Jewel Review 12/8 through 12/15/13

So I’ve been meaning to write a review of our cruise on the Jewel (12/8-12/15). I learned so much from reading reviews on cruise critic before I went on my cruise that I decided that I needed to pay it forward.

This cruise was out of New Orleans and the ports of call were Cozumel, Belize City, Roatan, and Costa Maya.

First, a little about me. I am married and have 3 children, a 10 ½ year old, and 9 year old identical twins, all girls. My cruising experience is very little, I went on a cruise when I was 18….it was a Senior high school cruise, so the cruise ship was filled with graduated kids from area high schools. That was pretty much a blur because we could drink once we got out to sea and took full advantage of it. My only other cruise was with my husband before we had kids. My parents were going and invited us along. It was on Carnival and kind of a last minute thing so I didn’t do much planning for it. So this would essentially be our first cruise that we would really take advantage of all that there was to offer.

My parents are amazing people, and they love cruising, so they decided that it would be a great idea to take the entire family on a cruise (very generous, but that’s just how my parents are). This was my brother, sister in law, and their 11 year old son, my other brother and his 16 year old daughter (who I love and would steal in an instant if they’d let me, LOL), and my sister…her husband couldn’t get time off work, and her 13 year old daughter didn’t want to miss school, so she was solo. About a month before we left, my parent’s best friends decided to take the same cruise and bring along their 16 year old granddaughter, who is one of niece’s best friends, so that worked out for her really well (she is a little shy when it comes to meeting new people and was worried about that). I am a crazy planner, so I had been scouring websites for months getting all the information that I could. I begged for freestyle dailies and Splash Academy schedules so I could know what to expect, I really had no idea.

So we all met in NOLA on Friday night. My family and sister drove down from Atlanta, my parents, niece, and brother drove from Pensacola, Florida, and my other brother, sis in law, and nephew flew in from Portland, Oregon. We stayed in a gorgeous 130 year old house on Esplanade, about 7 blocks from the Garden District, so we could all stay together (found on Vacation Rentals). We took in the sights on Saturday, but unfortunately it was REALLY cold (I am originally from Florida, so basically when the temp gets below 60, that’s cold for me), so it wasn’t as great as it could have been. It was my husband’s first time in New Orleans, so he wanted to walk around and see everything. I grew up in the Pensacola area, so I had been to NOLA several times through high school and college, but this would be my first trip there with kids. We really just wandered around and had a good time (stopping for beignets at Café Du Monde, of course). Then we left the kids with my parents and the other adults went out to eat dinner that evening. Nice time, but really wished we had more time to hang out. A few of us didn’t want to be out late or be hungover for the next day of getting on the ship, so me, my husband, and my sis went back to the house while my brothers, sis in law, and some of their friends that live in NOLA went out for a little more adult time.

My nephew and my girls being silly in NOLA

DAY 1 – SUNDAY - EMBARKATION FROM NOLA

Cut to Sunday, day of departure. My dad had the paperwork and luggage tags for everyone, and of course, being the crazy planner that I am, I tell everyone that I already checked in online and had already printed luggage tags and filled them out. Now, like I mentioned, I had spent crazy amounts of time researching this trip, getting dailies from people on cruise critic, reading reviews, writing stuff up, and putting everything in labeled folders (yeah, I know, I should have been a travel agent with as much time as I spent), so I go up to my little bag of cruise stuff…..uh oh, my “Miscellaneous” folder isn’t there. I search the room, the car, the suitcase, etc…..nowhere to be found (I would find it later at home, sitting on the kitchen table where I apparently took it out to fill out the luggage tags and left it sitting there). Also in that folder is our paperwork from the parking reservations that I made for everyone at the Fulton Garage. So of course, I am freaking out, and all after I was saying how organized I was for this trip. Major egg on my face. Anyway, I called Fulton garage and they said that all I had to do was show the email confirmation, so I sent that to everyone’s smartphones so that they would have a copy. I would just have to get luggage tags at the port and attach them at that time. So much for saving myself time during check in, sigh.

So we had to bring our own towels to this house, or else they were going to charge us per towel (seems really ridiculous, my parents have 4 rentals on Pensacola Beach and have never charged for this stuff), so my mom brings towels for everyone. My sis in law and I decide to do laundry that morning, not realizing that their dryer would take FOREVER to dry stuff. We also wanted to dry the towels before we left since they would be sitting in a bag in the car for a week. At this point, it’s around 11:00am, and my dad is freaking out that they need to get to the port to check in. I had wanted to leave early as well. My husband, myself, sis and law, and my kids decide to stay and finish the laundry while everyone else goes to the ship. My brother and his daughter go in his car, my other brother drives my parents, our sister, and his son in another car. My niece calls a little while later telling me that they are trying to get into the parking garage but the guy is telling them that covered parking is only for Carnival guests. I asked if they were at the correct place (I had texted the address and name to everyone earlier), and my brother, as is his nature, decides he is just going to go ahead and park there instead of going to the correct place, which was about 3 minutes away. I had already prepaid parking, so he ended up writing me a check later….Seriously, why didn’t he just turn around and go to the correct place, it was still really early???

Then my other brother is driving into the port and I guess there were people directing traffic and the officer stops and asks him if he is parking or dropping off. Now, mind you, when we were all sitting around and filling out our luggage tags, I asked my dad how this works….do we drop off luggage, leave someone there with it, then go park and take a shuttle back, or do we take all luggage to the parking garage and shuttle it back. He said to drop off , then one person would go park the car. We also made a point of telling everyone to have a separate carry on with your paperwork, passport, etc in it. So, as the officer asks Sean what he’s doing, he says “parking”. My sister starts to say, “no, we’re not parking, we’re dropping off first”, but my brother has already started going to the line to park, and my dad starts saying “stop the car, we need to get out before you park” (Fulton garage had told us that only 1-2 people could park, everyone else had to be dropped off first, which is what I mentioned when we were all sitting at the house filling out paperwork). Anyway, everyone was a little excited/stressed, so somehow this information got mixed up. My dad opens the door and tells my mom to get out of the car, and my brother tells my sister to follow them and make sure they’re okay. My brother circles back around and drops off the luggage at #1, while my parents have already moved on to the check in line and my sister is waiting at #3 to help my brother with the luggage. When she reaches him on the phone, he tells her that he’s already dropped the luggage off. At that point (literally about 5 minutes after he dropped off his luggage), he tells her that in all the chaos, he realizes that he checked ALL his bags, including the one with his passport and his wife and son’s birth certificate. My sister immediately goes to the Port Authority and speaks with a supervisor and tells him this. He assures her that, no problem, they will find his luggage and get it to him before he boards. This was around Noon. They made him wait in the the area before you go to give your credit card and everything to check in.

