Jewel of the Seas Review-Feb 11-19

[Flounder8]

We had the most fabulous time on the Jewel of the Seas for our first cruise and wanted to shoot off review and encourage everyone to try out this beautiful ship.

 

As per the recommendations I got on this site, plan to leave for your cruise one day early. It made things so much less hectic. Again, as per recommendations, we stayed at the Holiday Inn Express on SE 17th Causeway in Ft. Lauderdale. They had a ton of restaurants around, free continental breakfast, free shuttle from the airport and a transfer to the docks at 3 different times for $6 per person.

 

We arrived around 11:30 and we on the ship by 12:15. They were so efficient I could not believe it. We had our welcome buffet at the Windjammer. It was a bit weird as they were serving us as you went up to get things, but the captain later explained that they take these precautions the first couple of days to prevent sickness from spreading. They also had hand sanitzers at the door. We were able to get in our cabin by 1pm and our luggage was there by 4pm.

 

Activities: We did tons of activities on the ship. My husband and I loved the trivia and even managed to win a couple of times. We also played a lot of BINGO and it was fun to see a single winner of the cruise and $3500. The casino was really nice and it was neat to be able to take out cash against our Seapass account. More frequent flyer miles! We also went to two cooking demonstrations which were both excellent. The sous chef demonstrating was very crowd friendly. We attended a couple of karaoke nights and I even managed to win Best Female at Karaoke Idol night, there were tons of great singers and they even had to pick three male winners. Of course we went to the shows and especially enjoyed the violinist, Broadway show, illusionist and the gauchos. I also have to comment that I thoroughly enjoyed the gym. I worked out every day and took one of their group classes. It was a fun way to see the same people each day and it helped me to only gain 2 lbs, probably would have been much more without this!

 

Food: For breakfast we mostly ate at Windjammer. We tried room service one morning, but they were late and not many choices so we gave up on that. For lunch we mostly ate at the Seaview Cafe. Not many healthy choices, but better than Windjammer to control your portions. They had a really good Reuben sandwich, chicken fingers, caeser salad, fries and onion rings. We also had some good crepes at the Solarium cafe. For dinner we ate at the dining room every night by one night at Portfinos and one night at Windjammer. The dining room was great and we had a great waiter and assitant waiter. Of course we loved Portofino and definitely worth the $20 for the experience. Windjammer was also good for dinner and I liked making my own pizza and the sushi they had.

 

Ports: The ports were nice and we were lucky with very good weather. In Puerto Rico we mainly went around Old San Juan and walked around San Cristobel. In St. Maarten we did an island tour where we stopped in Marigot for 2 hours shopping and then on to a beach for about an hour. It was a nice way to see the island. In Antigua we did a catamaran sail, but the water was pretty choppy and snorkeling was tough. We did stop at a nice beach and they had a great barbeque lunch and drinks. We did all of our shopping in St. Thomas, but I still wish we would have gone to see Magen's Bay. We ended up going to Freeport, Grand Bahamas instead of Nassau and we only left the ship for about 30 minutes.

 

The service everywhere we went was fabulous. No matter if it was your attendant or someone dusting or changing a light bulb, everyone said hi and asked how things were going. The ship was also spotless. I could not believe how much they clean and how beautiful it looked with the artwork.

 

Our departure ran as smoothly as getting on. We had to leave our room by 8am and sit in a common area until our departure color was called. We left the ship by 9:30 and were at the airport by 10:15am.

 

There is so much more I could say and feel free to ask any questions about the ship. Based off this trip we are already hoping to cruise again in Summer of 2008 to Alaska.

[iukbsn]

This will be our 2nd cruise w/ RCCL and decided to not book excursions - it just seemed like we were so rushed whenever we reached ports that we didn't get to enjoy the places we were at. Hopefully we aren't making a mistake in not planning ahead. We were hoping to visit a beach at each point and relax on the sand, snorkel if they had it, but mostly do nothing. You mentioned Magen's Bay....what is this and how would we get there? Does JOS offer an excursion there? Any other ideas on beaches at various ports that we should look into? We are leaving March 11 and have an aft cabin - first time with a balcony as well...:)

[JWMom]

Flounder

 

Thanks so much for the great review! We're going March 19th-our first cruise-and can't wait! My husband wanted to know a few more details about the gym-what kind of equipment do they have and what kind of classes? How was the food in the main dining room? Thanks again for your review!!

[kissykitty2002]

Thank you for the review.

 

We'll be on the Jewel in April 2006 for our wedding/honeymoon.

 

What is the cost of a bingo game? Also what room did you have?

 

Thanks

Nan

[shipknotshore]

Flounder: Thank you for your great review. Sounds like you really enjoyed the cruise and the ship. We are anxious to go on the Jewel in Dec. and reading reviews like yours just makes us feel even better about the choice we made.

Thanks again - and enjoy your upcoming Alaska cruise.

[Flounder8]

Here are some responses to the questions:

 

Magen's Bay-this is supposed to be one of the top ten beaches in the world and it is located on St. Thomas. I didn't really hear how people's beach experiences were. I heard Orient Beach on St. Maarten was really good as well. We booked our excursions before the cruise which was nice. One ended up being cancelled due to not enough people and it was hard getting something to replace it as a lot were already sold out. It seemed to me that a lot of people did excurisons.

 

Gym-There were about 4 classes every day. It always started out with a 30 min stretch class from 7:30-8. Then some type of strength training or aerobics from 8-8:30. After that was usually yoga, pilates or cycling which you had to pay $10 for. In the afternoon there was usually another aerobics or strength class around 4:30-5. They had a lot of equipment, about 10 treadmills, 8 elliptical, 2 recline bikes, 2 upright bikes and free weights on nautilus weights. They also had mats and aerobic balls. There is also the jogging track that you go around 6 times and it is a mile. It gets crowded though with chairs so you have to do that early.

