What is 1st thing I should do once onboard Jade

[AF-1]

Hello, I am new to NCL; first trip is 14 night on the Jade in May. What should my wife I do on 1st day and the 1st thing once we board. We plan to board around noon. Where should we go to have lunch? Are there any must do's on our first voyage? Thanks for any and all replies.

[jertom]

Find 2 comfortable chairs, relax and tell each other how lucky you are to be on a cruise, where there is nothing you MUST do ! :)

[valleyvillage]

There will be a dining room open when you board, don't go to the buffet! The crew tends to steer folks to the buffet, but just ask which MDR is open and enjoy a nice, relaxing lunch!

Bon voyage!

[mizLORInj]

The first thing we do after getting lunch is walk each deck bow to stern (or reverse) to check everything out!

 

 

[kjquilts]

Unless you are in a suite and have Cagneys as lunch option I agree about eating in whichever dining room is open for lunch. Order a drink and have a quiet leisurely meal. It won't be crowded.

 

It looks like you need to fix your cruise countdown clocks 😊

[Clay Clayton]

If you want to attend the Chef's Table dinner, hurry to the reception desk and make reservations....or put your name on the waiting list. We also always sign up for the "dine with an officer" lottery. Usually interesting conversation and they pick up the wine charge!

[Cruisin&Relaxin]

If you want to attend the Chef's Table dinner, hurry to the reception desk and make reservations....or put your name on the waiting list. We also always sign up for the "dine with an officer" lottery. Usually interesting conversation and they pick up the wine charge!

 

Signing up for the Chef's Table ASAP would be my number one priority.

 

Always a great evening with fantastic food, wonderful conversation, great wine and superior service.

[luddite]

Go to the pub and find out if they have a drinkable beer.

[SteveH2508]

Grand Pacific dining room is open for lunch on embarkation day.

 

Spa passes also tend to sell out quickly.

[AF-1]

Grand Pacific dining room is open for lunch on embarkation day.

 

Spa passes also tend to sell out quickly.

 

Thanks, what is the spa pass and do you go to the spa to buy them?

[AF-1]

Go to the pub and find out if they have a drinkable beer.

 

Cute, you gotta love it. :)

[AF-1]

Signing up for the Chef's Table ASAP would be my number one priority.

 

Always a great evening with fantastic food, wonderful conversation, great wine and superior service.

 

Thanks for the tip. Where do you sign up for this; at the guest service desk or can u do this online?

[AF-1]

If you want to attend the Chef's Table dinner, hurry to the reception desk and make reservations....or put your name on the waiting list. We also always sign up for the "dine with an officer" lottery. Usually interesting conversation and they pick up the wine charge!

 

Clay, thanks for the tips; do you do the officer dinner lottery at the reception desk too?

[AF-1]

Unless you are in a suite and have Cagneys as lunch option I agree about eating in whichever dining room is open for lunch. Order a drink and have a quiet leisurely meal. It won't be crowded.

 

It looks like you need to fix your cruise countdown clocks 😊

 

Thanks for the tips. I did fix my countdown clock; appreciate you telling me; also we are in a suite; so your saying we can eat lunch in Cagney Steakhouse on departure day?

[AF-1]

The first thing we do after getting lunch is walk each deck bow to stern (or reverse) to check everything out!

 

 

 

Lori, I like that; I think i do this on every cruise. I love to explore the ship so I know my way around. Since I will be on Jade for two weeks; I will have everything figured out within two day.

[AF-1]

Find 2 comfortable chairs, relax and tell each other how lucky you are to be on a cruise, where there is nothing you MUST do ! :)

 

I do plan on finding two lounge chairs or recliners and just hang out. Thanks for the feedback.

[AF-1]

There will be a dining room open when you board, don't go to the buffet! The crew tends to steer folks to the buffet, but just ask which MDR is open and enjoy a nice, relaxing lunch!

Bon voyage!