Meanwhile, my husband, sis in law, and kids decided we are hungry and we are still waiting for the towels to dry, we are going to go out and grab a quick bite to eat. Everything else is ready, we just needed to load up the towels in a bag when they are dry. We decided to walk to Port of Call, which we had heard had great burgers. We had passed it the day before and thought it was pretty close, but unfortunately we were wrong about the number of blocks it was from the house. We should have driven, but didn’t realize this until we were halfway there. At this point, I am starting to freak out that we won’t be at the port by 2pm, which was really the latest I wanted to be there. So I was hungry and stressing out, not a good combination. We stopped by another place to eat and it was crazy crowded, then we get to Port of Call, and it was even more crowded. At this point, we’re not sure what to do. We need to eat, but it is getting really late. We decided to walk back to the first place, which is still really crowded. Then we made the decision that hubby would take the kids back to the house, finish loading the car, and drive down to get me and sis in law while we continued to look for somewhere to eat. We finally find a place that isn’t too crowded, order some food to go, and hubby comes to get us. While we were waiting on the food, my mom calls to see where we are and tells me about the suitcase issue with my brother, but doesn’t want me to tell my sis in law so she doesn’t freak out. Then my brother calls her and tells her. Anyway, we finally get on our way to the port. We got there around 2pm and it was a breeze. No crowd, no lines, pulled right in, the porter checked our luggage and we tipped him. One thing that was odd was that I had read on NCL that you could bring wine, but you needed to carry it on and pay a corkage fee at check in. I had that bag separate and the porter asked if we had any wine. I said yes, but I’m going to carry it on since I have to pay. He told me that I was the first person to tell him that and that I was allowed one bottle per adult, so we gave him our wine. I should have known better, well, I DID know better, but I guess I liked what he said better, so I took his work for it. Mistake. I had to retrieve it from the Naughty room later. Which was weird also. We went down to customer service on Monday afternoon and told them that we had a missing bag and it had wine in it, so we needed to get it and pay the corkage fee. He went to the back and came out and said that they would contact us when they got it. Okay, that was kind of weird. We ended up getting it when we checked in the tequila we bought in Cozumel the next afternoon, and the guy checking it in and recognized our room number and mentioned it to us. We told him we had tried to get it the previous day and the guy never contacted us. This guy said he would have it delivered to our room and he did.

Anyway, back to check in. My sis in law went in and sat with my brother and nephew since they still hadn’t found his bag. I waited with the kids while hubby went to the Fulton garage to park the car (I couldn’t go back to the area where my brother was because I had to wait for my husband since I had all the check in paperwork). My sis had told me that the shuttle took about 30 minutes after my brother parked, so we were prepared to wait. There was never any line for check in, so maybe going later was the best thing. Maybe the lines and craziness were earlier. Anyway, my hubby found the parking garage fine and got back in record time. Not sure why my two brothers had such a hard time with finding Fulton parking garage. Maybe it was just really crowded earlier.

In the meantime, my sister has been on the ship talking to officers, customer service, room stewards, etc about the missing bag. Customer service says that they will have it sent directly to their area when it’s found. Everyone keeps assuring her (and my brother and family) that it will get found. I had a sinking feeling about it, because I had read a thread on Cruise Critic that a couple had done the same thing and they missed their ship because that piece of luggage had been delivered to the wrong room and not found until later that evening. But I didn’t want to be negative, so I didn’t say anything about that. Once I got onto the ship, my husband took the kids to the room while I ran around with sis and mom and niece trying to find out where the luggage is. Then the muster drill starts, so we all go up. During the drill, sis in law calls and tells us that they were just told that if they don’t find the luggage in the next 20 minutes, they aren’t getting on the ship. Very disheartening, since the entire time up until now, they had all been reassuring everyone. So we all go into panic mode. Sis is at customer service, niece and friend are manning the hallway where the rooms are and where the stewards are bringing up the luggage, I am running around trying to find out where else it could be (did they look everywhere, including the place where confiscated items go, etc)…..I go back up to the hallway and a big cart comes up with most of our luggage and some of theirs…now why their luggage shows up at the same time as ours, when we checked in hours after them, I’m not sure). So I’m on the phone with my sis in law, all the stewards are going through the luggage trying to find this one bag, then they run down to look for more. There are two pieces that they find, and we tell them to take them out to my brother and sis in law in case they don’t get on the ship. The room stewards kept assuring us that they wouldn’t leave until they find it. My sis and I go to the gangplank area and are literally begging the guy to wait just a few more minutes, or let them on and keep them secured in their room until they find the paperwork. Then they pull the gangplank away and we just started crying because we knew it was over. I had to call my bro and my sis had to call my mom (still in the hallway trying to find it). It was awful. Then, to add insult to injury, as we go back to the hallway and the room stewards are still telling us that we aren’t going to leave until we find it, my sis in law (on the phone) tells me that we are sailing away (we couldn’t feel the boat moving). We ran into one of the rooms to look off the balcony and she was right. Then, 15 minutes after we set sail, we found the bag. My sis ran down to customer service to see if anything could be done, they made a few calls, but no luck. So it was a pretty bad start to the trip. I had to go in and tell hubby and my kids, and my kids couldn’t stop crying. They only get to see their cousin once a year in the summer when we all meet in Florida at my parent’s house, and they have been looking forward to spending time with him since July, when they last saw him. It totally sucked because now I am reading reviews about how many ships have left late (even hours after scheduled time) and they still made it to their next destination on time. With that information, the captain really could have waited just a little longer, it was totally his decision. And the reason they gave us was that it was Homeland Security’s rules….which is crap because if security was such an issue…my brother was never asked by the porter to see his paperwork (we were and he marked the number of bags on our paperwork)….so basically bags were loaded onto a ship and there was no paperwork shown to confirm that those bags belonged to someone on that ship, so how is that secure? If he had been asked for his paperwork, then he wouldn’t have checked that bag. So security wasn’t the issue. When you check in for a flight, you are required to show proof that you are flying before they take your luggage, not sure why it is so lax for a sailing. Anyway, I know those are the rules, and the ship really wasn’t responsible for that part, it was the Port Authority that wouldn’t let them on the ship because of their rules. And I know it was his fault for checking it (even though he meant to carry it on, just forgot with all the stress of checking in)…so no comments on here that “Oh, they were just doing their job”, or “those of the rules”, or “he needs to be more careful next time”, etc. We know all that, so there is no need to weigh in with any comments like this. It was really horrible for all of us, we had been planning this trip since April, and it really put a damper on our trip. I really think that’s why I didn’t write this review immediately when we got home, because I didn’t want to relive that part of it. Luckily, my brother and family have friends that live in NOLA and Baton Rouge, so they were able to make the most of it and spend time with their friends during that week. They had my dad’s car keys, so they had his car to drive. Unfortunately, they had none of their clothes, except my nephew’s bag was the only one delivered to them. We found out later that the other two bags were delivered to the Port Authority and were sitting there the whole week. We were told by the ship that they were delivered to my brother, and my brother thought they were still on the ship, so there was a disconnect. That stinks because at least they could have had their clothes instead of buying tee shirts and stuff at Walmart and Old Navy! The head of the Port Authority (the one that my sister had spoken to at noon and he said, no problem, we’ll find it and get them on the ship) also told them that this happens quite often. Well, then maybe the porters should be better trained like the porters at the airport that they have to see the paperwork and ID before they check the luggage.

