Review: Riding the waves on the Jewel, Oct 28th – Nov 4th - Hurricane Sandy and pics

[Snowrose]

We were a bit more involved with our cruise before we even got to NYC as several days in advance there were concerns as to whether the Jewel would be able to make or leave port at NYC due to Hurricane Sandy. Those sailing her on the Oct 21st cruise had already had their itineraries turned upside down by Sandy and as she headed up the coast toward NYC we were afraid we’d be next. DH called NCL on Friday night, less than 12 hours before we would be leaving for NYC. He was told that the Jewel was scheduled to be leaving port on time at 4PM and that the port would be closing at 6PM on Sunday.

So, Saturday the 27th at 6AM DH, my stepdaughter (SD) and I all piled into the car and began our drive down to our hotel in Parsippany NJ. We had good weather and a good drive, and arrived at the hotel well before dinnertime. As we looked out our window at the parking lot we noticed that the parking lot was filled with utility trucks, 14 to 16 of them actually. The rescue crews had already started pulling in to help with the electricity, two days before Sandy even hit the area. We watched TV, hoping the news would change and that Sandy would go east out to sea, but no such luck.

Sunday morning dawned cloudy but not blustery. The winds were light and there was no rain in sight. We had a quick breakfast and left the hotel about 10AM, expecting to get to the dock at about 11AM. With the Sunday morning traffic and perhaps people hunkering down due to the hurricane, we were exactly right. It took us just about an hour to get to the docks from Parsippany.

We arrived at the terminal and drove up to the top level where the cars are parked. One of the workers had us pull our car to the side. SD and I were told to get out of the car and stand on the sidewalk. Then a sniffer dog was brought over to sniff our luggage, while it was still in the car. Once cleared, we placed the luggage on the sidewalk and waited as DH moved the car to its parking place. We then took our luggage down the freight elevator and got off at the ground level. We weren’t given any option to bring our luggage onboard with us, even though we asked. We were told by the staff that we had to have the longshoremen process the luggage for us, except for our carryon bags.

After depositing our luggage with a longshoreman, we walked back into the terminal and headed for two workers that were waiting for passengers. After reading several reviews by people who had sailed from the Manhattan terminal recently, I knew to tell the staff up front that we were Latitudes members. They handed us a number card and then had us get in the much shorter Latitudes line to get our key cards.

[Snowrose]

When we got our chance to get our cards, we were surprised to find out that it was a problem to remove SD’s key card from our credit card. She’s only 12 and we wanted more control than giving her full access to our card as she’s never had that kind of freedom before and we didn’t know what would happen, but when we told the attendant this she told us that we would have to deal with someone else to put cash on SD’s card. Just our luck, that person hadn’t arrived yet. We were told to sit in the terminal and just watch for when a person would come over to the empty computer terminal at the end of the row, and then we could go up and have cash put on SD’s card. The only problem was that the person never showed up and after about 10 minutes our number was called for us to board the Jewel. We confirmed with the attendant who had called our number that we would still be able to put cash on SD’s card at the Reception Desk, and then boarded the Jewel.

It was such a thrill to step aboard the Jewel, but that was dampened slightly when we decided to go directly to the Reception Desk to get SD’s card taken care of. Unfortunately things didn’t go the way we thought they would. On speaking to the agent at the Reception Desk, we were told that if we were to take SD off our credit card that we would also have to deposit enough cash to cover her daily $12 service charge as the charge could only be charged to her card, and that if she spent that money in error then we’d have to supply more cash to make up for it.

 

I’ve never noticed anyone on the boards say that before.

[Snowrose]

Anyhow, since either way if things went wrong we wouldn’t really have control of SD over-spending, we finally decided to keep her key card on our credit card. Feeling a bit annoyed, we made our way up to the Garden Café to get some lunch and then went out on deck to watch the sail away.

The New York skyline from the Norwegian Jewel

I must say I enjoy NCL’s enthusiasm with our poolside sail-away dance party, even in the face of Hurricane Sandy. It was interesting to stand on the upper deck and watch people dancing at the sail away party and then look over to the two other ships docked with us and see how somber and quiet they were.

