Review of the June 21 Jewel of the Seas - British Isles/Norwegian Fjords cruise

We have finally finished our review of the June 21 – July 3, Jewel of the Seas - British Isles/Norwegian Fjords cruise. It was a wonderful cruise. Click on the link to our website in the signature to check it out. Once you get to the website click on the button labeled “Brit Isles/Fjords”. In addition to the pictures in the review, we have uploaded about 750 additional pictures to Ofoto.com. The link is at the end of the review. We are still trying to finish putting comments on some of the pictures, but we thought that since the review was done, we might as well publish what we had.

WOW!

 

Thanks for the great review and fabulous pictures. I feel as though I went on the trip with you!

 

Carol

It has been brought to my attention that some folks have their preferences set where signatures are not displayed, so the address to our website is:

 

Mike and Carol's Website

 

 

Carol,

 

Thank you so much for the kind comments. We are glad you enjoyed it.

Welcome home! Thank you so much for sharing your website address! My husband and I sat here dreaming of when we can go. It is one of the many future cruises we hope to be able to take. The pictures were wonderful! Thanks again!!

Thank you Luckymomx2. I am glad you enjoyed it. I imagine that your list of future cruises is as long as mine; but this is definitely one that I would put high on the list.

Thanks Carol. WOW is a very nice comment. I'm glad you enjoyed it. "Taking you on the trip" is what it's all about. Check back with us in March and we'll take you to Tahiti!! :D :D :D

Hello Mike and Carol:

Just finished reading the interesting review of the JOS cruise. What program did you use to put up the www site? You created a WOW site, for sure. I appreciate all the helpful comments and the photos. I have been on the Baltic cruise but hope to go again in a year or so. It's a magical place to be.

 

I will be on the JOS Sept 1 for the inaugural crossing. We begin with 4 days in London and will try to duplicate, at least in part, the itinerary you used during your stay there. I may have some questions for you.We will make stops in Plymouth, Cork --where I will definitely go to Kinsale and find that crystal shop!!) Loved seeing the photo previews of those places.

 

I am having some difficulty getting to the photo link. Do I have to register in order to view your additional photos?

 

It seems my husband and I are always one or two cruises later than the ones you are on. One of these days, we hope to cruise at the same time.

 

Thanks for the efforts you took in order to share so much with us. :)

MavisMarie,

 

 

 

Thanks for the kind words about the review. We used Microsoft FrontPage 2003 to do the webpage.

 

 

As for the photo album, I have used Ofoto.com for over four years now, so I feel that I can vouch for them. They are a subsidiary of Kodak and are a reputable company. Ofoto will ask you to sign up. It is okay to do so. It won't generate a bunch of junk mail. Just make up any ole password to use, but remember it for future use.

 

The service is free, and you do not have to buy anything even though they do offer that service. When you view the pictures, just double click on the first one to make it larger, then use the arrows to advance.

 

 

A lot of my friends use Webshots, but I have always used Ofoto. I like them because I can upload as many pictures to an album as I want. They do not limit the amount of space I use nor the number of albums I have. I currently have 43 albums on various subjects. I haven’t even tried to count the number of pictures. Also, and most importantly, I can leave my albums there indefinitely. Many services have a time limit of a year, and then the album is deleted. That would be entirely too much work for a short period of time!

 

 

BTW, where on the Gulf Coast? I am originally from Natchez, MS. Mike and I lived in Fairhope, AL (across the bay from Mobile) before moving down to south FL.

 

If you'll email me, I'll send you a pic of what I found at Kinsale Crystal. :D

That's weird, I wonder why the last paragraph of my above post turned out blue?

Hi Mike and Carol,

 

great to hear that you had such a wounderful time on the Jewel.

Thanks for sharing your great review and the wounderful photos.

Reading your review I must say it´s definitely an itinerary I have to put on my list.

Thanks again

Carol, I sent email to you. Thanks. I will sign up at ofoto.

Madforcruising,

 

Thank you for the nice comments. We certainly appreciated your info and pictures while the Jewel was being constructed and moving down the Ems. It really heightened our anticipation for what turned out to be a wonderful cruise on a great ship.

What an outstanding review. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks, Gordon. We're glad you enjoyed it.

