MITSUGIRLYS JEWEL OF A CRUISE review and pictorial

[mitsugirly]

The Java cafe is located right between the steps winding up to the next floor. This is also where you go to get your "soda" card stickers for those of you that purchase the soda package.

 

 

 

 

The big screen tv in the atrium

 

 

Glass door in the atrium leading outside to the decks along side the ship.

 

 

[mitsugirly]

Ok, last set of Atrium pictures and these are the "sparkly" one's as Sakari calls it. "They are so pretty" Then I'm off to bed so that Santa can come. I would feel really bad if he missed Sakari because I was still up. Big day tomorrow with the family and my grown kids. I managed to talk my oldest daughter into her throwing Christmas at her house (since there just wasn't enough time for me to prepare after our vacation) and she agreed. I feel bad because she is due with baby number 2 in about 20 days now, but it's ok, I keep reminding her how I did it myself with a 2 year old as well (her older brother). :p

 

 

 

 

 

I found that if you get right up on these icicles and caught them at the right moment, boy did they glow on the right setting on my camera. It did take a lot of tries to capture it at the right moment and trying different settings on the camera, but I think the end result turned out pretty good. This would be one of the times I actually couldn't do a drive-by-shooting and had to stay still, calm, and collected. But hey that's always me right? Nah. :p

[snorkelgirlca]

Thank you so much for the review of the jewel. We go on her in 26 days.

 

I love the eggs in the dining rooms. I noticed them immediately on the pearl and glad they are on the jewel. I was fortunate to see some of the real ones last December as there was an exhibit here in the OC at the Bowers. Every once in a while some of the collection makes a tour of the country. That trip was especially meaningful as it was the last trip I made with my mother before she left us. She used to craft eggs too but not with real jewels.

 

So thank you for sharing with all of us your wonderful pictures.

 

Merry Christmas

 

Marsha

[Shayhooper]

"She absolutely LOVED the characters and the Nick events. I wish they had them on every NCL ship. "

 

Callie loved them as well and the Nick Jr participation was a big reason why we chose the Jewel over the Pearl for Alaska.

[jsd4224]

Loving the review. We are on the Jewel next November.

[kapear]

Thank you for the review and pictures so far. We will be on the Jewel over New Year's.

[NLH Arizona]

They are beautiful and I loved them. Are these the actual eggs? Or a replica? I have to go back now and check out my Pearl pictures to see if they had them there since I didn't notice them.

They are replicas and much, much larger, the real Faberge eggs. One egg (the winter egg) sold for $5.5 million in 1994. They are truly works of art.

 

I couldn't post a picture, but if you google Faberge The Winter Egg, you will see how beautiful it is.

Edited December 25, 2013 by NLH Arizona

[snow bunny]

Merry Christmas and thank you for the review. We are not going on her but I really have enjoyed your past reviews and thought I would tag along on this one!

 

snow bunny

[debnjoe1438]

More interesting balls. They had so many different types. I kept snapping pictures of the different designs and my hubby gave me that "are you really going to take a picture of each one of them" look. So I decided 4 or 5 were enough.

 

 

 

 

One of the many questions that comes up on these boards are how do those people in people-movers get down to the dining room? Well here's your answer....in the above picture and the picture below, you will see the walkway that runs alongside of the grand stairway coming in to the dining area.

 

 

You will come out to this area:

 

 

As you can see, this area leads to no-where-land. It's only a room with chairs and an elevator. Your option is to take the elevator up or come back into the dining room.

 

Oh one other thing, you can't walk straight through deck 6 from the rest of the ship to get here. You have to go up along deck 7 and walk down the stairs or take the elevator down, which became quite annoying to someone who is GPS challenged like me.

 

Been on the Jewel twice and don't remember these balls. I'll have to check it out next time. :D

[mizLORInj]

. . .

 

I have to admit, the ships that don't have the huge, open, stories high atrium with the glass elevators don't impress me. I like that "wow" factor and of course the Gem, Jewel, Pearl or whatever stone it may be, ships don't have that. But it's ok. I was prepared for this and knew this ahead of time.

