jewel of the seas review 4/05 cruise

We're not experienced or frequent cruisers but here's our take on this ship/cruise.

What a great ship!! The last cruise was on was the Disney line so this was the 1st "adult" cruise we were on. The ship is gorgeous and our stateroom #9068 was roomy w/ alot of closet & storage space. We even kept our suitcases under the bed! The balcony was bigger than we thought and was vey nice to have, will definetly from now on.

The food was good and the Windjammer buffet had alot of choices. The dining room menu was ok, some of the choices were a little too fancy,but liked the sugar-free deserts that were offered in all dining areas ( am a diabetic & usually have to skip deserts) plus they were very tasty and couldn't tell they were sugar free. Went to the Seaview cafe and that was nice, plus not very crowded. Service in all areas was terrific.

We were disapointed w/ the Vortex lounge, it was too smokey and we couldn't stay so never got to dance. The pool hogs are out in full force and the pool staff don't enforce the no reserving rule. We found a great spot on deck 13, it was closer enough to both pools that could walk to them for a dip but didn't have the crowds/noise and plenty of chairs.

The ports of call were good except Antigua, don't take the 1/2 day beach break at Turners Beach, it's a rip-off and everyone complained to the ship. I wrote a letter to RCCL, the shore excursions are a reflection of the cruise line and this one was very poor. We went off on our own at St. Thomas and enjoyed that alot, also did the Divi Little Beach excursion on St. Maartin and that was great, beautiful beach & amenities,the bb-que lunch they served was terrific & plentiful. At Nassau, we booked the dolphin swim on our own directly with dolphinencounters.com and got to actually swim w/ them (did the foot push) not just sit on a platform, so think it's better than what the ship offers. It was a fabulous experience! Whatever you choose, book early, limited amount of people can be accomodated.

We found the cruise director, Karen, a little strange and felt she was very dis-organized and always looked sloppy ( like she threw on her clothes and didn't know what an iron was). Sometimes she acted like she was high. Was not impressed w/ her. The rest of the activities crew and the service crews ( waiters, cabin steward etc) were all great and always helpful. They all seemed to work so well together and seemed to enjoy what they did. They're very hard workers & we appreciated our sevice from them.

Our whole experience with RCCL was terrific, from the reseving of our cruise w/ them directly, to the actual cruise. We plan on doing it again, this time the southern caribbean and it will be on RCCL. In some of the ports, there were other ships at the docks and RCCL are prettier & cleaner looking.

Feel free to contact me w/ any questions.

not too sure what am supposed to do here?:confused: new to this.

Hey tipsy...jus reposted this review over at the rccl boards fo all to read.....Here it is

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=3717776#post3717776

Are we sure the date was 4/5? We were on the 4/9 and don't recall a 4/5 preceeeding it. :confused:

Maybe 4/05 means April 2005?

the 4/05 means april 2005, the actual cruise date was 4/23/05, sorry am new to this site.

thanks for the help,tipsy

Tipsy

We were on the same sailing. Our problem in the Vortex was service. It was non existant (sp?). We also did the Turners beach tour. They could make a bundle if they had umbrellas!!! Did the shore excursion desk care at all what you thought of the tour? The Windjammer I thought had better lunch choices than the dining rooms dinner menu. You are so right the ship is beautiful.

in the Vortex, we never got in far enough to attempt to get service. I wrote a letter to RCCL directly to complain @ Turners beach excursion, was told that customer relations desk people wouldn't pursue or forward any complaints @ shore tours. We sat under one of the trees w/ a couple we met the day before at Divi Beach, but the trees were few and alot of people wanted them, like you say, they're missing alot of $ not having umbrellas, especially since the rest of the service isn't worth the $. We only ate dinner in the dining room, it was Windjammer or Seaview cafe for the other meals.

It's nice to be hearing from other people who were on the cruise, too bad didn't know @ all of you before, could have tried to meet up on board.