Live from the Jewel 12/18 Eastern Caribbean

This is our 2nd cruise and 2nd with RCI.

The last cruise was with Explorer in Oct. 2003 and it was our honeymoon.

Though it is little late, this is our first anniversary.

My wife is 20's and myself is 30's both are originally from Japan.

This trip is for our vacation in our 9-month stay in the U.S. for my business.

Because of my poor English I think I cannot be a good writer as Mel was.

(Mel is the author of Live from the Jewel 12/12.)

But I would like to try to make it readable.

-Day 0(Pre cruise stay at Amerisuite Ft. Lauderdale Plantation)

Our pre-cruise stay is at Amerisuite Ft. Lauderdale Plantation.

This hotel is too good for the price (69-79) except for their shuttle service.

<Facility and Amenity>

Everything is clean and neat here.

Our room has full kitchen with refrigerator and microwave.

Full sofa, dining table for 4. and of course it has a hair dryer.

<Local Stores/Restaurant>

There are Target (super store), a huge indoor mall including Dillard's, Sears, J.C.Penny, restaurants such as TGI Friday and many banks!

You can buy any things you need for a cruise from formal dress to cheap($1) beach sandals here.

<Internet Connection>

The hotel has broadband free wireless Internet connection. This is great. Now I am writing this from here.

<Shuttle Service>

They have free shuttle service from/to the airport and from/to the port.

This free shuttle service sounds good but we had a problem with it.

We had to wait for two hours for the shuttle at the airport.

We were standing outside for two hours.

They said it was because of the traffic.

If we knew that we were going to wait for such a long time, we had caught a cab or shared shuttle service even if we had to pay.

We were told the shuttle takes for 15 to 20 minutes to come so we waited.

This was disappointing.

T.V. news says this weekend is the busiest because of the holiday gift rash,

so it might be unusual but I have read some reviews which include some complain about shuttle service.

<Conclusion>

After all, in my opinion, if you do not expect too much for free shuttle or if you are lucky enough this hotel is one of the best choice for pre-cruise stay.

Well, I am not sure if I can successfully connect to the Internet from my stateroom tomorrow (Opps, it is today!), hopefully I will update this thread after aboard.

But, please forgive me if I fail to update.

Thanks for your reading.

Thanks for taking the time to write. I hope you have a wonderful cruise. Sorry your shuttle service was so tardy; hope ours in a couple of weeks is better.

Enjoy your vacation, Judy

Kage, don't worry about your English! It's very good. Enjoy your honeymoon, and if you do have time to post, that'll be great! If not, I understand!

Kage.. thanks for the post. You must be getting anxious right now to board the Jewel. Have a great cruise :)

hey trixiee...not too long for you now. Will be anxious to hear how goodml did on her cruise...... eh!

Emmy

Hi, Judie and Trixie.

Thanks for your message.

I could not sleep well last night because I am so exited about the cruise!

We had free breakfast of the hotel. It was also nice.

Now, we are going to take a shuttle to the port at 10:00.

It may be little early but I do not want spend my time to

wait a shuttle any more.

Well, we will aboard soon.

Thanks

Kage.... please let us know how boarding went. I always like to get to the pier early so will be interested in the time frame you experience from the time you get to the pier until you get on Jewel.

Have also stayed at Amerisuites....we used the shuttle but now we always take a taxi. I feel your excitement :) 126 more days for Jewel for us

Emmy

KAGE,

Thanks for taking the time to post regarding this itinerary. I look forward to your input. As you can see I'm under 100 days to the Jewel myself.

That being said, go enjoy your cruise!

love reading about your experience. as I first timer we are like sponges.

soon to be there myself.

Barry

Looking forward to reading all about your trip! By the way--your english is great! Are you on the 6 or 8 night sailing? We will be on the 8 night sailing in 56 days! Coming up before we know it! Thanks for sharing!

I also would love input on the 8-day. We are taking it in Jan 06. Specifically, number of formal nights, and highlights of various port stops. Thanks!

Hi! Now I am aboard on Jewel.