 

Bingo cost-this varied dependent on what was being won. Most of the days it was around $35 for about 6 games. For the cruise it was $20 per card and only one game was played. For the final big money game you played 5-6 games and the cards were $55 each.

 

Room-We stayed in room 9520. It was a balcony and we had a great view. Really close to the forward elevators, but we mainly had to walk aft for everything by the fitness center and theater.

[wolfcathorse]

Flounder - was the captain Capt MacDonald?

[dcdiva]

Nan -

 

I understand you are having you wedding/honeymoon on the Jewel in April. I was married onboard the Jewel a year ago. So if you have quesitons, or would like to see photos, I'd be happy to share. You can probably find a whole lot of my posts over on the Wedding and Honeymoon board.

 

the dcdiva

[Crusinforfun]

Well, we were on the Jewel the week before you, 2/5 sailing. On our cruise the hand sanitizers were not brought out until mid-week. The RCCL staff stood at each one and very sternly reminded us to use them. Also, we served ourselves just fine in the Windjammer until Thursday morning when the staff took over full force. We weren't even allowed to take a piece of fruit from the large fruit bowls. The reason... about mid-week several people on our cruise contracted the Norwalk Virus and were quarantined in their cabins until the end of the cruise!

 

So, the REAL reason the captain said those things was not to remind you of their standard procedures, but because the Norwalk Virus was still all over that ship and he didn't want you all to figure out something was wrong!

[happycruzer]

Hi iukbsn, looks like we're going to be neighbours for a week or so. We sail on the Jewel on March 3rd to start our 2 week B2B,( counting the days and can hardly wait) we are also in aft cabins. DH and myself on deck 10 and our grown up kids on deck 9. Have you registered for the Meet & Mingle ? there is also a roll call for this trip too ...sorry I'm not too good at posting links....

Why not hop over to the roll call and join us....we'd love to have you join us.

Hope to see you on board !

 

Many thanks too for the GREAT review, this will be our first cruise with RCI and I have been reading all the reviews with great interest, it really adds to our excitement ! So glad you had a good time there and that you have taken the time to share your memories with us THANK YOU !

 

happycruzer

[iukbsn]

Yes, we are signed up for the M&M and I have been following the Roll call. Aren't you getting ready to fly out soon? I thought around the 2nd if I remember right from what I read. We are on aft deck 7 on March 11 and are very excited - only a few more weeks! I'm a nursing student and look forward to Spring Break every year - especially this year! Didn't I read somewhere that there was a pool gathering trying to be put together for the first day? I will follow up on the roll call sight....IUKBSN:)

[SheltieLady]

Thank you for a great review, we will be on here next January and we can't wait.

 

What night did they do the midnight buffet?

 

Christine

[Virginia Zees]

kisskitty2002,

Here is a link to the roll call threads for the 22 April sailing http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=230

 

Have you signed up for the M&M yet?

 

Congrats on upcoming wedding.

[tootsieh]

We were on the Jewel in Feb and June of last year--several of our party (including my husband) had the Norwalk virus. He was very, very sick. I think the hand sanitizers should be used on every cruise---it made a firm believer out of us!!! We were on the Adventure in Oct and the Explorer two weeks ago with no problems!!! We love cruising but it is not fun to be sick!! I saw on one of the forums in the last several days that someone on the Jewel recently was given a future cruise credit for having the Norwalk--we were given nothing!!!

[Flounder8]

Those are some interesting tidbits and we heard nothing about there being any virus issues on our sailing. I would assume that since the precautions stopped midway all was well.

 

As far as our captain it was Captain MacDonald and we both thought that he was very good and enjoyed his noon time information and the captain's corner session.

 

The large gala midnight buffet was on Friday night of the cruise when we were at sea.

[kissykitty2002]

Nan -

 

I understand you are having you wedding/honeymoon on the Jewel in April. I was married onboard the Jewel a year ago. So if you have quesitons, or would like to see photos, I'd be happy to share. You can probably find a whole lot of my posts over on the Wedding and Honeymoon board.

 

the dcdiva

 

Hi dcdiva,

 

I have read your posts and viewed your pictures before booking my wedding, your comments help a lot with my decision, it's our first time cruising and the eastern 8 days itineary with the great ports was to good to pass up and the positive comment in your review made it easier. I have Robert at the wedding experience and he is very nice and respond to any questions, so up till now everything is going great. All our guest are non-sailing guest, we are getting married in Ft-Lauderdale before sailing, I hope my pictures turn out nice like yours. Thank you for all your help.

 

Nan

[kissykitty2002]

kisskitty2002,

Here is a link to the roll call threads for the 22 April sailing http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=230

 

Have you signed up for the M&M yet?

 

Congrats on upcoming wedding.

 

Thank you! I've been following your roll call a little bit:D We haven't signed up yet but we are thinking about it.

 

Nan

[3 4 Cruzin']

Great review Flounder8-

Have a couple of questions for you or anybody that can answer for us. We are on the 4/22 8 day eastern on Jewel and would like to know what is available on the menus in Chops and Portifinio's?

Also, on the 8 day can you tell us what nights were what? Formal, semi-formal, etc. And did you all have the Murder Mysterty available on your cruise, and if so what night was it. I have seen that the Jewel does and does not have that available.

Also, has anybody taken a young child (age 5) with them on the Jewel? Would like to find out what you thought of the children's program Adventure Ocean Youth club? Any pagers given out, times available to take them in, etc. Thanks :)