. . .

 

Agree with you. I like the beautiful and wide open atriums on say, Princess and RC. Even the NCL Breakaway lacks the huge wow factor in their (only) 3 story atrium. I expected more it to be more grand. But it didn't ruin my cruise by any means; still an awesome ship. And NCL still offers a good cruising experience, so here we are. . . :D

[mitsugirly]

Thank you so much for the review of the jewel. We go on her in 26 days.

 

I love the eggs in the dining rooms. I noticed them immediately on the pearl and glad they are on the jewel. I was fortunate to see some of the real ones last December as there was an exhibit here in the OC at the Bowers. Every once in a while some of the collection makes a tour of the country. That trip was especially meaningful as it was the last trip I made with my mother before she left us. She used to craft eggs too but not with real jewels.

 

So thank you for sharing with all of us your wonderful pictures.

 

Merry Christmas

 

Marsha

 

I guess we didn't notice the eggs on the Pearl because they always sat us at the very end by the arched windows. I still should have noticed them coming in and out, but didn't for some reason. I looked at my Pearl pictures to see if I could catch a glimpse of them and only 1 picture had one in it, but you could barely see it...I was taking a picture of the family.

 

 

 

Callie loved them as well and the Nick Jr participation was a big reason why we chose the Jewel over the Pearl for Alaska.

 

I will definitely look into which ships have the Nick characters when I book my next. Hopefully where we chose to go, that ship will have them. :)

[mitsugirly]

Loving the review. We are on the Jewel next November.

 

Thanks for joining. :)

 

Thank you for the review and pictures so far. We will be on the Jewel over New Year's.

 

You are welcome and thank you for joining in on our adventure. I hope you have a wonderful cruise.

 

They are replicas and much, much larger, the real Faberge eggs. One egg (the winter egg) sold for $5.5 million in 1994. They are truly works of art.

 

I couldn't post a picture, but if you google Faberge The Winter Egg, you will see how beautiful it is.

 

I decided to google them and all I can say is "wow"....beautiful.

 

 

bunny Merry Christmas and thank you for the review. We are not going on her but I really have enjoyed your past reviews and thought I would tag along on this one!

 

Aww, thanks for joining and liking my reviews. I'm glad to have you here.

[mitsugirly]

Been on the Jewel twice and don't remember these balls. I'll have to check it out next time. :D

 

Definitely. They are pretty.

 

Agree with you. I like the beautiful and wide open atriums on say, Princess and RC. Even the NCL Breakaway lacks the huge wow factor in their (only) 3 story atrium. I expected more it to be more grand. But it didn't ruin my cruise by any means; still an awesome ship. And NCL still offers a good cruising experience, so here we are. . . :D

 

I loved the Spirit and the Star's grand atrium. At least some of their ships have it. I would like to sail the Dawn because I know it's the sister ship of Star and will have the grand atrium. I just love that "wow" factor.

[mitsugirly]

I have managed to prepare some more pictures to share of more of the decks while I wait on my youngest son (19) to get ready to head over to my daughter and sons house for Christmas dinner. (He's worse than a girl I swear).

 

I will share once I return.

 

I hope everyone is having a very Merry Christmas and I will see you soon. :)

[zounds]

Sorry for the slow response. I just saw you had asked for a link to my "review". I wrote and submitted it last night, but it not as yet on the Member Reviews page. Steve

[mitsugirly]

So now walking down the starboard side of the ship from the Atrium, you will come to the Photo Gallery. This is where you will find all your pictures that the ship photographer takes of you at functions, around the ship, and when you get off the ship at each port with the people dressed up. They also have items for sale such as cameras and stuff (in case you are like me and forget your battery charger plugged into the outlet back home or all of your batteries along with the charger :rolleyes: No, this didn't happen this time, but it did when we were on the star last Christmas).

 

 

 

They usually sell the pictures they take of you while getting on the ship for $19.95 and then the smaller one's from during the week are $12.95. They did run an early bird special once toward the end of the cruise that if you bought an 8x10 then you could get a 5x7 of the same picture for free or something like that.