Anyway, on to the rest of this review. After we composed ourselves and realized that “it is what it is”, we decided that we needed to make the most of it. We all had mini suites on deck 11, mid ship. Since we have 3 kids, we got two rooms with an adjoining door. It was cheaper than the family suite. Although, the family suite did go down in price before our cruise, and I almost called to try to upgrade, but it honestly wouldn’t have been as much fun living the suite life when no one else could utilize it. We wouldn’t want to eat in Cagney’s without everyone else, and if we got off on a tender first it wouldn’t matter, because most of us were doing cave tubing together. So we decided not to. Maybe when we take a trip with just our family, we would do it, but it just wasn’t the right time to do it on this cruise. I absolutely loved having all that room and having the kids have a separate space and two bathrooms. Yay for us for having the 3rd kid, it worked out really well. I think if were four people, one mini suite would have gotten awfully crowded. I always feel like having that 3rd kid puts us at a disadvantage for everything….the world seems to made for a 4 person family, not a 5 person family, LOL. Anyway, this worked out great and we are definitely spoiled for any future cruises.

So because of all of this craziness, we were STARVING since we hadn’t eaten since the small lunch we got before heading to the port (we purposely just got a little bit since we figured we would be heading to the buffet once we got on board, we didn’t realize everything that was to come). So we missed the Sail away party, darn it! I had planned to do that. We decided to meet at 6pm to eat dinner at Tsar’s. In the meantime, I went to Splash Academy and registered the kids, asking if they would be split into groups or all together (I knew it really depended on the amount of kids on the ship). They said there were 200 kids on the ship so it really depended on how many registered for Splash Academy. My girls get along pretty well most of the time, and my 10 year old really wanted to be with her sisters.

For dinner, we had a group of 13, so they set us up in a back room in Tsar’s, with my kids with my niece and her friend at one table, and the rest of us at another table right beside it. It worked out very well, and the “manager” came over after we had started eating and offered to set up this arrangement for us every night at 6pm (or whatever time we wanted, but that seemed to be the time of choice for everyone), and if that changed, just to call that day and let her know we wouldn’t need it. I thought that was really nice of her. The service that night was wonderful. I did order 2 appetizers, and didn’t realize that they would bring them out separately, so that made everyone else’s dinner come later. After that night, everyone just ordered 2 appetizers to make it easy. I love a salad with each dinner, but that spring roll was wonderful, so I got that almost each night as well. The service was great that night. We all got the surf and turf (Lobster the first night, don’t miss out). The steak wasn’t great, but the lobster was, and you could get more if you wanted, they came around and asked. Really regret that I didn’t get a second one.

Afterwards, we dropped the kids off at Splash Academy, and the teenagers went to their club, too. I had read previously to make sure the kids go to Splash Academy or the teen club the first night, because that is really when friendships are formed.

We kind of split up, my parents and their friends went to Spinnaker and danced the night away, while me, hubby, my brother and sister watched the football game in the bar area. Then we made an early night of it. We were exhausted from all the craziness of the day and vowed to make the rest of the cruise memorable!

DAY 2 – MONDAY - AT SEA

The next morning, we all got together to go to breakfast (our rooms were all in a row, so that was nice). We just went to the Garden Café (buffet), which I thought was pretty good for buffet food. Not great, but nothing was really bad, either. That would basically be what I thought about the food on the whole cruise. But the best part was that I didn’t have to plan, grocery shop, cook, or clean up afterward, so in that fashion, everything was WONDERFUL!! I had really wanted to do Tsar’s one day for breakfast, but we never got our act together soon enough, so we ended up doing the buffet every. My favorite thing was their potato pancakes, I couldn’t get enough of them! Oh, we also had room service delivered (just because we could!), and their chocolate croissants were wonderful. They are very small, though, so I ordered more the other days. They were also on the buffet. I have to say that I loved the room service, although every other day something was a little wrong or forgotten. Not a big deal, because we knew that we would be heading to the buffet after everyone got up, it was just to tide us over.

So after breakfast, we were trying to figure out what to do. I really didn’t like that a lot of things overlapped, and have to say that I was disappointed in the closing times of 12-2 and 5-7 of Splash Academy. It made it a little difficult for some of the other things that we wanted to do. We knew we wanted to do the wine tasting at 2:00, and there was a Family Circus Workshop at 1:00 that sounded fun, but trying to figure out how to do all that, and fit in lunch just didn’t work out. So we opted for the pool, which was perfectly fine with my kids, they are like little fish. We ate lunch at the Great Outdoors, really good burger. My parents had been on previous NCL cruises, and in my research, I realized that they could get a lot of perks by being Latitudes members, which they never had been. I signed them up and got them credit for their past cruises, so they were attending a Latitudes Cocktail party that afternoon. They were going to be in their room by 1:45 to watch the kids and then take them to Splash Academy for us, since SA didn’t open until 2:00 and the wine tasting was at 2:00….poor planning on the part of the ship to schedule stuff like that, I thought. Anyway, their party lasted longer and they didn’t realize the time, so they didn’t get back in time. Sis and I went to the wine tasting while hubby took the kids to SA and then met us down in Le Bistro for wine tasting. My mom’s friend was joining us, too. It got started late, so hubby had plenty of time to get down there. It was $15 for 6 wine tastings. Didn’t love all the wine, but it was a really fun thing to do, and we all had a great time.