Dancers at the sail-away party

As we left the docks and headed down the river to the open sea, we could see a cruise ship ahead of us. Given the direction it was moving, I believe it was the RCI Explorer of the Seas, leaving from the Bayonne cruise terminal. The next day we would see Jewel’s Captain, Idar Hoydal at the CC Meet & Greet. As we sailed down the coast not too far from North Carolina and in calming (though not yet calm) seas, Captain Hoydal would tell us that ship had chosen to go above Sandy and so was caught in headwinds and only making some 5 kts per hour headway. (I see from a review on the RCI board that they apparently made Bermuda on time, but had damage and flooded rooms as well as some broken bones aboard.) The two other cruise ships that had been docked with us at the Manhattan Terminal (an Aida and a Carnival ship) would follow behind us that same night, scooting south between Sandy and the coast.

 

More later...

[Snowrose]

Captain Hoydal had announced on the intercom that we would be having a strong tailwind tonight. Thank goodness the winds were pushing us south. I wouldn’t have wanted to be facing directly in it the way that other cruise ship was.

Sunday evening we went to the midship MDR, Azura, but the seas were very rough and the bobbing horizon was still visible out the windows, which made my SD queasy. I wish the staff had lowered some blinds. If they had, I don’t think my SD would have become seasick.

SD had to leave the dining room without eating. DH walked her back to our room and gave her half a Dramamine, and she slept through the night. After finishing our dinners we also went back to our mini-suite cabin, took half Dramamines and went to bed early.

Honestly, the seas were quite rough on Sunday night/Monday morning. There was a lot of creaking around us, several crashing sounds, and a couple of times the ship rolled far enough that the balcony furniture slid about. We’d had some rough weather on our previous cruise on the Spirit when encountering a snowstorm around VA, but this was definitely worse. For a short time in the middle of the night, as some gusts of wind caused the ship to jerk or shudder, I was frightened. Fortunately we all made it through with few problems, other than queasiness.

SD wanted to stay in bed the next morning. Since this was her first cruise and the ship was still rolling somewhat, we decided to leave her alone a bit longer. DH and I headed up to the Garden Café for breakfast, checked on SD, and then headed to the CC Meet & Greet.

As I said before, Captain Hoydal was at our M&G, as was the Hotel Director Hugo Vanosmael. In the conversation with Capt. Hoydal we learned that we’d had 80 to 90 kt winds through the night. I believe that’s somewhere near Cat 2 hurricane strength – but I think that would be gusts he was talking about, rather than sustained winds. At that time we were also told that deciding what to do in such weather was a collaborative decision between the Captain and NCL staff, but that the Captain had the final say as he was responsible for the ship and the people aboard her.

I must say, while I do question NCL’s wisdom for not offering alternatives to passengers, such as rescheduling, in the face of such a massive storm as Sandy, I do also believe that Captain Hoydal knows his ship well and he had a good handle on what we would be facing, so he was able adjust Jewel’s course to put the least impact possible on the ship and her passengers as she scooted along the coastline and past Sandy. In the end, the only damage we noted on the ship were a piece of railing that had popped it welds along the track of Deck 12 and a cracked window at a shop in the Crystal Atrium. Captain Hoydal told us several bottles of liquor were also lost in the Dufry storage. On Monday, much of the Dufry’s stock was sitting on the floor of the shop or had been tied onto shelves so the items wouldn’t slip from shelving and be broken.

[Snowrose]

DH and I were being adventurous to attend the M&G on our first full day at sea. We were still a bit queasy from the waves but we made it and enjoyed the conversation with the Captain, Hotel Director, and the Cruise Director Dan. (My apologies to the other crew members from Jewel who attended the M&G, I didn’t catch all your names.) Fortunately, by the time the M&G ended the ocean was starting to calm. We had signed my 12 year old SD up for Kid’s Crew and once she was given a nudge to either do her homework while lying in bed or leave the cabin, she finally got dressed and walked up the one flight to Kid’s Crew – and once she got involved with Kid’s Crew we had a hard time getting her away from the place!

