Jewel review (cruised 12/22 from New Orleans)

Norwegian Jewel Review

WHO I AM: I took a cruise from New Orleans on the Jewel from December 22-29, 2013. We are a family of four -- two adults, and two boys aged 10 and 3. I am a fairly tough customer. I'm not one of those reviewers who is easily impressed or automatically loves everything. At the same time, I'm fair with my expectations. I think you will find these reviews to be detailed, honest, and reasonable.

WHAT I PAID: I cruised during the highest of high season -- Christmas. I am a Caesar's Seven Stars member, so I got my first room (a balcony room, category BB on floor 10) for what they call "port fees and taxes" -- about $270 per person. I bought a second room on my own, an inside cabin (category I1, floor 10) at my own expense. I did get a 10% discount, but this still set me back a little over $800 per person after taxes. Overall, I spent about $2150 on a balcony room and 2-doors-down inside cabin on floor 10, which is obviously a great deal for this time of year.

BOARDING: We boarded on a cool, rainy day in New Orleans on December 22nd. It was a surprisingly confusing process, especially at the beginning. My wife was in fact worried that one of the contracted employees handling the baggage might steal one of our bags, as we received no claim check. It ended up fine, though. After the long security line, we found the Casinos at Sea (CAS) checkin area. We had to keep asking to find it, as the signage was very poor. The CAS line was quite long and arguably had more people than the regular line! It did move quickly, and the rest of the boarding process was fairly standard.

THE ROOMS: This was my first NCL cruise, but I have taken many cruises in the past, mostly on Princess, but also one on Holland America. The rooms were exactly what I expected. They were nothing special, but I didn't find them to be much different than comparable rooms on other lines. We basically used the second room (inside) for the kids to sleep, and mostly hung out in the balcony room. It was nice having two rooms, in case someone wanted privacy or desired to take a nap. We put a baby monitor in the 2nd room, which had just enough range so we could see what was going on in there! The balcony room was a bit tight for 4 people to hang out, but between the couch, balcony, and bed, everyone was able to find a place. Next time I will probably upgrade to a little bigger if it's a reasonable price. My major complaint here is the smoking policy. Balcony rooms seem to be very popular with smokers, for obvious reasons. This is very unfair to the non-smokers (especially people like my wife, who are sensitive to cigarette smoke) You basically get driven off your balcony whenever people nearby light up. Why doesn't NCL have clumps of non-smoking balconies? This would be a great idea.

THE MAIN DINING ROOMS: We did not utilize the main dining rooms. We never set foot in one, so I cannot review them. Sorry.

THE BUFFET: The quality of the buffet was surprisingly good. Keep in mind that I am NOT a lover of buffets. Growing up in the 1970s, my dad used to refuse to take us to buffets, saying, "They substitute quantity for quality." This made me unhappy to hear as a kid, but as I grew up, I came to feel the same way as he did. I don't even enjoy the "high end" buffets in Las Vegas. This is why I especially appreciated NCL's buffet, where the food ranged from decent to good. It was much better than the buffets I had on other cruise lines. The variety was also great. However, I have one major compaint about the buffet. The schedule was beyond erratic. It was impossible to figure out when the buffet was open or closed, and even the hours listed in the dailies were only loosely followed. Often they would close one "side" of the buffet and open a much-reduced version on the other side. It just seemed that we had a really hard time finding the buffet fully open, and it seemed to be "closed for cleaning" more often than it was open. While I understand the food needs to be replaced and the area cleaned at various points, this was excessive. It was actually frustrating.

THE GRILL: They had a grill in the pool area which mainly served hamburgers and hotdogs, but also had a small selection of fruit. This was pretty good when it was open, but again the schedule was highly erratic, and it was difficult to find open. So once again, NCL gets high marks for the food, but low marks in availability.

ROOM SERVICE: We only ordered room service once. We got ice cream, which was promised "quickly so it doesn't melt" (their words, not mine). It ended up taking 20 minutes and was half melted. Sigh. The rest of the time, I would just get the food myself and bring it down to the room. I did find the surcharges obnoxious. $5 for pizza? $4 for service after midnight? Lame nickel-and-diming, and other lines don't charge for either of these. The after-midnight charge is especially frustrating because of the lack of availability of any self-service food at that time. Fortunately we kept an early-ish schedule, so we were rarely up after midnight.