At the wine tasting:

As we were leaving, we walked through the bar area (the wine tasting was in Le Bistro) and they were doing a beer tasting (also $15). Now I hate beer, but my husband loves it. The selection of beer on the ship left a lot to be desired, though. But the guy hosting seemed really fun, so we sat down and the waiter got him caught up (they had just started the 2nd beer). There really weren’t any seats in the area where everyone was sitting, so we sat in the window seat and someone (one of the Hospitality managers, I’m assuming) brought a little table and put it in front of him. Very nice gesture, I thought. So at the end of the tasting, they gave stuff away for answering questions, hubby won a tee shirt, then they announced that if anyone was interested in doing a beer dinner later in the cruise to sign up with room number and they would let us know if there was enough interest. We signed up for it, then went back to the room for a little nap before picking up the kids and having dinner.

Beer Tasting photo. They put a blue sticker on him to show that he paid for it, so he put it on his forehead as a joke.

Dinner at Tsar’s the second night was good, but we could tell that the service was not as good as the first night. Still, it was fine. I have to say that we never had to wait for a table, but we did have reservations every time we went to an MDR. We took the kids to SA, then hubby didn’t want to go to the show, so he and my brother went to the bar, and my parents and sis and I went to the late show. It was Bands on the Run, and was really good. A lot of great singers and good music. I highly recommend it.

Afterward, we picked up the kids, put them to bed, then my sis and I went to the Fyzz to watch Karaoke. Then went up to the Spinnaker for Norwegian’s Night Out Party. Hubby doesn’t dance so he was fine with staying in the room with the girls. Our ship wasn’t full capacity, so the Spinnaker really wasn’t happening too much. We danced a little, then the music turned to that techno crap that I can’t stand (nothing real about the songs), so we called it a night. I regret that we didn’t go to the Not So Newlywed Game Show that evening, I really thought it would be fun, not sure how we missed that, I just forgot about it.

DAY 3 – TUESDAY - COZUMEL AND DOLPHIN ENCOUNTER

I was so excited about today. We were heading to Chankanaab park to do the Dolphin Adventure. My girls were sooo excited and I couldn’t wait to see their faces. It was my family, my 16 year old niece, and her 16 year old friend. My brother and sister had taken an excursion to Tulum, and my parents and friends had planned to walk around town. We took a cab to Chankanaab for around $25, I think, (after buying bracelets in the little market), and once we got through the gates, we saw that a sea lion show was about to start in 5 minutes. Found great seats and really enjoyed the show. Afterward, they offered that anyone who wanted to could go up and get kissed by a sea lion, so of course all the girls did (even my niece and her friend). Yes, then they find you later and sell you the pictures for $10 each, which of course we bought.

Then we headed off to check in with the Dolphin Encounter, our time was 1:00 and it was only around 11:00, but I wanted to make sure everything was in order, and it was. They told us to come back at 1:00, but of course, being a little OCD, I told our group that we needed to be back at 12:45. We headed off to a little beach area and the girls went swimming and looked for fish with their masks that we had brought. Hubby and I hung out on the beach area with cocktails. My niece and her friend had gone off to get massages. I wasn’t too thrilled about letting them go off on their own since I am a little overprotective, but my brother (her father) had told me it was okay. Both girls are very responsible and really good kids. They haven’t “turned”, like my husband says, LOL. Anyway, just hung out there for a while, then went up to the big pool where my hubby pulled up to the swim up bar and my little fishes went swimming. I hung in a lounge chair so I could watch all our stuff (didn’t discover the lockers until later).

So our time came and off we went. There were a ton of people, and they put us in groups of around 10, so we were put with 3 other people. They explained what we would be doing and how to do it all (belly swim, kissing, being pushed by the dolphins on a boogie board, touching their fins, holding them, etc). We couldn’t hear the guide too well and it was way too much information to remember all at once, but I knew once we got into the water, they would tell us again. So we get life vests on, and head off (we had put everything in lockers by then and were told we couldn’t bring a camera out there). We had so much fun, the water was pretty chilly actually, but it was a blast. We had signed up early and gotten a discount, plus I signed up through chat and got 15 minutes with a manatee afterward. We used Dolphin Discovery, so if you do it, make sure you check their website for specials early on. I got 25% off for signing up at least 45 days early, and also when I went on chat to ask a question, she offered me the manatee thing for booking with her right then. After the dolphin encounter, we swam a little more, then went to look at the pictures. Just so you know, buying the disc is EXPENSIVE. And I don’t mean, just expensive, I mean INSANELY expensive. They base it on the number of pictures and the number of people in your party. So we had 7 people and to get all the pictures on a disc it was almost $300. We bought it, though, because it’s a once in a lifetime experience and the kid’s faces were just precious. Plus, we figured since my parents had paid for the cruise, we had money to spend on incidentals. Oh, also we ate there at the outdoor area by the beach and it was fabulous. They didn’t have fish tacos on the menu, but we asked about them and they made them for us. YUMMY! Headed back to the ship in a cab, had to buy some more bracelets, and then hubby had to buy some tequila before getting on the ship.

Cassidy riding on a dolphin:

Kylie on boogie board with dolphins pushing her feet:

Isabela getting kissed by a dolphin:

Dinner at Tsar’s again, and the service was getting worse. They forgot my niece’s meal, we had to ask twice before she finally got it, and still no reason from the waiter as to why it didn’t get served with the rest. Plus, when I took my kids to the restroom, they apparently took everyone’s order and then didn’t come back to take my kid’s orders when we got back. I had to flag someone down.

After dinner that night was the magician and comedy show, and I’m not sure what we were doing that we missed it. It was also the Treasure Hunt in the kid’s area, so we dropped them off to do that. I found out after we picked them up that they did a little parade of sorts while on the hunt and my parents happened to see them out and about. Wish I had known, we would have looked for them. What’s funny is that the girls had asked us to pick them up at 9:15 because they were really tired. We went up there at 9:15 and peeked in. They were running around and having a blast so we left them for another hour and hung out in the room. Nice and quiet without the kids around, I could get used to this! We made it an early night since we were getting up early the next morning to tender into Belize. My brother had already agreed that since he was up at 7am anyway each morning, he would go up and get the tender tickets for all of us.

