them. I am glad you had a wonderful cruise, but it would have been hard not to considering your amazing accommodations. :)

[NayRN]

Thanks for this fantastic review!! I was in 14000 on the Jewel in September and this is bringing back great memories! :D

 

We had Ruth as well.....but Lani was our butler and she didn't miss a beat!!

[pcreek]

Thanks for this fantastic review!! I was in 14000 on the Jewel in September and this is bringing back great memories! :D

 

We had Ruth as well.....but Lani was our butler and she didn't miss a beat!!

 

 

Enjoying your review!! I cannot wait for our turn!

We are in 2 bedroom penthouse, right next door to the GV, but still :eek:!!

 

 

(we had Lani on the Epic...can attest to her 'attentiveness'. Wonder if she's still on the Jewel?)

[brian99]

Day 3 – Port Canaveral

We took a shuttle bus to the Ron Jon surf shop and headed straight to Cocoa Beach, it’s across the street. We were told there are shuttles there regularly to get back to the ship but we got a taxi instead. There were chairs and umbrellas there to rent. My wife and I love to walk along to beach so we started heading north. The Cocoa Beach Pier is about a mile away; we stopped there for lunch. There’s a restaurant halfway out on the pier, the food was good. After we ate we walked to the end of the pier (If you don’t have a receipt from the restaurant they charge you $1 to go to the end of the pier :confused:). We continued north about another mile, stopping once or twice to relax on the beach and listen to the waves. When we were ready to go back to the ship I called 411 to find a taxi service and within 15 minutes they came to get us. The ride was $10 but the port charges taxis $5 to get to the port so it was $15+tip.

 

That night we ate at Mama’s Italian Kitchen, this was the one meal neither of us enjoyed (other than my room service hot dog). The service was fine and I don’t remember what we ate but it wasn’t good.

 

I think this was the night of the hoedown by the pool. We started watching them teach people to line dance (it looked hard) and had some drinks on our sun deck but once the ship pulled out of Port Canaveral the seas were rough and windy, they stayed that way for the rest of the trip. :(

[david_sobe]

Enjoying your review!! I cannot wait for our turn!

We are in 2 bedroom penthouse, right next door to the GV, but still :eek:!!

 

 

(we had Lani on the Epic...can attest to her 'attentiveness'. Wonder if she's still on the Jewel?)

I had Lani on the Epic too

She was wonderful!!!

[brian99]

 

 

Approaching Port Canaveral, FL:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[brian99]

Casino Boat:

 

 

 

 

Holland America Ship:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[brian99]

This is what we saw for the rest of the trip: :(:(:(

 

[brian99]

There were treats like this in our room every afternoon. Most tasted as good as they looked. :)

 

[NayRN]

Enjoying your review!! I cannot wait for our turn!

We are in 2 bedroom penthouse, right next door to the GV, but still :eek:!!

 

 

(we had Lani on the Epic...can attest to her 'attentiveness'. Wonder if she's still on the Jewel?)

 

She told me that both she and Ruth would be going to the Breakaway but In the meantime they would both be on the Jewel.

[brian99]

Enjoying your review!! I cannot wait for our turn!

We are in 2 bedroom penthouse, right next door to the GV, but still :eek:!!

 

 

(we had Lani on the Epic...can attest to her 'attentiveness'. Wonder if she's still on the Jewel?)

 

We toured a 2 bedroom haven suite and they're really nice. Plus there was hardly anyone using the haven area so it's quiet. Upstairs on the haven sun deck there were usually people but always free lounge chairs.

 

Ruth is the concierge on the Jewel and if you're on the port side of the ship (145xx) you'll have Cris for your butler, he was great.

[Anna32]

 

 

(we had Lani on the Epic...can attest to her 'attentiveness'. Wonder if she's still on the Jewel?)

 

I was on the same sailing as Brian and had Lanie as butler - though I was only in a humble aft penthouse ;) She did a great job!

 

Brian, your pictures and review are simply amazing!

[pcreek]

We toured a 2 bedroom haven suite and they're really nice. Plus there was hardly anyone using the haven area so it's quiet. Upstairs on the haven sun deck there were usually people but always free lounge chairs.

 

Ruth is the concierge on the Jewel and if you're on the port side of the ship (145xx) you'll have Cris for your butler, he was great.

 

Nice! We are on the starboard side this time. 14006.

Guess we'll have Lani again. Would have been nice to check out a different butler. This is only our 2nd time w/ butler.:)

I think she was overly attentive on the Epic, as we were in a spa suite, so she was doing double-duty with some of the concierge services as well.