<Embarkation>

Embarkation went smoothly.

We had a little wait simply because we were too early.

We left Amerisuite FLL Plantation at 10:00 and arrived the port at 10:30.

This time we had no problem with their free shuttle service.

When we arrived there were about 20 people.

We were told to wait for government clearance of the ship.

This does not bore us because they gave us Cruise Compass for day1.

So I could have time to plan our activity for today.

They told our embarkation would be started at 11:30 first,

but embarkation started at 11:00 actually.

After first 15 people went through the security gate,

we were told to wait because government inspection had not finished.

After 5 to 10 minutes wait finally we could go through the security gate and other process went quite smoothly. There was no wait anymore.

We could board by 11:30.

I do not how embarkation is going after that. But I am sure if you are comming by 12:00 you will have no problem. There was no congestion.

<First impression>

She is beautiful as everyone wrote and I feel that she is much better for adult people than Exploler, which is our last cruise ship.

Her size is not too big. She does not have huge wide open space like Explorer's promenade but she has more cozy feeling especially in bars, lounge and restaurant. I think that is because she has more wood taste and glasses.

If you want to be impressed by scale of a ship she is not one for you.

But if you want to have more mature feeling she might be good for you.

Well, we looked around the ship and had lunch at Wndjammer.

Lunch was good their roast beef was awesome!

We still have lots places to look at. I will be back again tonight.

Thanks

Emmy

Thank for your message and question. Did my report work for you?

Tex_Jen, Barry

Thanks for your messages! Hope you have great cruise with Jewel also.

Shanafan

This is 8 night cruise to eastern caribbean. Does this work for you?

chipster

Yes this is 8 nights I will try to give you some good imput to make your vacation great.

Well, so far crew of this ship is wonderful!

Every one is friendly and kind, we have already enjoyed some good conversations with them.

I am going out again to enjoy the ship now!

Hi to Barry from Staten Island....

We are from Staten Island too....

We went on the 6 day Jewel on Nov. 28th...

Had a great time...such a nice intimate feeling on this boat

It must be beautiful fully decorated for the holidays

They started to decorate it while we were on it...

Questions??? E-mail us at kay995@aol.com

Kay and Tom

Kage...yes your report was great and I also will be an early arriver at the pier just like you were :)

You are so kind to take the time to help all of us back on the boards. Enjoying your posts as I am sure others are as well.

Emmy

We are on the 8 night Eastern. I've been to all the islands before, with the exception of the Bahamas and Antigua. Any info on beaches in Antigua would be great---if you should visit a beach. Thanks for all your help and enjoy your trip. Don't spend too much time on the computer where you don't enjoy yourself!

Love reading about your trip. Keep up the good work, and enjoy yourself.

Tell us all about the cabins, formal nights, food, entertainment, etc.

Barry

We were too busy to update this thread. It is good news. There are a lot of things to do.

I've heard from a crew, there are more than 2000 passengers on this ship and there are about 500 kids(under 17 years old) on board.

We worried it might be too crowded and noisy but so far We have never experienced congestion and noisy situation. We haven't had any wait and I could easily find place to sit anywhere.

Our cabin is inside of 3rd floor. It is kind of economy category.

At last cruise we had a good room with balcony, we tried to have this room.

The cabin is clean of course and well maintained.

I feel the size of cabin is minimum for two.

There are many small closet every where in the cabin to maximize storage capacity.

Our luggage were standard size and we can store them in closet.

If you bring large luggage or items it might be too small.

In this cruise we are trying to go out as much as possible so this works for us.

Because cabin doors are little heavy, I felt uncomfortable slam sound from other cabin especially in morning.

After we explored entire ship, we attended Jewel Day Spa Tour and Casino Lessons.

Spa tour was interesting. They have really nice facility.

I recommend you to attend this free tour it is worth to see their facility at least once.

Ship Shape Center was large and they have newest equipment.

Chops Grille and Portofino is nice, Chops Grille has more gorgeous mood but it has not large space. You should make reservation early if you plan to dine here.

