CCL Jubilee 7-24 review

[sportsterjohn]

We are a couple from Atlanta who are around 40. We traveled with our 3 children, ages 7, 11 and 13. The cruise was a 5 day trip leaving Jax and stopping in Key West and Nassau. This was our 4th cruise in the past 18 months, however this is the 1st time we brought the kids. I will break things down into section and try to describe both the good and the bad in each section.

 

Ship condition in general: The Jubilee is an old, smaller ship. If you are aware of this going into the cruise, then you will not be dissapointed. If you try to compare it to a new megaship, it will come up far short. The ship did show alot of signs of wear and tear, ex alot of stains on the carpets, older furniture in the rooms etc. The public and pool areas were in good upkeep. Even though it is a smaller ship, there are still 2.5 pools and plenty of places to hang out, I don't believe that you will be bored (although it does help if you like to spend hours at a time in the casino!)

 

Boarding: CCl and the Jax port are very efficient. Our shuttle van from the Holiday inn dropped us off right in front of the terminal building about noon. After having our ID checked a few times we got in the check in line. There were only 2 people in front of us so we were in line for less that 5 min.

 

Rooms: We paid for 2 inside 4A gty rooms and both were upgraded to 6b outside rooms. As I mentioned, the carpets etc were old but the rooms are very large for a cruise ship. 186sq ft. It is nice when compared to some of the 120sq ft rooms I have been in before. There is not a fridge or hair dryer in the room but there is a safe. The only complaint about the rooms is that the bed mattresses were rock hard.

 

Service: Our room attendant is names Valentina. She was very efficient. They clean the room in the morning and do a turn down service in the evening. They left towel animals on most of the days. Our waiters were not real personable but they were quick and efficient. I have no compaints there. Although I do like to joke around with people etc, I am satisfied with any waiter who keeps my glass full and the food coming! We ordered room service coffee every morning of the cruise. They answered the phone quickly (on 1 cruise I actually got a busy signal for a solid hour!) and usually had the coffee up within 15 min. The only room service problem was one night we decided to eat in the cabins and ordered sandwiches for everyone. They did screw the order up a bit but we eventually got it fixed.

 

Food: The food was real good. I am basically a steak, chicken and pizza eater so I can't tell you much about the fancy food. The entrees that I really enjoyed were the filet mignon, weiner schintzel (breaded veal), turkey and prime rib. My wife said the lobster tail was very good. They also have a kids menu. The Lido deck has a lunch buffet every day as well as breakfast. Breakfast was good including the made to order omlettes. The lunch buffet was opened 3-4 hrs a day so we never had to wait longer then 5 min to eat. We also never had a problem finding a clean table. They had burgers, hot dogs and usually 2 other meats for lunch. They also had a lot of various types of salads. They had coffee, water, ice and hot tea, lemonaide, apple juice and fruit punch to drink for free. The coffee on the ship was the best I have ever had on a cruise.

 

Fellow Passengers: Since this cruise was during the middle of summer, there were alot of families with school aged kids. There were also a number of younger couples. I saw very few senior citizens. The kids eithor were fairly well behaved or I have acclimated to rowdy kids. I didn't notice kids being too rowdy too often. Now those senior citizens on the other hand.... Only kidding. Unlike most short cruises, this one did not seem to be a booze cruise. I did not see anyone drunk enough to stand out, nor did I see any fights over chairs, theater seats or buffet line cutting.

 

Entertainment: I am not a fan of the dancing / singing shows and the comedians usually didn't perform till midnight so I only went to 1 show. The magician / juggler show. The magic show wasn't too good but the juggler was very good. My kids told me that the late night magic show with the same guy was alot better. My youngest actually got to get on stage and do a trick with the magician.

Ports: We made both ports on time. Both ports were docks so we didn't have to deal with tendering. In Key West we went on a scuba / snorkle trip with Captains Corner. It is about a 5 min walk from the dock. I dove and the rest of the family snorkled. The dives were both shallow, 35ft but the reefs were high enough up so the snorklers could see alot. I didn't see much down there other than typical reef fish. We had about an hour of bottom time at each place. Visability was about 50 ft. In Nassau, we went to blue lagoon island with the stingray thing. If you have small kids who will get a thrill out of string rays, the tour may be ok but if you don't, don't waste your money. CCL advertising the tour as a stingray and snorkle tour. What they don't tell you is that you can only use the snorkle gear when you are at the stingray pen. If you want to snorkle at the swimming beach you have to rent snorkle gear for $15 pp. If your main goal at nassau is to snorkle, book a private excursion.

Disembarkment: They start letting people off at 8ish. Since we drove to port, we were the last color called. You can wait anywhere on deck 8 or 9 till your color is called. I prefer NCL which allows you to stay in your room. We ended up getting off the ship about 10:30. It took about 30 min to get through customs and get to our shuttle to get back to the hotel.

 

Overall impressions: If you are expecting a high class, upscale cruise, the Jubilee will not be for you. If you are looking for a relaxing short getaway and can over look a little wear and tear, you should enjoy the cruise.

I think this cruise is also good for an affordable family vacation. My kids loved the ship (especially the game room). They spent a little time but not much in camp carnival. They did do the optional /extra fee all night party which they said they liked. The casino is tiny however it is still efficient at taking your money. The pools are shallow 3.5ft, 4 ft and a 1ft baby pool. We were always able to find deck chairs (even on sea days), the water slide was always open during posted hours. The 24hr pizza was not good but the coffee was excellent. If taking all the kids we would do a jubilee class ship again for the price and the fact that Jax is only a 6hr drive, however for just my wife and I, we would spend the extra money and take a newer ship.

[Vidimom]

Thanks for the great review. Just one question, who was the Cruise Director? I heard Chris Jefferson was on the Jubilee now, just trying to confirm it.

 

Thanks!

[sportsterjohn]

It is Chris

[Beth]

SportsterJohn by any chance did you get the cruise pins that say Jubilee on them for past carnival cruisers? I am interested in one I will buy or trade for the pins I have. Thank you.. Beth my email address is teacher 47@aol.com

[teedee]

Hi Sportsterjohn - We enjoyed our cruise a lot and I pretty much agree with everything you said. We also stayed at the Holiday pre-cruise and took the shuttle. We were probably waiting outside for the shuttle at the same time you were. If you noticed a party of 8, that was us. We waited for the next shuttle so we could all ride to the pier together, we got there around 12:30 or so. I've only sailed on Carnival's older ships so I didn't have anything newer to compare it to. I saw your son during the midnight magic show! If you went to any bingo games I was one of the people who won on the second day! Great way to start out the cruise! I also won a ship on a stick (genuine 24 carat gold plastic!) that I will always treasure.

 

Glad you had a good time, I know we did. I wish there were more cruising options out of Jacksonville, it's such an easy drive for us.

Terri

[sportsterjohn]

As far as the magic show, the kids snuck off to that thinking we were asleep! I don't really remember a party of 8 outside but then again, I was only outside for a sec. While they were loading our stuff in the shuttle, I was putting stuff in my car. They are redoing the Jax cruiseship area so they may be able to have some more ships there in the comming years. For me, Charleston and Jax are the 2 closest ports although Mobile isn't too bad of a drive eithor. I didn't play any bingo, I was probably too busy losing in the casino!

[sportsterjohn]

sorry, I did not get any pins. The only thing I collect and save from my cruises other than pictures is my room key / S&S card.