Jewel Western Med Review July 9-16, 2017

Long review, no pictures. Sorry!

This cruise was out of Rome and visited Corsica (Ajaccio), Cannes, Barcelona, Majorca, and Sardinia (Cagliari). We were two adult friends with our kids (both 8).

Overall, this was a great cruise. For the most part, staff was great and the ship and ports were terrific.

We used Rome Cabs to get to/from the pier (we also used them for airport to our AirBNB in Rome). They were on time all 3 times, clean vehicles, safe drivers, highly recommended. Per my request, they brought booster seats for the kids. I also liked that I could prepay via PayPal so I didn't have to carry as much cash.

Boarding in Civitavecchia was easy. We arrived around 12:15 and lines were minimal. We got on board and went to Windjammer for lunch. They had said rooms would be ready at 1:30 but they announced they were open shortly after 1pm.

We had cabins 1148 and 1150. These are the new deck 11 cabins. The cabins looked great, really nice. My one complaint on design was that they didn't put any power outlets near the bed, which would have seemed like an obvious thing to add when building new cabins. Like many people, I use my phone as an alarm and like to surf the web at night so this was a minor inconvenience. We were happy that we were able to have the balcony divider open between cabins. It appears they all open on the 11th floor.

I will say if you are a light sleeper, these rooms may not be for you. The guests' ages on this cruise skewed younger and there was a lot of late evening and early morning running on the track on floor 12. Bam bam bam overhead! I was able to sleep through most of it but it woke my friend up early almost every morning. I loved the location near the pool, Windjammer, and the kids club, and having the quiet of a short hallway with only a handful of cabins, but for those light sleepers who like to sleep in, maybe not. For me, rarely taking crowded elevators and having the calm of our isolated hallway outweighed the runners.

Our room attendant was Iskandar Muin and he did a terrific job. Everything was always clean and he made towel animals for the kids most nights. He was in and out whenever we left and got things done for us so fast. A+.

We never went to MDR as I hate the crowds and have never liked the MDR food. We did Windjammer twice for dinner when we just wanted a light snack and it was fine. We ate at Chops twice, Giovanni's twice, and Izumi's twice (once for dinner and once for lunch). At Chops, Ionel from Romania was our waiter. He was really terrific. He also fixed my bill saving me a visit to guest services (I had paid full price for the kids online to get the reservation and was planning to visit GS to get the difference in price reimbursed, but he took care of it for both Chops and Giovanni's), which was greatly appreciated. He remembered the kids when he saw them around the boat and just generally really went out of his way to be helpful. Basically the kind of service I'm used to on Disney but have often felt was lacking on RCI.

In terms of food, the specialty restaurants were fine, but not amazing. My favorite was Giovanni's, my friend preferred Chops, and my 8 year old loved stuffing his face with raw salmon in Izumi, so no clear consensus on preference. Admittedly, we had just spent 4 nights in Rome so nothing was really going to impress us after all the amazing food we had there! Generally, the specialty restaurants were less crowded on this cruise than on past ones. We had booked in advance but we would have had no problem getting in anywhere on this cruise.

We did Windjammer for breakfast each day. It was a zoo. Food was often cold. Go with the omelette station here if you want a hot breakfast.

Since everyone asks, yes they had the beef sandwiches in the Solarium. My son said they were the best food on the boat. Also had pizza, cookies and other sandwiches.

The ship did seem to run out of things as the week went on. Fruit selection got worse in Windjammer. They ran out of strawberry daiquiri mix (the kids were drinking the virgin ones). On our last day we were told at lunch at Izumi that the ship was out of sparkling water (but we got some that night in Giovanni's so maybe our Izumi server just didn't want to get it).

Different glasses of wine were served in different places. It was inconsistent as to whether we were charged the difference between the package and the price shown when we selected wine over $12. Since the wines by the glass are grossly overpriced, I find it incredibly irritating to have them add the difference.