DAY 4 – WEDNESDAY - BELIZE CITY AND CAVE TUBING

We woke up early this morning, because we knew cave tubing would take a while and we wanted to get off the ship and get started. Disappointing that it was raining, but we knew we would still have a fun experience. Finally got everyone together and tender to port. Wow, it was about a 30 minute ride, didn't realize we were that far away. When we got there, we looked for our guides (I had booked in advance with cavetubing.bz) based on a review by mitsugirly (THANKS!!). So glad we did, I loved this outfit. When we got out to the area, we saw guys holding a sign with my name on it. How cool was that??? I am so upset that I never got a picture of it, I really wanted one. Oh well. So we meet our guides (Jorge and Abner), tell him that we are group of 9 instead of 12 (since my brother and his family that didn't make it onto the ship were supposed to go with us on this one), and they put us with 3 other people that were together. These other people brought a baby, maybe a year old. I was worried for the parents the whole time with that small of a child (afraid he might try to squirm out of their arms while tubing), but he was really well behaved. And the guides were great. NOTE: Make sure you take a change of clothes and shoes. Not sure what I was thinking, but I didn’t do this. The fact that it was raining really threw me off, I guess. The inner tubes are really nice with a headrest and a cup holder (should have brought a cocktail, haha). We had two guides and one of them carried the tube for my 9 year olds and the other one carried the tubes for the people with the baby since the dad was carrying the baby. You would have thought that he would have carried one of theirs and then my 10 year olds, but my 10 year old is a trooper, so no big deal. My 16 year old niece, however, complained enough that my brother (her dad) ended up carrying hers. Of course, I had to harass her a little by pointing out that my 10 year old was carrying her own tube and never complained once, but she couldn’t carry her own, LOL. We got to one point and the guide told us that we could stop here and get in the river, or hike about 10 minutes more and do an extra cave. We all said, “keep going!”, except my niece, but we overruled her :). Seriously, it wasn’t a bad hike at all. Now I do have to mention that it was raining and a little chilly the entire time, so it really wasn’t a fun walk. My family and I love to go hiking, so I was actually looking forward to hiking, and then being hot and getting into a nice, cool river. However, with the rain, the hike was pretty miserable, and getting into a cool river wasn’t the greatest, but we made the best of it. We had a really good time, then drove to their “check in place”, which had a little gift area (where of course my kids had to buy stuff again), and had lunch. Rum punch and lunch was provided in the price ($50 per person over 9 years of age, and $25 under 9). Oh my gosh, the meal was sooooo good. I think I had 3 servings. Chicken and rice and cole slaw. I don’t know what that chicken was marinated in, but it was DELICIOUS!!! My kids all had seconds (they are little but eat like teenage boys). Then we made our gift shop purchases and off we went. I was going to take a picture of the sign with my name on it in the window, but it was pouring at that point and everyone else was already in the van since my kids took so much time looking at every single thing in the gift shop again and again. They brought the rum punch in the car for the drive back and we had a good time.

I can’t say enough good things about our guides. They were so informative the whole way there and back, pointing out things, telling us about the island, just a really great operation, I highly recommend this company. Oh, they also gave me $25 off for booking 10 people. Even though it turned out to only be 9 since the others didn’t make it on the ship, they still gave me the discount, which I thought was very nice even after I reminded them that we ended up not having 10 people. We gave each guide $20 when we got off the van.

At that point, it was so crowded, tons of people trying to sell me stuff (so pushy), and I had drank so much rum punch that I really had to use the restroom, it was all I could think of. These ladies see my 3 kids and are trying to get me to let them braid their hair, I kept saying no, especially since their hair was a total mess and they would need showers as soon as they got onto the ship, I mean their hair looked like rat's nests. Seriously, they would NOT take no for an answer. I was just looking for a bathroom. They told me there was a bathroom over where they were going to braid their hair (mind you, just one or 2 braids for each girl, I hate the way people’s hair looks when it is braided all over), so I relented and ran towards the area of the restroom. I’m walking there and I see the sign, and a guy sitting at the bar asks me if I’m looking for the restroom. He stands up with a roll of toilet paper and a key and says “that will be one dollar”. Really? I have to pay to pee? At this point I really didn’t care…gave him a dollar and he unlocked the door. So odd. I get back out and the ladies are wrapping the girl’s hair with fabric or yarn….Hubby says to me, “how much did you agree to for this”? I said, she told me it was $2. The lady then proceeds to tell me that it is $10 per kid because they are wrapping a little tiny strand of hair with the yarn. I told her I wasn’t paying $30, I had agreed to $2 per kid and to take it out. So they start taking it out, put one tiny braid in each hair with a bead at the end, I give her 6 bucks and walk off. Seriously! I could have bought a bag of 10,000 beads for 6 bucks. But whatever, chalk it up to too much rum punch! Then I see that we were at the steps of the enclosed area where the “approved” shopping area was. I bet there was a free bathroom in there. We hurried in there and found the line for the tender. My sister was already on one pulling out, so we waved to her, then my brother and niece and friend walk over and we all wait for the next tender. The rain had stopped and it started to look nice out, so we went to the open top of the tender to get some air on the ride back. It promptly started pouring rain, so then we had to go to the bottom and try to find an area for at least my 3 kids to sit. Luckily some really nice people scooted over so we could all sit down together and we made our way back to the ship.

The kids wanted to eat in the Garden Café that night so they could sample everything, so we did that and my parents and their friends went to Azura….we were tired of Tsar’s downgraded service at that point. The show that night was a comedian called Noodles, we missed that one. Took the kids to SA and opted to hang in the Fyzz and watch karaoke again. I really enjoyed that. Looking back at the dailies, we also missed a couple other things that evening. I have to say, I think I just wasn’t in a party mood because of the whole debacle at the beginning of the cruise, and also the ship was really rocking and it just kind of made me a little woozy. Not seasick, but just like I was already drunk. Kind of weird, and I just wasn’t used to it. But we really enjoyed the karaoke.

DAY 5 – THURSDAY - ROATAN, HONDURAS – ZIPLINING AND SNORKELING (planned)

We had booked ahead of time a tour with Bodden to do a private car and go zip lining, then to be taken to West Bay Beach to snorkel . It was going to be my family, my sister, my niece, and her friend. My parents were going to use the car to tour the city while we were zip lining. It was raining that morning, so we just weren’t sure what we wanted to do. I am a total chicken and really wasn’t thrilled about zip lining, but everyone else really wanted to do it. I especially didn’t want to do it in the rain, and everyone else was agreed about that. So my family, sis, and brother decided to go out and walk around town. My parents, their friends, niece and friend were going to use the car I had booked for a tour around the city a little later on. After walking around (and being harassed by vendors wanting to sell us stuff), it was about 11:00 and the sun was shining, blue skies. We just kept walking further in to town, and I looked at my husband and said, “why are we walking and walking? Let’s go zip lining”. At that point, we had already missed our private car that we had reserved (we didn’t pay for it in advance), so we went back to a little shop that we had been in where the owner had moved from Canada. We figured we could trust her to point us in the right direction. She introduced us to a wonderful cab driver (James Withcell) who agreed to wait for us (we had to go back to the ship to get tennis shoes since we had worn our flip flops to sight see in). Luckily we ran into my niece and her friend and my parents on the way back to the ship. We told her we were going zip lining, and she was so excited. We all went back to change into proper attire and get cash.

