THE MA'AMs SWEET JEWEL SUITE review and pictoral

[Planmaam]

Pictures, pictures; I love pictures!

 

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Here is some of the bubbly/wine they were offering. Quickly found out it was not free, but they asked you for your card to pay for it.

 

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[Planmaam]

The view from the tender as we headed too the dock in Cozumel:

 

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Some other boats in the water there in Cozumel:

 

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A look back at the Jewel.

 

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[medicalma'am]

We took pictures at the waterfall like we did in January.

 

 

 

Planma'am and DH

 

 

All too soon it was time to leave.

 

 

 

This is how I will always remember Chankanaab Park

 

 

 

[Planmaam]

We had to walk quite a ways to find chairs on the beach at Chankanaub, but finally did. A view from our perch:

 

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Here you can see some of the steps down into the water. There was a beach, but the edge of the water was rocky, so they placed steps down into the water every 50 yards or so.

 

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Medicalma'am and went into the water for a while to cool off, and the DHs wandered off to take pictures. Here are some my DH took of the wildlife:

 

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He took these with his camera right through the water; his is not waterproof.

 

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And some of the wildlife:

 

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[Planmaam]

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And he took a picture of the Ma'ams as he joined us again.

 

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[Planmaam]

Should I tell her her dress is inside her bathing suit? .....................Nah[/img]

 

A group of people fixin' to snorkle for the first time, listening to the guide's instructions before going into the water:

 

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You see everything on the beach:

 

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I also found this interesting; reminded me of a harem:

 

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And a view of the Jewel from Chankanaub:

 

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And my favorite picture I took to remind me of the day:

 

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[Planmaam]

As well as this one:

 

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Well, a short taxi ride back to the dock area. There were a LOT of people in Cozumel that day; 7 cruise ships' worth! Our taxi let us out across the street from the cruise port where we had to go through shops to get to the street, then cross and walk through more shops to line up for the ships. I bought my granddaughter a silver necklace, and my daughter 3 litres of vanilla. I did get myself a souvenir jigger, but I've found that I should not buy jiggers with any painting on them as it comes off too easily, so I got a plain one. Medicalma'am managed to find gifts for some of the nurses she supervises, and we went to line up for the tender back.

 

This was a view into where there were 4 ships docked:

 

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I had never seen one of the mega cruise ships up close, and I got this picture of the aft of the Allure of the Seas while standing in line:

 

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We met up with some new friends there in line, and then noticed we were behind a couple we met at the martini tasting, so had people to talk to, making the wait go faster. Then there was a little entertainment, too, as someone who had just a little too much to drink fell and had a hard time figuring out how to get up again:

 

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[medicalma'am]

When we got up to the front of the line, they had little packages with Popsicles in them and those cold washcloths! In the morning when we were being led through to the front of the tender line, I had seen crew folding those and placing them in a big cooler. So many things go on behind the scenes that make our crise experience so much more enjoyable.

 

When they announced that morning that the seas were rough it was an underestimation of what they were like now! Getting off the tender and back onto the ship was a feat. The platform would go up two feet from the tender, then back down two feet from the platform. You had to 'catch' it just in the middle of that when it was even with the tender boat. There were two crew on the platform and they would say "Wait....wait....OK, NOW" and you had to get on when they said. It was a slow but safe process that way with their help. They held out their hands and it went smoothly when they helped you.

 

My DH was hungry and went in search of food. I had a snack that was in our suite. Looks like we had some of the left over offerings from the chocolate buffet.

 

 

 

 

Planma'am and I headed to the spa and spent time in the wet areas, then went to the women's side to sit and read. We stayed in the spa and watched the other ships leave. My book kept loosing my attention! It was fun to watch them one by one move out like a movie in front of us because the the spa/bow was facing them. It soon got dark and we headed to our suites in the aft. Now the Allure had started out before we left and we had started turning around to head out to sea also.

 

When we got the our suites, I went out on the balcony and there was the Allure! We had turned all the way around and our aft was facing it. Way to go NCL to do that for me 'show' so the show could continue!

 

 

I sat out there fascinated just watching her. That ship is massive and the pictures just don't show that.

 

DH was relaxing in the suite and was not interested in seeing another ship pull out.

 

 

 

Edited January 12, 2014 by medicalma'am

[medicalma'am]

Planma'am and I went to the Star Bar and waited for the guys. I had my usual dirty Tanqueray martini with extra olives, maybe even two. I was looking around. Outside the pool deck was empty.

 

 

No chair hogging going on here!

 

 

I also noticed these on the wall.

 

 

I had not noticed them before. What is that? Art? And there was more than one.

 

 

Who was their decorator? SMH

 

We decided to have dinner in Azur that evening and it was again late when we headed there. We had a great waiter and stayed for a long time visiting with each other and the staff. Another of those long enjoyable dinners!

 

Maybe too long.....Planma'am dozed off once or twice. I have pics. She won't let me post them though.

 

This monkey had stowed away from Cozumel!

 

 

And my bed was calling me

 

 

 

I will say one thing about the bed in our suite. It was the most comfortable that I have had on an NCL ship. Lucky are those who get to live in 8132 when cruising the Jewel!

Edited January 12, 2014 by medicalma'am

[Planmaam]

I have to post a couple of pics of the Allure that DH took with his Cannon, because I think they are pretty good. He complained that he could not get it to focus, but I think they're good enough to post here.

 

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The next morning a beautiful sunrise greeted us:

 

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It was Saturday, our last full day, and a sea day at that; I love sea days.

 

This was in our suite the night before:

 

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And we also had our Galley Tour at 10:00 in the morning.

[medicalma'am]

That second picture is incredible focused! I can see people looking at our ship from their balconies!