Internet was slow but better than it was on Explorer last year (when it was supposedly Voom). I had the Surf and Stream package and still had apps time out and give me a "slow internet connection" message. I could not view any videos online (so no "stream") but it was mostly ok for email (sometimes it took a while to send if I attached a picture - once I attached 3 pics and selected smallest size possible for the photos and it took nearly 2 hours to send that). It was fine for basic email and Facebook.

As for dress, some people dressed up, some people did not. I don't care what other people wear but since people often ask, I mention it. We're mostly lazy sundress people on vacation. The kids wore shorts to the specialty restaurants. No issues. We did try to pair them with polo shirts but may not have managed that every night. Sorry if we offended anyone!

Overall, the ship looked great. There was plenty for the kids to do without all the bells and whistles, particularly because this was port intensive. They liked the slide a lot, but weren't big fans of the crowded saltwater pool. The ship was well maintained and we saw staff working on upkeep during the week. The only other ships of comparable passenger load that I have been on are the Disney Magic and the Disney Wonder. It felt more crowded than those but less crowded than, for example, the Explorer which we did last year and felt super cramped.

I went to the spa on our sea day for a massage. I arrived 10 mins early expecting to do robes like a regular spa. They don't do that. They just take you to the "relaxation room" which has bright orange carpet with hot pink swirls. My eyes!!!! Probably the least relaxing room on the boat. The spa staff were a little dismissive but the massage was great. They did try to sell me products at the end but it wasn't a hard sell.

As for ports:

Cannes was our first stop. We had planned to go into Nice but after a busy vacation in London and Rome for the week or so prior, the kids were tired so we decided to stay in Cannes. We wandered down Rue Meyandier, took photos on the red carpet and pretended we were movie stars, let the kids ride the cool double decker carousel, and then went to Croisette beach. This was where we discovered the (new to us) magic of the overpriced beach clubs. We rented some sunbeds with umbrellas and were soon happily watching the kids splash in the waves while we relaxed in comfort and were served wine and snacks. Lots of waves on the beach, big enough to knock the sunglasses off my face when I was standing knee deep, which was fun for the kids to play in (and amazingly I stepped on my sunglasses in the water an hour later so they weren't lost!). Cannes was definitely expensive for this but we felt it was worth it.

Ajaccio, Corsica - we had originally planned to walk around town and then head to the public beach, but decided to do a little Internet research for a beach club after our fun in Cannes. We found Neptune Beach which was not far from port. We had read a review that said show up early if you want a sunbed and don't have a reservation so after wandering around town a little we caught a taxi out there (€20) around 10:30am. It's a smaller place, only a couple rows of sunbeds. No fluent English speakers when we arrived but between what they knew and my minimal French we were able to work it out and got sunbeds. We had lunch in the restaurant, which was fantastic - one of the best meals I had all week. At lunch they also had English speaking staff. The staff here were wonderful. When it was time to go, no taxis would come and they arranged for someone there to take us back to the port (we paid him the same price we paid the taxi). Really a great day. Beautiful calm, clear beach. A little area offshore that had some fish for snorkeling (nothing super exciting but still fun to find some bigger fish). My favorite stop. Wish the cruise hadn't left so early.

Barcelona - my friend booked a private tour of Barcelona highlights. Not sure of the company. The guide was very good with the adults, less so with the kids. She was nice to them but didn't have anything specifically for them (in contrast we visited Pompeii before the cruise with See Amalfi Coast and they set us up with a Pompeii guide who showed up fully prepared with kids activities and "treasure" for them to hunt). Nice day for the adults, less so for the kids.

Mallorca - after Barcelona, the kids elected to stay in the kids club. So we took the cruise shuttle (€8 round trip, cash only) into town. It dropped us near the cathedral. We spent a lovely day shopping and drinking wine in the old town area. Very walkable, lots of pedestrian only areas. Was nicest in late morning while many areas were still in the shade, very hot later.