Hi Mike and carol,

 

Great review we are booked on the Jewel for next June and you have given us a great feel for the cruise. The style of writing with appropriate pictures added just tells the whole story, Thankyou.

 

Did anyone in your group go to Mont St. Michael during the stop at La Harve?

A great review - thank you so much for writing it and letting us all share it. Loved the photos, too. I'm so glad that you had such a good time.

 

I'm also envious that you got to see Mark Donoghue. For personal reasons, I have been waiting for an opportunity to actually see him do his thing, but have never got anywhere near it. Now I find that this year I was even closer than I have ever been!

That's weird, I wonder why the last paragraph of my above post turned out blue?

The blue's just the default colour. I suspect that somewhere in typing and editing you managed to get your text entry point (the cursor point) beyond the end of the section that had your chosen colour applied to it. Are you using the Standard Interface or the Enhanced Interface? If it was the Standard Interface, you may have been typing after the "colour off" code; if it was the Enhanced Interface ... well, I rapidly figured that it was as uncontrollable as that piece of Microsoft rubbish called Word that I hate, precisely because it does things like that without you telling it to, and stopped using it and went back to the Standard Interface. :)

Mike and Carol, a terrific, honest, well-written review of another cruise I was interested in taking. Thanks to your photos, I realize that the Norwegian Fjords were not what I had expected. This cruise now goes on my "someday" list, rather than on my 2006 list.

 

Where is your next cruise taking you? I may just sail around in your footsteps! :) I just checked your website and see that Tahiti is on your upcoming list. That's number one on my husband's "must cruise" list. Can't wait for your review.

Thank you all for the very nice comments.

 

Jag,

I don't believe any of our group went to Mont St. Michael. I checked out some sites that discussed it before we went on the cruise and it really looked like a great excursion. I did talk to someone on the ship that did go and they just loved it. It is one of those places I definitely want to go to the next time I am in France.

 

Globaliser,

I believe think that Word probably was the culprit. Carol and I both type up long replies in Word before posting. This does spell checking for us but more importantly it kept us from losing all the typing when the old board had a hiccup while we posted. Carol probably copied the first part from Word and added the last part directly in the reply.

 

Karen,

I am glad that the review helped you in prioritizing your cruises. It is a tough decision. I want all of them to be the next one! :D We are very excited about Tahiti and can't wait to be there collecting photos and info for the next review.

Mike is correct. I had figured out what was wrong shortly after I posted the comment. We use Word all of the time and love it. I'm surprised that you don't. Anyway, if my post is going to be long, I always type it in Word first. The old board lost too many of mine, in transit. :eek:

We use Word all of the time and love it. I'm surprised that you don't.

I absolutely agree about typing a long post in a word processor first - a very good idea.

 

But I hate Word, and much prefer WordPerfect. I am watching all the formatting codes being inserted as I type, and retain absolute control over what the software is doing. For similar reasons, I have the Standard Interface up and watch the codes going in.

 

But then I also prefer typing in the codes by hand, just as I type most WordPerfect codes in using the keyboard. I have acquired a reputation for being able to create documents with a word processor at speed without ever touching the mouse. And I am very proud of the fact that my 1994 WordPerfect produces infinitely neater, tidier and prettier results than my colleagues can using the most up-to-date versions of Word! :)

Sounds like a winner. Whatever works!:)

Since my T/A said that luggage tags will be given on embarkation can someone post a picture of this tag. I would like to amend it with my info and stick them to my luggage. I have of last years Brilliance but the coding must be different.

 

Anton

Thank you for your wonderful review. We will be sailed on the Jewel in April 2005 and, after seeing your fantastic pix, are really looking forward to the ship!

 

V&M

Lugagge tags change with each cruise for security purposes.

Hi ---

 

Just wanted to say that I truly enjoyed reading about your adventurous cruise. The pictures that you posted are fantastically vivid and gorgeous. I especially loved the shots of the buildings and storefronts in Ireland. And then the vistas in the Fjords... just breathtaking. What a wonderful trip you had!

 

Do you use a special camera at all? I have a Canon Rebel 35mm and an Olympus Stylus400 Digital. I plan on taking the digital with us on our Aug. cruise to Bermuda, just for the ease of the the little-bitty thing to carry around. But your pictures are so clear and vivid; was it a digital?

 

Thanks again, Laurie