TAPNKEGS

Once you entered the buffet are proper, there was a table there always displaying something: drink packages, a beer vendor, a huge dessert or gigantic omelet or homemade donuts with various topping to apply ( dang those donuts were good though)

just off to either side of this table were 2 identical drink stations that would have trays of various free

drinks ready to go ( and at often times very watered down) such as: lemonde, unsweet tea and water. They also had fresh coffee brewing all the time, teabags and packets of hot chocolate was also available. there were never lines to get drinks that I witnessed. Although you can see fountain soda here, this was charge by glass when I asked.

also, there were 2 self serve drink stations on either side of the rear outdoor eating area of windjammer that had their own ice machines, so if you wanted a nice strong lemonade, I would advise getting them here

lastly, there were 2 dessert stations on either side of the rear indoor area of the windjammer. They had a decent variety of things here on offer but a favorite of myself and many others were fresh chocolate chip cookies a plenty that were delicious.

Apart from the odd closing of this entire area from 5:30-6:30pm, the windjammer had a fair amount to offer. And a huge plus for the comfortable and spacious seating outside for eating

On to the Tides main dining room

ok where was I...oh yea Windjammer. I loved the layout, really kept traffic flowing and broke up the lines I have been a part of on other ships where you just have one long buffet line mirrored on either side of the Lido deck.

SUBJECTIVE WARNING: I however, was not impressed with the food. I had heard grumblings of Windjammer quality declining and for me alone, I would have to say that it is not unwarranted. There was an ok selection, but the flavors of things were just ''meh''.

For example for the first couple days, the grilling stations had very good burgers (not Guy's quality) but quite good, then they switched to a flat sad pretty aweful tasting thing for the rest of the cruise. Not sure why, but to not at least be able to get a good burger was disappointing.

that grill station would shake things up a bit by offering taco type stuff and some attempts at asian cuisine with mixed results.

Breakfast was also hit and miss. the grill stations were turned into omelet stations that took your order, gave a number and called you when it was ready ( good system there) really alieviated the lines at other omelet stations I have seen.

there was no bacon police (hooray) but the eggs... I have never seen more watery eggs consistently over the week then here. twas a bit sad. Next to the omelet station, they had toast type stuff: bagels, english muffins, white and wheat toast, but it was all predone....meaning cold and very tough. They used a VERY thin white bread that after being toasted and sitting there a bit before taken was hard as rock. I understand the need to have things readily available but once again, I do miss the fresh toast and english muffins that were done as needed.

also on dinner service, the other side grill station would be firing up made to order steaks and grilled chicken breasts. These were actually very good and became a staple of mine. For dinner, they had fresh warm rolls (most of the time).

For the salad eaters, there was an entire station dedicated along with various soups. The selection was there for the most part, but again it was the quality I found lacking. Others mentioned it was delicious. only you can decide.

There was also an area dedicated to small sandwiches and these I saw fly off the displays with regularity

They also had one or two fresh carve stations going, but I didnt see alot utilize it. I did see turkey, ham, roast beef and pork, but what I did see seemed very fatty (apart from the turkey)

more on the way..

We are on the Jewel (opposite itinerary) in February. First time on a RC ship. Interested in hearing more about the "free" dining options. Also was the solarium roof ever opened up eg. on a sea day?

Love the pictures! Thanks for posting!

about to get into the dining stuff somewhat :) and no the solarium was never open ( not even the sea day ) Anyones guess as to why that was...maybe to save wear and tear on the mechanics of it.

glad you are enjoying. sorry for the breaks, been doing a lot of different travelling to family stuff for the holidays and I try to sneak a page in when i can but other guests where I was may find it rude :) plenty to come though

The nice thing about starting the cruise from San Juan is that there was more time per stop (8-5pm) at each location. So you had time to take in an activity, come back grab a nap or a bite and stroll back out for some shopping. At this particular stop, we just didn't plan on much so I am sure someone else who was there could elaborate on things to do there.... but man that water was inviting indeed...

so 5pm comes around, the horn sounds, the pilot boat arrives...

and the screws turn, its time to head to St. Maartin

Lets talk about food a bit starting with the Windjammer

Loved the layout of stations and all the places you could enjoy a meal...outside, inside. have a look at the plaque below that is just on the reverse of the windjammer sign above. The food stations are in orange and all the different seating areas are nicely spread out all over. We never had a problem finding a place to sit for meals.

more to come

As I said before, I will not be perfect in some recollections ie: fees for pool tables, muster drill time etc.... doing my best here. I apologize for any errors.

