Jewel of the Seas ~ B2B ~ Sept. 6th and 13th ~ My Diary

[maxs mom]

Hi Jane ,

another great pictorial review, thank you.

I cannot believe this again though, once again you post a picture of someone we know yet we have never met!!!! First it was Tamer , then Bryce and now Ken. By the way, Ken and Tamer are cruising friends, Ken was introduced to me by him.

If you take up Franca's suggestion of the B2B on Brilliance we will meet for sure then:D

 

Heather.....that is wild!!! You have some great cruising friends.....we like them all!! Yes....we must meet soon. I'm sure we would get along!

[maxs mom]

I know, I should have stopped to say hello! We had just arrived and I saw you walking, and I literally said out loud "Oh my goodness, I know her" LOL. My family thought I was crazy. :) It was also a little hectic because I kept getting text messages and phone calls from our friends that we were sailing with. They had landed 20 minutes before us and we were going to meet them to ride to the ship together, and they kept texting/calling trying to figure out where we were.

 

Thanks for letting me know about Diego and the pictures. I wish we would have spent more time in the CL but our friends couldn't come in and we wanted to hang out with them. I hope I can meet up with Diego again on a future sailing.

 

Well.....next time.....just know that you'd better say hello! Glad you had a good time!

[maxs mom]

You and John look very spiffy. Neat how Diego took care of getting John a Tux. Looks like you had a great Captain's table.

 

Why thank you, Sherri. Yes....that was extremely nice of Diego. He's the best!!

[maxs mom]

Thursday ~ Sept. 11, 2014 ~ Barbados

 

We were lucky enough to have this view form our balcony today:

 

 

You win some....you lose some!

 

We were the only ones in our dining room this morning! Very good service. By now.....they have our grapefruits ready and have us figured out.

 

It was another beautiful day! We have been extremely lucky with the weather and calm seas!

 

There is free Wi-Fi in the terminal area here. We only stopped briefly for that....then we were on our way out to the taxis and to one of our favorite spots here.......Accra Beach. Most cruisers will go to the Boatyard or Lobster Alive here, but that is just too crowded and loud for me. Accra was absolutely wonderful today.....not many people at all. RCI had an excursion that was brought here.....one in the morning and one on the afternoon, but there weren't many and we practically had the place to ourselves. Another advantage of being the only ship in port.

 

Accra is a nice little stretch of beach a little farther out than Boatyard. You will want the taxi driver to drop you off at the bar at the far end of the beach. The name of the bar is now called The Tiki Bar. You rent your chairs and umbrellas from them for $30 and then that $30 comes off of your bar bill. You get Tiki cash to spend at their bar and restaurant. We each had two drinks and lunch and got change back from that....so it was a good deal.

 

This is a neat place and we had a great day here today.

 

 

 

 

 

[maxs mom]

The beach was beautiful today. Hardly anyone there. My kind of day!!

 

 

 

 

 

Nathan was our beach boy for the day. He brought us anything we needed. He wasn't busy today, so we talked to him a lot. He was really nice.

 

 

He brought our lunch to our chairs. John had a hot dog and I had a flying fish sandwich. You MUST have a flying fish sandwich when in Barbados!

 

[/uRL]

[Champagne Cruiser]

Hi Jane,

I am so enjoying your reviews! Thank you for taking the time to post with pictures. Is the $30 at Accra pp or was that for both of you? I am taking notes in all the places you mention. In fact, I was disappointed you stayed on the ship in St Lucia! I was looking forward to your recommendations.

[maxs mom]

By the way......there was excellent Wi-Fi on the beach all day. I was chatting with several of my friends and making them jealous!!

 

 

 

 

A nice couple came out to the beach on the afternoon excursion and they sat next to us. We enjoyed talking to them.

 

 

We had such a nice day here. We packed up around 2:30 and Nathan called a taxi for us.

 

 

The taxi driver that took us back to the port charged us $5 more than the ride out! I hate it when they do that.