 

Do you not like going to the Buffet? Or do you think it will be very crowded and the dining room will be less crowded?

[philatiger]

Do you not like going to the Buffet? Or do you think it will be very crowded and the dining room will be less crowded?

 

If you are in a suite, go to Cagney's for lunch.... great way to start a cruise :)

[herdingdogmom]

Also we are in a suite; so your saying we can eat lunch in Cagney Steakhouse on departure day?

 

One of the nice perks about being in a suite is you can have breakfast and lunch at Cagney's. It is quiet and the service is excellent (it is much quicker than the MDR). The menus do not change day to day, but there are plenty of good choices. After check in at the port, you will be taken on to the ship by a butler or concierge. They will take you up to deck 13 and tell you about lunch in Cagneys (which is on deck 13).

 

Yes, the sign up for the Dinner with Officer's lottery is at Guest Services. We were chosen and really enjoyed it. You will get an invitation in your stateroom and the dinner is in the MDR.

 

The concierge can make the Chef's Table reservation for you.

 

The Spa Pass must be purchased at the Spa. We have had one each time on the Jade. It provides access to the thermal suite with hot tubs, showers, saunas and heated tile loungers. It is at the front of the ship and a great retreat on sea days.

 

Have a wonderful cruise!

Edited January 5, 2015 by herdingdogmom

[luddite]

Cute, you gotta love it. :)

 

Well, actually, they are likely to not have anything but swill. Nevertheless, it's worth a try.

[Iluvcruising2]

We were on the NCL Jade for the first time in our lives last Dec and stayed in a suite. It was a wonderful experience.

 

The suite perk of having breakfast and lunch at Cagney's was really awesome.

 

Boarding was very easy as a suite guest because there is a priority line and the concierge staff will escort you on board. In our case, we were escorted to the Star Dust lounge via a crew lift, so that we could avoid the crowds.

 

Rooms were not ready till 1pm.

 

Once Cagney's opened, we went for lunch. This was about 12pm. Check out my video for our experience at Cagney's lunch over the cruise.

 

Lunch at Cagney's

[YOUTUBE]jgLddY6LzvQ [/YOUTUBE]

 

After lunch, we went to our cabin to chill out. Explore your suite!

[YOUTUBE]POIy0VzgXGw[/YOUTUBE]

 

That is me playing with the in-suite coffee machine.

[YOUTUBE]ilgsTvs8hdk[/YOUTUBE]

 

We like to unpack as soon as possible. The stateroom attendant asked us how many bags we had checked in and he promised to go look out for them. True enough, we got all our bags quite quickly, I recall by about 3pm they had arrived for us!

 

So we could unpack and then explore the ship.

 

It was an awesome start to our holiday.

[Mura]

I've seen a few recommendations to pass on the buffet for lunch on boarding day in favor of a "real" restaurant. My experience on NCL is little -- we usually cruise on Oceania. But we were on GEM for a NYC-Venice TA in 2010 and enjoyed lunch in the buffet. (Our first NCL cruise was in Jan '02 on the DREAM which is no longer in the NCL fleet, Buenos Aires to Santiago.)

 

Because we live in NYC we may have gotten there earlier than others. Yes, it WAS crowded but we didn't have any trouble finding a window table with a view of the Intrepid. Nice!

 

We had a family penthouse on that cruise and so were able to take advantage of breakfast and lunch in Cagney's which is a very nice perk. True, the menu didn't change on our itinerary but we didn't have to repeat choices very often and not until towards the end of the cruise! When we boarded around noon, no one suggested that we could have lunch there so it didn't occur to us to try for anything but the buffet.

 

On the Oceania list there have been occasional complaints about the buffet on NCL ships but I have to say that we found it to be quite good. There were LOTS of selections of differing cuisines. On that cruise the head of dining was Indian so there were really good Indian selections available in the buffet. But there was always something speci9al.