(A hint for the Jewel and even NCL staff: if you want tweens to feel comfortable and use the Kid’s Crew facilities do NOT have toddler-sized chairs and tables scattered all over the room at Sign Up time. My SD saw those chairs and immediately felt that Kid’s Crew was too babyish for her. In the end she gave it a try and found she loved it, but you’ll be losing a lot of tweens who won’t even try unless you find a way to make it a bit more evident on the very first day that you also cater to the tween-agers.)

I must admit here that I won’t be supplying any food porn in this review. For some reason I can never school myself to bring my camera to dinner with me and take a picture of both the menus and the food. Sorry.

That Monday night DH, SD and I ate decided to eat at Tsar’s. I noticed someone else’s review of Tsar’s a month or so ago and was surprised at their conclusion that Tsar’s appeared ‘old’. On the contrary, I didn’t find it old at all. Instead, with the art and Faberge-style eggs that adorn the dining room, I’d instead call it classic and elegant in the manner of a piece of Tiffany jewelry.

One of the Faberge eggs at Tsar's

This, however, would also be the last time that we would be able to get my SD to eat with us at one of the MDRs. We usually eat our dinners together so it felt a little odd, but at the same time eating at one of the more casual venues was obviously more comfortable for SD and it also gave DH and I some time to ourselves.

 

We had a towel rabbit waiting for us that night as we went to bed.

 

Port Canaveral: Tuesday at noon we sailed into Port Canaveral, Florida. We watched as we sailed past the coast and the armed services bases that are set up among the tidal marshes. As it was a familiar part of my childhood, I was glad to be able to distinguish NASA’s Vehicle Assembly building in the distance.

 

Port Canaveral at noon with the NASA Vehicle Assembly building on the horizon to the right

 

We caught a quick bite of breakfast at the Garden Café and then rushed down to the Stardust Theater for the 12:55 meeting time that had been posted for our excursion to Universal’s Islands of Adventure. Having stepped off the elevator which showed the ship’s time to be 12:54, we were startled to find the Stardust completely empty and to have a female crew member tell us in a rather snotty tone that it was 12:57 and everyone was already heading downstairs to disembark. Not approving of such a tone, especially when the ship’s time is so blatantly displayed on the ship, I made sure that the young woman understood that her watch did not match with the ship’s time and that we’d been exactly on time. Fortunately, we were easily able to rush down a few flights of stairs and catch up with our tour group as they exited the ship.

More later...

[SASA13]

Can't wait to read more. Thanks for posting.

[boopsahoy]

Enjoying your review. Sorry you had such a rocky first night!

[vivavegas]

Welcome Back! Looking forward to reading more!:)

[deladypilot]

thank you so much for your review. Keep it coming, I am enjoying your story and your photos

[brian99]

Great review so far, I'm looking forward to hearing about the rest of your trip. I was on the Jewel the week before you and we were running from Sandy most of the trip. I think you had the better of the two weeks.

[Snowrose]

Universal Islands of Adventure: There were 3 buses heading to Universal. Our bus parked in the parking lot across the street from Islands of Adventure. It would have been a bit of a walk up to the walkway and over to the entrance, except for the escalators and people movers (moving sidewalks).

DH, SD and I found IofA to be near magical in the fascinating buildings and sites that have been created there. Some are colorful, some fascinating. I’m not sure how many rides there are at IofA but many of them aren’t at all obvious as they are in most amusement parks. Rides are more likely to be housed in buildings, except for the odd roller coaster, so if you don’t know where to go you might miss rides – I’m sure we did. But then with SD being 12 and with high temp of the day only being 61, there weren’t that many rides that we were willing to do. SD wasn’t in the mood for roller coasters that day and it was too cold for the water rides.