SPECIALTY RESTAURANTS: We went to specialty restaurants every night. The pricing policy was better than I expected. Le Bistro let us order extra entrees for free. Our 10-year-old was able to eat like an adult for half price (and was NOT stuck on a "specialty kids" menu). Nobody was able to explain the policy regarding 3-year-olds. They "always eat free" according to NCL, but kids under 12 can also eat free if they want the general kids' menu. So are 3-year-olds not allowed to order specialty menu items if they want to eat free? Nobody on board could figure out the answer to this. Cagney's (steakhouse) was nice enough to let my 3-year-old order a full 8 oz Filet Mignon for free (and he ate it all!) There was no way to prepay for meals (prior to the cruise) for kids. You pay for all adults, and they adjust it later for on board credit. This is ridiculous. Why can't the website be changed to allow you to prepay for kids? Some of the restaurants had a problem doing this adjustment efficiently, especially when you were dining as part of a promotional package. We signed up for the Le Bistro-Mamas-Cagney's package where you get all 3 for $57 per adult (regular is $65). Even better, you also end up getting discounts when you go to any of these 3 again, provided you pre-pay (even though that wasn't promoted, and in fact might have been a mistake on the website, but I'll take it!) Review of each restaurant we went to is below...

CAGNEY'S (Steakhouse): This is the most expensive of the specialties. Service was good. It's located on the 13th floor, and has a nice, isolated atmosphere. Steaks were decent, but nothing special. There was a pretty good baked potato soup, which I had twice. Sides were pretty good. Regular prices were $30 for adults and $15 for kids 4-12. but we paid $26.50 and $13.25 with our package. Extra entrees were $10 each, which I thought wasn't unreasonable. We went here on the 1st and 5th nights.

LE BISTRO (French): We liked this place for the most part. Service was very good, and like Cagney's, it also has a nice atmosphere, despite being located in a busy area of the 6th floor (though you don't know it once you're in there). My wife really liked the bouillebasse there. I had the duck, salmon, lamb chops, and lobster tail, and enjoyed them all. The lobster tail was an extra $10 charge, as were two other entrees that I didn't order. However, they do let you order multiple entrees at no extra charge. The appetizers were rather hit-and-miss here, but the entrees were universally good. Regular prices were $20 for adults and $10 for kids, but we paid $17 and $8.50 with our package. Great deal, as we had this nice meal for our family of 4 for just $42.50! We went here on the 2nd, 4th, and 7th nights. On the 7th night we did not get a discount.

MODERNO (Brazilian meat place): This one was disappointing. It's a poor man's version of Fogo de Chao. However, unlike Fogo de Chao, you cannot pick and choose which meats you like and have a lot of them. They come around with each meat, but if you ask for more than a single portion (all of which are small), they act like you're crazy. This is NOT the case at Fogo de Chao, where you can get as much as you want of anything. Once they are finished coming around with one "cycle", you have to really go through heroics for any kind of "seconds". The meats weren't even that great. They weren't terrible, but overall it was just a vastly inferior experience to the restaurant they are trying to emulate. This was not on a package, so we paid regular prices of $20 for adults and $10 for kids. We went on the 3rd night.

MAMA'S/LA CUCINA (Italian): This was poorly reviewed by many on cruisecritic, so I came in with low expectations. In that manner, it was a somewhat pleasant surprise. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad. It's a decent option for variety's sake, but not somewhere I would want to dine multiple times. Some compared it to Olive Garden, but it's definitely superior to that.

CUSTOMER SERVICE/POLICIES: Overall I found customer service to be very good on NCL. They made a mistake in one of our "birthday packages", delivering on the wrong day. I just wanted my $35 back for it, and they gave me $50. I bought a 270-minute internet package for $103.95, but when I lost a single minute due to a mistake in their connection instructions, they gave me 11 minutes back when I just asked for the one. In general they seemed to take a "customer is always right" attitude, which I really liked. I actually had a really bad customer service experience on my last Princess cruise, so this was refreshing. There were a few policies that left me scratching my head, though. One involves those blue and white beach towels. They treat those towels as if they are worth their weight in gold. If you want any more than one-per-person, they charge you a staggering $25 deposit. Even worse, if you try to exchange the wet towels after 6pm, the stewards are hesitant about it, as they have nowhere to put them for the night. Apparently they close the towel laundering after 6pm, so the stewards are forced to hold the towels in their own lockers until the next morning. There has to be a better way to do this. One thing I did appreciate was the visibility of the ship's officers. They constantly walked around the specialty restaurants (maybe the main dining room, too), asking passengers if everything was going well. The hotel director was VERY visible and engaged with the passengers. I felt like the "higher-ups" were very accessible if I needed them, which was very much appreciated! Princess did NOT do this, and in fact they mostly shielded their officers from the public. I really liked NCL's approach with this.

