Our Jewel Cruise - Feb 7th 2015 - Free Drinks, YAY!

NCL Jewel 2-7-15

Ports: Cozumel, Belize, Trujillo (Banana Coast) Honduras.

My husband and I went on the Jewel of the Seas 2-7-15 and loved it! My husband usually writes reviews, but I couldn’t convince him this time, so I will write a review with a few pictures of our vacation. Feel free to ask any questions, especially if you are leaving on a Jewel cruise and need to know right away!

Here is some quick information about us. My husband, TJ (known on the Cruise Critic forums as tominabox1) and I lived in Cedar Rapids, Iowa for four years. In November, we moved to Dallas, Texas for TJ’s job! We have one dog, a Chinese Crested Powder Puff, Marty (Who unfortunately does not cruise with us).

Marty

We booked this cruise on Dec 16th, when the 1st wave of Freestyle Choice promo came out. I had my eye on two cruises, the NCL Jewel and the RCI Navigator. I had been watching prices prior to the sale and knew that the Freestyle Choice promo was debuting on the 16th. I thought that the prices would go up at least some, but was surprised to find out this particular Jewel sailing did not go up in price. So we booked an OX GTY with the UBP promo for 379 per person! RCI simply could not beat that price, plus the free alcohol was a no brainer! We are not “Loyal” to any cruise line, we just love to cruise and try to book the best deals.

TJ and I

Because we live about 4 1/2 hours away from Bayport Cruise Terminal, we drove the day of and picked up a couple from their home that we knew from our roll call, who generously chipped in and helped us pay for our parking bill. We ended up having a blast with them the whole cruise!

(Just love seeing that UBP sticker on there)

Bayport Cruise Terminal was nice and efficient, but we had to wait until 12:00 to board because of some yearly inspection on the ship! I thought we would get on by 10:30-11 like we have on other ships, so I didn’t eat breakfast. I was super hungry while waiting in the terminal and wished I had eaten breakfast. Finally, our number was called! We were in group 4, and the couple we were with were in group 5. On the way to get on the ship, my husband grabbed my arm and said “You have to wait until our turn.” Confused, as I thought they had called group 4 to board, I stopped to look at our group number and said “But group 4 is boarding now” and my husband says “But we are group 5!” I started laughing and showed him our group 4 tag and kept walking. He just thinks he knows everything ;)

here is us with our mardi gras beads on!

As we boarded the ship and entered into the atrium, it was like all NCL atriums in my opinion - underwhelming. One thing I like about RCI is that when you step onto their ships for the first time, you are WOWed. Because we were so hungry, we practically ran to O’Sheehans to eat lunch with the couple we picked up from the hotel. We ordered SO much food. Mozzarella sticks, chicken fingers, burgers, salads, you name it!. It was all delicious, hot and fresh. All four of us had the UBP, so we all ordered a drink. I got my favorite, the Mango Meltdown. There really wasn’t a whole lot of drinks to choose from, as they have a limited drink menu while in Texas waters. Because of Texas liquor laws, even with the UBP, you have to pay taxes on the drinks, so each drink was like 20-30 cents. :eek: Broke the bank, haha.

Mango Meltdown at O'Sheehan's.

After eating at O’Sheehans, we slowly moved to check out our staterooms. We were on Deck 8, which is the same deck O’Sheehan’s is on (This definitely comes in handy throughout the rest of our cruise). When we get inside our stateroom, 8074, it initially looks like any other small stateroom on a cruise ship until we pull back the curtains. Our windows are frosted - yes, you read right, FROSTED. Probably the worst kind of frosted too, they were like that light green frosted so not a lot of light could even come through it. Now, we knew when booking and OX GTY, we probably were going to get a crappy view, but this was NO VIEW at all! I couldn't even see a lifeboat, a pole, or anything if I had my face pressed up to the glass. We didn't complain about it, because we paid so little for it and only booked an OX GTY for the beverage package, but I have NO idea how they can classify that room as an Obstructed Oceanview. I bet if we would have went down to complain about it, they would have classified the frosted glass as an obstruction.