 

Back on the ship, I grabbed some iced tea and a coconut ranger cookie. John got some soft serve and we enjoyed some down time in our cabin the rest of the afternoon.

 

[MrBanana1240]

Thanks! Keep it coming! Loving it, glad you enjoyed it.

 

3rd sailing on Anthem. That's amazing! Hope things work out!

Edited September 30, 2014 by MrBanana1240

[1northstar]

• 
  

Accra is a nice little stretch of beach a little farther out than Boatyard. You will want the taxi driver to drop you off at the bar at the far end of the beach. The name of the bar is now called The Tiki Bar. You rent your chairs and umbrellas from them for $30 and then that $30 comes off of your bar bill. You get Tiki cash to spend at their bar and restaurant. We each had two drinks and lunch and got change back from that....so it was a good deal.

 

Hello Jane, lovely review as always. Please tell me .. Was this $30 pp in Antigua?

Thank You !

[maxs mom]

Hi Jane,

I am so enjoying your reviews! Thank you for taking the time to post with pictures. Is the $30 at Accra pp or was that for both of you? I am taking notes in all the places you mention. In fact, I was disappointed you stayed on the ship in St Lucia! I was looking forward to your recommendations.

 

Hi Jean!

 

The $30 was for both of us. That ended up being 2 chairs, an umbrella, 2 drinks and two lunches.

 

In St. Lucia there is an all inclusive resort very near the port area called The Rendezvous. It is an older resort, but in good shape......adults only. We haven't been there in quite some time, but I believe they still allow cruise ship passengers in. This is all you can drink and a nice buffet lunch. They have a pool with a swim up bar. It's not anything like the Marriott, but still a nice place. Google it and check it out. Most of the good beaches here are so far away. This worked for us. We have been there probably three times. It is very near the port.

[maxs mom]

Thanks! Keep it coming! Loving it, glad you enjoyed it.

 

3rd sailing on Anthem. That's amazing! Hope things work out!

 

Never thought I would come close to sailing on one of these new ships. I hope it doesn't stress me out too much. It sounds a little complicated and I like everything to be simple.

[maxs mom]

• 
  

Accra is a nice little stretch of beach a little farther out than Boatyard. You will want the taxi driver to drop you off at the bar at the far end of the beach. The name of the bar is now called The Tiki Bar. You rent your chairs and umbrellas from them for $30 and then that $30 comes off of your bar bill. You get Tiki cash to spend at their bar and restaurant. We each had two drinks and lunch and got change back from that....so it was a good deal.

 

Hello Jane, lovely review as always. Please tell me .. Was this $30 pp in Antigua?

Thank You !

 

No, this is in Barbados and the $30 was our total bill for the whole day......including food and drinks.

[MrBanana1240]

Never thought I would come close to sailing on one of these new ships. I hope it doesn't stress me out too much. It sounds a little complicated and I like everything to be simple.

 

 

Same! Shouldn't have to stress for months in order to enjoy yourself for a week or two. I always find myself bent over when planning cruises and vacations so I call her. Still to those day I call my mother about everything. "When in doubt .... Call your mother" as she says :D

 

But I hope you end up going on a great vacation. You will either way!

[The Big Booper]

Glad to see your photo review up on CC, great as always. We had to cancel our b2b on Jewel in July because my 100 y/o old mother had a potentially serious medical issue.

 

We still have our Sept 2015 8 night California cruise from Vancouver to LA on the Jewel, hopefully we can take that cruise.

[maxs mom]

Same! Shouldn't have to stress for months in order to enjoy yourself for a week or two. I always find myself bent over when planning cruises and vacations so I call her. Still to those day I call my mother about everything. "When in doubt .... Call your mother" as she says :D

 

But I hope you end up going on a great vacation. You will either way!

 

I don't stress over anything now when we go on a cruise.....just get the Set Sail Passes and luggage tags printed out and away we go! But I'm not into making reservations for dinner in all those restaurants. We don't go to shows any more.....but I think we might like to see a show or two on here......more reservations. I like to do things on the spur of the moment.