TENDERING: We only tendered out of one port -- Belize. I'm glad to say we didn't have to do it more than once, as it was a mess both ways. On the way out, they didn't contract with enough tenders (run by locals), so it took until well after 9:30am to get on our tender. By 9:00am, only 3 tenders had left, and most of these spots were taken by people on ship-run excursions! They blamed the lack of tenders on restrictions by local officials, but I don't believe that because suddenly they showed up very quickly and regularly after 9:30. I think they had some companies cancel on them (because it was Christmas?) and this was a cover story while they scrambled to hire others. The tenders were independently owned boats, in various shapes and sizes. On the way back, they overloaded our tender and didn't balance the weight properly. They noticed that it wasn't operating safely, stopped about halfway, and told us to shift around because of the poorly distributed weight. Indeed, the back of the boat was sinking so much it almost appeared to be underwater! Rather than force us to move around properly, only one person moved (out of over 100 on board), and they determined it okay to go again. I breathed a sigh of relief when I got off. Do you trust Belizian safety standards for loading boats full of people? I don't either. Also, the ticket distribution system wasn't as advertised. They supposedly were distributing tender tickets at 7am on the same day. I got there at 6:55am, and they had clearly already been distributing them for 30 minutes or so. I ended up with Tender #7. That's pretty bad, considering I was there 5 minutes "early". This really shouldn't be a contest as to who can wake up the earliest. These should either be distributed randomly or at a time when everyone can make it easily.

ENTERTAINMENT: Given the fact that I had a young child with me, I was unable to attend most of the entertainment options. However, the one show I did see (Le Cirque Bijou -- kind of a poor man's Cirque Du Soleil) was pretty good by cruise ship standards. One of the performers, a tall Russian-looking woman, was extremely talented (and attractive), and deserves better than a cruise ship theater. Unfortunately, Le Cirque Bijou was followed by an incredibly hokey "You are all family" presentation by the Cruise Director and the ship's staff. Basically, they were trying to convey to us that we're not just passengers or numbers on a ledger, but actually seen as part of a big NCL family. I found this to be over-the-top and in fact insulting to my intelligence. I don't mind that I'm just a number to you guys. Cruising is a business transaction on both ends, and I'm totally fine with that. I left in the middle of the "family" celebration.

KARAOKE: Great! They had this every single night for three hours. The first 90 minutes were all ages, and the second 90 minutes were adults only. I really appreciated this, as otherwise I wouldn't have been able to attend. They used state-of-the-art handheld devices for song selection. Unfortunately, I caught a cold on the 2nd night, lost my voice, and so was the end of my karaoke fun on board for the rest of the trip. But props to NCL for their karaoke setup.

CASINO: I avoided most of the casino games, given the terrible payouts/rules in their games. That is standard for all cruise ships. However, what is NOT standard is their blackjack tournament. I played it, expecting a 25% or so house take. (This is what Princess charged, last time I played.) They held back over 50% for the house, and did their best to cover this up! When I tried to ask about it, nobody gave me a straight answer. I only found out the truth after I had already entered and made the final table on the first shot. (Ask me if you want some really useful tips to accomplish the same.) I had a 1-in-6 chance to win the only prize of $500 (for just a $15 investment), but fell behind on the final hand. I was ahead going into that hand. Damn. They took in $1080 for the tournament, and only paid out $500. Places 2-6 (including me) just got a bottle of cheap champagne. Disgusting, even by cruise ship standards. I did manage to make $45 by buying $120 worth of freeplay for $65 (I would post how to do this, but cruisecritic keeps deleting messages about it, since it involves a third party site.)

POOL SCENE: Okay, nothing special. They had a cool-looking waterslide for the kids, but it was frequently closed, and even when open didn't work very well. Kids were getting stuck and barely moving down the slide. Very disappointing for our 10-year-old. Also, the only "all-ages" pool ranged in depth from 4'11 to 5'9. This made it tough for kids (none could stand), and even for shorter adults.

TELEVISION: Lousy. Lacked any useful internal channels. On Princess, they had a ship information channel, which showed weather, ship position, and other cool stuff. NCL did not have this. I really wanted this, as it would have been cool to track the ship's progress.