Anyhow, inside our “Obstructed Oceanview Stateroom” we took a shower and napped. Bed was comfortable. Bathroom set up was a little bit cramped, it was set up in three sections. The shower was separate from sink, and the sink was separate from the toilet. You really couldn’t go sit on the toilet and shut the sliding door without being claustrophobic. Only reason why I can see why they would have it so sectioned off is for family members, but I would not want to shower while someone else was using the toilet. To each their own, I guess. I DID like that the room had a fairly big square sized table. We were hardly in our room, so I really don’t have much more to say about it - there was a decent amount of storage for 2 people, although if you have 3-4 people in that room, it would be cramped.

So after our glorious nap, it was time for the muster drill! Our station was right outside Le Bistro on Deck 6. It was a quick muster drill, but for some reason the people who were in the muster drill station on deck 7 were laughing and having the time of their life, and we could not figure out why they were having so much fun and everyone else wasn’t! Never did figure it out.

After the muster drill, we made our way to a Cruise Critic Sail Away party, which was a LOT of fun. Only 10-12 people showed up, but almost everyone had the UBP and we all had a great time getting to know each other.

Our view from the bar at sailaway.

After the sail away, we got dinner at Azura, which was really good but very very slow. All our meals in the MDR were great this cruise, but the service was poor and very slow. We usually eat early, at 5:30, so we can make the early showing of the evening show and do all the evening activities. We didn’t make it to go to the “Show sampler” at 7:15.

We checked out the Casino and lost some of our money when we got out of Texas waters. I found the Casino on the Jewel to be OK. It was small, and they could have had more slots with better "Bonus games", but was decent.

Here is me, living it large, betting 1c per line! (I initially was betting more but was almost out so had to draw it out for as long as I could)

Then we went to Karaoke at the Fyzz lounge. The first night, Karaoke was the BEST. I don’t know why, but the subsequent nights were not nearly as entertaining. There was like 4-5 girls who definitely had waaaaaay too much to drink and were on the stage the whole time. It got so bad, at one point, the girls on the stage weren’t even singing, one was just sitting on the stage moaning, another one was grinding against the microphone not singing a word. My husband, who never stays up past 10pm, stayed up until after midnight! When we go on cruises, his nickname is Sleepy - but he made sure we got this picture of him as proof he stayed up past midnight!

We both went to bed around 12:30/1AM and that pretty much was our first day at sea on the NCL Jewel.

I will end Day 1 with a picture of the ocean! :D

Very nice review so far....one question what's in a mango meltdown??? Looks yummy

So glad to see you are doing review! When is the next installment?

So glad to see you are doing review! When is the next installment?

Tonight! My in laws are in town and we are out and about until the evening!

Very nice review so far....one question what's in a mango meltdown??? Looks yummy

Peach schnapps, rum, mango puree maybe pineapple, it's very sweet, super good

Thanks for the great reviews. Can't wait for more!

Looking forward to reading more! I leave in just a few weeks on the Jewel.

I made note of the mango meltdown... It will definitely be my first drink on the ship.

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Day 2 – Day at Sea

I feel like the more we cruise, the more I personally enjoy days at sea! They are so relaxing, fun, and I love hanging out with all the people I meet on cruises! It’s much easier to do that on a sea day than a port day, so I like having a few sea days on a cruise!

We had our Cruise Critic Meet and Mingle at 11am at LeBistro. A lady in our roll call was in charge of that, and I was in charge of organizing the slot pull, cabin crawl, gift exchange, and a pub crawl. The meet and mingle was good, met a LOT of really fun people. I don’t really have any pictures for the meet and mingle segment: I was pretty busy , but I am sure most of you have been to M&M’s and pictures are not absolutely necessary.

All of the cruise department heads came out to say hello, which seems to be pretty typical at NCL Meet and Mingles (We have only been on 2 NCL cruises, so correct me if I am wrong). I think it’s really awesome that they do that, it really makes the cruise more personalized. On the Getaway, when we went to the M&M, we got the card of the hotel director. We ended up having a little bit of a customer service issue, and we called the number on our card and he really did go above and beyond to fix the problem. So there definitely ARE perks to going to your Cruise Critic M&M and be sure to keep their cards!

