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Cruising with Zay - A Jewel of the Seas Review

TnomadX

By TnomadX,
in Royal Caribbean International

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TnomadX

TnomadX

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Hello everyone,

 

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season. I just wanted to take the time to give a detailed daily review of my time of the beautiful Jewel of the Seas currently located out of San Juan, PR. It is currently doing two Southern Caribbean itineraries, and I just happened to do both of them. It is my hope to give you a very thorough review, and perhaps some tips for each of the islands we visited. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have along the way.

 

Please be patient with me, as this is going to take a little while as I am reviewing two itineraries. Thanks so much.

 

Zay!

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TnomadX

TnomadX

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My friend and I arrived in San Juan the night before excited about our two week adventure on the Jewel. We had a shuttle to pick us up from our hotel and take us to the pier. If you're not staying near the port, I'd like to recommend Go Puerto Rico Shuttle Service. They were very timely (actually early), courteous, friendly, and very safe. We met another couple at our hotel trying to locate their shuttle service, but wasn't able to. We invited them to come along with us, and the shuttle service was gracious enough to allow them to come for a very low cost.

 

We arrived at 11AM. I thought that there would be a long waiting period before we were able to board. They advertised boarding to be between 1pm and 7pm. When we arrived, they were already starting to check passengers in. We were directed to leave our bags with the porters. These porters seemed very different from porters at other ports. These porters took the time to explain how the process works, and were very nice. They weren't yelling and trying to help the very next person. They wanted to ensure you knew the process. I know that sounds a bit silly, but I believe this is helpful to those who are cruising for the very first time. Instead of giving the tip to an individual person, they had a place to leave the tips for all the porters. It was a very pleasant experience.

 

After dropping off our bags, we got in line to be checking in. There weren't a lot of people in line, and the line went very fast. The whole process took less than 30 minutes. Every person we interacted with was very pleasant and friendly. Once we were checked in and received our stateroom keys, we headed to the ship. We boarded on deck 5. There were a couple of ship security officers there waiting as we headed on. They took our pictures for our cards, and we were on the ship. I was amazed at how fast the process was. We were on the ship at 11:30am.

 

Once on board, another person greeted us and told us our rooms wouldn't be ready until1PM. We decided to take an opportunity to explore the ship for a while. We went from floor to floor exploring as much as we could. I had just had foot surgery, and my friend had knee surgery a few months earlier, so walking around was a bit difficult. The ship was a real beauty, and there was a huge Christmas tree we could see once we boarded that was beautiful. We too few pictures and continued on our journey.

 

Around 12:30, we decided to have lunch at the Windjammer. We had an awesome experience there. We were able to get our food quickly and were able to find a place to sit down to enjoy it. We weren't walking around for days looking for a place to sit as there was plenty of space available. We met some of the wait staff, and they were also very pleasant and friendly. They would talk with us for a while and get to know us as well. As soon as we finished a plate, the staff was right there clearing it for us. They made a dining experience very pleasant and enjoyable.

 

After lunch, we went to our room and relaxed for a little while. We sat and talk for a while, but I was getting sleepy. My friend mentioned the cookies we saw earlier at Latte-Tudes, the coffee shop on deck 5. I instantly became unsleepy (I know this isn't a word…it just sounds good to me…lol), perked up quickly, and made my way to the door immediately for those cookies. The staff there had a really good sense of humor. They told us that the cookies were $10 each. For a second, we almost believed her. My friend was pulling out her stateroom key to pay for them, but the server started laughing. Whew!

 

Now it was time to head to the pool bar on deck 11 to meet our cruse critic buddies. I am so glad we did because these were some of the nicest people. We had a great time with them even though it sort of rained on our parade. Some people didn't make it because of the rain. We stayed and chatted for about an hour or so, then decided to travel together to do some food sampling at Chops Grill. IF you've never done food sampling on any cruise line and they offer it, please do it. It'll be worth it. We sampled appetizers and deserts from the specialty restaurants onboard that were awesome.