Going to IofA in late October and just a few days after a hurricane grazed the area made for some easy times. Reading up on IofA you’re frequently cautioned that during high times the lines for various activities can be as much as 1 or more hours long. We never had that problem! Even for the star attractions of the park, Harry Potter’s Forbidden Journey and entering Ollivander’s, the waits were no more than about 10 minutes.

Having read about the potential for long lines and being interested in getting as much time as possible at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, I’d studying guides and maps and discovered that the quickest way to HP was to walk from the entrance of IofA and then bear right along the lagoon, through Seuss Landing and then through the Lost Continent to enter Hogsmeade. We took that route but what slowed us down was taking many pictures of all the fascinating places we passed.

 

For anyone interested in architecture, old buildings, or the creation of movie type backgrounds, IofA is a feast for the eyes. Especially in Port of Entry, Seuss Landing, and Hogsmeade, the buildings are fascinating and unique.

Outside of IofA were some interesting restaurants and places.

Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.

Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville

[Snowrose]

From the main gates

 

You enter Port of Entry, which looks like some kind of slightly cartooned version of a Humphrey Bogart desert town.

 

 

And with all the fascinating buildings and unique items for sale, we did truly feel we’d begun a fun adventure.

 

More cool shops

 

 

 

 

 

Eventually we did make it through all the fun buildings at Port of Entry and to the lagoon. Across the lagoon we finally saw our goal: Hogwarts Castle.

 

[Snowrose]

Just a short distance around the right side of the lagoon we found ourselves in Seuss Landing, which was somewhat like walking through a series of giant colorful frosted cupcakes.

Entering Seuss Landing

But finally we got back to something a bit more serious as we entered The Lost Continent.

DH posing at the entrance to The Lost Continent

[Snowrose]

It was kind of like walking onto the set of a Hercules movie.

Exiting the Lost Continent... and entering

Hogsmeade (Do you get the impression that we’re Harry Potter fans? Well, yes we are.)

 

[Snowrose]

Hogsmeade shops

SD poses with the Hogwarts Express conductor

Honeydukes, which was kind of like Dr. Seuss meets Willy Wonka

DH and SD entering Owl Post

(A hint for those who don’t want to wait in line for Ollivander’s, which can be as much as an hour’s wait: if you go into Owl Post next door, the two shops are connected toward the back. Also, there is a back door in the ‘alley way’ behind the stores, to the right of Owl Post. And Owl Post also sells wands, if you’re interested in purchasing one.)

Packages piled to the rafters

[Snowrose]

The Nimbus 2000 flying above, at Dervishes and Banges

The book of monsters

Zonko’s was also a colorful and fascinating place, with all kinds of odd joke-type gadgets for sale.

And finally our main objective, Hogwart’s Castle.

[Snowrose]

SD did the Forbidden Journey ride and all three of us did the walking tour. The best thing about the Forbidden Journey ride we found was the child switch area, where if you had a child too young to go on the ride then one parent could sit there with the child as the other parent went through the ride. And then when the first parent got off the ride the other parent could get on the ride. The ride is a continuously moving belt, so except for the line that funnels you originally through the greenhouse and castle rooms, there’s no waiting.

 

(Also, please note that the Fast Passes don’t work for Forbidden Journey. They only work for the roller coaster rides in Wizarding World. For that reason, though we’d intended to get the Fast Passes we eventually decided against it and as it was such a slow day at the park we had no problems at all getting around and doing what we wanted to do in the 6 hours we were there.)

The larger picture room. The pictures actually talk to one another.

 

The pensieve

 

Around 3 o’clock we were sated with Hogsmeade and ready to get something to eat. The Three Broomsticks was fun, and we sampled both Butterbeer (the frozen is delicious!) and Pumpkin Juice (also delicious!).

 

 

Three Broomsticks interior to the left...

 

and to the right

 

Boarshead and shrunken heads at the bar of Three Broomsticks

 

More later...

[Snowrose]

Jurassic Park was interesting but for the most part its rides were water rides, and at a maximum of 61 degrees we just weren’t up to it. Still, it was fun to walk through. You could see a difference between real fossils and the movie set versions but it was all fun.