So the first night of sleep didn't start so well due to the music from the centrum bleeding into the cabin. I remembered the signs posted on the firedoors earlier that stated they would be closed at 9:30pm to help with the noise, but it was 11pm and nothing was closed and the music was a blarin. I like music and all but when you can't get away from it in your cabin, it becomes a bit of a problem.

I then proceeded to go to guest services to inquire about it and they said they "forgot" and would have it done. A few minutes later, there was silence...much better

Monday morning: St. Croix

A nice little island that didn't seem too built up. Looking at the excursions offered by Royal and Tripadvisor, unless you were really into snorkeling, there really wasn't a whole lot offered. It looked like a lot of people just wandered off to hike around or check the little pavillion at the end of the pier filled with vendor tents and then wandered back to the ship.

Just to the left of the end of the pier, there was a small "slave fort" that charged a small fee (like $5 per person...again approximately) that we did not partake in.

these canons were stuck face down in front of the fort..not sure why

to the right of the end of the pier, there was a nice walkway that was good for shots of the ship.

more..

Even though it's been several years since we cruised on Jewel, it has always remained my all-time favorite ship. I think she is stunningly beautiful, and thanks to your exceptional pictures, I'm happy to see she is still beautiful. I'm enjoying your review very much. Thanks for doing it.

Again with total subjective opinion in mind, I completely agree. The Jewel is just an outstanding striking design. I have been on several other ships from new to old and none stood out as much as the Jewel. glad you are enjoying the ride :)

I am loving your review and you have some of the best pictures I have ever seen here on a review. Thanks and keep it up!

Thanks for the kind words, I am happy you are enjoying the virtual voyage :)

We were on the same cruise and played pool 3 times. We did not pay either time and the equipment was right there and available. Not in the best of shape, but present.

I stand corrected. I just assumed a charge by just looking at it ha, serves me right :) thanks for the clarification

Enjoying your review. We sail on January 8 so I'm hoping you will have port reviews posted soon. Please[emoji4]. Quick question- What time was your muster drill?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

testing my memory to the limit here lol. I want to say 7:15ish pm methinks

sorry for the blurry pic here but just wanted to show that San Juan was worth watching for sail away, all lit up.

we passed the Fascination on our way out..

Not long after, our pilot boat came roaring by, picked up its person and peeled off leaving us to a beautiful full moon ...

yes there will be lots of atrium pictures...just so darn cool

Good Night everyone. Next stop: St. Croix

Before we knew it, dinner was done and everyone gathered at the various INDOOR spots required for muster drill which was about 20 minutes. After that, the music played..

the lines were pulled in...

and the next thing you know, we are making our way out of San Juan harbor. more to come..

The Safari Club: deck 6 aft

Loved this location... big, open and sorely underutilized. There were hardly any activites here the whole cruise. As you enter this area just past the Schooner Bar you will see a big lounge type area. The first thing you will see on the left are the 2 gyro stabilized pool tables. It was really neat seeing these things float around as the ship moved to stay level..

the pool tables are not free by the way. There is a charge to use them but I could not say how much (forgot sorry)

on the right side when you entered are 2 sitting areas with TVs

Just past this area, you will enter the club proper greeted by this guy...

This whole area just screams style and is perfectly themed with great seating areas and little 1vs1 game tables. there is also a full bar here.

more...

One thing a lot of people did not notice is that on the pedistal for the map placard, there were elevator buttons along with one that only was for going to decks 12&13...just so you know

elevator atrium area at night

and in the day

The inside of each elevator has a lit up description by floor sign that was quite welcome for remembering whats where

As another side note, I was very impressed with the artwork in the ship. It was very tasteful and I will be posting pictures from areas around the ship with random art.