James took us to South Shore zip lining, $60 round trip. We figured that was a deal since we were originally going to pay $20 per person for the private car. Zip lining was $45 each and there were 12 lines, I think. Had some wonderful guides. My kids were soooo excited and such the daredevils. Everyone (except me, the chicken) did “superman” and went upside down. It was all they could do to get me to lift my feet so I would go. I don’t know if I would recommend it for smaller children. You’re not always hooked in, and some of them were really high and the platforms really weren’t that big. So if you’ve got little ones that like to run around, I would not recommend this. But for us, it was perfect. The guides always made sure everyone was hooked in and understood what to do before each line. It was really beautiful to look out at the ocean and all the greenery while flying through the air. The guides even took my twins back to do upside down after they saw their sister and everyone else doing it (they didn’t give us that option and the twins went first on the last zip line). They started crying when they realized that they wouldn’t be able to do it, so the guides each took one back to the last zip line and did it with them. That was above and beyond, and they got tipped highly for that. Oh, I forgot, before we started, they asked if we had a camera so that they could take pictures. I only had my phone, and was leery about chancing it falling out of one of our pockets, but I am so glad I did. They got pictures of everyone doing all the tricks (and me, with a look of fear on my face, LOL). That was so nice, because the disc they tried to sell us later for $30 only had pictures from one zip line, and we got so much more. Wonderful operation. Oh, they also had a few parrots in cages and a BEAUTIFUL toucan….that bird was sooo pretty. Also a monkey in a cage that managed to grab one of my twins hair with his hand and would not let go, and he grabbed the other one’s hair with his mouth. Mean monkey!!! All in all, it turned out to be a great day. Unfortunately, with the late start, we didn’t get to snorkel. Here are some pictures of the girls going upside down, and then one of all of us at the end:

Oh, here's that toucan that I loved....even more vibrant in person!

On the way back, my niece and her friend wanted to sample local cuisine, so James took them to a little restaurant he recommended, and we ran into my brother and sister at a bar right outside the ship, so hubby stopped to have a local beer with them. I was starving because we hadn’t eaten lunch, and so were the kids, so we went back on the ship and tried Blue Lagoon since we were out of cash at that point (it was on the ship but I didn’t want to go to the room and then back). Burger was good…but, boy the service left a LOT to be desired. We would find out the same thing on our next visit to Blue Lagoon. Honestly, they really just acted like they didn’t want to be there, almost to the point of being rude. I had to ask 2 different people for mayonnaise numerous times before I got it, all while my hamburger was getting cold.

That night was the beer dinner that I talked about in the beginning of the cruise. We had gotten letter a few days previous telling us when and where and to call to confirm. Now remember that I hate beer, but I was going to this for the hubby. It was only $30 per person, and I knew it would be fun. We took the kids to Garden Café to eat, dropped them off in SA, and then headed to the beer dinner. We sat next to the host and found out that he doesn’t work for the cruise line, he works for Miller-Coors and his job is beer tastings and dinners on different cruise lines, what a cool job. He was so nice, he found out that I didn’t like beer and was just there for hubby, so he offered to buy me wine or anything if I wanted it. I didn’t take him up on it, but that was really nice. It meant that hubby got more beer because I didn’t drink much of mine. Food was good, he explained the pairings with each course and beer. We got like 5 or 6 full size beers, so it is a really good deal if you like beer, even if you like average beer. It was us, two other couples (that we didn’t know before this), and they rest of the group was one extended family from Panama City. Very loud, and when someone dropped an F bomb towards the end of the evening, one of the guys (who had been quiet all night) decided that was his cue to start speaking and using the F bomb in every sentence. Geez. It was a lot of fun, though.

That night was also the Chocolate buffet, so I was very excited about it! We had plans to pick up the kids at 9:30 and head to the buffet that started at 9:45. The beer dinner ran a little late, so we were late getting to the chocolate. This whole time the buffet really didn’t seem too crowded, but tonight, I swear people were pushing and shoving to get to the chocolate. I got a few pictures, but there were really too many people around to get many good ones.

I have to say that I was really disappointed in the chocolate buffet. Everything looked very pretty and very yummy, but nothing was really that great. Came back to the room and made it an early night again. My plans to stay out late every night just didn’t come to fruition. I was beat by around 10 every night.

DAY 6 – FRIDAY - COSTA MAYA – NO EXCURSION PLANNED

So, we had planned to just make this day whatever we wanted. We thought we would just take a cab to the beach area, find somewhere to plop down, and hang out. I had already heard that it was a $3 cab ride to the beaches, and that you could put your towel anywhere without paying. Of course, I tried to explain this as the rest of everyone was listening to a guy sucker us into paying $15 each to go to Senor Frogs (not including the $3 one way cab fare). He said that gives us access to kayaks, wave runners, banana boats, chairs, etc). I don’t care about that stuff, but hubby said let’s do, so I agreed (we didn’t have to pay for the kids). What a racket! We get there and he says that he can’t give me a lounge chair on the beach…ummm, then what did I pay $15 for? I ended up getting one. Then wave runners are extra, they only have one double kayak, never saw the banana boats. Can you say suckers??? Oh well, it was a nice mellow out day, they had wifi, good drinks, and the girls enjoyed the beach and even got up close to a pelican, which they were thrilled about. Sis and niece and friend got massages on the beach, it was really cheap. Found some more of the cute bracelets that we had bought in Cozumel for only $5 each (we had paid $7 each before), and just had a really relaxing, enjoyable day.

Picture when we got off the ship into port:

Picture with the ship behind us:

Ate at Blue Lagoon when we got back, and again didn't have the greatest service. Then we decided to take a try at Bingo. Talk about a racket…they had 3 games, it was $65 to buy into them. Now, they had bingo every day, and I thought that meant that someone would win each day. No, that’s not how it works. Even though it’s touted as $4500 bingo on this day (the number got higher each day), the first two games only paid out about $100 to the winners. The third game, they only called a certain amount of numbers, and if no one won by that time, the game was over. What a total rip off. Very disappointing. Oh well, live and learn.