And then onto Toon Lagoon.

[Snowrose]

And finally Marvel Superhero Island, which is composed of scenes and buildings with the exaggerated angles that you’ll find in comic strips.

The Spiderman animotion ride, which is similar to Forbidden Journey

Exhausted and almost back to the beginning of the theme park, we stumbled upon a familiar ‘face’ in an unfamiliar setting.

Back to Port of Entry and Cinnabon - believe it or not! Where we rested our aching feet for about 10 minutes.

We had arrived at Port Canaveral at noon. Islands of Adventure was only open until 7PM that night and the last bus was leaving Universal at 8PM. We were actually able to do a full circuit of IofA and then go through both Seuss’ Landing again so SD could get a Thing 3 t-shirt, then even look through shops in the Lost Continent before exiting the theme park.

We had plenty of time, though at a different time of year or for people who do more rides than we do, I’m sure things would be different. But we were on the first bus that left that night and were on our way back to the ship by 6:50.

It was a quick hour’s drive back to the port and then we quickly went through Customs to get back on the ship. There are signs in the port area that warn you’re not to take pictures of the Customs facilities but I was startled when I was stopped from taking a picture of the Jewel itself and was told “You can take plenty of pictures of the ship at your next stop.”

After a short rest, DH and I went to eat at Azura. SD had already rushed to check in at Kid Zone and she would eat dinner between 9 and 10PM at either the Garden Café, the Great Outdoors, or Blue Lagoon. (I think I read at one time that Blue Lagoon made an excellent sundae. Unfortunately that wasn’t on the menu when we were on the Jewel.)

We had been informed on boarding that we might not be able to visit Great Stirrup Cay the next day and the Captain had said at the M&G that going there was uncertain as GSC had been hit hard by Sandy. He said that it might take them a while to put the beach back in place. That evening the Dailies did announce that GSC had been cancelled for Wednesday and that we would continue on to Nassua, arriving there at 6PM Wednesday night.

More later...

[LOVECRUISING100%]

Cute pic's .. thanks for posting

[PathfinderEss]

Enjoying your review, awesome pictures and so many of them, thanks.

[dr.d]

Thank you for your excellent review!

[Snowrose]

Since we'd missed GSC due to the hurricane, Wednesday was a quiet day at sea. We spent it touring the Jewel.

[Snowrose]

With our changed schedule we pulled into Nassau Bahamas shortly before sunset. At first I didn’t notice much damage from Hurricane Sandy hitting Nassau – just some steel roofing removed on some covered walkways - but after seeing pictures of the port from other reviews I now realize that many of the trees along the beaches had turned a silver gray, probably from being whipped with salt water during the storm.

The ships already in port are Norwegian Sky to the left and Monarch of the Seas to the right. Both left early in the evening.

Atlantis, at sunset

Our first obvious sign of damage

Festival Place, part Customs office and part flea market

I do want to say that many of the shops along the dock were shuttered or closed down. I don’t know if that’s because of Hurricane Sandy going through several days before, or not. I do know the damage in the area didn’t appear to be excessive – but then when we got to Atlantis the next day we did find that they were still working hard to clip back damaged palms and clear the grounds of palm fronds and dead leaves. It could be that people were still cleaning and repairing their homes.

There’s not much to do in Nassau, we specifically asked and were told that most of the shops would be closing just as we got into port at 6PM. The only places that would be open would be bars and casinos. Since we’re not interested in bars and casinos we stayed onboard for the night, after all it was Halloween and there would be more than enough entertainment onboard. We ended up having dinner at the Great Outdoors, then after collecting my SD from Kids Crew we all traipsed up to the pool area to join the Halloween Family Dance Party.

A nice Halloween display at the buffet

The Halloween Family Dance Party had the place rocking! “Kids” from about 3 to 60 enjoyed the night.

[SFO-F/A]

Great review and pics!

Thanks for posting! ;)