Sardinia - we took a taxi (€20) to Emerson Beach Club on Poetto Beach. We reserved sunbeds in the first row (be sure to specifically request umbrellas and which "line" of sunbeds you want) the day before via email. We were very glad we booked in advance as we were able to get the first line of loungers closest to the water and people who arrived later without a reservation were back in row 6. Clear water and great for kids as it was shallow quite a ways out. It was very windy though. We were able to order food and wine to our sunbeds. Nice relaxing day.

One additional thing to keep in mind, especially for those doing private tours, if it says the ship docks at 12, that means they won't clear until closer to 12:30. If it says it leaves at 8, the all aboard time will be 7:30, and if you need to get a shuttle, the last one will leave as early as 90 mins before the departure time. It really cuts into your day. On Disney, 12-8 typically means you are off the ship at 12 and don't have to be back on until 8, but on this cruise it really felt like RCI was shortening the port times over what was advertised. For example, we were supposed to leave Majorca at 4pm but the last shuttle left town at 2:30pm. Maybe common for RCI but I had never noticed it before. Something to keep in mind.

Disembarkation was easy. WE had to be out of rooms by 8am. We were originally assigned a 7:15 departure but were able to easily move this to 8:45 by visiting guest services. One thing is they claimed we had to go to meeting area first due to local authority requirements but this wasn't enforced. We went straight from breakfast to walking off and so did many others.

Hope this has been helpful. Feel free to ask any questions. I did not save cruise compasses or other literature as my suitcase was already too heavy!

I'm off on this cruise next weekend so really appreciate your detailed review. Thanks for taking the time to post it.

On thing I was wondering about is I think they have a screen on deck to show films in the evening? If so are they recent releases or older films?

Sorry just realised if you are from the US you call them movies!

We had cabins 1148 and 1150. These are the new deck 11 cabins....We were happy that we were able to have the balcony divider open between cabins. It appears they all open on the 11th floor.

I will say if you are a light sleeper, these rooms may not be for you. The guests' ages on this cruise skewed younger and there was a lot of late evening and early morning running on the track on floor 12. Bam bam bam overhead!

Thank you very much for your review. I'm on this sailing in Sept and will also do a review.:D

Just a note on your cabins... very rare to see information here on CC on those new deck 11 cabins. If you have any photos (inside, hallways, views from cabin, etc) you should post them for other CC'ers. There have been a couple of threads in the past asking about them with very little info other than an assumption of noise from the running track which you have confirmed! :o

I'm off on this cruise next weekend so really appreciate your detailed review. Thanks for taking the time to post it.

On thing I was wondering about is I think they have a screen on deck to show films in the evening? If so are they recent releases or older films?

Sorry just realised if you are from the US you call them movies!

They do have a screen in the pool area and show movies. A lot of the time when we were in that area it was a lot of what looked like YouTube videos (I'm sure they weren't actually that, but things like compilations of funny animals, or people doing stunts either successfully or not, that kind of junk). They also showed fairly recent releases - Lego Batman and La La Land for example.

Thank you very much for your review. I'm on this sailing in Sept and will also do a review.:D

Just a note on your cabins... very rare to see information here on CC on those new deck 11 cabins. If you have any photos (inside, hallways, views from cabin, etc) you should post them for other CC'ers. There have been a couple of threads in the past asking about them with very little info other than an assumption of noise from the running track which you have confirmed! :o

I did not take pictures unfortunately. The noise from above was a minor annoyance, but I would stay in these cabins again. The couple times I walked down hallways on other floors with tons of cabins, carts everywhere, people talking, etc, I felt grateful for the serenity of our little quiet (other than the track) hallway!

Glad you had a great cruise!

We board JOS on Sunday and are in 'your' stateroom. Thanks for breaking it in! Hope our cruise is as fun as your cruise seems to have been!

We board JOS on Sunday and are in 'your' stateroom. Thanks for breaking it in! Hope our cruise is as fun as your cruise seems to have been!

I'm so jealous! Wish I was leaving again on Sunday! Have a fantastic time!