Ah yes, for those that were worried about the green lit staircase in the atrium being removed during the last drydock....worry not. I am glad they didn't remove it

One thing Royal did was push the beverage package... A LOT. If you bought the one that came with the unlimited soda, they gave you a special cup with a chip that would be identified by the soda machine ( the one where you can mix and match flavors of sodas ). Do not bother trying to use anything other then the cup you have to buy for it will not work. I saw people use this constantly so lots of people thought $150 for a week of soda is reasonable. You could stretch that value by keeping a large glass or one of those tall sports liquid containers and fill it for your other people in the family and then refill it for yourself because the machine doesn't keep track of how often you use it.

Finding the machines was a pain for people. there are 2 machines side by side located at the rear of the indoor portion of the windjammer buffet on the right (starboard) side of the ship just before you exit to the outer eating area.

As a warning, I noticed quite a few upset people with these cups unable to fill them between the hours of 5:30 and 6:30pm because for some odd reason when the windjammer is prepping for dinner from lunch, they actually close and lock the doors so you can't enter the area... and since the machines are located just inside the doors from the outside, that meant no soda refills for that hour....just letting you know

The other item people found hard to locate was the soft serve ice cream machines. On the opposite side from the soda machines just behind one of the dessert buffet stations just before the door to the outside eating area, the soft serve machines are tucked behind some sliding doors. Unlike Carnival, there is only soft serve ice cream, no frozen yogurt.

just behind this station

here you go

FINDING YOUR WAY AROUND

Jewel is very easy to navigate due to the plentiful signage and touchscreens near multiple locations and elevators that guide you to your destination and also tells you whats happening on each deck at what time...think of a more interactive version of the daily summaries they give you each night.

At every deck elevator area ( atrium ones only, the forward back did not have these ) there is a placard that provides a map as well.

more...

TAPNKEGS (like your user name)...thanks for taking us along on your Cruise. The Jewel is our favorite ship and we are doing a B2B Cruise on her April 2017. BTW I hope you don't mind but I pirated one your pictures of the Jewel to use as my desktop background.

Of course you can, I'm honored to contribute to your desktop

Thank you so much for posting ur photos and thoughts of one of my favorite ships in RCI's fleet! Haven't been aboard her since 2008 and am loving seeing her after the facelift, even though it meant the death of the Seaview Cafe:mad:

 

Lots of wonderful memories, waiting for more ...

 

Ellen

Totally agree Ellen :) The Jewel is really what comes to mind when I think of a cruise ship. Of course the opinion is subjective and there are other nice looking ships with a good layout, but there is something about the Jewel that just has a lot right (not perfect as I will elaborate on later ) I forgot, was the seaview cafe removed for Izumi in drydock?

I ask because there was a small cafe in the solarium but I think the seaview was in the rear of the ship.

solarium cafe

Were there any excursions offered in San Juan the day of departure? We have a late afternoon flight and I don't see any excursions offered in San Juan through the website. Thanks!

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

Good Morning to you and all :)

To be honest, I do not recall any postings in the terminal for excursions per se on the day of boarding or on the ship for San Juan since the departure was at 8pm ( which could have been possible since they were allowing people onboard at noon ). I am pretty sure they did have some offered on the site though.

They did however push excursions for after we returned through flyers at our room and various vendors for excursions as we left the ship. This was a wise decision on their part mainly because flights out of San Juan were fairly limited as far as departures and fell into 2 main categories... those that left at 9 or 10am and then a large gap and another group of flights after 3pm so instead of waiting for your later flight, an excursion might be a good way to kill time.

In my eyes, it goes without saying that the Jewel was in beautiful shape. You can tell a lot of attention was paid to refreshing the wear during drydock. All the carpeting everywhere still looked brand new and there were crew constantly touching up things all over. You honestly had to look hard to idenify the years Jewel actually had.

In the cabins there was ample room for storage. plenty of room under the bed for full sized suitcases and all the mirrors in the bathroom and dressing table area were actually opening cabinets for further storage.

there were no dedicated USB ports to use like the newer ships have but 2 regular plugs in the sitting area that you can plug in a USB charger which worked just fine for when I needed to charge my gopro. The only newish thing they added seemed to be the reading lights on either side of the bed and boy, are those suckers bright.