So the show that night was the Cirque show and we didn’t want to miss it. I knew this was one that the kids would enjoy, so we went to the early show, and made reservations in Azura for afterward. The show started at 7:15, and we got there about 7:00. Big mistake…super crowded! We were looking around for 5 seats together…not easy to find when it was so crowded. We found 5 towards the top, of course smack dab in the middle of the row. We had to crawl over people to get there because the room between the seats in front really isn’t much. I felt a little bad, but seriously, if you don’t want people crawling over you, don’t sit on the end, move to the middle. It was a great show, and even though we were towards the back, I don’t think there was a bad seat anywhere. Actually very glad that we didn’t sit up front because we would have missed out on some stuff (they had some acrobats coming from the ceiling up front).

Dinner in Azura was really good. Service was good, got seated right away (I had called to make reservations earlier that day). The twins wanted ice cream, my oldest wanted something from the dessert menu, so I hung with her while my hubby took the twins to Garden Café (he loved the soft serve as much as they did). It's rare that I get time with only one kid, so that was a nice little treat.

That night was the White Hot Party….hubby opted out since he is not a dancer, so my sister and I went. I have to say it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Maybe it’s because our ship wasn’t sold out, but it wasn’t crowded at all (in fact very empty), so it just didn’t seem very fun. We ended up heading to the bar area and drinking champagne while listening to a band (Next Stage) set up there. Wonderful singer, really nice time just hanging out and chatting.

DAY 7 – SATURDAY – LAST DAY AT SEA

So this was the last day at sea (BOO!!!), and I have to say that I was really disappointed in the scheduling. There was so much that we wanted to do, but everything seemed to overlap. Splash Academy had a big circus thing, but the kids had to be there from 10-12 to rehearse, then 2:00-2:30 for final rehearsal, then the show at 3:15, which I’m assuming meant SP was closed at that point. They also had a close up magic show with the magician where he was going to demonstrate some of his tricks at 11:00, bingo (with the free bingo card left in your room, and my kids really wanted to go for some crazy reason) at 11:30, way on the other side of the ship, Family circus workshop at Noon, Towel animal folding at 2:00, juggling workshop at 2:45, ALL of which the kids wanted to do. So we let them choose and they skipped the whole SA circus thing and we did the other stuff. It also was the only day that we went to lunch in Tsar’s and it was really good. We also wanted to do the martini tasting at 4:00 since we had missed the one on Monday. That drink tastings were really poorly planned each time they had them….wine tasting at 2, beer tasting at 3, then martini tasting at 4….I’d be passed out on the floor by 5 if I did all that)! Since SA was having the circus, we couldn’t take the kids there, so luckily my parents said they would watch them since they were just hanging out in their room.

Martini tasting….I HIGHLY recommend this. We had a blast! It was me, hubby, sister, brother, and then my mom’s friend was down there to ask about something else, so I dragged her there too. Holy cow….I think it was supposed to be like 5 martinis (3 oz each), but he kept asking if we wanted more….8 total for only $15, best deal on the ship.

This is us after A LOT of martinis:

This is our teeny tiny table to hold all of our drinks....we had already moved some empties to another table, too!

At this point, we are all pretty toasted and we are supposed to have an early dinner because tonight was pajama party night at SA and I wanted to get the kids there early. However, we all decided that we needed to make it later because we were all too full of alcohol to be ready for food. We really wanted to do our last dinner on the ship together. So a few of us went to change the reservations in Azura to later, I called my parents to make sure they were fine watching the kids (they absolutely love spending time with them) , then went up to the Fyzz lounge to play trivia. Kept drinking in the room and took a bottle of champagne to the dining room as well. Had a really good dinner and a great time talking to everyone. Kylie & Cassidy wanted to get soft serve ice cream in the Garden Café, and Isabela and I wanted desert from Azura again, so hubby took the twins upstairs. We got delayed talking and by the time I got back to the room, the twins were already in bed. I didn’t want them to miss the pajama stuff, so Isabela got her pajamas on and we took them up to SA for a little while. We wandered around the ship, ended up in Fyzz for Karoake with my parents and sister. We also (sadly) realized that you can only play shuffleboard until 8pm. We had planned on doing that, but the stuff was locked up.:( Then we went to pick up the girls and bedtime. I didn’t end up getting fully packed, so we decided to do the carry off the next day.

EMBARKATION –SUNDAY

I didn’t sleep well that night…I think I was stressed because I hadn’t finished packing, plus I was sad about having to leave and get back to the real world (and cook and clean and go to work and not have room service, etc, etc, etc). I heard hubby awake so the two of us sat on the balcony for a while as we passed the big oil rigs. I wish I had thought to take a picture, they were really cool. Went back to sleep and got up early and started packing while everyone else snoozed. I know we were supposed to be out of the room by 9am, but I don’t understand that if they still do embarkation as late as 10:00, then what do you do with your luggage? We had tons. We left it in the room and went up to eat. What can I say, I’m a rebel. Embarkation took quite a while. We also found out that my brother was still missing those two pieces of luggage. My sister tried to get off earlier than us to check on it, but she was at the beginning of the very long line that got stopped just as she was about to get on the gangplank. We waited in line a really long time, but once we got going, it went really fast. They had stopped letting people onto the gangplank, maybe customs was backed up? Although all we did was hand him our sheet of paper, he hardly even looked at it.

I think next time we will check the luggage, it was a hassle to carry it all. My sister found out that my brother’s luggage had been sitting at the Port Authority the entire week. Not sure what happened, the people on the ship told us that it had been delivered to him in the port area. We had two other pieces that were delivered to the room (my nephew’s homework and toy bag and the dreaded bag with their documents), so we carried those off. Met up with my brother and his family, then hung for about an hour with everyone in a mall area just to catch up. Then we had a long drive back to Atlanta, so we took off. My parents and brother and niece stayed a while since they didn’t have a long drive back to Pensacola.

SUMMARY

I really enjoyed our cruise. Of course, I wish it hadn’t started out the way it did, but actually rest of us get another cruise out of it. My dad decided early on that he was going to take us all on another cruise this June/July to make up for it. That’s just how my parents are, they are so very generous, and my dad knew how upset my mom was about it. Unfortunately, we can’t do NCL again, because they don’t go out of any close ports in June/July, so our only two options for that time of year out of either NOLA or Port Canaveral are Carnival or Royal Caribbean. Stinks because my parents jumped to the next Latitudes level with this cruise, so they would get more perks. Not sure why NCL doesn’t cruise out of NOLA in June/July….perfect weather (as long as there aren’t any hurricanes, LOL). So now my research has begun for that trip!