LAUNDRY: Terrible! NCL is the only cruise line I know of that doesn't offer self-service laundry. Even high-end Crystal Cruises has self-serve machines! They do occasionally run specials where they will do as much laundry as you can stuff into a bag for $25, but this has two problems. First, the bag is made of flimsy paper, and easily rips when you try to stuff a lot of laundry into it. Second, they don't do a good job. The clothes did not smell very clean, and had the appearance of being washed in not enough detergent. It seemed like they skimped because they were not charging full price for the laundry. Even the writing on the bag itself was obnoxious. It was labeled, "I refuse to do laundry on my vacation bag". They were trying to be cute, but it just added insult to injury. I wasn't refusing to do laundry. They were refusing to let me. I have no idea why NCL does not have self-serve machines. It wouldn't take up much room, and they would be much appreciated.

KIDS PROGRAMS: We didn't use them, so I cannot comment.

ITINERARY: I liked the itinerary. I thought it provided some nice variety. I was much less impressed by their other Caribbean itineraries, but this one was eally enjoyable.

EXCURSIONS: I did not use NCL for any of the shore excursions. I cannot comment on them, other than stating the obvious -- that they are expensive, crowded, and not a good deal (like all other cruise lines' excursions).

DISEMBARKATION: Well-organized and well done. I also really appreciated some help I got from an NCL employee in the port/security area. Our family and one other was wrongfully instructed to wait in a certain area (Door #4) for a taxi, only to realize that she was clueless and that taxis only came to Door #1. Oddly, even she realized her mistake and later told both of our groups to move on. I think she was just really bad at communicating. Anyway, in the meantime, HUNDREDS of others had passed us, and what was a very short line for a taxi became something that looked like an hour. I was SO unhappy about this, because we were supposed to be near the front of the line, but that idiot security woman cost us several hundred places in line. I spotted an NCL employee and pleaded my case to her. I wasn't expecting much, but to my surprise, she led us all to the front of the line! By this point, everyone previously near us were already gone (meaning we still lost place in line), but this was great service from NCL to correct port security's mistake for us. I was impressed, and it left a good final taste in my mouth regarding NCL.

OVERALL: I enjoyed cruising with NCL, and would take them again. I thought it was overall a better line than the comparably-priced Princess, though each has their advantages and disadvantages.

WHAT I LIKED: Specialty restaurant variety, itinerary, customer service, availability of officers, karaoke, buffet quality, disembarkation procedure.

WHAT I DISLIKED: Lack of self-service laundry, erratic hours for buffet and grill, casino rake, tendering problems, smoke on balconies, lack of pizzeria.

I hope you found this helpful.

I will post reviews of the ports/excursions later.

Very nice review..thanks! We will be aboard on the 26th and you have whet my appetite!lol

Thanks very much for the well written observations. We loved the Jewel last month and it was good to get a first-timer's take on it.

Thanks for your review! I agree with you about the balcony smoking. We had

Chain smokers on our hawaii pride of America cruise, which made it impossible

For us to use. They need to change their policy. We have a balcony on the jewel

And I hope we will be able to use it!

Enjoyed your review. I found the same thing with the buffet on the Epic. Poor timing on my part but I felt like a lot of times when I went to go in they had the doors closed.

Looking forward to hearing about your excursions.

Good review, I am a little surprised with your comments about Modernos though. We found it outstanding both times, not on the Jewel though; we did it on the Pearl and the Sun. We didn't find any problem with asking for a little more, thought the salad bar was outstanding and maybe compared to a couple of chain Brazilan Steak houses in American, it wasn't quite the same, the price is about 1/2 of what the charge in Dallas and Las Vegas.

pokerpro5,

Thanks for your review we will be cruising on her, and NCL for the 1st time in March. for your dining package did you have to pick the nights ahead of time or when you got on the ship?

Also how long did it take you to go from the ship when you tendered?

Kathy

Good review, I am a little surprised with your comments about Modernos though. We found it outstanding both times, not on the Jewel though; we did it on the Pearl and the Sun. We didn't find any problem with asking for a little more, thought the salad bar was outstanding and maybe compared to a couple of chain Brazilan Steak houses in American, it wasn't quite the same, the price is about 1/2 of what the charge in Dallas and Las Vegas.

Maybe we just got a bad night or bad version of Modernos.