After lifeboat drill the ship sail from Ft. Lauderdale.

Since we were busy to setup our cabin, we missed the moment of departure.

There was Sail away party on pool side but not many people were there I think it was because of cool temperature. It was not too cold but little cold to swim.

We learned how to play roulette and craps in casino lesson. This was a good introduction for gambling for people like us with no experience

Seaview Cafe is small but service and food are nice. It is cozy like a cafe in a small town.

Windjammer has sushi. Miso soup was not real miso it tastes like consommé soup but suhi was good. Especially we liked "Gari" ginger.

Main dining has modern artistic taste than traditional gorgeous view. We enjoyed conversation with other 2 young couples of our tablemate. It was fun. Shrimp raviori was good.

Welcome Aboard Show was a performance of drum percussion from Argentina.

The play itself was not too great but they try to entertain us and we could ejoy it.

Music and song was good also. We are looking forward to seeing their director show.

We played on gyro table pool. This is automatic stabilized pool table on the oscean.

Two table were always moving to balance automatically but balls on the table do not move.

You should experience play on moving table. It is amazing.

Vortex was cool it is stylish nice view dico. It is not closed space it wide and has great oscean view. We stopped there just for few minutes but DJ and his play seems nice also.

Here is suggested attire schedule for our cruise.

Hope it works for you.

Day1(18 Sat) casual

Day2(19 Sun) formal

Day3(20 Mon) Smart casual

Day4(21 Tue) casual/ `50s/`60s

Day5(22 Wed) casual/caribbean

Day6(23 Thu) smart casual/country

Day7(24 Fri) formal

Day8(25 Sat) casual

Morning to you Kage :)

Great comments...have a great day on the Jewel!

Emmy

Shanafan, how are you dealing with this lockout? Pretty sad. I see you're sailing on the Jewel soon. We too are going on the Jewel, we have to wait until April.

Regards, Rick.

Shanafan, how are you dealing with this lockout? Pretty sad. I see you're sailing on the Jewel soon. We too are going on the Jewel, we have to wait until April.

 

Regards, Rick.

I am really having a hard time with the lockout. I talked to Manny the other day. He was pretty optimistic before the talks on Tuesday---but that went out the window and he is leaving to play in Russia on Monday. He is the team rep, so he is very involved as to what is going on. He told me back in the summer there would be no hockey, and everytime I see him, he says it still doesn't look good. So for now, I watch my old Stanley cup DVDs and the new 5 disc set that came out a couple months ago. Not the same, but at least is is something.

KAGE, you haven't reported in a while. You must be having a great time! Enjoy your cruise. Your fun comes first. We can wait for your reports. Will you check out Chops and Portifinos for us? And, maybe, the Murder Mystery at Port's?

We did nothing special today.

We were sitting by a pool and relaxed.

It was easy for us to find beach beds. Though many reviewers say it is not easy to find beds around pool, we saw lots of beds are always available.

As I wrote yesterday, even though this ship is almost full we haven't had any crowded situation. We can always easily find place to sit and relax.

I wonder why it is, I guess this is because the cruise has variety of things to do and those are well scheduled, people are dispersed based on their preference or age. For example they have many programs for kids so we might not see many kids on the ship.

We love Solarium it is great. It has roof and air conditioning so when there was a shower there was no problem with us.

Today was formal night I felt that people less dressed up compared to our previous cruise with explorer.

We enjoyed a show staring "The Happenings."

They played many popular oldie's songs like beach boys.

Pumbaamd,

Thanks for your message. I am happy to know many people are reading my report.

Well, we haven't reserved Chops and Portifinos this time. We saw their interior they both are great of course. I prefer Chops than Portifinos because of its gorgeous atmosphere. Portfinos looks little casual.

Just to let you all know I did the Muder Mystery Dinner 2 weeks ago on the Radiance. It was great.. What would you like to know about it.....

KAGE,

thanks for the report. keep up the GREAT reporting. Those of us who are waiting, are taking it all in with anticipation.

Enjoy..... Barry