The TV was a flat panel on a universal pivot joint so you could actually angle it to watch in bed should you wish. The safe was a 4 digit code keypad type in a cabinet just above the TV that was deep enough to hold a laptop.

The balcony for this cabin ( if I am not mistaken ) used to be big enough and had a lounger in the past, but it was gone on our trip and inquiries to the steward and guest services went unfulfilled in getting one placed there... was a bit of a bummer since it was one of the reasons we chose this cabin was to be able to enjoy a lounger on the balcony.

the balcony door was a sliding design and had a large lever that you would rotate upwards 180 degrees to lock the door. there was an additional child lock high up on the middle of the door itself.

The view was quite nice from the balcony

you could not see a whole lot going toward the back of the ship though due to the continue of the outward sweep of the hump, but since the sweeping view was great already, it was never a dealbreaker.

since there was no lounger on the balcony, my better half spent a lot of time reading and playing her candy crush in the nice sitting area just around the corner in the centrum

a few shot of the ship before the sail-away next

ok here is the note posted on the firedoors on each floor exiting the centrum area to the cabins

Now I was doing research before the trip and it was noted on several occasions that live music is played very loudly in the centrum until around midnight. To some it was not a big deal, from hearing nothing, to a loud white noise of muffled music to being the point of keeping people awake.

I guess it became an issue to enough people that they implimented this to help with the noise...more on this later...

Taking a left from where the firedoor is, 9576 is about 4 cabins forward so yes there was quite a bit of noise bleed from the centrum heard in the cabin, but here it is.

and of course the bathroom with the sliding shower doors ( this was a small but oh so nice detail that was so welcome compared to the curtains on other ships and because it curved out it really gave you a nice amount of room to enjoy the shower.

more to come...any questions so far?

security appeared good. That said, if one should want to attempt to bring ''beverages'' that are typically not allowed or more then the usual allowance, from our personal experience we had a loose 15 pack of bottled water, a bottle of champagne and 2 bottles of wine in a single carry on and when it went through security, they didn't even give it a second glance through the scanner. For all they know, we could have filled every water bottle with vodka. Of course, it could have been just luck, but the screener security seemed a bit aloof and not like the US counterparts. just my opinion on the matter.

oh yes and here is that crazy mass of people still waiting out in the heat to board the Gem after we have been aboard for a couple hours... nuts

ok.. next lets get the cabin out of the way.

We stayed in cabin 9576 on deck 9 sandwiched between a full deck above on 10 and deck 8 below. It is also the starting of the ''hump'' cabins on the right (starboard side). You can see the cabin below in the shot I got of our steward cleaning our balcony.

9576 is a bit of a coveted cabin partly due to it being part of the hump, but also because unlike most other hump cabins, ours had a very nice sized balcony. to understand the shape, take a pie and cut it into 4 equal parts. the shape of a quarter is about what the balcony looks like.

but first you have to board the ship and see the atrium...

after you ride the elevators from the six on the left or port side of the ship to deck 9 you will see one of the changes from the April drydock in that they removed the library from this area and placed an interior cabin there instead.

the door opening at the far end was a fire door originaly closed for when they are prepping the rooms. I mention this because while we waited for the rooms to be ready at 1pm, there was a note on the door I was very interested in.

next...

Yes indeed San Juan was a nice little port to start from.

and the weather, although quite warm and humid made for a nice time of walking around the ship inside and out since we had so much time until our sailaway at 8pm

we were parked aft to aft with the Gem

and the Pan American port is right next to a small airport

and the old fort in the distance to the harbor on the other side

more coming

Looking forward to your review, we sail in about 6 weeks!! Which itinerary were you on?