[mitsugirly]

If you walk along the port side of the ship you will come to the art gallery and internet cafe.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not really into art work, but they did have some neat pictures that the paint stuck out. They also had some really neat sculptures that caught my eye that were made with different things like gears and stones. They were pretty neat.

 

 

 

On the opposite side of the art collection is the Internet Cafe lined up along the walkway.

 

[mitsugirly]

At the very end of the hall you will come to a huge shopping area. Most ships have the "mall-like" shopping where you walk up and down the isle and go into the different stores to shop. This is one big shopping area completely open and together. But, things are sectioned off; for instance the jewelery in a section, the alcohol in another section, trinkets up a few stairs toward the front section, then clothes and other items in another section.

 

Just be aware that everything they have in the store is not everything you'll see during the cruise. They will pull out other things with "specials" toward the end of the cruise. I had been looking for a sweat shirt with "Jewel" on it all week and settled for a different one that just said "Caribbean" and "NCL" on it. Then the last sea day, they pulled out the one I was looking for. So, just saying don't be in a rush to buy something if you don't see what you're looking for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

 

[mitsugirly]

Heading up another flight of stairs....come on, you can do it, you will come to the Blue Lagoon on the starbaord side. This is your 24/7 free restaurant with excellent food from wings to....well, you'll see:

 

 

 

 

They have the best cheesecake!!

 

This restaurant surrounds the top half of the atrium and is open in the middle down.

 

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

 

 

 

At this place, you will check in with the person at the stand and they ask you for your room number then seat you. When we were on the Pearl, this place kind of seemed weird to us because it constantly had people just walking through it from the rooms on the 8th floor. You are pretty much forced to walk through the middle of the dining area (or the middle of Moderno to get to the other side. This is no different, but I guess it didn't bother me as much this time since I was use to it this time around.

[mitsugirly]

On the opposite side of Blue Lagoon, you will find Moderno Churrascaria, a pay restaurant. We did not eat there, but did eat there...over flow from Blue Lagoon once when the place was hopping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Would you get a load of those chairs? I didn't even realize it until we got up to leave and I bent over to pick up something and noticed the "fur".

 

[mitsugirly]

Up next is a little "hidden" area that some may not know about. If you look on NCL's Jewel map of each deck, you will not see it listed.

 

You will go up to deck 11 taking the front elevators and head to the right and then go right down the hallway. At the end of the hallway is the bridge viewing area where you will find all of the awards and welcome plaque's along with ship navigation information and you can view the Captain's area. They also have one of these on the same deck on the Pearl.

 

 

 

 

A list of the "important" people running the ship:

 

 

Everyone always wonders what the stripes on their shirts mean...I thought I would take a close up to show everyone.

 

 

A map of where the Jewel is sailing:

 

 

[mitsugirly]

On to the Bridge area:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found this interesting and funny...the security camera's, take a look at the last camera....the work out room. LOL I guess they want to see someone working out. :D

 

 

[mitsugirly]

Next is deck 12 and we will start at the front of the ship, which is the Spa area: Relaxation/wet area, Sauna, Steam Room, Treatment Rooms, and Thermal Suite.

 

I have to admit, I have never been in one of these before. I didn't realize you could actually go in there and look around and take pictures if you did not buy the package. I was encouraged by people here on cc to go in the first day for the "tour" and that I did.

 

I have never been a person that goes to the "spa", or get "pampered" or to get "massages". It's just not me. The thought of someone's hands on me (other than a friendly hand shake or hug) is about it. I kinda get creeped out when I have to go to my Chiropractor. You will never find me searching for a place on the beach that does massages. So, I will probably never buy one of these packages and now that I have seen the place, I really can't see where I would actually use anything in there. It was very hot in there...and well, I go to the Caribbean to get hot, not spend it in even a hotter area. I just don't see this as me. Now I can say that I think it would be neat to go on the Breakaway and use their salt shower steam bath thingy ma jig.

 

With that being said, the spa was pretty and I liked the colors being used in there. Very relaxing atmosphere.