Jewel OTS May 3-10 2014 Review by AZ Karaoke Girl

There are already a couple review out there for this cruise by my roll call buddies but I will attempt to write my review with my perspective.

A little about me (us). I am Lisa and DH is Steve. We have been married 22 years and have 2 kids, DD 22 and DS 19. We have 2 grandkids now. In our early 50's. We are members of the Cruise Critic Arizona Cruisers Never Ending Circle of Friends. This was my 15th cruise, 3rd on RCI. I'm platinum on Carnival (don't choke), I happen to love all my cruises regardless of the line. I haven't had a bad cruise yet. Some things perhaps weren't perfect but still can't complain too much. After all, any cruise is better than being at work , am I right?:D

I have had the privilege of cruising with some of the AZ cruisers on 3 different occasions and also with Bill & Gina from OH on the last 2 cruises. which has become an honorary member of our group.

I booked this Jewel cruise just before I set sail on the Allure of the Seas cruise we took April 2013. After I booked, my daughter told me the wonderful news that she was pregnant with our 2nd grandchild. Her due date was May 16th and our cruise was to depart May 3rd. I said this won't work for me.:p I've had this cruise booked before you got pregnant so your timing leaves much to be desired.:rolleyes: I stressed about this for the past 9 months. Her first child was born 3 weeks early and I was hopeful the same would be true for this little girl. My wishes came true and she was born on April 24th.

Here is a pic of DD and DGD

and happy grandparents

more to follow but I have to run to meet our DD to look at childcare for the little ones so she can return to work. I will continue in a couple hours.

I will be on the Jewel next March and i am looking forward to reading your review.

I'm in! I'll be right here waiting for you to return! :D

I'm back for a few more installments.

When I cruised last year on the Allure, some of you may have read reviews about a woman with a head injury that was hit by a bicyclist. That was me. BillOh & Gina were with DH and I when it happened. We were walking on the 17th Street bridge in Ft Lauderdale returning to the Hyatt after dinner enjoying a casual walk back to the hotel when along came a bicycle weaving in & out of pedestrians. Bill & Steve were walking ahead of Gina & I. They saw him & got out of his way. Unfortunately, we didn't see him in enough time to avoid him or him avoid ME. He hit me head on and split my head open on the sidewalk the night before the cruise. So I spent most of my cruise bleeding, in pain, dizzy you name it.

This is me in the ER the night before our cruise with SunnyAZGirl, Ginny:

So I was looking forward to this cruise when I could actually cruise with my friends when I was back to normal. I got razzed pretty good on the threads especially by Bill. There was talk of bubble wrap wardrobe and me wearing an OSU football helmet etc. On arrival at the hotel in San Juan, there was a bicycle leaning near the entrance and Bill without missing a beat said "watch out for the bike":D

We stayed at the Tres Palmas B&B in San Juan with our group. I wasn't impressed with the place. We got put in a different room than we reserved, plus the water was cold for my shower so I had a rather uncomfortable morning before boarding. I let the water run awhile but I guess it takes a long time for the water to warm up so DH got a warm shower. I should have had him go first.:p

Here is a pic of our room

Ginny had arranged for a bus to pick the group of us up & take us to the cruise port. She told them we wanted picked up at 10:30 and they insisted we needed to go later after 1pm. We had read reviews of people being allowed on by 11 so we insisted on the 10:30 time. I'm glad too. The shuttle was there as promised and we got to the port, checked in and onboard by 11:15 I think it was. We headed to windjammer for lunch until our rooms were ready.

When I booked this cruise, it just so happened that 9256 (the most wanted corner aft balcony) was available so I snagged it. My TA said I would be very happy with it. It turns out that BillOh had been wanting that balcony and didn't realize he could be on a waitlist for it. I grabbed it before he could snag it. So I got a bunch more razzing from him during our year long roll call.:) Sorry Bill. Hope you still love me! :D

Once I had it, I wasn't giving it up for nothing. Although it was a long walk from the elevators down a long hallway to the aft, we were very happy with it. It was super quiet back there and the balcony was huge. It had 2 chairs with a table and 2 loungers and still plenty of room for standing. We enjoyed sailaway from our balcony and most of the AZ cruisers joined us.