 

Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk

That would help wouldn't it ? lol

Day 1: San Juan

Day 2: St. Croix

Day 3: St. Maarten

Day 4: Dominica

Day 5: Barbados

Day 6: Grenada

and Day 7: Sea Day

PRE-BOARD

We arrived in San Juan the friday before the sailing ( on sunday the 11th ). A good deal always seems to be had through Hotwire and we secured an ocean view room at the Intercontinenal for about $100 per night.

the view was from our room on the 7th floor

To say it had a balcony is pushing it a bit. There was room to stand there outside the sliding door but thats it...no chair would fit. It was not a problem. The view was great.

The taxi from the airport charged a flat $15 for the ride and took about 10 minutes. Speaking of cost... lets get one thing out of the way. As so many others here have said...and this can not be emphasized enough... DO NOT ARRIVE ON THE DAY OF THE CRUISE. There are simply too many variables out of the most careful planners hands that doing so invites many a sad face.

We always plan to arrive one to two days before simply because if we can afford a cruise, we can afford an extra hotel night for piece of mind.

On our trip, there were computer issues that threatened loss of baggage at a connection and on the way home after the trip, our first flight was delayed over an hour due to problems with the cargo door and then our second flight was cancelled due to weather and we had to stay in that city overnight. Imagine if that issue with the flight home was on your day of trip to the cruise.

We had decent weather at the hotel so we took in the huge pool and spent time in the Atlantic. And let me tell you, this time of year the water was sublime. There were plenty of activities available: snorkeling, jetskis, parasailing and there was a great bar/eatery on the beach.

So sunday comes along and we were a little disheartened there was no shuttle for the port, but we just took another taxi for about $10 which wasnt bad. What was bad is we found out the day before, there had been a little strike by the taxi drivers that made the 10 minute drive for us a 3 hour one for the people leaving on the cruise that day. Again, another reason to arrive before the day of the cruise.

There was still a massive issue with traffic that morning and we had to walk a ways with our luggage along the Pan American Pier waterfront to the cruise terminal. The Gem was there as well as the Jewel and there were massive lines of people waiting just to get into the terminal for the Gem. However, we passed by them and went right into the A/C of the RC terminal and through the line completely in 4 minutes.

10 minutes after that with seapasses in hand, we were allowed to board. I felt sorry for the folks waiting to get in the terminal for the Gem. It seemed VERY chaotic and was pretty hot (about 90ish with high humidity) so points for Royal on how embarkation was organised.

More in the next post ''The Jewel''. Please remember to ask questions if you have them since my memory is not as great the more time goes by... I'm sure some can relate. Thanks for putting up with me!

Hello All !

Since I have not seen any in depth reviews of Jewel since the drydock, I thought I would throw one in.

First, some disclaimers: Spelling and grammer errors...expect them...just sayin. I am doing this after long days of class and work so if you can get the gist of what I am typing, I consider it a win.

so a couple preview pics while I get the rest of the shoveling done

Second, there is no food porn ( very sorry ) but as I have stated in a prior review, I have a palete so boring it would make Gordon Ramsey cry and Wolfgang Puck quit and try to endorse Amish Rake Fighting in the next olympics..... yes my menu is THAT limited. For those that will pick up on the reference, take Leonard Hofstadters food issues and multiply by about 6..so yea...fun. That said, I will still attempt to go over what I did experience food-wise in addition to commentary by my far better half on what is available and the quality.

Contrary to my screen name here, I don't drink... never have, never will. I UNDERSTAND it for sure, just can't miss what you never had so I can't really comment on the alcohol side.

With that out of the way, I will be happy to field questions and answer as best as I am able from what I and my wife have experienced.

We are in our low 40's and do not have kids. This is my eighth cruise and her forth. I like it more then she does mostly because she has some motion sickness issues.

Lastly as far as gear for pictures, I used a Canon T3i and a gopro 3+. I did use the wide format for taking some stills with the gopro and due to that, some pics may be a bit fuzzy. This was due to not being able to view the shots once they were taken. It was literaly click and pray.. And I do like to have a little fun with the tilt-shift or (miniature) function on the Canon. It is challenging to frame the picture in a way the filter will work well and to me it makes some pictures more interesting.

Sorry for all the words, I will get working on pre-board day tomorrow. Until then, ask questions if you have them and enjoy the ride

trashing this post due to pictures not posting