When my wife tried to ask for two of something, the server replied, "Oh, no, these ones are for the table over there. You'll have to talk to the manager if you want more."

Indeed we found that they were "portioning out" their meat for each table they expected to serve, and it was a lot of trouble for them to give you seconds. They also did not come around a second time. We had to specifically ask for certain meats to be sent again. It was expected that you were supposed to be done when you completed your first (and apparently only) "round" of meat.

Fogo de Chao doesn't even have rounds or portions. They just constantly send people by your table, and you let them know if you want the meat or not, and how much of it you want. Totally different experience.

Interestingly, like Fogo de Chao, Moderno had you use the "red or green disc" to indicate whether you want meat service to continue or stop, yet it seemed just for show, as this would only be useful to end your meal early (since it stops anyway after one round).

 

pokerpro5,

 

Thanks for your review we will be cruising on her, and NCL for the 1st time in March. for your dining package did you have to pick the nights ahead of time or when you got on the ship?

 

Also how long did it take you to go from the ship when you tendered?

 

Kathy

I had to pick nights ahead of time. They will give you a full refund (in on board credit) if you cancel with 24 hours notice. However, they are pretty easygoing regarding switching around your reservations, provided they have room.

So if you have Cagney's on Sunday, Mama's on Tuesday, and Le Bistro on Thursday, if you decide to move Mama's to Wednesday and swap the days Le Bistro and Cagney's, you can do that and still get your original prices. It's just not guaranteed they can do that. If it's full, you are stuck.

One thing I did notice was that specialty restaurants tended to have availability every night, provided you weren't looking for a 6:45-7:30 reservation. Teppanyaki was the exception, as it has a very small capacity, but everything else was fairly wide open aside from that small window in prime dinner hour. The website claimed that most times were full when I prepaid, but it was easy to change the times once I got on board. Just call 050 from your stateroom phone.

A trick I noticed (I think this is an error on the site) is that you continue getting reduced prices when you buy just one prepaid package, and then book further restaurants that were once part of the package.

For example, on the package, Le Bistro goes down to $17, Cagney's goes down to $26.50, and Mama's goes down to $13.50. You have to buy all 3. However, if you buy a FOURTH night, such as just Cagney's, you also get charged $26.50 again instead of $30. If you try this on board, it won't work that way, but if you prepay it does. This is likely a glitch, but it works to our advantage.

How long did it take you to go from the ship when you tendered?

The tender ride was about 15-20 minutes.

Unfortunately, as I described, the tenders themselves were very slow to arrive (just three in the first hour), and the ticket distribution process was NOT as advertised.

Ticket distribution was supposed to begin at 7am. I got there at 6:55, and they had clearly been distributing them for at least 30 minutes. So basically it becomes a contest of who can get up the earliest. If you want one of the first tenders off, definitely get up super early and show up by 6:15 or so. They also automatically give priority tender tickets to people who booked shore excursions with them (which, frankly, is unfair). I don't understand why they can't give the tender tickets the night before instead of doing it at 7am, or make it some lottery system where it's not a "get in line first" competition.

When I called and questioned why so few tenders were arriving, I was told that "local officials only allowed 3 tenders" for NCL that day. This made no sense, because even if true, the tenders showed up about 20 minutes spaced apart, and it would have been more efficient for them all to show up much closer to one another. This turned out to be a lie, as far more than 3 tenders worked NCL after 9:30. I guess the excuse sounded better than, "The shady company we hired in Belize is running behind this morning." There were 4 ships in port, and it was Christmas, so I'm guessing that contributed to the problem.

I did not set foot on Belize soil until around 10:00.

I had to pick nights ahead of time. They will give you a full refund (in on board credit) if you cancel with 24 hours notice. However, they are pretty easygoing regarding switching around your reservations, provided they have room.

 

So if you have Cagney's on Sunday, Mama's on Tuesday, and Le Bistro on Thursday, if you decide to move Mama's to Wednesday and swap the days Le Bistro and Cagney's, you can do that and still get your original prices. It's just not guaranteed they can do that. If it's full, you are stuck.

 

One thing I did notice was that specialty restaurants tended to have availability every night, provided you weren't looking for a 6:45-7:30 reservation. Teppanyaki was the exception, as it has a very small capacity, but everything else was fairly wide open aside from that small window in prime dinner hour. The website claimed that most times were full when I prepaid, but it was easy to change the times once I got on board. Just call 050 from your stateroom phone.