Here is a shot of our balcony & our room

Before sailaway, we had an unofficial meet & greet in the Schooner lounge. Lots of people showed up. BillOh was our roll call leader that started the roll call and kept us all going strong. We had all become friends on the boards and looked forward to meeting one another.

Here is the unofficial meet & greet.

The official CC sponsored meet & mingle was held later in the week. I didn't get any pictures there to post. It was held in the disco lounge. I didn't win any of the door prizes but Bev, one of our AZ cruisers won a bottle of White Zinfandel wine and she doesn't care for wine so she gave it to me. I took it to dinner at Chops to share with the other AZ cruisers that went with us so it was very much enjoyed by all of us. Thanks Bev (aka Hersheykiss).:)

I did sing karaoke the first night even though we were tired and it was held late, I had some of my friends that wanted to hear me sing, such troopers.:)

We had arrangements to meet a group in Schooner lounge at 9am so we could catch a taxi together to go to the Maho beach and watch the KLM 747 land. It was due to arrive at 11:15 ish but it has been known to arrive much earlier and we didn't want to miss it. So off we went. Went down to catch a taxi and watch this bus take off with about 4 people in it. We got stuck in a little tiny van. I think there were 13 of us and we aren't little people let me tell you. We insisted we wouldn't fit in that tiny thing and he insisted if he couldn't fit us in there, he would take us free so we gave it a go. Got all of us in there like sardines in a can and it was not a good ride there. Lesson learned for me is be willing to wait & insist on a comfortable ride & be willing to pay more for it.

We got to maho beach & were surprised to see how crowded it was already. We found a couple tables up at the Sunset Bar & Grill and enjoyed our morning. There was a screen above the bar that kept updated with landing times.

& there she is in all her glory:

& a couple shots from Bill's gopro that I took screen shots of. He was on the beach below it.

We took a gopro video of it from up at the bar so not as dramatic as the beach landing. There is about a minute of useless video leading up to the arrival.

I hope this posts, here goes

View My Video

We had lunch (not nearly as good as our first visit there but edible) and some drinks....very pricey drinks but comparable to the ship prices. Caught a taxi back to the ship about 2:30.

Let me talk about dinner for a minute. We all had early dining. There were 14 of us so they put us at 2 tables of 7. Maybe part of the reason I feel our service lacked was due to our shifting of seats each night. Our reservations were linked and our tables were side by side so I felt that even though we may not have been in the exact same seat or switched tabled a couple nights, the same waiters should have known whether you drink coffee, or tea etc. The first night I never got my salad I ordered. The next night I never got my tea I ordered. I wanted wine during our formal night and bar waiter never made an appearance at our table so I missed out that too. Also they never once called me by my name which is unusual. and perhaps that is because we swapped seats a lot. The waiters kept insisting throughout the cruise that the wow cards are very important and if we are happy with their service, it is very important to fill out the wow cards. I'm sorry but I felt that was not only tacky but certainly not deserving of a "WOW" :rolleyes:

Now our room steward was fabulous. Called us by name everyday. He put a mattress topper on the bed when I told him I was having trouble sleeping on the hard mattress. He opened the door for us once when we both had too much stuff in our hands. Room was always very clean. I even wiped everything down on arrival with Clorox wipe as I often do and was surprised to find the Clorox wipe was still white after I had wiped everything down including the remote control, door handles, drawer edges etc. That impressed me. He got a cash tip on arrival and more when we left in addition to the auto tips. That was impressive.

Next day was Basseterre St Kitts. Ginny had arranged in advance for us to go to Carambola Beach Club. $30 per couple included 2 padded lounge chairs on the beach and big umbrella. We met again in the Schooner lounge at a designated time & went off the ship together & found a taxi to share. What a fabulous day that was and just what I needed. Dave & Bev (Hersheykiss) were in the water all the time and I was usually right there beside them.

our cramped taxi

This was my DH Steve with Dave (Steve liked to call him the Gorton's Fisherman) LOL.

on the drive there

Carambola is on the same beach at Shipwreck Bar & Grill. It was a little walk to get over there but you could see it from our beach chairs but this place was much more comfortable with the padded chairs and I think the water was much more calm where we were since there was a break there. Water was awesome. Not cold at all. A little wavy at times which made it difficult to get out of the water for me. I have muscular dystrophy (a mild case) so my legs don't quite work like when I was 20.:cool: I usually needed a hand to help me over the little step up on the shore cuz just as I think I can do it, along came a wave that would knock me down if I didn't have a hand there. DH is always there to help me. The one thing I disliked the most about the entire trip is none of the taxi's had a little step to help me get up into the vans.