There were cookies, cheese, water, lemonade, maybe other things but I really wasn’t paying attention too much to what was on the table. After the mingling at the M&M, we had a small gift exchange. For those of you who are reading who do not know how a M&M gift exchange works, here is the general info on that: You bring an item 10-15.00 worth that represents your state/town. Sometimes there is stealing and games with the exchange, and sometimes it is just a simple “Draw a number out of the hat and swap gifts with someone”. We love doing gift exchanges, I have gotten some pretty cool stuff from different states, it helps me remember the people I meet, and they make great souvenirs and conversation starters. Our gift exchange was pretty small, I am not sure why there was not more interest in it. Maybe it was too much hassle for the people flying, but we did have about 3-4 couples exchange stuff.

Because we just moved to Plano/Dallas, Texas, it was a bit of struggle for us to find something, but we ended up giving a “Speak Texan” book, and chocolate animal droppings snack. We got a Missouri bass pro shop GIANT cup, and a “Freeze me” Camo Bass Pro Shop cup cozie. After the gift exchange, it was off to do the cabin crawl! We had a great turn out for the cabin crawl and had a great selection of cabins!

We saw

2 Insides (they had different set ups, so if you have an inside, I would search CC and see what type you have)

1 OX Oceanview with beautiful “frosty” windows haha

1 Oceanview picture window

1 balcony

1 Mini – suite

An Owner’s Suite (Which was amazing!!!)

We were supposed to go see an aft facing penthouse, but we had a bit of a mix up and didn’t go see it that day, but some of us gathered later on to view it, and it was also very, very nice.

Side note: The green carpet in some of the cabin hallways is hideous and worn, but I LOVE the Jewel Cabin Doors.

After the cabin crawl, it was off to the Jewel Casino at Sea for the Slot Pull. We have done at least 6 CC slot pulls, and we have never won anything. We always do the wheel of fortune machine and it’s always pretty underwhelming. So I decided since I was in charge of the slot pull, that maybe I should see if people were ok doing another machine – I had no objections, so we ended up doing this Red Hot 7s with a progressive jackpot. Each person paid in 15.00 and got 5 max bet pulls. We ended up hitting the bottom three progressive jackpots and ended up winning 5.00 a person (Each person at the end was paid 20.00) I was pretty excited about that!

I sat down on a slot machine and lost my 20.00 bill so I lost it anyhow! I guess it’s just money, can’t take it with ya ;)

We had a 1 hour break when some people went to the Latitudes Party. We didn’t go because we had UBP and didn’t need free drinks. After the Latitudes Party, we met up with the people who signed up for our roll call’s “Pub Crawl”. Someone in our roll call said “Hey, we should do a unofficial pub crawl” so there was enough interest so we did one. I have never done a pub crawl before, but it was a lot of fun. We started at the bar in the Spinnaker Lounge and worked our way down. The bartender at the Spinnaker was very nice and played “bar games” with us (I don’t remember his name, sorry! Too many drinks).

We didn’t make it to all the bars unfortunately – we had to leave at 5 to get ready for our dinner at Cagney’s. I would recommend doing a “Roll Call Pub Crawl” if you can. If your roll call doesn’t have one, see if people are interested! It is a great way to loosen up and make some great friends!

We went to get dressed for our 5:30 dinner at Cagney’s, which was DELICIOUS. I love Cagney’s, I think it’s better than Royal Caribbean’s “Chops Steakhouse”. I think that Cagney’s food is better, the menu is bigger, and the value is better. On RCI, I feel like the sides at Chops Steakhouse are the same as what you get in the MDR and only the steak is “Premium”. I am not saying that Chop’s isn’t really good, just that I think NCL’s Cagney’s is something I would pick over Chop’s.

On the Getaway, we had the UDP, but we didn’t have that on this cruise. We only were going to do 2 specialty restaurants, because we hadn’t really tried out the Main Dining Rooms on NCL. I ordered the chicken drumsticks as my appetizer. I do not remember what my husband got. The drumsticks were OK – I would not order them again, but I like white meat better than dark I got the 14oz NY strip steak with mashed potatoes, and TJ got Lobster and Shrimp (I think, I was concentrating on eating my own meal). My meal was delicious, and TJ said his was “OK”. I think he wished he would have gotten steak. I got Oreo cheesecake for dessert and it was amazing. I would really love one right now, actually.