 

A trick I noticed (I think this is an error on the site) is that you continue getting reduced prices when you buy just one prepaid package, and then book further restaurants that were once part of the package.

 

For example, on the package, Le Bistro goes down to $17, Cagney's goes down to $26.50, and Mama's goes down to $13.50. You have to buy all 3. However, if you buy a FOURTH night, such as just Cagney's, you also get charged $26.50 again instead of $30. If you try this on board, it won't work that way, but if you prepay it does. This is likely a glitch, but it works to our advantage.

thanks for the I extra info - I will be talking to my DH about getting this!

kathy

The tender ride was about 15-20 minutes.

 

Unfortunately, as I described, the tenders themselves were very slow to arrive (just three in the first hour), and the ticket distribution process was NOT as advertised.

 

Ticket distribution was supposed to begin at 7am. I got there at 6:55, and they had clearly been distributing them for at least 30 minutes. So basically it becomes a contest of who can get up the earliest. If you want one of the first tenders off, definitely get up super early and show up by 6:15 or so. They also automatically give priority tender tickets to people who booked shore excursions with them (which, frankly, is unfair). I don't understand why they can't give the tender tickets the night before instead of doing it at 7am, or make it some lottery system where it's not a "get in line first" competition.

 

When I called and questioned why so few tenders were arriving, I was told that "local officials only allowed 3 tenders" for NCL that day. This made no sense, because even if true, the tenders showed up about 20 minutes spaced apart, and it would have been more efficient for them all to show up much closer to one another. This turned out to be a lie, as far more than 3 tenders worked NCL after 9:30. I guess the excuse sounded better than, "The shady company we hired in Belize is running behind this morning." There were 4 ships in port, and it was Christmas, so I'm guessing that contributed to the problem.

 

I did not set foot on Belize soil until around 10:00.

thanks the only other time we were here I believe was on the Crown and that was like 35 minutes to tender in.

I wonder if the 1st 3tenders were the elite passengers like Princess does..

Again thank you for the info.

Kathy

Fwiw I hated modernos

Question since you realize a balcony is not perfect would you consider two connecting ocean views in the future so as to have the kids within eyeshot with a connecting door?

I was just never comfortable with our kids not being in the connecting room when they were younger.

very enjoyable review with a very fair synopsis of positives and negatives - I also liked the format (which I hope you won't mind if I borrow!)

Thank you so much for taking the time to review your cruise. We aren't sailing on her until 2015 but I love reading what others have done.

very enjoyable review with a very fair synopsis of positives and negatives - I also liked the format (which I hope you won't mind if I borrow!)

Thank you!

Feel free to use the format all you want! Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.

Thank you for taking the time to write this review. My family will be on the Jewel in 2 weeks and this was very helpful. I also loved the format.

Here is my first port review (Belize, December 25):

Un-Belize-able! Vitalino Reyes bait-and-switches us and breaks his own deal

Enjoying your reviews. It was very nice to meet you on the cruise. I will be posting a review soon. I like hearing everyone's different experiences.

DH has one question. Is the library well stocked? Thanks in advance.

DH has one question. Is the library well stocked? Thanks in advance.

Sorry, we didn't make it into the library.

We did notice that the window for checking out books was laughably small.

We'd see on the dailies: "11am-12pm Check out books from library"

I guess they didn't want a staff member constantly on duty there, but still pretty funny.

Thanks for your reply. I told DH that not everyone frequents the library!

We will bring a couple of books along of course and then check it out.

We were on the Spirit for three cruises and for at least one (maybe the first two) they had an 'honor system" in their library. The door was always open, the cabinets all unlocked, and you signed your own books out and crossed them off when you brought them back. Unfortunately, I guess this did not work out. And the Spirit has been the only ship - of any cruiseline - that we saw this being tried out on.

Nice review. We cruised the Jewel in October/2013. We enjoyed our cruise. My biggest complaint was checkin was so unorganized.

The library has a nice variety, but is small. They also have a paperback book exchange. It is always open. Like the previously poster said, the checkout time was a very small timeframe.

Just added a review of my excursion in Cozumel:

Cozumel: Dolphin Discovery Royal Swim and Chankanaab Park

I am heartbroken that NCL discontinued their ship's info channel, we were just on the Gem in June and it was there as it has been on the Jewel, Pearl, Star, and Sun in the past. As a matter of fact that is the channel we usually have on in our cabin.

It's shame that they discontinued it, it's good to know though, now we will bring some DVDs.