 

I've heard complaints about people rushing in to get their food and knocking people out of the way ... we never saw any of that. (We tended to go into the buffet at off-hours however; I'm not sure if that was a factor or not.)

 

We actually found the food there to consistently be of a higher level than the food we had in the two main dinner restaurants. (On that cruise we didn't opt for any of the specialty restaurants for dinner but we plan on doing so at least some of the time on our Oct '15 Venice-Houston cruise on JADE.)

 

I'm also glad to hear of the Chef's Table option -- either that wasn't available in 2010 OR we were just unaware of it. But we enjoy Oceania's comparable "La Reserve" menus -- which are rather more expensive! -- and so I think we'll give it a try if it's available on that itinerary.

 

By the way, it's not surprising that internet is also more expensive on Oceania ... for those of us more used to Oceania than NCL, it will be interesting to see if there are any changes down the road.

 

Mura

[Iluvcruising2]

Having sailed with Royal so many times before NCL, my impression of the buffet at lunch time was always about crowds. It does get very bad on Royal ships and I was expecting the same on the NCL Jade.

 

To my great surprise, I have never once found the buffet area to be overly crowded. We never had to wait for a seat. I think it helped that the seating area was large and during lunch, the Cucina Restaurant was also opened to be used as seating for the lunch buffet.

 

I made some videos to illustrate my experience on the NCL Jade.

 

First, this is the lunch buffet during embarkation day.

[YOUTUBE]rvZV0Q3QPyE[/YOUTUBE]

 

Next, I take a walk through La Cucina during lunch on a sea day. The speciality restaurant was used as additional seating area for the lunch buffet.

[YOUTUBE]3Nic9uDO-SU[/YOUTUBE]

 

No crowds!

[AF-1]

We were on the NCL Jade for the first time in our lives last Dec and stayed in a suite. It was a wonderful experience.

 

The suite perk of having breakfast and lunch at Cagney's was really awesome.

 

Boarding was very easy as a suite guest because there is a priority line and the concierge staff will escort you on board. In our case, we were escorted to the Star Dust lounge via a crew lift, so that we could avoid the crowds.

 

Rooms were not ready till 1pm.

 

Once Cagney's opened, we went for lunch. This was about 12pm. Check out my video for our experience at Cagney's lunch over the cruise.

 

Lunch at Cagney's

[YOUTUBE]jgLddY6LzvQ [/YOUTUBE]

 

After lunch, we went to our cabin to chill out. Explore your suite!

[YOUTUBE]POIy0VzgXGw[/YOUTUBE]

 

That is me playing with the in-suite coffee machine.

[YOUTUBE]ilgsTvs8hdk[/YOUTUBE]

 

We like to unpack as soon as possible. The stateroom attendant asked us how many bags we had checked in and he promised to go look out for them. True enough, we got all our bags quite quickly, I recall by about 3pm they had arrived for us!

 

So we could unpack and then explore the ship.

 

It was an awesome start to our holiday.

 

Loved your video; I am looking forward to my cruise.

[AF-1]

Having sailed with Royal so many times before NCL, my impression of the buffet at lunch time was always about crowds. It does get very bad on Royal ships and I was expecting the same on the NCL Jade.

 

To my great surprise, I have never once found the buffet area to be overly crowded. We never had to wait for a seat. I think it helped that the seating area was large and during lunch, the Cucina Restaurant was also opened to be used as seating for the lunch buffet.

 

I made some videos to illustrate my experience on the NCL Jade.

 

First, this is the lunch buffet during embarkation day.

[YOUTUBE]rvZV0Q3QPyE[/YOUTUBE]

 

Next, I take a walk through La Cucina during lunch on a sea day. The speciality restaurant was used as additional seating area for the lunch buffet.

[YOUTUBE]3Nic9uDO-SU[/YOUTUBE]

 

No crowds!

 

So I have a few questions about La Cucina. You took the above video on a sea day. No one was there for lunch? How crowded was the ship on your cruise? My cruise is May is just about sold out completely.