drummerdavebmth

My support giraffe and I will be on decks 6, 7 & 8. Simultaneously.

Hahahaha.....Good one! Thanks for giving me my first chuckle of the day! :)

Jen & Dave!!!! How the heck are you guys?! I really hope you're doing well.... we need to cross paths again someday.

Thx for saying hi on this review my friend. Say, I'm on Ovation next year so I'll be going back to your review to poke around and look at all your great ship pics again my sailing draws nearer. Have fun on Jewel!

 

Say... ever thought of doing Alaska? Plenty of non-stop flights from Gatwick or Heathrow to Vancouver next May 13 ;)

(I'll show you two around Vancouver for a day :D)

We're doing really well thanks :)

Yes, it would be great to cross paths again (and thanks for your kind offer to show us around Vancouver - Alaska is certainly a "bucket list" cruise, so we may hold you to that offer one day! :cool: )

Amazing review (as always) so far Hoopster!! Looking forward to the rest :)

Looking forward to following this review. My wife and I are on Jewel for a 9 night Greek Isles cruise in September!

My wife and I are doing a 9 night Greek Isles cruise on 'Jewel' in September. We can't wait!! :D

We've been on 'Sarenade' (our honeymoon cruise - full photo review is in my signature) and loved it it. 'Serenade' is the same class of ship to 'Jewel' and we loved the outdoor eating area of the Windjammer, the covered Solarium and the general layout of the ship .

We've also just booked an 8 night cruise next September on 'Brilliance' (again, same class as 'Jewel' - so what does that tell you! ;)).

Thanks for everyone’s replies.

We’ve decided to not go on this cruise now......we wouldn’t want to have a tarnished experience of an Oasis class ship due to pre-drydock issues/compromises.

We never sailed on an Oasis class ship before so, if/when we do, we want to have the best possible experience when spending that amount of money (which we feel a pre-drydock cruise wouldn’t give us).

We are now eyeing up an 8 night Spanish/Portgugal cruise in the same month, on Brilliance of the Seas, instead ;)

Hi

My wife and I are thinking of booking the Oasis of The Seas in Sept ‘19 in the Med. We were looking at the 15th Sept sailing, but there doesn’t seem to be any sailings after that......does this mean she will be going into dry dock straight after that cruise?

If this is the case, would our experience be tarnished with prep work for the dry dock (ie; things being taken down, lots of workmen about etc etc)?

Has anyone gone on a cruise just before a dry dock? What were your experiences?

My wife and I had our very first cruise on Indy to the Norwegian Fjords in May ‘13.......I did an extensive review (with lots of tips and amazing photo’s), the link to this is in my signature, so hopefully you’ll find that useful/informative.

Bring clothes for all situations.......from cold, rain to warm sun!

The Fjords are stunning & beautiful....and in May you’ll see lots of amazing waterfalls as the snow and ice begins to melt.

My girlfriend finishes her PhD next year so we decided to take a trip to Europe to celebrate and we eventually decided that we wanted that trip to be on a cruise. I’ve cruised Carnival exclusively for 12+ years (I’m in my late 20’s) and my girlfriend has for 8 years and, while we still love Carnival, thought we’d try something different. Thus, we booked our cruise with the Jewel of the Seas which I think is a “Radiance” class ship. Anyways, what should we look forward to from Royal Caribbean in comparison to Carnival? Has anyone been on the Jewel of the Seas? What was your experience on that ship like? We’re very excited to see what this cruise line has to offer.

 

 

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The only cruise line my wife and I have cruised on is Royal Caribbean, so I can’t help you with any cruise line comparisons.

However, we have been on ‘Jewel Of The Seas’ sister ship (‘Sarenade Of The Seas’) which is pretty much identical in the layout and amenities. If you look in my signature, there is a link to an in-depth review of our honeymoon cruise (Med/Adriatic) with lots of photo’s.

We both loved ‘Sarenade’. Perfect for couples, who don’t need all the “bells ‘n’ whistles” of larger ships to keep their kids entertained. There are plenty of nice bars/restaurants, a decent sized theatre, an outside pool with 2 hot tubs and a movie screen and a lovely, adults only indoor solarium pool with a further 2 hot tubs.

Don’t forget that a Euopean cruise will be more port intensive that what I’m guessing you’ve been used to (Caribbean etc). It really is more about the historical and cultural destinations you’re visiting than the ship...........Don’t get me wrong, the ship is lovely!

In fact, the ‘Radiance’ class (of which both ‘Jewel’ & ‘Sarenade’ belong) is our favourite (certainly my wife’s favourite). So much so, that we are also doing a cruise on ‘Jewel’ this September to celebrate our anniversary (9 nights Greek Islands).

We can’t wait!! :)

It’s a shame Royal Caribbean have stopped doing their ‘Wine & Dine’ packages. My wife and I enjoyed using this on our first 3 cruises...