Carambola drinks were pricey too. $10 for a margarita. They had waiters/waitresses that came out to our loungers at lunchtime and took our food orders. That was also pricey so keep that in mind when you go. $15 for a burger but I gotta say the burger was very tasty and the bread was awesome.

I'm going to post a couple random photo's here of us.

I love big kitties so I had to have DH take my picture in the adult pool.

I never get my picture taken when I actually look decent so I asked DH to take my picture on the balcony since I'm usually the one behind the camera.

Can you tell I'm obsessed with water? I'm an Arizona desert rat so anything water is very enticing to me.:D

Great review Lisa! Pictures are beautiful.

I know everyone had a good time, wish we were able to join you guys.

***

I took most of my ship photo's at night because it was such a port intensive cruise. This one is of the adult pool that was closed the first 3 days of the cruise for maintenance. They had to paint it varnish all the rails. You could smell the paint & varnish.

Thanks Linda. One of these days you will spend your children's inheritance with us. :)

More ship pictures

this was the disco

that bar turned like a merry go round. pretty cool.

In port with the NCL Dawn

Self leveling pool tables were creepy to watch. I took a video of them but it takes forever to upload the video's so I don't think you'll get to see that.

Another balcony shot from the other angle. Sorry it is so milky looking. Must have been the way the sun glared on the camera.

This was where many activities were held including karaoke some nights. I kept calling it the jungle room. I just could not remember Safari club for some reason.

On to another port day. This was our day in Antigua. Most of the AZ Cruisers went on a tour with Lawrence of Antigua. That didn't sound too interesting to me so I did a little research on the boards for some alternatives. I really wanted some more beach time and R&R since its always work work work and well, I live in Arizona. Duh. So Steve & I settled on Coconut Beach Club. Go figure........I hate coconut. Blah. We had this pre-reserved in advance by emailing the beach club. It was $45 per person which was all inclusive. We had use of the pool & whatever facilities they had (I never wandered around because all I needed was, um, water.) It also included an all you can eat lunch buffet, beach chairs with palm umbrellas and all you can drink at the bar. Margarita's here I come. :D Two other couples from our roll call chimed in & said they also planned to do a beach day here so we planned to meet at the Schooner again onboard so we could walk off together & share a cab. It was a fabulous day. Probably one of my best days. Well they were all my best days. :p

Here is Kaitlyn & Griffin (aka Courtsavvy)

More from Coconut Beach. The water here was darn near perfect. Slightly cooler than Carambola the previous day but much calmer. Water was like glass here with no big waves coming. Completely secluded and only had those using this facility there which was not many. Some folks were staying in the rooms behind the beach while others like us were just doing the day use pass.

Okay I gotta take a little break here. I'll be back I promise.

Thanks for the balcony and pics of our cabin. It won't be long before it is our turn.

Sue

Nice job! With so many of you posting, I truly feel like we were on this one with you;) First, I am one who followed your FLL troubles, and I'm glad to see you are doing better! And congrats on Grandbaby 2!

Below: the fuzzy pic, more likely, it's that if you take the camera from the AC in your cabin out into the humidity, it will fog up a bit until it acclimates. Only takes a few minutes. I have the same problem with the underwater camera back in the warm beach!

Self leveling pool tables were creepy to watch. I took a video of them but it takes forever to upload the video's so I don't think you'll get to see that.

Another balcony shot from the other angle. Sorry it is so milky looking. Must have been the way the sun glared on the camera.

Also, I was thinking, so many of you on this cruise had aft cabins- and I know the rest of the gang will read your review and see this too, but it would be great to add your pics to the "show us your aft thread" ; I find that thread super helpful when choosing cabins and the more pics the better! :D Here is the link...

http://cruiseforums.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1243860

Looking forward to the rest!

I think you are right about the camera lens being foggy. Now that I think of it, the first couple pics we took out there were foggy but the rest were not so that makes sense. Thanks.

Yes, Ginny was 3 doors down from us more center aft.

Excellent review and beautiful pictures!! thanks for sharing your cruise with us!:)