After dinner, we went to go see the show, Band on the Run, which was really good. TJ went to bed shortly after. I went to the Spinnaker lounge to watch the show “Dancing with the Stars”. I initially thought this was going to be a serious competition, but it was a funny show and I recommend seeing it. I am not going to explain the theatre shows and game shows in super detail as I don’t want to spoil it, but I definitely would go see Dancing With the Stars – I wish my husband would have stayed up for it.

That just about wraps up Day 2 at Sea – Hope you enjoyed reading this installment!

Great review...keep it coming :D

So funny! Can't wait to keep reading!

Sorry for the delay in this installment, my in-laws were in town and we were busy all weekend.

Day 3 – Cozumel

We have been to Cozumel before, in Dec 2010 on our honeymoon cruise. We did Playa Mia, which then was 35.00pp for a chair and unlimited booze. It was a great time then, but I saw online that it had changed a lot and the prices went up a little bit. I also was trying to stick to a 100 per port budget, so I decided we should just do some shopping. Our first trip to Cozumel, we got these awesome 6.00 Mexican blankets that we just love, so it was my main goal to stock up this time.

We got off the ship very easily. We were “Dog sniffed” going into Cozumel (ironic, right). We walked around the main shopping area to find some of those blankets. We found a big shop that had large ones for 7.99 ea and smaller ones for 5.99 ea. I wish I would have gotten more of the 7.99 big ones, they had a nicer edge and I love the bigger size. I ended up with three of each kind. I know some people only like the buy truly "handmade" items from ports of call, but those are pretty hard to come by. I like these because they are cute, inexpensive, and super comfy. The tags said they were made in Mexico and were made at Frank's Textiles, and sure enough here is the website

http://www.textilesfranks.com/en/

Here are some pictures of the blankets. The camera on my phone is bad I HAD to Instagram them, you know how it is, haha. Of course when I lay the blanket on the floor for a photo, my dog will not get off of it, so you get to see him too. What a cutie!

Size approx 6 ft x 4ft (7.99 USD)

Edge of large blanket

Size approx 5 1/2 ft x 4ft (5.99)

Edge of smaller blanket

Fun things in some shops

We ended up walking around the main shopping area a bit more, but I really didn’t see anything else that caught my eye, so we just headed back to the ship for a relaxing day on the ship.

Walking around Cozumel

NCL Jewel

Back to the Ship

We ended up walking around the main shopping area a bit more, but I really didn’t see anything else that caught my eye, so we just headed back to the ship for a relaxing day on the ship.

Here's me after I woke up from a super nice nap on one of the upper decks.

Apparently, some cruise critic people we had met were taking some laps around the deck and saw me passed out, drooling on a pool lounger - how embarrassing! :eek: But they were super fun people, and I would love to cruise with them again, even though they witnessed me at my worst.

We laid out on the pool deck, I sat at the pool bar and drank for a little while, met some fun people at the pool bar, and had lunch at O’Sheehan’s.

I seriously love O'Sheehan's, the food is so good, and service is amazing and super fast. One thing I noticed throughout the cruise was that the drinks I ordered at O'Sheehan's were the largest of anywhere on the ship. I am assuming the same amount of alcohol is in it, as I noticed the price for the mango meltdown at O'Sheehan's was the same as it was at the pool bar, but the O'Sheehan's one was 2x the size. Other people we were with who ordered drinks got "large" drinks as well, such as big Long Islands and Mudslides. So if you are paying for drinks, maybe getting a big drink at O'Sheehan's is better than spending your money at a different bar. Even if it is the same amount of alcohol, it would last longer.

We had dinner at Tsar’s. The food was good, TJ had a strip steak and I had some chicken parmagiana. The service was poor and was very slow. We always eat as early as possible, so we can make the most of the shows and nightlife. Usually, there is nothing going on from 4-6 anyhow. We never got dessert in any of the MDR because the service was so slow and we had to make our 7:15 shows.

The show on Day 3 was Comedy with David Naster. It was VERY good – he was funny, without being crude. Very family friendly, yet entertaining for adults. I heard that he is on the ship a lot.