 

We went back to our rooms shortly after the food tasting to unpack our bags. I then left to go check email and make a few calls from my cell phone since we wouldn't be able to use it at sea. Shortly afterwards, I met our room steward who was absolutely fantastic. I'll talk about him more a little later. He gave me his card and told me to get ready for the muster drill (safety) that would be starting soon.

 

IF you choose to sail out of Puerto Rico, all messages over the intercom with be both in English and Spanish. This is also true with the Muster Drill. It seemed a little longer because it was done in both English and Spanish, but it wasn't too bad. PLEASE show up to the muster drill on time. They have to account for everyone, and if you don't show up, they may call out your name and stateroom number. Even if you've done the muster drill before, please show up so that it can start on time. It starts at 8pm.

 

After the drill, we went to dinner. We were a little worried because we had a table for 10 people, and wasn't sure how it was going to be. Once everyone arrived, we were relieved. EVERYONE that we sat with was great. We had great conversation and a great dinner. We also had some excellent servers. They were very attentive and very friendly. We loved our group and couldn't wait to see what would happen as the week progressed.

 

After dinner, we walked around the ship just a little it more. We were very pleased with the day so far. The ship had set sail, and we were eager to experience our first port stop of Tortola. What a great start to our cruise vacation.

 

Can't wait to share the rest of our experience. Stay tuned….

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TnomadX

TnomadX

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Hi Zay, miss you already and wish we were back on the Jewel. I can't wait to relive our cruise together through your eyes! What fun.

 

Rhonda

 

Awe, thank you! I miss you as well. I can't wait relive the experience as well. If I miss anything, please let me know. You had some experiences that I didn't get to capture. Let's do this together :)

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Sunny AZ Girl

Sunny AZ Girl

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Woo Hoo! Another Jewel review! I can't wait to read the rest.:) We sailed on the Jewel in 2009 and it has since been my favorite ship. We are booked once again on the Jewel for this coming May for a B2B out of San Juan. We will be hanging onto your every word.:cool:

 

Will you be posting pictures? We do like pictures!:D

Edited by Sunny AZ Girl
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TnomadX

TnomadX

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Woo Hoo! Another Jewel review! I can't wait to read the rest.:) We sailed on the Jewel in 2009 and it has since been my favorite ship. We are booked once again on the Jewel for this coming May for a B2B out of San Juan. We will be hanging onto your every word.:cool:

 

Will you be posting pictures? We do like pictures!:D

 

Yes, I will be posting pictures. Hang on. I'll try to post some of those tonight. I'll also post the compasses so people can get an idea of what to expect. They do change them weekly as you'll see during this review.

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TnomadX

TnomadX

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Today we slept in a little longer than we planned. Being on deck 2, we actually heard the ship getting into the port. It was very loud and startled me. We went back to sleep and didn't wake up until 12pm or so. We took our showers and then headed to the Windjammer for lunch. Again, it was an amazing experience. The staff was great and was there right away to take away our plates. We got a chance to see one of our servers from Dinner, and he was just as great as he was the night before.

 

We ran into a couple from our Cruise Critic group, and decided to have lunch with them as well. They had overslept as well. We had a nice lunch and decided to stick together and get off the ship for a bit since we were at a place we've never been to before. We walked to the area where they offer taxi service. They use large vehicles to tour the island, and try to fill them up because the vehicles use a lot of gas. They do have the smaller vehicles that are closed in, but we wanted an opened vehicle so we can have the fresh air. They didn't want to tour four of us in the opened vehicle because there wasn't enough people. We decided to head back to the ship. Just when we were on our way, they decided to go ahead and let us take the larger vehicle. It's like we got our own private tour.

 

We had a great tour guide. As we were touring the island, he gave us information about the island. Can you guess who discovered this island? As we were touring the island, I noticed how extremely narrow the streets are. As we traveled further up, the streets would curve around making it difficult to see oncoming traffic. Many times we got scared because other cars were coming from the other direction. We finally made a pit stop at one of sports bar and got some fruit smoothies. We laughed about the bar because we were trying to figure out what made it a sports bar. It was a very small place, and there were no televisions in site. I joked about the kids playing basketball downstairs, and that being the sports part of it...lol. At any rate, the smoothies were really, really good. If you should ever stop there (I wish I could remember the name of it), please have a smoothie. They were excellent. You won't regret it. BTW, If you consider a taxi tour of the island, The going rate was $20 per person.

