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

[brian99]

This was enough chocolate for us so we skipped the chocolate buffet (other then to go take some pictures)

 

 

Chocolate Buffet:

 

[brian99]

View of our room, chairs on the sundeck are tied up because of the wind.

 

 

 

 

 

Shows at the Stardust Theater:

 

 

After Cirque Dreams a lot of the crew came out:

[brian99]

We were docked next to the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Nimitz class carrier entering Norfolk, we were eating at Moderno at the time so I couldn't get a good picture:

[Relax@Sea]

Sorry if you already answered this but who was the Butler and Conceirge we will be in the exact cabin in March 2013, and also how was there service, was there any problem that you had with them.

Thanx for the info.

[NayRN]

Sorry if you already answered this but who was the Butler and Conceirge we will be in the exact cabin in March 2013, and also how was there service, was there any problem that you had with them.

Thanx for the info.

 

The concierge was Ruth and I believe the butler was Cris. I was on the Jewel in September and Ruth said she would be moving to the Breakaway......

[jimbri]

Wonderful review!

[brian99]

The concierge was Ruth and I believe the butler was Cris. I was on the Jewel in September and Ruth said she would be moving to the Breakaway......

 

Yes, we had Ruth and Cris. Ruth was very nice, we called her every afternoon to tell her where we wanted to have dinner that evening and a few other times to ask questions. She also told us about leaving Jewel for Breakaway.

 

Cris was great, we had breakfast in our room every morning and lunch 4-5 times. Sometimes he said he would be right there and sometimes he said he was busy and would be there as soon as he could but it never took more than 20-30 minutes to get food. On the second day we gave him a list of things (pepsi, diet pepsi, limes, milk, regular coffee pods, etc.) and we never ran out of anything we asked for. Sometimes I thought we was watching us because we would leave the room for only an hour or two and when we returned we were fully stocked on everything we asked for. :D

[Relax@Sea]

The concierge was Ruth and I believe the butler was Cris. I was on the Jewel in September and Ruth said she would be moving to the Breakaway......

 

Yes, we had Ruth and Cris. Ruth was very nice, we called her every afternoon to tell her where we wanted to have dinner that evening and a few other times to ask questions. She also told us about leaving Jewel for Breakaway.

 

Cris was great, we had breakfast in our room every morning and lunch 4-5 times. Sometimes he said he would be right there and sometimes he said he was busy and would be there as soon as he could but it never took more than 20-30 minutes to get food. On the second day we gave him a list of things (pepsi, diet pepsi, limes, milk, regular coffee pods, etc.) and we never ran out of anything we asked for. Sometimes I thought we was watching us because we would leave the room for only an hour or two and when we returned we were fully stocked on everything we asked for. :D

 

Thank you both for the reply.

[dttampa]

In the first picture of the NCL Star you can see my friend Bill and my DH Tom in the Garden Villa on the top deck. Very cool. Thanks for Sharing. I bet I have photos of all of you in your Garden Villa across the way. Going to look......

 

 

 

 

 

The Star is docked next to us:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Space Shuttle on the Intrepid:

[brian99]

In the first picture of the NCL Star you can see my friend Bill and my DH Tom in the Garden Villa on the top deck. Very cool. Thanks for Sharing. I bet I have photos of all of you in your Garden Villa across the way. Going to look......

 

Here a few close shots of the people I think you're talking about:

 

 

 

 

 

[PathfinderEss]

Nice review and wonderful photo's thanks for posting.:)

[Topaz_M]

Loving your review and awesome photos Brian.

[brian99]

Day 7 – Sea Day

Everyone from the chefs table was invited to a galley tour at 11am. It was nice to see how clean every area is and that they take customer compliments and complaints seriously. There were several comment cards hanging up. We were told the tour would be 30 minutes which was perfect since our concierge invited us to a bridge tour at 12. The galley tour was still going at 11:55 so we told the chef we had to go and he found someone to escort us to the forward elevator. The bridge tour was amazing. It started with one of the officers talking about the ship and how everything works for about 15 minutes. Then we had 30 minutes to wander around the bridge and take pictures of anything we wanted, we were just told “don’t touch anything”. There were three officers on the bridge and they were all happy to talk to us and answer any questions we had the entire time we were there. Captain Idor came in towards the end of the tour and was happy to take a picture with my wife.

 

Since we enjoyed the first martini tasting we decided to try another and it didn’t disappoint. Four different martini’s which were all good. The bar tender did a bit of a show and there was a game called vodka or water. One person did a shot and the other team had to decide if they drank vodka or water, it was a fun game but after 12 shots it ended in a tie. Hint: people usually lick their lips after drinking vodka but not after water. :) We met some people at the martini tasting and decided to do a mini cabin crawl and use up the champagne all the suite guests had, because we didn’t drink enough martini’s and vodka. The first was an aft penthouse; this is a perfect room for two if you don’t want haven access, the view off the back of the ship is great and I didn’t notice as much movement in the back of the ship as I did the front. Next was a two bedroom haven suite which was really nice and quite spacious. The haven area is beautiful and very few people use it so it’s very quiet. Finally we gave everyone a tour of our garden villa and finished off two bottles of champagne. Dinner was at Le Bistro and it was a great meal. Francis (the singing waiter) came by our table to serenade us during dessert, a perfect way to end the cruise.

[brian99]

We woke up to rough seas, both pools were closed shortly after I took this and remained closed the rest of the day.

 

[brian99]

Galley tour:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[brian99]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[brian99]

 

 

 

 

 

 

[brian99]

Bridge Tour:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[brian99]

 

 

Even the staff pool was closed:

 

 

Watch what you do on deck 10 forward balcony's:

 

 

[brian99]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[brian99]

My wife with Captain Idor Hoydal:

 

 

 

 

Window in the floor of the bridge (for docking):

 

 

[brian99]

Martini Tasting:

 

 

 

[BlueJai]

Thanks for such an amazing review and pictures!

[Anna32]

Love the review - as if I was there... Oh wait, I WAS there...:D

 

The pictures from the bridge tour are amazing! However, you missed the visit to the place where all the lovely chocolates and desserts were coming from at the tail end of the galley tour. That tour lasted nearly 1.5 hours - we were an inquisitive bunch with tons of questions for the exec chef...:o

[brian99]

Some Other things:

 

 

We spent a total of about 3-4 hours in the casino playing slots. It was very smoky. I won $160, my wife lost $60.

 

The staff was extremely friendly everywhere on the ship. It was rare to walk by someone without them saying hi or good morning to us, even during the galley tour when we ran into people who don’t regularly interact with guests.

 

Our cabin steward, Renee, was the best. Our room was always spotless and when we ran into her she was the nicest and friendliest person I’ve ever met. Plus, she always called me Sir Brian, I tried to get my wife to do the same but that didn’t work. :D

 

Internet – We purchased the 250 minute package for $100 and got 20 free minutes. I have read tons of reviews about the internet speed being really slow but I never had a problem with it. It’s not cable modem speed but it’s much faster than dial up. I mainly used it for e-mail, facebook and researching ports when our itinerary kept changing but I was pleasantly surprised. It did get a little slower in the evening when more people are using it.