We ended up going to Fyzz later that night for some karaoke. Again, the karaoke was terrible. This is out 8th cruise, and I have never seen it this terrible. No good songs were played. Overall, it was just a joke. I had some sinus allergies going on, so I decided to take some medicine and just call it a night.

That's the end of Day 3! Hope you enjoyed reading

Other than the window issue, how did you like having a room on deck 8? We're in a picture window room aft of O’Sheehan’s in 2 weeks and I'm hoping I made a good choice.

Other than the window issue, how did you like having a room on deck 8? We're in a picture window room aft of O’Sheehan’s in 2 weeks and I'm hoping I made a good choice.

LOVED the location - being right next to O'Sheehan's was amazing! Plus for the most part, you are just going down decks to get to activities, not going up, so you can take the stairs for the most part. Even taking the stairs up to deck 13 isn't bad.

The window thing was more of an inconvenience, as I was hoping to have some real natural light come in and I felt like a frosted window was false advertising, even for an obstructed oceanview category. It seems typical that people pay 550-600 for OX category and if I paid that much and got a frosted window, I would be pissed - but I paid 379 and got free drinks...right next to a 24 hr bar/restaurant, soooo :cool:

But you will love being on Deck 8 I think, especially with a picture window! But being aft can have it's downfalls, it IS much nicer being midship, but hey, gotta burn those calories somehow :D

I read your review and it sounds like you had fun! You mentioned you had to pay taxes for the drinks in Texas was that true all week? What about gratuity for the drinks? Since your package was included?

We are going on the Jewel in March and are new to cruising.

thanks!

I read your review and it sounds like you had fun! You mentioned you had to pay taxes for the drinks in Texas was that true all week? What about gratuity for the drinks? Since your package was included?

 

We are going on the Jewel in March and are new to cruising.

thanks!

The taxes only apply while you are in Texas waters, which is surprising a lot of distance! Gratuities are included in your package, even in Texas waters. We sailed away around 4:30 and were out of Texas waters around 6:30-7pm. On the way back, we were in Texas waters by 10pm! Which was surprising as they have to shut the casino down, I thought for sure they would hover right outside Texas waters so that they could keep the Casino open for as long as possible.

Taxes depended on the drink, but I don't think there was one that cost more than 50 cents. They also have a reduced menu for drinks while in Texas waters because they only have certain kinds of alcohol they serve while in Texas waters. Your mini bar will be taped up when you get on the ship until the following day, and will be taped up prior to entering Texas waters.

Hope that helps!

Thank you for the information and pictures posted on your Norwegian Jewel cruise. Enjoyed reading about everything. We leave on the same cruise in 3 days. Thanks again.

Thank you this is very helpful about the tax and the casino! :)

Did you by chance do the cavetubing in Belize? I know you are still completing your review, but if you have I just have a couple of questions.

thank you and I can't wait to continue hearing about your cruise.

Thank you this is very helpful about the tax and the casino! :)

 

Did you by chance do the cavetubing in Belize? I know you are still completing your review, but if you have I just have a couple of questions.

 

thank you and I can't wait to continue hearing about your cruise.

We did cave tube in Belize through Butt's Up (cave-tubing.com)

Day 4 - Belize

We went to Belize on our first cruise. We did the “Altun Ha” excursion through the Carnival cruise line, which was great, but it was very, very hot that day in December. It was basically unbearably humid. So when we got back to that Carnival ship, everyone was telling us how great their cave tubing was, so we said next time, we will do cave tubing.

So keeping to our word, I booked us with Butt’s Up Cave Tubing, not through the cruise line. What is super nice about Butt’s Up is that it was 55.00 if you paid in advance via Credit Card, but it was 45.00 if you paid in cash at the port. I was worried about rain, so it was nice not having a super “Set in stone” reservation. If it rained, we could just not go. And 45.00 was at least 60.00 cheaper than what it would have cost us to do it through the cruise line, so it was a pretty decent deal. The excursion included transportation, cave tubing, and a tamale snack.

http://www.cave-tubing.com/

Back to the beginning of the day in port, Belize is a tender port, which we knew. But our excursion didn’t leave until 9:30 so we figured that we would get up around 7AM, go to the buffet for a quick breakfast, grab our tender ticket, and then get ashore. Simple enough, right?