[maxs mom]

Glad to see your photo review up on CC, great as always. We had to cancel our b2b on Jewel in July because my 100 y/o old mother had a potentially serious medical issue.

 

We still have our Sept 2015 8 night California cruise from Vancouver to LA on the Jewel, hopefully we can take that cruise.

 

Hey Dave!! Sorry you had to cancel your July B2B's. That 8 night from Vancouver should be awesome, though. I hope you are spending several days in Vancouver first!

[Blasian]

They must have had one heck of a honeymoon! lol!

RE:

On the way back to our cabin after lunch we noticed our neighbor's door had not changed a bit during the whole cruise. There was a "Just Married" sign on the door and a "Do Not Disturb" sign in the slot. That has been like that since day 1! Stayed like that for the whole cruise. On the last day, a crew came in and replaced the carpet in that cabin!! Never saw anyone coming or going!

 

[maxs mom]

Got to the CL around 6:30 or so and had a good time with great folks in there.

 

 

Went to dinner around 8:15 and we were ushered to a different section of the dining room for some reason. Service was a little slower here, but it was fine. We missed Kasa, though! We both got Prime Rib tonight and it was very good.

 

We were pretty tired so we went back to our cabin after dinner. The 70's Party and The Quest were both held tonight......both great events.....just too late for us. There was a time when we would never miss these events. We're pitiful!! Don't miss those if you can help it.

 

View of the centrum on the way to our cabin:

 

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[maxs mom]

Friday ~ Sept. 12, 2014 ~ At Sea

 

Finally .......a sea day!!!

Slept in a little.

 

The view from the elevators on the way to breakfast:

 

 

I shocked them again in the dining room with an order of oatmeal!! They brought some strawberries to go with it this time. Very good.

 

 

This morning they had Captain's Corner in the Centrum.......Q & A with the Captain, Hotel Director, and the Chief Engineer. That lasted a long time!

 

 

 

We had a meeting of the Consecutive Cruisers at 11:00 in the Vortex. First time we've set foot in there all week!! They served us mimosas, which were good! There were 44 of us this week. We got instructions form Rosa, the Guest Services Manager. The bad news was that they were going to have a bi-annual Coast Guard inspection all day tomorrow.......that will definitely hold things up a little.

 

 

Today we were invited to have lunch with an Officer at noon in the Main Dining Room. We ate with Valerie from HR......nice lady who lives in Alabama. There were 9 of us in attendance. We ordered from the regular menu.....nothing special, but we did have wine. A very pleasant lunch. We declined dessert and went to WJ to get soft serve instead......wow.....was it crowded in there today. I recommend going to the Seaview Café for lunch on Sea Days!! Sorry we didn't get there this week, but we will go next week. Love me some Seaview Café!! Here is our table from lunch.

 

[maxs mom]

Eatin' some ice cream!!!

 

 

Next we got our pictures. Then I took a stroll out on Deck 5......such a nice quiet place to spend some time.

 

 

 

 

 

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[maxs mom]

More from Deck 5:

 

 

 

 

[maxs mom]

I ended up on the Helipad where I ran into Rebecca and Brian (Love and Marriage CC'ers).

 

 

 

 

 

Here we go back to San Juan.

 

[theminnow]

Jane,

 

This is another great review. I followed an earlier one by you and was glad to see you were doing another one.

 

At first I thought I could save some money by staying home and doing my cruises through your reviews.:) Not I am not sure. I feel you are convincing me to cruise even more!

 

Thanks for taking the time to post the reviews.

 

 

Craig

[Lady Hudson]

Oh . . I love the "walking" promenades. Can you walk all the way around without backtracking? I love when I can do that. And John looks very spiffy in hid tux! Katherine

[maxs mom]

Soooooo nice not to have to pack up today OR change cabins.

 

Got to the CL around 6:30 tonight. It was not crowded at all, so we easily got to visit with the new friends that we made over the week.