Back to the cruise. While the food wasn’t fantastic, it also wasn’t bad. There wasn’t anything that I hated. The steaks were not very good, but everything else was fine. We had an enjoyable time. I have to say that I am not thrilled with the gratuity built in…I think it makes some of the service not so great since they know they’re getting tipped no matter how good or bad their service is. However, that was just really the case of the MDR servers (and the staff in Blue Lagoon, terrible). Our room stewards were fantastic. The towel animals were great, they didn’t take them away when my kids had them all together, and they used my kid’s stuffed animals in some of their creations. Always kept the room clean, filled the ice bucket. Really great.

One of the complaints that I have was the Splash Academy closing for 4 hours each day (between 1-2 and 5-7). I have heard that they implemented this policy because people were leaving their kids there all day and not picking them up to feed them. If that’s the case, then implement a policy where you have to pick up your child during certain hours (your choice), but don’t close for 2 hours at lunch and 2 hours around dinnertime...and when a lot of other fun "adult" things are planned. Leave it open and you can decide when to get them. If we hadn’t had my parents there, we would not have been able to do a lot of things we did. Also, the circus the last day is a cute idea, but there are so many other kid things to do at the same time, it really interfered. If the kids didn’t want to do the circus, then they were out of luck on that last sea day with regards to Splash Academy during the day (and the parents, too!).

Just my opinion on that. But, like I said, we all had a really great time and made some AMAZING memories!!!

Oh, I almost forgot: One thing that someone mentioned to my dad after the cruise was that maybe he should have offered $100 to any room steward if they found my brother’s bag that first afternoon. My dad would have done it in an instant, we just never even thought about it. So if this ever happens to you (and I don’t wish it on anyone), there’s an idea.

We would definitely do another NCL cruise again because we really enjoyed it! And thanks to everyone who writes reviews and gives little tidbits, I really learned a lot before our cruise.

Nice review! That really really sucks what happened to your brother, I can't even imagine. I'm surprised they couldn't get him on, how did they get home without identification?

I agree with you that while the food isn't amazing, the fact that you don't have to cook and clean makes it taste all the better!! Also, my husband and I have both agreed the food is better in NCL than on RCCL. You and your husband sound like us, all about the wine, beer, and martini tastings! Lol Have you done the pub crawl on any of the boats? I think we will try it on the next one we go on.

Did your kids like kids' club? We can never get our kids (10 and 12) out of there!

Thanks for sharing your review, it had a lot of good information. Loved the photos, you have a beautiful family. Was *really* bummed to hear about what happened with your brother. :-(

I am on the same cruise [ itinerary too ] soon and was wondering if you wouldn't mind answering a few questions?

* Did you/your family always make reservations for non-buffet or Blue Lagoon meals? We're just two and have never done reservations before [ except for specialty dining ] and was wondering if it was necessary.

* Do you recall what day the laundry special was [ if there was one ]?

* Did they have seminars/talks about the various excursions on the first sea day? We are still undecided about our plans at this point.

* For anyone reading this who happened to visit any of the ruins at any of the ports, how bad is the insect issue? I plan to bring repellant, but really didn't want to be in long sleeves and long pants if possible.

Thanks again for sharing your review!

Nice review! That really really sucks what happened to your brother, I can't even imagine. I'm surprised they couldn't get him on, how did they get home without identification?

 

I agree with you that while the food isn't amazing, the fact that you don't have to cook and clean makes it taste all the better!! Also, my husband and I have both agreed the food is better in NCL than on RCCL. You and your husband sound like us, all about the wine, beer, and martini tastings! Lol Have you done the pub crawl on any of the boats? I think we will try it on the next one we go on.

 

Did your kids like kids' club? We can never get our kids (10 and 12) out of there!

He stayed in NOLA until we got off the ship and we gave him his bag that we found on the ship 15 minutes after we sailed away. It was only his passport and his wife's and son's birth certificates. They had their driver's licenses on them, so they actually thought about flying back to Oregon that day or the next, but decided to go ahead and stay and do fun stuff in the area.

I don't even know if there was a pub crawl, I don't remember seeing anything about it, but it sounds fun.

Our kids enjoyed the kid's club. They didn't come back raving about it, but whenever I asked them, they enjoyed it. They really only went in the evenings, we were so busy the other times!

Thanks for sharing your review, it had a lot of good information. Loved the photos, you have a beautiful family. Was *really* bummed to hear about what happened with your brother. :-(

 

I am on the same cruise [ itinerary too ] soon and was wondering if you wouldn't mind answering a few questions?

 

* Did you/your family always make reservations for non-buffet or Blue Lagoon meals? We're just two and have never done reservations before [ except for specialty dining ] and was wondering if it was necessary.

* Do you recall what day the laundry special was [ if there was one ]?

* Did they have seminars/talks about the various excursions on the first sea day? We are still undecided about our plans at this point.

* For anyone reading this who happened to visit any of the ruins at any of the ports, how bad is the insect issue? I plan to bring repellant, but really didn't want to be in long sleeves and long pants if possible.

 

Thanks again for sharing your review!

I'm not sure if you could make reservations at Blue Lagoon, but we only went there for late lunches, and it was never busy, so I'm not sure if it was crowded at dinner. We made reservations for Tsar's and Azura since it was either 13 of us or 5 of us. When it was just going to be the 5 of us, I actually called in the late afternoon to make 8:30 reservations as a last minute thought, and they had no problems making one and we got seated right away. Now keep in mind that our ship was not at full capacity (I'd love to know what percent it really was but don't know how you'd find that out), so it really never seemed super crowded.

They actually had two laundry special days, Wednesday and Thursday, I think. It was 24.95 to fill the bag they give you (I stuffed it full!). You leave it on your bed that evening before leaving for dinner and they return it the next evening.

They did have talks and presentations about the ports, but we didn't attend any, we had already planned everything out. They also give you a map in the Freestyle Daily each night with "safe" shopping stores in the port the next day. I looked at the daily and there was a Port and Tour Presentation at 10am on the first sea day and a Port Shopping Presentation at noon on the first sea day.

I will ask my sis and bro about the insects when they went to Tulum. They didn't mention that they had any issues, though.

Have a great time on your cruise!!!

Thanks for the great, detailed review. We will be on the Jewel in a couple of weeks and are really looking forward to it - will not miss the martini tasting!:D