 

Our tour guide decided to bring us back to the ship because the vehicle we were in was using a lot of gas. All in all, we spent two hours on our tour. After making it back to the ship, we decided to do a mini cabin crawl. Our friends had an accessible handicap suite, and it was absolutely beautiful. There was a large amount of space, a walk-in closet, a beautiful balcony, and a nice sized bathroom. Our room was on deck two, and was an ocean view. The ocean view room wasn't bad. The bathroom is the typical cruise ship stateroom sized bathroom. It had just enough room to do what you needed to do, adequate closet space, and a nice size room. The porthole was a bit tiny and was behind the bed. You had to climb on the bed to peek out at the ocean. If you get an ocean view, I would recommend getting one on at least deck 3 because the port hole is a lot bigger. You're not as close to the water either as you are on deck 2.

 

After our cabin crawl, we just relaxed a little bit and got ready for our official Royal Caribbean Meet & Mingle. Not everyone got a chance to show up because the time and date had changed, and it was right before the first seating for dinner, which was formal night as well. We still had a great time. I thought Royal Caribbean put together a great Meet & Mingle. They had a drawing for all of those who came and gave away some really nice prizes. If you sign up for the meet & mingle, please go. It was a very pleasurable experience. It was great to meet those we had been communicating with on the boards.

 

Shortly afterwards, we decided to go the Captain's Welcome Aboard Reception. It was nice as well. the entire senior staff was there to greet us making it a very special welcome. We ran into some of our dinner mates and had a great time with them. Don't forget that they give complimentary glasses of champagne. Take advantage of all those things that are complimentary if you can. Drinks can become expensive really quick on board any cruise ship.

 

We then went to dinner and had an amazing time with our dinner table group. We all laughed and had an amazing time together. Our wait staff made sure we were the last table left because they enjoyed us as well. We had them laughing the entire time as well. Our wait staff had an excellent sense of humor. They had given one of our table mates a Spanish menu just to see if they'd notice. We all laughed very hard when she realized it was in Spanish.

 

After dinner, we went to the headliner show featuring Greg London. He's an impressionist, and did a pretty good job. There were a couple of people we didn't believe he sounded like, but all in all, it was a good show.

 

Day two was an excellent day. When I get a chance, I'm going to post some pictures for all to see. Please continue to stay tuned....

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deetrayn

deetrayn

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Your review is off to a great start Zay. And thanks for taking the time to do this. I know it's a lot of work. I am home with the cold/flu now, so this review will be a great distraction. Remembering the fun of sailing, the great people and warm weather. :)

 

Dee

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TnomadX

TnomadX

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Sounds like an excellent time! Question for you- Jewel seems to keep moving the muster drill time around, was yours at 8 PM? Sounds like it might have been earlier, but did you have early, leave or MTD?

 

Looking forward to a few photos:D

 

The muster drill was at 8pm for both sailings, and we had second seating for dinner. We had just enough time to get to dinner after the muster drill. The drill may get moved around a little because some passengers arrive to the pier late due to late flight arrivals. The weather across the US has been terrible, and many people had to take alternate routes to fly into San Juan. The captain waited as long as he was allowed to give folks an opportunity to get on board.

 

Please forgive any typographical errors as I'm typing this from my phone.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Forums mobile app

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TnomadX

TnomadX

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Keep it coming. We will be on the Jewel in August. Taking the other itinerary.

 

I cruised the other itinerary as well. This review might be lengthy. I hope to start with the second itinerary some time next week.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Forums mobile app

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TnomadX

TnomadX

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Thanks so much for the review. We are sailing her on April 5th and am anxious to read about your experience. Did you get a chance to explore Old San Juan?.

 

I wanted to explore it, but I had foot surgery prior to getting there. My exploration of San Juan was very limited this time around unfortunately. I do plan to go to San Juan exclusively to visit some day.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Forums mobile app

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