Jewel of the Seas Review 12-11-16.. or.. ''A Cruise is what you make of it 2016''

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

I can't wait for more of your review and many more pictures. The Jewel of the Seas will take us across the Atlantic starting April 23, 2017, so your review will give me a great idea what she looks like, inside and out. Many thanks, Robert

Very excited to see your photos of post-drydock Jewel! We sailed on Jewel last January (before dry dock) and will be on her again next month.

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Great start and nice pictures. Will be following.

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We are on the Jewel next year, so looking forward to seeing your photo's and reading what you have to say.

Following!

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Looking forward to more.

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!

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

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

 

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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

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

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...

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?

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

Beautiful photos so far.:)

Great pics and comments - can't wait for more!

We sail on the Jewel in a couple of weeks. Looking forward to your review.

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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!

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Enjoying your nice photos.

Following along, nice photos.

loving your review thanks

Enjoying your review! We have previously enjoyed the Jewel and look forward to sailing again next winter.

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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

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.

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!

 

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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.