Happy Birthday!!! Great live report.....really enjoying it!! :)

Great live review so far! I'm looking forward to the rest of the review :)

.... and I'm really looking forward to what will be my next bucket list cruise vacay in three months on port intensive Greek/Med b2b on Jewel :D

Hi Hoopster! Jen and I are doing the 9 night Greek Isles cruise on Jewel next year (Sept 2018), so we're hoping you have a great "bucket list" cruise this year.....and we will eagerly follow any post cruise review(s) you might do! :D

Independence booked for May 2018 for Norway and the Fjords....booked it in March while on the Millennium.

I proposed to my wife on Indy in the Norwegian Fjords in 2013 (our first cruise).....it's a beautiful place. We went in May too - you're in for a treat! I did a lengthy photo review of that cruise at the time....the link is in my signature :)

My wife and I are booked on Jewel in September 2018 (9 night Greek Isles).

We're doing a 2 week land based holiday in Crete (Greece) this year (June) :)

We usually go to 2-3 speciality restaurants per cruise.......We quite like to MDR experience, although we do enjoy a few extra special dinning experiences too (and try and plan them after we've been at a particularly special port of call)

Here's the speciality restaurants we've experienced so far...

Indy, 8 night cruise (Norway) - Giovanni's Table, Chops Grille

Liberty, 7 night cruise (Western Med) - Portofino, Chops Grille

Serenade, 12 night cruise (Med & Adriatic) - Izumi, Giovanni's Table, Chops Grille

Ovation, 8 night cruise (3 night Pre-Inaugural...Holland + 5 night Inaugural..France, Belgium) - Jamie's Italian, Chops Grille

When we do our 9 night Greek Isles cruise next year, we'll probably do 2-3 nights in speciality restaurants again.

We do like to enjoy the MDR experience for the first couple of nights though (we like to look forward to the speciality restaurants so spread them out through the cruise).

And I reserved an aft balcony - so I'm very excited!

First time ever travelling to Europe. First time on Jewel.

We are going September 9, 2018 on the Italy/Greek Islands 9 night. Any advice? Recommendations?

My wife and I have just booked on the same cruise!!!

We haven't been on 'Jewel of the Seas', but we have been on another "Radiance" class ship. In 2014 we went on our honeymoon to the Mediterranean/Adriatic on the 'Serenade of the Seas' (same class of ship as 'Jewel' and a similar itinerary).

Here's a lengthy photo review I did, which you may find of interest for advice/recommendations etc http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2337917

Roll on 9th Sept 2018!!!

Great....thanks guys! :D

Hi guys

My wife and I are toying with the idea of booking a Norwegian Fjords cruise in 2018 and would rather stick to Royal Caribbean as it's the cruise line we know (and have got to Platinum status with - we'll move up to Emerald after our next cruise). :)

P&O, MSC, Cunard, Celebrity and Princess have all already released their 2018 European itineraries....but Royal Caribbean, as yet, haven't. :(

When do you think they will release them?:confused:

Oh my. Your review is great. The only Fjords cruise looks to be leaving from Copenhagen and not going to Flam but Bergen instead. Even better I got JS 1100 on the Serenade which is the large corner aft for 2017.

 

I did see the one on Navigator leaving Southhampton going to Bergan, flam, Skjolden and Stavangar. Would that be going through the Fjords as well?

Hi there....glad you liked the review :)

Yeah, Navigator would definitely be going through the Fjord if visiting Flam and Skjolden. Skjolden is actually at the end of the largest natural, navigatable Fjord in the world! :eek:

I did a photo review/trip report of our cruise to the Fjords in May (2013 on Indy).... link in my signature (lots of photo's and info on weather, what to wear etc etc)

The scenery was breathtaking. As someone said earlier, May is the perfect time to see lots of spectacular waterfalls as this is when the snow caps are melting.

I'd go again around that time of the year again in a heartbeat!!

Thanks Dave!

You're welcome :)

Hi all

Some of you may have followed the photo review I did of our recent cruise on the 'Ovation of the Seas' during her pre-inaugural & inaugural sailings ( http://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2347149 )

If you did, you may remember I mentioned my wife was filming our holiday for a future YouTube video......Well she has finally managed to condense about 5 hours worth of footage down to around an hour!!

So, if you liked my review and would like to see a video of our holiday/vacation (lots of footage of the ship/ports of call etc) then here it is.....(best viewed in 1080p)

Enjoy! :)

Thanks again for your fab review and to Jen for for her video. Appreciated your final comments at the end too. All the best for your future family cruises.

Thank you...you're very kind. I'll pass your kind words onto Jen too :)

Thanks Dave

 

Good luck with starting a family. We have a 6 year old daughter and I can definitely recommend cruising with kids. We much prefer cruising with our daughter than cruising before we had her. Much more fun these days and I have an excuse to act like a big kid too.

 

It's amazing how your focus changes and the first thing you check out when you get onboard is Adventure Ocean.

 

All the best and thanks again for a brilliant review of what looks like a great ship. Hopefully we will get to experience the ship first hand sometime soon.

Thank you very much!! Jen and I would love to cruise again in the future with a little one in tow......here's hoping :)