[emilysmom97]

Here’s my review of the NCL Jewel 10/21/12. We were supposed to visit Port Canaveral, GSC and Nassau but Hurricane Sandy changed our plans quite a bit. We stayed in a Garden Villa (14500) and took lots of pictures, I have over 100 to post, hopefully I’ll get to all of them in the next week. If you have any questions just ask. P.S. I’m not a writer so please excuse my excessive use of commas and run on sentences. :)

 

Day 1 - Embarkation

It’s normally a 90 minute drive to the pier but because of the bike race it took almost 3 hours, we got to the pier at 11:00. Check in was easy, we used the VIP line but the regular line only had 2-3 people in it. After check in we were escorted to the VIP waiting area where there were some snacks, sandwiches and really bad coffee. Around 11:30 we met Ruth (Concierge) who gave us our room keys and Cris (Butler). Cris escorted us on the ship and directly to our room, then spent about 30 minutes showing us how everything worked. At first it seemed like Cris was very new at the job, it was like he was reading from a script and if I interrupted him to ask a question he got flustered and didn't always have the answer. In the end he was an amazing butler and catered to our every need. On day 2 I gave him a list of things we used most and he made sure we always had plenty of everything (Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, limes, regular coffee pods, milk, two buckets of ice, etc.) Cris then brought us to Cagneys for lunch which was very good. We spent the next few hours exploring the ship, had dinner at Tsars, saw the Welcome Aboard show and got back to our room to catch most of the Steelers game (they won!)

 

Here’s a time lapse video I took of us leaving port until we pass the Verrazano.

 

 

Great and beautiful photos. I don't think the sun has shone much since then. Hopefully you got back in time to hunker down and be safe from the hurricane.

[david_sobe]

We toured a 2 bedroom haven suite and they're really nice. Plus there was hardly anyone using the haven area so it's quiet. Upstairs on the haven sun deck there were usually people but always free lounge chairs.

 

Ruth is the concierge on the Jewel and if you're on the port side of the ship (145xx) you'll have Cris for your butler, he was great.

I wonder if it is the same Cris that worked on the Sky and Epic. He really is sensational!

[tokidoki]

Hi, Brian, loved your beautiful pictures, if I knew you were in the GV, I would have asked you for a tour for our group, I've always wanted to see one. Hope you enjoyed the cruise, we couldn't help the impending storm coming, but the crew is amazing, Barbara ( tokidoki)

[youngestof9]

How do you get to tour a ship while it's in port?

 

it was with a group of travel agents. I seriously was hoping to stowaway lol

[down.by.the.sea]

Love the pictures!

 

Thank you!

[brian99]

Hi, Brian, loved your beautiful pictures, if I knew you were in the GV, I would have asked you for a tour for our group, I've always wanted to see one. Hope you enjoyed the cruise, we couldn't help the impending storm coming, but the crew is amazing, Barbara ( tokidoki)

 

Sorry Barbara... I would have been happy to give you a tour, we met a bunch of people on the ship that we gave a tour to.

 

I'd say maybe next time but I doubt I'll ever stay in a GV again unless I can get 4 friends to join us, it's too much for 2 people.

 

Thanks again for organizing the meet & greet.

[brian99]

Day 4 – Freeport

I was really bummed we weren’t going to GSC today, I had a cabana and stingray/snorkel excursion booked, oh well. After doing some last minute research on cruise critic the night before we decided to take a shuttle to the Lucaya Marketplace. The beach is right across the street behind Grand Lucaya hotel. You can use the beach for free or pay $10pp for a day pass to use the hotel pools. We stuck to the free beach walked about a mile down and back. There’s a casino right by the hotel so we each donated $20 to the slot machines then went across the street to the marketplace. It started raining at that point so we took the shuttle back to the ship.

 

That night we had the Chefs Table, I had planned to sign up as soon as we got on the ship but someone came up to us while eating our first lunch at Cagney's asking if we wanted to sign up. I noticed an ad in the freestyle daily for the first three days so I'm not sure if it sold out right away. There were 14 of us at the table and I feel bad for anyone who wanted a quite dinner at Le Bistro that night because were were a very loud group.

 

I highly recommend the chefs table, it was the second best part of our trip (the bridge tour was our favorite). I don’t have pictures of every course but I’ll post what I have. I enjoyed every course and made the mistake of eating everything they gave me. By the time they brought the veal I was so full I only had a few bites. The dessert looked amazing but my wife and I were too full to even try it and the motion of the ship was starting to get to us so we went back to our room. We were told they would give our desserts to our butler to bring to the room but instead they brought a small sheet cake, I guess there was a miscommunication somewhere.

[brian99]

Entering the port of Freeport, Bahamas:

 

 

A Carnival ship is dry-docked: