Review of Jewel 3/26 cruise good & bad

[Soon2bMrs]

Hello,

 

My DH and I just came home from our 3/26 cruise on the NCL Jewel.

We had a great time.

This was our second cruise. Our first being on the Celebrity Century which we absolutely loved!

so this being our second cruise and having been spoiled on the Century here are our comments.

The overall ship was nice. We were worried that with it being a much bigger ship than the Century that we would get " lost in the crowd". Although the ship is huge we never felt overwhelmed. We did find it odd that you could not walk totally around the ship from deck 6 as well as deck 12. This is becuase the resturaunts Azura and Mama's take up the port side of the ship. The way that Tzars resturant and Azura is set up makes it confusing to find as well.

The ship was full of families with kids. This is a wonderful ship for families. However there were too many teenagers for our liking especially in the Spinnaker Lounge which has a " policy" of anyone under the age of 18 is not allowed in after 11pm..................... not the case last Tuesday night. My husband and friends who are in our 30's felt as though we were at a high school dance. Security was very lacking in checking these kids out to see if they were of age and not caring much if they were drinking! Yes it is the parents duty to check on their kids, but we didn't see much parenting going on.

Another policy that NCL is lacking on is the pool area. There are 2 pools, 1 for kids , 1 for adults, but we saw many chidren in the adults only pool. Same as for the hot tubes, w/ 5 on board , 2 designated for adults only we saw many kids in the adults only hot tubs.

We also noticed and many have commented on was the lack of enforcing the " no jeans" policy in the resturants.

Our biggest pet peave was the 1 and only formal night. We went to dinner around 7pm to Tzars to find out that there was a hour wait, the same w/ Azura! We noticed that some of the specialty resturants were just as booked.

NCL should have anticipated this. We ended up waiting an hour and a half to go to dinner! The rest of the week you can eat at the main resturants w/ no wait.

We only ate at 2 specialty resturants. They were ok, but again being on a Celebrity ship and having great food w/ out being charged extra.............

I do recommend making your reservations as soon as you get on the ship!

Another major issue was w/ smoking. We don't smoke, and after the tragedy w/ the Princess Star, NCL seemed pretty lax in their policy w/ no smoking on the starboard side of the ship. We could smell smoke from the cabin balcony next to us from inside our cabin. We could smell people smoking while walking in the hallways on the starboard side, we even saw a guy get into an elevator w/ a lit cigarette!

Another thing was w/ bar service. Yes if you need a drink, you will have waiter after waiter ask if you need one! In fact one night in the Spinnaker everytime we were asked and said no, there was yet another waiter comming up to us to see if we needed a drink. It got annoying after awhile.

As for sneaking booze onto the ship, we had no problem. It's all in how you pack it! If you bring bottles of booze on, you will get it confiscated! We are not big drinkers, so bringing a couple of small bottles of Rum onboard was not a problem for us. And for God's sake, don't put it in your carryon! We saw lots of bottles being tagged and put in this huge container before we boarded the ship! LOL

Another thing, Celebrity offers your onboard account viewable via your cabin tv. This would be a great thing for NCL to offer! I'm not sure if any other cruise line besides Celebrity or RCL has this?

Don't get me wrong, we had a great cruise! And the ship offers tons of activities! You won't starve. We ate alot of meals at the buffet and they were fairly good. They do need to offer more drink choices though. There is only water and iced tea for those who do not purchase the soda card. I say this because of the rum we bought onboard. LOL Celebrity offerd all sorts of juices....... great for mixing drinks!

We've heard that your first cruise will always be your favorite, this is so true with us. Our first cruise was also our wedding cruise. It was a magical time.

We've just noticed some things that NCL could improve upon.

Would we cruise NCL again???, maybe............... we did like the Freestyle option. It's great not having to rush to the 6:15 or 8:15 seatings!

Maybe a smaller ship? And we will not cruise during " spring break " again! LOL

Saying this I'm laughing because we've booked a cruise on HAL Zuiderdam for Thanksgiving for my niece's wedding!

Oh and for anyone worried about the deck chairs.... calm down, there were plenty! You should get to the deck early to get a poolside chair. Other than that, as long as you got to the deck by 10:30ish you pretty much were guaranteed a spot alongside the upper deck along the pool area. I'd say past 11am you were pretty much resigned to either the front or the back of the ship. But they had more chairs then they had people!

Take this post for what's it's worth. Just my humble opinion. Celebrity spoiled us so blame it on them!

Just some things to keep an eye on, but hey it's a vacation, your going on the ship soon, and I'm not.

[electricron]

A pet peeve of mine, did it ruin your cruise to smell smoke?

While the Star Princess fire may have been started by an unattendant cigarette, has Princess actually reported that the fire was caused by one? From what I have read, they haven't.

 

As for waiting in lines for dinner at 7 pm, I'm not surprised, and you shouldn't have been either. Other cruise lines force passenger to dine at 5:30 pm or at 8:30 pm for a reason, it's impossible to sit everyone at once. NCL doesn't force its passengers to dine early or late, never-the-less, anyone with common horse sense should realise they should dine early or late if they wished to avoid long lines, not at the prime dinner hour.

[johnjrval424]

Thanks for the objective review. You mention both good and bad points. As is usually the case with anything you purchase - once you experience a certain level of luxury, it is hard to come back down. If you've purchased Velveeta Shells and Cheese, I doubt very seriously you will purchase the Kraft powder version. Same with airline seats - if you've flown 1st class, it's very hard to walk past that area to coach (and miss the perks).

 

I'm not saying that NCL isn't on par with Celebrity - most likely you paid a little more to sail on Celebrity and, likewise, you didn't have to pay extra to dine in the specialty restaurants. However, it was covered by the higher fare. As my friend in Minnesota would say, "it's a horse a piece."

 

In any event, thanks for giving us your opinion. We are sailing on the Jewel on 4/23 and are really looking forward to it. I'll be sure to post a review when I return - which I'm sure will be much too soon!

[big al]

It's amazing how different people view things...we were on Celebrity Mercury and found the NCL specialty restaurants were a TON better than the dining rooms on the Mercury...also average age was death on Celebrity,almost everybody had walkers,canes,wheelchairs....we were at the time late 40's and we were 25-35 years younger than 75% of the passengers..also,if you go during spring break,ALWAYS expect 1/3 of the passengers to be under 18..when we were on the NCL Sun in 2001(X-Mas week),there were 700-800 kids on board out of 2200....I HATE being told when to eat,what to wear,what I will eat,etc...I don't mind that at work,but on vacation,I'M THE BOSS!...we ate 4 nights in the alternative venues (Le Bistro twice,Il Adaggio,Teppanyaki) and 2 nights in the dining room...yes,Celebrity had better dining room food,but they had no dining options,no time to eat options,and only 2-3 nights were casual..I dress business 5 days a week at work in Florida's hot,humid weather,dressing formal/semi-formal 4 nights on a cruise would be like the postman on his day off he takes a walk..pretty dumb....I am booked on the Jewel Thanksgiving week and we know there will be lots of teens on board,but as my wife says,"you'll just have to tolerate looking at pretty teen girls at the pool for a week" oh well.......

[Harleycat]

<<We've heard that your first cruise will always be your favorite, this is so true with us. Our first cruise was also our wedding cruise>>

 

I have to disagree with you there. Our first cruise, our honeymoon 10/02, was on Celebrity Zenith. Memorable, yes but not our favorite. We had a much better time this past September on NCL Dawn.

 

I also agree with Big Al..the food in the Dawn's speciality restaurants was much better than the Zenith and I love having the choice of what to eat, when to eat and what to wear.

[Chewmonkey]

We're big Celebrity Fans (Century x2, Millennium x2, Horizon), and we really liked the Jewel. I think the service on Celebrity is a touch better, like 9.9 versus 10.0, and the food quality and taste is the best. But I like the selection offered on the Jewel. We ate at many of the Specialty Restaurants, and didn't mind paying $10 pp, considering we booked a minisuite AF for around $1100 pp.

 

For the bad, I think the worst thing about Celebrity is the 10% of Celebrity cruisers that think they're better than you, and the Jewel should get a Razzie Award for "Worst Location Ever for a Ping-Pong Table."

[Catbiri2]

First off, Great Review! Ok, that said. I found some wonderful conflicts (or ok, maybe just one) Besides that, great review.

 

Security was very lacking in checking these kids out to see if they were of age and not caring much if they were drinking!

Another policy that NCL is lacking on is the pool area. There are 2 pools, 1 for kids , 1 for adults, but we saw many chidren in the adults only pool. Same as for the hot tubes, w/ 5 on board , 2 designated for adults only we saw many kids in the adults only hot tubs.

We also noticed and many have commented on was the lack of enforcing the " no jeans" policy in the resturants.

 

As for sneaking booze onto the ship, we had no problem. It's all in how you pack it! *snip* I say this because of the rum we bought onboard. LOL Celebrity offerd all sorts of juices....... great for mixing drinks! *snip*

 

So, my only concern is, in your opinion, it is ok for NCL not to enforce the rules with you, but you want them to enforce them with everyone else??

 

Just curious.

 

Again, great review.

[newmexicoNita]

Hello,

 

My DH and I just came home from our 3/26 cruise on the NCL Jewel.

We had a great time.

This was our second cruise. Our first being on the Celebrity Century which we absolutely loved!

so this being our second cruise and having been spoiled on the Century here are our comments.

The overall ship was nice. We were worried that with it being a much bigger ship than the Century that we would get " lost in the crowd". Although the ship is huge we never felt overwhelmed. We did find it odd that you could not walk totally around the ship from deck 6 as well as deck 12. This is becuase the resturaunts Azura and Mama's take up the port side of the ship. The way that Tzars resturant and Azura is set up makes it confusing to find as well.

The ship was full of families with kids. This is a wonderful ship for families. However there were too many teenagers for our liking especially in the Spinnaker Lounge which has a " policy" of anyone under the age of 18 is not allowed in after 11pm..................... not the case last Tuesday night. My husband and friends who are in our 30's felt as though we were at a high school dance. Security was very lacking in checking these kids out to see if they were of age and not caring much if they were drinking! Yes it is the parents duty to check on their kids, but we didn't see much parenting going on.

Another policy that NCL is lacking on is the pool area. There are 2 pools, 1 for kids , 1 for adults, but we saw many chidren in the adults only pool. Same as for the hot tubes, w/ 5 on board , 2 designated for adults only we saw many kids in the adults only hot tubs.

We also noticed and many have commented on was the lack of enforcing the " no jeans" policy in the resturants.

Our biggest pet peave was the 1 and only formal night. We went to dinner around 7pm to Tzars to find out that there was a hour wait, the same w/ Azura! We noticed that some of the specialty resturants were just as booked.

NCL should have anticipated this. We ended up waiting an hour and a half to go to dinner! The rest of the week you can eat at the main resturants w/ no wait.

We only ate at 2 specialty resturants. They were ok, but again being on a Celebrity ship and having great food w/ out being charged extra.............

I do recommend making your reservations as soon as you get on the ship!

Another major issue was w/ smoking. We don't smoke, and after the tragedy w/ the Princess Star, NCL seemed pretty lax in their policy w/ no smoking on the starboard side of the ship. We could smell smoke from the cabin balcony next to us from inside our cabin. We could smell people smoking while walking in the hallways on the starboard side, we even saw a guy get into an elevator w/ a lit cigarette!

Another thing was w/ bar service. Yes if you need a drink, you will have waiter after waiter ask if you need one! In fact one night in the Spinnaker everytime we were asked and said no, there was yet another waiter comming up to us to see if we needed a drink. It got annoying after awhile.

As for sneaking booze onto the ship, we had no problem. It's all in how you pack it! If you bring bottles of booze on, you will get it confiscated! We are not big drinkers, so bringing a couple of small bottles of Rum onboard was not a problem for us. And for God's sake, don't put it in your carryon! We saw lots of bottles being tagged and put in this huge container before we boarded the ship! LOL

Another thing, Celebrity offers your onboard account viewable via your cabin tv. This would be a great thing for NCL to offer! I'm not sure if any other cruise line besides Celebrity or RCL has this?

Don't get me wrong, we had a great cruise! And the ship offers tons of activities! You won't starve. We ate alot of meals at the buffet and they were fairly good. They do need to offer more drink choices though. There is only water and iced tea for those who do not purchase the soda card. I say this because of the rum we bought onboard. LOL Celebrity offerd all sorts of juices....... great for mixing drinks!

We've heard that your first cruise will always be your favorite, this is so true with us. Our first cruise was also our wedding cruise. It was a magical time.

We've just noticed some things that NCL could improve upon.

Would we cruise NCL again???, maybe............... we did like the Freestyle option. It's great not having to rush to the 6:15 or 8:15 seatings!

Maybe a smaller ship? And we will not cruise during " spring break " again! LOL

Saying this I'm laughing because we've booked a cruise on HAL Zuiderdam for Thanksgiving for my niece's wedding!

Oh and for anyone worried about the deck chairs.... calm down, there were plenty! You should get to the deck early to get a poolside chair. Other than that, as long as you got to the deck by 10:30ish you pretty much were guaranteed a spot alongside the upper deck along the pool area. I'd say past 11am you were pretty much resigned to either the front or the back of the ship. But they had more chairs then they had people!

Take this post for what's it's worth. Just my humble opinion. Celebrity spoiled us so blame it on them!

Just some things to keep an eye on, but hey it's a vacation, your going on the ship soon, and I'm not.

Thanks for giving us your opinion and reviewing your week: it is true, the first is always the best: first kiss, first love, first job out of college, first trip to Vegas, no matter, there is nothing like that wonderful feeling on experiencing anything for the first time. I am not going to flame you or tear your review apart, but I do want to point a couple of things out: you are right about getting around the ship: the Sun is the same; it's a pain sometimes. As for having to wait on formal night, yep, sometimes this is the case; everyone wants to eat around 7pm and there really isn't too much that can be done about it other than advise people to eat between 6 and 6:30 or wait til after 8pm. Not only was this your second cruise but you choose one of the busiest weeks of the year and when the ship (all ships I may add) are filled with college kids. Again, you may have found your experience different had you not choosen last week: most of your concerns and negatives had to do with the time of the year, waiting to eat, kids where they don't belong and chair hogging. We found exactly the same complaints on Celebrity's Connie 2 years ago during Thanksgiving week. The difference it wasn't college kids but very young ones and yes, they were hanging out of should I say actually sleeping in the bars and lounges late at night. Food is subjective: I will not touch that as we all have our ideas on what is good. Celeberity does offer outstanding meats. Hope you don't take any of this personally as I really don't mean to pick your review apart, but did want to point out, perhaps, why you felt the way you did. NMnita

[newmexicoNita]

Thanks for the objective review. You mention both good and bad points. As is usually the case with anything you purchase - once you experience a certain level of luxury, it is hard to come back down. If you've purchased Velveeta Shells and Cheese, I doubt very seriously you will purchase the Kraft powder version. Same with airline seats - if you've flown 1st class, it's very hard to walk past that area to coach (and miss the perks).

 

I'm not saying that NCL isn't on par with Celebrity - most likely you paid a little more to sail on Celebrity and, likewise, you didn't have to pay extra to dine in the specialty restaurants. However, it was covered by the higher fare. As my friend in Minnesota would say, "it's a horse a piece."

 

In any event, thanks for giving us your opinion. We are sailing on the Jewel on 4/23 and are really looking forward to it. I'll be sure to post a review when I return - which I'm sure will be much too soon!

Just one correction to your statement: Celebrity does have a specialty restaurant (only one) and it is very expensive. As for paying more, we have cruised Celebrity twice; both times because the rates were better than RCI or NCL. Generally you are completely correct.

[newmexicoNita]

A pet peeve of mine, did it ruin your cruise to smell smoke?

While the Star Princess fire may have been started by an unattendant cigarette, has Princess actually reported that the fire was caused by one? From what I have read, they haven't.

 

As for waiting in lines for dinner at 7 pm, I'm not surprised, and you shouldn't have been either. Other cruise lines force passenger to dine at 5:30 pm or at 8:30 pm for a reason, it's impossible to sit everyone at once. NCL doesn't force its passengers to dine early or late, never-the-less, anyone with common horse sense should realise they should dine early or late if they wished to avoid long lines, not at the prime dinner hour.

I didn't mention the smoke part, but actually I think, because the balcony wall deviders are higher on NCL than Celebrity and Carnival the smoke odor is less noticable. I did hear complaints about smoke in the casino when we were on the Jewel. It was the only smoke complaint I heard and we were a group of about 50 CC friends who had met and spent hours together. NMNita

[cruisingfromMN]

Where are you Cecelia?

 

I see a one, two, three poof and and the post is gone in our future. And, in my humble opinion it should be megacruiser but you always do a good job here. I'm sure you'll figure it out. :D

 

How's the littleguy?

[Soon2bMrs]

Look,

I just posted my thoughts, I didn't mean to cause a war!

 

Now, let my clarify some things.

Yes we loved the Celebrity Century ship.It was our 1st cruise and our wedding and we had about 40 of our closests friends and family with us!

We were first a bit worried about the age of our fellow passengers... IE- close to death- LOl which wasn't the case. my nephews- 14 and 18 had some kids to hang out with. And we didn't notice any snobby people............ again I was on a wedding high so maybe nothing bothered me then.

I will take a Celebrity cruise especially on the Centruy again. I thought and so did my husband and all of our guest that the food and service were wonderful! We are by no means snobby rich people, Celebrity just happend to have the right itinerary for doing a wedding on St. John USVI!

 

Now, NCL- I DO like the dining whenever I want, wearing what I want ect!

So with that said, the night in question- the " formal" night you've got to understand where we were comming from. We thought that since most cruise lines have the specified seating times- ie- 5,6:15, 8pm AND the fact that there was a show to start at 7:30, my husband and I assumed that 7 would be a good time for dinner becuase everyone would want to be done to go to the show so the resturants would be clearing out. Yes stupid us but that's how it goes around where we live. We're pretty good at beating the crowds- also, we took a nap ealier so there! And we like to dress up from time to time! Doesn't bother us, although it does cut down on your luggage not having to schlep a suit and cocktail dress w/ you!

Our peave was that we showed up, got our pager and were told that the wait would be 40 minutes.......... ok we thought we'd go hang out at the bar or something, only about an hour later my husband went to ask how the seating looked and the girl told him that we had to wait longer as he saw many other people who showed up after us go right in for a table!

We also noticed on the resteruant TV charts that tells you how long a wait would be and also tells you what size parties. This is a really cool feature except for the fact that they seemed to seat bigger parties 4, 6 or more faster than just 2 people. That was frusterating since we had already waited a whole hour and a half at this point.

If you have a big party, I'd say your set. If it's just your spouse and you, you need to make friends to get a quicker table.

We also found some of the wait staff a little " aloof" or some may call snobby while on the Century everyone knew our names and we thiers. Just My observation.

Yes there were some slobs on the ship, but you get that anywhere you go on vacation.

The smoke was a bother since I'm allergic. The partitions on our floor deck 9 room 9044 - had slots in them. It looked as though if you know the people next to you that you could have had NCL open the partition so you can share your deck w/ your neighbor. My husband and I liked to leave our slider open and take in the fresh ocean air, only to smell smoke! Kind of a mood killer!

On the Century we splurged and had a Sky suite and were pretty much on top of the ship. So smoke didn't bother us if anyone was smoking.

Although Princess hasn't said what caused that fire, I can see how easy it would be to start one on a ship. I always assumed for all intended purposes that the Starboard side was the non-smoking side while the Port side was for smoking . Is this a wrong assumtion? I know you can't ban anyone from smoking, but why should us non-smokers have to keep thier balcony doors shut the entire cruise becuase of them?

Oh and the person who asked if we paid more, not really- I think the prices have gone up since 2004. We pretty much paid the same for a balcony cabin which was smaller. I think once you have a balcony it's hard to not have one!

Someone also posted the question about me smuggling booze on board while I wanted the kids kicked out of the nightclub. Look, I'm 37- I'm of age. In Dc, they changed the drinking age from 18 to 21 3 days before my 18th birthday! I've paid my dues! Maybe it's me, but I felt uncomfortable being in a nightclub while clearly 12 year olds are on the dancing floor in a line bumping and grinding on each other! They were practically having dry sex! If my father caught me in that club at that hour ( midnight) dancing w/ some boy w/ his hands all over me- he would have kicked my butt off the ship back home!

That's my Catholic upbrining I guess. LOL I have always been the wild one of my family and my mom was laughing when I told her how mortified I was in the nightclub that night! My how times have changed and I must be getting old!

I wasn't feeding these kids my booze. I'm just cheap and after reading all the comments on how NCL is so strict w/ it had me worried. ALSO becase of this website I was worried about the chair hogs and I saw a few! I just wanted the folks out there to know that it wasn't as bad as people have posted.

 

Now here's the response to going on a cruise during spring break.

Hello! I knew it wouldn't be that peaceful.

We were desparate to go on another cruise. Our last one was October of 2004 and we wanted to go w/ our friends again. Well life got in the way, we bought a house, I changed jobs, a cruise just didn't look like it was in the cards for us. One day our neighbors were telling us about this cruise that they had just booked, us being new crusie addicts basically invited ourselves! They booked the ship and the date. I knew it was probably close to spring break time, but figured we would just deal with it. We were overdue a vacation and just went for it! Would I go this time again?, No, I'd wait a couple of weeks when the crowds die down and of course the prices would be cheaper! And I know that peopel bring their kids w/ them. I wish we went on a cruise when I was younger- hell my parents left me home w/ my older siblings and took their first cruise on an NCL ship!

I know that it will probably be the same story when we go on a cruise during Thanksgiving week, but then again we're going w/ my family, so the more crowded the better! LOL

 

These were and are my humble opinions. Like different stokes, different ships.Some people love vanilla ice cream, I love chocolate.

We hope to try out a couple more cruise lines as we hope to cruise until we're dead! So far the Celebrity Century is our favorite- that's all. I met a woman who was going on her 22nd cruise! How awesome is that!

The NCL Jewel is a wonderful ship for being such a huge ship. You won't starve or run out of things to do. The crowds were managable. I just think that they as well as all cruise lines can learn some things from each other.

Don't read too much into this.

[Catbiri2]

Nice reply back Soon2BMrs. Thank you for returning and commenting on responses to your post.

 

Where-ever and whenever your next cruise is, I hope you enjoy it. IMO a bad cruise is still better than a good day at work. :D (and yes, I know you were not saying that your cruise was bad :) )

[cinderellen]

Soon2bMrs,

 

Loved your post and insight. My husband and I were on the Jewel during the now infamous GMA contest cruise. Anywoo, I do agree with many of your points. We also had a fabulous time but there were differences between this and our previous Celebrity Millie cruise and it did come down to customer service. And yes, I do believe we paid more but that's ok.

 

The "Ping pong table" comment killed me! I can't tell you how many times we came out of the buffet area on our way to the pool only to dodge ping pong balls!! We finally retaliated by playing a game or two!

 

As for the specialty restaurant on the Millie, we ate at the Olympic on our 25th anniversary and can tell you I will never forget the experience. Worth every penny!

[newmexicoNita]

Look,

I just posted my thoughts, I didn't mean to cause a war!

 

Now, let my clarify some things.

Yes we loved the Celebrity Century ship.It was our 1st cruise and our wedding and we had about 40 of our closests friends and family with us!

We were first a bit worried about the age of our fellow passengers... IE- close to death- LOl which wasn't the case. my nephews- 14 and 18 had some kids to hang out with. And we didn't notice any snobby people............ again I was on a wedding high so maybe nothing bothered me then.

I will take a Celebrity cruise especially on the Centruy again. I thought and so did my husband and all of our guest that the food and service were wonderful! We are by no means snobby rich people, Celebrity just happend to have the right itinerary for doing a wedding on St. John USVI!

 

Now, NCL- I DO like the dining whenever I want, wearing what I want ect!

So with that said, the night in question- the " formal" night you've got to understand where we were comming from. We thought that since most cruise lines have the specified seating times- ie- 5,6:15, 8pm AND the fact that there was a show to start at 7:30, my husband and I assumed that 7 would be a good time for dinner becuase everyone would want to be done to go to the show so the resturants would be clearing out. Yes stupid us but that's how it goes around where we live. We're pretty good at beating the crowds- also, we took a nap ealier so there! And we like to dress up from time to time! Doesn't bother us, although it does cut down on your luggage not having to schlep a suit and cocktail dress w/ you!

Our peave was that we showed up, got our pager and were told that the wait would be 40 minutes.......... ok we thought we'd go hang out at the bar or something, only about an hour later my husband went to ask how the seating looked and the girl told him that we had to wait longer as he saw many other people who showed up after us go right in for a table!

We also noticed on the resteruant TV charts that tells you how long a wait would be and also tells you what size parties. This is a really cool feature except for the fact that they seemed to seat bigger parties 4, 6 or more faster than just 2 people. That was frusterating since we had already waited a whole hour and a half at this point.

If you have a big party, I'd say your set. If it's just your spouse and you, you need to make friends to get a quicker table.

We also found some of the wait staff a little " aloof" or some may call snobby while on the Century everyone knew our names and we thiers. Just My observation.

Yes there were some slobs on the ship, but you get that anywhere you go on vacation.

The smoke was a bother since I'm allergic. The partitions on our floor deck 9 room 9044 - had slots in them. It looked as though if you know the people next to you that you could have had NCL open the partition so you can share your deck w/ your neighbor. My husband and I liked to leave our slider open and take in the fresh ocean air, only to smell smoke! Kind of a mood killer!

On the Century we splurged and had a Sky suite and were pretty much on top of the ship. So smoke didn't bother us if anyone was smoking.

Although Princess hasn't said what caused that fire, I can see how easy it would be to start one on a ship. I always assumed for all intended purposes that the Starboard side was the non-smoking side while the Port side was for smoking . Is this a wrong assumtion? I know you can't ban anyone from smoking, but why should us non-smokers have to keep thier balcony doors shut the entire cruise becuase of them?

Oh and the person who asked if we paid more, not really- I think the prices have gone up since 2004. We pretty much paid the same for a balcony cabin which was smaller. I think once you have a balcony it's hard to not have one!

Someone also posted the question about me smuggling booze on board while I wanted the kids kicked out of the nightclub. Look, I'm 37- I'm of age. In Dc, they changed the drinking age from 18 to 21 3 days before my 18th birthday! I've paid my dues! Maybe it's me, but I felt uncomfortable being in a nightclub while clearly 12 year olds are on the dancing floor in a line bumping and grinding on each other! They were practically having dry sex! If my father caught me in that club at that hour ( midnight) dancing w/ some boy w/ his hands all over me- he would have kicked my butt off the ship back home!

That's my Catholic upbrining I guess. LOL I have always been the wild one of my family and my mom was laughing when I told her how mortified I was in the nightclub that night! My how times have changed and I must be getting old!

I wasn't feeding these kids my booze. I'm just cheap and after reading all the comments on how NCL is so strict w/ it had me worried. ALSO becase of this website I was worried about the chair hogs and I saw a few! I just wanted the folks out there to know that it wasn't as bad as people have posted.

 

Now here's the response to going on a cruise during spring break.

Hello! I knew it wouldn't be that peaceful.

We were desparate to go on another cruise. Our last one was October of 2004 and we wanted to go w/ our friends again. Well life got in the way, we bought a house, I changed jobs, a cruise just didn't look like it was in the cards for us. One day our neighbors were telling us about this cruise that they had just booked, us being new crusie addicts basically invited ourselves! They booked the ship and the date. I knew it was probably close to spring break time, but figured we would just deal with it. We were overdue a vacation and just went for it! Would I go this time again?, No, I'd wait a couple of weeks when the crowds die down and of course the prices would be cheaper! And I know that peopel bring their kids w/ them. I wish we went on a cruise when I was younger- hell my parents left me home w/ my older siblings and took their first cruise on an NCL ship!

I know that it will probably be the same story when we go on a cruise during Thanksgiving week, but then again we're going w/ my family, so the more crowded the better! LOL

 

These were and are my humble opinions. Like different stokes, different ships.Some people love vanilla ice cream, I love chocolate.

We hope to try out a couple more cruise lines as we hope to cruise until we're dead! So far the Celebrity Century is our favorite- that's all. I met a woman who was going on her 22nd cruise! How awesome is that!

The NCL Jewel is a wonderful ship for being such a huge ship. You won't starve or run out of things to do. The crowds were managable. I just think that they as well as all cruise lines can learn some things from each other.

Don't read too much into this.

I don't think any of us meant to attack you. You gave your opinions which is what these boards are about. I did question a few of your statements as I would not totally agree with you, and as I said; 1st cruises are the best. It was the other responder that we are taking to taske for tackie, unkind and totally wrong statements. You love Celebrity: guess what? I too like Celebrity, but I also feel many Celebrity loyalist are snobs and I have been on Celebrity ships that make the Jewel look like the diamond at sea. NMNIta

[holomuku]

Okay, I've got to chime in here--

 

since 2001 we've done 5 Celebrity cruises, 2 on RCCL, 1 each on Windstar, Costa and Princess--(yup, got the bug....almost worse than norovirus!)

 

on our last X cruise (Dec, 2005) we had a tablemate that (I swear, I could NOT believe this) brought his scotch bottle to the table every night in a brown paper bag. He then proceeded to berate the poor waiter until he had a "small" water glass to make himself a scotch and water. I am one of those that feels it's okay to drink your own liquor in your own room (just my opinion) - but I mean-- in the dining room? In a brown paper bag??? puhleeze!

 

My only regret (well, not only- the guy was SUCH a jerk) was that X security/dining staff/whatever didn't confront this guy. In addition to doing this he knew everything about everything- just in case you have any questions about anything on this planet and need an answer-- let me know-- I'll give you his email!

 

and yes, we're seriously considering an NCL cruise this Dec. Freestyle dining is looking pretty darn good after spending 11 nights with this character. (and yes, we could have changed tables- however the other couple at the table were absolutely lovely Canadians and we didn't want them to have the impression that all Americans are this crass nor did we want them stuck with him for the whole cruise.)...and we enjoyed visiting with them. It became almost comical as a "race" every night to NOT sit next to Mr. Scotch...Mrs. Scotch, as we called her, was okay if very shy or soft-spoken or ?? She said very little. If I found myself in this situation again, I'd get the other couples cabin # the first night, give them a ring and see if they wanted to change tables along with us. This was the first time in our 5 X cruises we had this experience...and boy, once was enough! We've had fabulous tablemates every other cruise so I guess it was our turn, so to speak.

 

I've been dealing with the traveling public for 28 years- believe me, class is not defined by price paid or line sailed. Just MHO.....and experience.

[Hikini]

Holomuku, your post really made me laugh - about Mr. Scotch who knows EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING. My brothers sister in law is the same way. Wouldn't it be great to have her seated at the same table as Mr. Scotch? On the other hand, the ship may explode!

 

Have fun! I love cruising!

 

Hikini:D

[Markandrews]

On the Century we splurged and had a Sky suite and were pretty much on top of the ship.

 

You should have "splurged" for an AA suite on the Jewel and you would have been offered perks that Celebrity does not even offer.

 

AA's are on the front of the ship and you would not have smelled smoke on EITHER of your balcony's.

 

You would have used a lounge, sun-deck with pool and hot tub and small gym that only a handful of passengers have access too.

 

You would have been entitled to all the soft drinks and water you could drink for 7 days at NO COST.

 

There would have been a special section just for you and a few other suites in the Stardust lounge. No servers would have bothered you in this section.

 

You would have had a concierge that made sure you walked right in to the main dining rooms, even on formal night.

 

Best of all you would have been given three large bottles of the liquor of your choice and not needed to be concerned with the hassles of smuggling your own on board.

 

As an NCL loyalist even I would choose a suite on Celebrity over a standard balcony on the Jewel.

 

Be prepared for the Zuiderdam, not only is the main dining room food, (IMHO) of a lower quality then Celebrity and NCL, they also tell you when you will eat it. Make your Pinnacle grill reservations early.

[dc106]

My family and I were on the Jewel the week before Soon2bMrs, and I gotta say that as far as first impressions of NCL go, mine isn't that different.

 

First, I'll cover the other cruises we've been on - 2 RCCL and 1 Carnival. Of those two lines, RCCL was by far the best. Personally, I can't stand Carnival, and don't intend on cruising with them again. Both RCCL cruises were excellent all around, and our next one will likely be back with them.

 

On to NCL. The bad:

 

1. Food/Dining Room Service - We had reservations at Tsar's every night we were there so we did avoid the wait problems that Soon2bMrs had. Of the nights we did eat there (all but one), the food left a little something to be desired (very small menu, as well). There were good desserts a couple of nights, but other than that, the food was nothing special. Note that it wasn't just my family that is of that opinion, there were 13 people in our group, and that was pretty much the consensus. Additionally, the service in all of the restaurants we were in wasn't very good for the most part (we had one or two outstanding Jr waiters over the course of the week). The service in Mama's was by far the worst on the ship. The Maitre D was just rude each time we went there for some reason. Who knows, maybe we did something to offend her. We suspect that the difference in hospitatilty in the dining rooms between RCCL and NCL has something to do with the fact they charge you a base tip / day on NCL which guarantees them money, but that is just speculation on our part.

 

2. I agree that the bar staff comes around way too often. We must have been hit up by 7 - 10 waiters asking us if we wanted drinks before each show.

 

3. Having to tender at each port -that just sucks. I read somewhere that NCL does this to avoid the extra charge to dock, not sure if that is true or not, but if it is, it's just cheap. Anyway, the only places we actually docked were Roatan (only till noon, after which we had to tender back to the ship) and Nassau (they switched the private island stop to Nassau on the last day because of rough seas around the private island). Docking in Nassau the whole day was a welcome change. Tendering in Jamaica just about annoyed the crap out of me, since we had to ride the lifebots past the Costa and Carnival boats that were actually docked there. I'll do more research on this before our next cruise to try and choose an cruise line/itinierary that allows us to dock more.

 

The good:

 

1. We did eat at Mama's a few nights around 10:00, and the main courses were pretty good, and they had *outstanding* cheesecake. Additionally, a few people in our group ate at the steakhouse, and said the steak was excellent. Wish we had as well, just ran out of time.

 

2. Our cabin steward. He was very nice, and did a very good job.

 

3. Kids club. We had our 10 year old daughter with us, and she loved every minute she was in kids club. The staff there was exceptional.

 

4. The shows. I'll give NCL this, the shows were the best of any cruise we've been on, primarily the Cirque BiJu <or whatever the name is> show. Hope they keep that one a while so others can enjoy it. If anyone is going on the Jewel soon, get there early and sit somewhere in the middle in the first 7-8 rows. You won't be disappointed!

 

5. The cabin. We've stayed in pretty much the same class on each ship, usually just a regular 3-person inside cabin (we did get an outside cabin on one trip), so I can make an objective comparison here. The NCL room was one of the best, which may have something to do with it being a new ship, who knows. We were on deck 4, which was nice and quiet, and we didn't move around that much in rough seas (at least not as much as the person in our group who was staying on deck 10).

 

Anyway, this is just my opinion, and overall, we did have fun, I was just a little disappointed in my NCL experience. I thnk in my mind I'd built it up to be more than it was after reading all of the postings in this forum before we sailed. That being said, I agree with Catbiri2, a bad cruise (again, this was not a bad cruise, just disappointing) is still better than a good day at work.

 

The ping pong table location comment cracked me up too. Actually, both tables were in horrible spots. The table outside of the buffet is lucky to have that windscreen there, at least they still had balls to hit people walking by. The table a couple of decks down on an open side of the ship lost it's ball before we even left port. There were occasional wind gusts in port in Miami, and one of em caught a ball and took it over the side while I was down there watching a game prior to departure. Pretty funny thing to watch, along with the look of suprise on the kid's face :).

[newmexicoNita]

As always it is good to hear both sides of the coin and yours was very fair. As for tendering, this has nothing to do with the cruise line, but rather the ports. My guess in regards to Jamaica is, the dock can only handle 2 ships and Costa plus Carnival beat NCL to them. Always the private islands have to be tendered. Both times we have sailed RCI we have missed the private island cause the water was too rough to tender. As for the cocktail wait staff, we too have had a few sailings where they come around constantly before the show, but never after it starts like happened to us on Zenith last December.

 

Of course food is very subjective: we have found it to be pretty much the same on all lines. Again, being a travel agent I read every board, every day: some more thoughly than others. Just today I read on Celebrity gripes about their new menu, saying the food has gone downhill. Looks like, since January several lines have come out with new menus. We will be sailing the Sun in 10 days: i will be anxious to see how the food is. On our Jewel cruise I would rate the food a 6 or 7 out of 10. We had a couple entrees that were really bad, but most were average or above with the specialty restaurants being outstanding. I am not going to say better than Celebrity but as good and much less expensive. I will spend $15 or so for a specialty restaurant after paying for my cruise, but $30-$35 that is pushing it a bit.

 

The ping pong table comments made me giggle a little as well. I guess cause this is nit picking in my view, but everyone has his own feeling.

 

Again, thanks for your honest opinion.

[madelinerose]

Carnival also has interactive tv. ;)

 

. Another thing, Celebrity offers your onboard account viewable via your cabin tv. This would be a great thing for NCL to offer! I'm not sure if any other cruise line besides Celebrity or RCL has this?

[electricron]

I've read NCL was working on getting interactive TV too. It's been delayed because the vendor went bankrupted.

 

Hopefully, NCL can find another vendor who will carry the project through to completion.

[newmexicoNita]

I've read NCL was working on getting interactive TV too. It's been delayed because the vendor went bankrupted.

 

Hopefully, NCL can find another vendor who will carry the project through to completion.

this would be a great service: we always keep tract when staying in a hotel. Celebrity may offer it on some sailings but did not on the Zenith last Dec. I hope NCL does add it soon. NMNita

[jon46]

Looking to sail on the jewel in Dec if I get the time off. Will know in about three weeks. Was on the Disney criuse line and on the pirate night which I was looking foward to the smoke on the pool deck was so bad that my wife had to leave and go back to the cabin, so that ruined the night for the two of us. So for us non smokers the smoking problum can be bad no matter which line you sail on. And DCL is a lot more expenive then NCL. John