We ate breakfast, and grabbed a tender ticket 12 at 7:35. The first two tenders took 35 minutes each tender ticket. At this point, my husband is getting super worried we are not going to make our excursion. Luckily, there were two departure times for cave tubing, 9:30 and 10:00.

Finally, the next couple of tenders went quicker, about 15 minutes per tender ticket. When we got to tender ticket 9, we left our room to wait to get on the tender boat. When we got down to Deck 4, they were just letting anyone who was waiting onto the tenders. It irked us a little, because if we had waited until our ticket was called, we would have definitely missed our excursion. I guess their are some perks to booking with the ship, like getting priority tenders. So if you didn’t book with the ship, I would just hang out on Deck 4 and get off as soon as they will let you.

Getting off the actual ship to get onto the tender was FANTASTIC. The steps they had you take to get into the tender boats were very stable and sturdy and it didn't feel “unsafe” getting off the ship onto the tender, like I have felt on other ships. They load two tender boats at a time. It was a very nice setup, so I am sure the hold up on calling tender tickets was to do with passengers, and not their tender setup.

It was actually not hot temperature wise, around 70 degrees, max 75 degrees. It was very breezy, so it could have been a bit hotter for being in the water. On the tender boat in the morning, I definitely was cold and wished I was wearing more than my swimsuit coverup.

Here’s some pictures from the tender boat

Our lovely ship, the Jewel

It was quite easy once ashore to find Butt’s Up - They were holding a sign and took us promptly to a bus with around 10 people in it. Apparently, they had moved the people from the bus to a van because they thought no more people were going to show up, but when more people started showing up for the 10:00 excursion, they moved them back to the bus. They did apologize for that. After we arrived, a few more people showed up for the 10:00 excursion. We left on time, which was nice. No waiting around 30 minutes for possible people to show up.

On the way to the excursion, which is about a 45 minute drive, we had a bit of a guided tour by Jeff. My husband took a video, and if you would like to watch it, I will post ALL of the videos we took at the very end of the review, along with pictures of the dailies and other goodies. A little incentive to keep reading along :D

It was a really nice little “tour” as we made our way to the caves. They also had us try some Cashew wine, which was something I did not personally like. They were selling some of it by the bottle, but it was tastefully done and was not pushy.

Since it has been about 4 years since we have seen Belize, it is looking MUCH better. We visited Belize for the first time after they had a hurricane in 2010, but they have recovered nicely from it. It still is not as nice as the Virgin Islands, in my opinion, but it’s not really fair to compare the two. Remember, the parts of Belize I saw this time were only of on the way to cave tubing.

Once at our destination, our bus of people were split into groups. There were some people who were just doing cave tubing (Us), some people were doing ATV only, some people were doing Zipline and Cave Tubing, etc.

We did end up waiting around for about 20 minutes, but the driver of the van apologized for the wait and bought us coconut water and rum in a coconut. I don’t really like coconut water, and I especially do not like warm drinks, but it was a thoughtful gesture! What a great tour company! What does one do while waiting…

Take a selfie!

After about 30 minutes, it was time for cave tubing. We had about a 30 minute hike to where the cave tubing starts. It was not a pleasant hike, simply because the rocks on the ground were HUGE. I am flat footed, and stepping on the rocks in my swimshoes I got for 2.50 at Walmart was not exactly fun. If the rocks had not been so big, would have been an easy hike. You do go through the river a bit, which was hard to wade through. Like I said, the rocks were huge, and then when you are wading through water, it can be treacherous. My advice is to take your time and go slow! The inner tubes we had were very nice - they have back rests and cup holders. Most, if not all, the girls did not have to carry their tubes when hiking, which was super helpful. I do not have the best balance and coordination to begin with, walking on those big rocks with the inner tube would have been tiring.

My poor husband carrying his inner tube - what a champ!

I’m obviously working hard, carrying my water

They do stop you at various points along the hike to point out different trees and plants to tell you about them.

Just a picture of the people from our excursion hiking - see the people carrying the inner tube.