Back from the NCL Jewel - May 17 sailing

[ehogan]

I've posted my review of this sailing in the Members section, if anyone has any questions, I'll try to answer.

[acruise4me]

Thanks! I cannot find your review. Where is it posted specifically? How did you tour St. Petersburg?

[ehogan]

Look under Reviews - Member Reviews, Norwegian Cruise Lines, Norwegian Jewel. It is the "Baltic cruise - ehogan"

 

We toured St. Petersburgh using the Ship Excursions - we were quite happy with the excursions, guides on each day were good (first day - Anatoly) and excellent (second day - Nina). Both of the tours were an OK size - about 30 each day and the only thing that was disappointing was the quality of the lunches. Both of our guides were quite aggressive and were successful in getting us into the venues quickly, but we did arrive earlier than the excursions from some other ships. We did see some small tour groups get to the front of the line before the larger groups but these were groups of about 4 to eight people.

 

We did overhear some passengers who took the private tours say they were very happy with them - we did not want to spend the extra money for the private tours and were happy with our decision.

[Pasty]

Hi there. can you tell me which tours you did with NCL in St Petersburg, we can't decide but, want to see as much as we can. Is there a lot of walking or are they mainly coach based?? Lastly are there toilets on the coaches or if not are they plentiful at the "sights"!!!???:)

[Pasty]

Sorry, forgot to ask, I've had lots of conflicting advice on the different currencies. Some say only euros & dollars needed others all the different currencies for each port!! Can you advise me on this? Also, are the other ports easy to do on your own, this is what we are planning. Many thanks.:confused:

[ehogan]

In St. Petersburg, we did the ship excursions "Imperial St. Petersburg" and "St. Catherine's Palace(Pushkin) and the Hermitage". Both were coach based and there was not too much walking, but there could be a significant amount of time standing in line. We were fairly lucky, I think, because it was early in the season and there were only one or two cruise ships in port. I am not sure about the toilets on the buses, I don't recall seeing any. They do give you bathroom breaks but they are not frequent.

 

You can do Stockholm Helsinki and Tallin on your own, there is a shuttle (pay) in Helsinki. Our ship did not provide shuttles in Tallin or Stockholm and both require walks of about 20 to 30 minutes to get into the Old Town. I did not see that there were taxis available in Stockholm or Tallin, but then we were not really looking for them. You would need to be quite fit to walk the distance to Stockholm's Gamla Stan.

 

Re currencies - in Russia, most street vendors did accept Euros and U.S. dollars, but not all. The souvenier shop we used accepted Visa. You probably won't have time to do much shopping in St. Petersburg, we found using Euros for the few (book) souveniers we purchased worked well.

 

In the other countries, I got about $50 worth of local currency before we left (Swedish, Danish kroner, Euro) and used Visa for a few larger purchases. If you want to have coffee or a meal, it would be advisable to have local currency - e.g. fast food places only accepted local currency.

[Pasty]

Thank you very much for your helpful information. One last thing is the Freestyle 2.0 up and running on Jewel? :confused:

[acruise4me]

How bad was the norovirus?

[ehogan]

I think Freestyle was up and running but it is not all that impressive, we did receive a glass of champagne on entry, the bedding is quite nice and looks like it has been upgraded. We did not dine in the main dining room more than three times, so I gues we missed the lobster. Lobster is available in the alternate dining rooms, but there is a surcharge of about $10. Can't say that I am that impressed if that is Freestyle.

 

Re the norovirus - I understand there were about 60 passengers affected and precautions were being taken about 5 days into the cruise. They seemed to be pretty on top of it - any passengers affected were quarantiened for at least 3 days; buffet service was suspended - all food was dished out by staff, no salt and pepper shakers on tables and staff at all food entrances and entrance to the ship on the gangway were armed with disinfectant sprays for passengers.

 

Unfortunately, there are always some people who refuse to help by following the rules - there was a family on tour with us who were all sick with colds, upon coming back to the ship, the Dad refused to allow the crew member to spray his hands saying "I'll do it when I get to my cabin".