 

The next morning we slept late and met in Cagney's for breakfast. I had been having eggs and bacon without the potatoes each morning. I had the crab cakes Benedict twice and regular eggs Benedict once. Planma'am and I split a waffle once. We tasted the regular syrup and the sugar free syrup. Both were more runny that I have at home. Christmas morning I fix waffles for the family. This year I had real Maple syrup, Aunt Jamima butter syrup, a butter pecan flavored syrup and one I made with strawberry ice cream topping and light Karo. I discovered that morning the NCL regular tastes most like the REAL maple syrup! What Americans have cheaply available in the stores is an imitation of the real maple syrup that is nothing like the real thing. I think most of us equate 'good' syrup with that thick fake concoction. Thus the bad reviews of the NCL syrup.

 

I think Planma'am and I checked out the photo gallery after breakfast and I bought some photos from Azure dining room that were good of DH and I.

 

 

 

Have to share: I have my grand daughter this weekend and just now I am rocking out to the Bubble Guppies in concert. Pretty good remake of some '70 rock music. LOL She is upstairs with Grampa cleaning up after dinner, what am I watching this for anyway!

 

We had the galley tour at 10 a.m. which was included as part of the Chef's Table. We met at the same place as for the Chef's Table and went through the 'secret door' and to the kitchen area.

 

The head chef met us and started the tour just into the main dining kitchen. Not two sentences into his talk his cell rang. He answered it "Yes Mother" That got a laugh from all of us. It was probably his secretary/assistant whom we met later in the tour when we saw his office.

 

 

All through the tour I was amazed at how clean and spotless the galley was.

 

 

 

 

Wonder who has the key to the liquor cabinet?

 

 

In this they put trays of clean glassware. I Kerry from Florida!

 

Edited January 12, 2014 by medicalma'am

[Planmaam]

Not all members of the Chef's Table evening made it to the galley tour, but this is our group here:

 

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And the remainder here:

 

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I was impressed that every single crew member we encountered in the galley spoke to us, wishing us a good morning or afternoon, and smiling. EVERYONE!!!!!

 

Medicalma'am mentioned how clean the place was, and he told us that they follow the USDA requirements in the galley. They also clean EVERY surface every two hours with a mixture of 200 ppm of cleaning solution to water. That is when they leave an American port; when they leave a foreign port, they double it to 400 ppm!

 

I'm a building inspector, and often inspect businesses with our local Health Inspector. He has taught me many things about Health Department rules, so I noticed things and took pictures to show him later:

 

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[medicalma'am]

I just want to say that the staff we met along the tour was amazing. All greeted us happily, invited us into their area, and wanted to show us what they did. We felt like one of the family.

 

 

 

 

This is one of my favorite things on the NCL menu. I got the recipe! I did a pretty good job of recreating it after our Star tour, but I have to try it now.

 

 

 

 

Busy at work

 

 

These were carved by some of the chefs

 

 

They were cool

 

 

It soon was almost 11:00 a.m. when we had our bridge tour. We asked if we could get the finish of the tour later and the head chef told us to just contact him when we were finished. We left the tour at this point for the bridge tour.

[Planmaam]

More geek stuff:

 

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Dishwashing area:

 

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If you're wondering why we don't see many servers, dishwashers, or food in here, it's because we entered through Azura, and at the other end of the kitchen is Tsar's, and neither of these is open for lunch, so they took us to the best area for touring in the morning.

 

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And getting ready for later:

 

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[Planmaam]

So we were led out of the galley into Tsar's, and we pretty much ran/walked up to the meeting place for the Bridge tour. We arrived after the group had been let in, but they reopened the door for us.

 

Medicalma'am and I posed for our standard picture with the ship's bell, but my DH could not get my flash to work:

 

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so I decided to "drive the boat" instead:

 

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A view aft from the port flying bridge:

 

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And a view through the glass floor to the area below the flying bridge:

 

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I think this glass floor is to be able to see the pilot boat meeting the ship, and the pilot boarding.

 

I'd love to sit here with the bridge officers sometime, shooting the breeze:

 

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Some mighty big windshield wipers:

 

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Edited January 12, 2014 by planma'am

[Planmaam]

Yes, you can see into the front balconies from the bridge:

 

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This is the only time I've ever seen anyone enjoying the crew area with the crew hot tub; we think they were the dancers.

 

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A view of the bridge cams; there are two!

 

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A wide view of some of the instruments on the bridge:

 

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The Navigator, I think he was, was our host for the bridge tour. He told us of the years of schooling he had prior to going to work for NCL. He actually has a degree for this, then additional schooling, then years of working his way up with NCL. He told us of the shifts they work, and asked if any of us knew what the most important piece of equipment was on the bridge. No one was able to figure it out, so he showed us:

 

 

 

 

Wait for it............................

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wait for it.....................................................

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The coffee machine!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! His words, not mine !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Edited January 12, 2014 by planma'am

[medicalma'am]

We all got a turn to 'drive' the ship!

 

 

 

 

 

The REAL drivers seat on this ship

 

 

Besides the coffee station, they have and entire kitchenette

 

 

And they recycle

 

 

They had a separate place for battery disposal.

 

[Planmaam]

So, after the bridge tour we headed back down to Azura and walked into the galley from where we had before; momentarily we were joined once again by Executive Chef Santos who took us directly to the elevator where we had left off, and we went down to the ships stores. He said this area is completely full at the beginning of the week's cruise:

 

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He told us about all the trash, food scraps, and recycling they do. That is when we asked about telling our server if we weren't interested in something that would be included on our plates to not bring it, and he said definitely, YES! Tell your server if you don't want the potatoes or that vegetable that will come with the entre; it saves them $ and garbage.

 

Here's some more galley staff we encountered:

 

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These two guys were trimming fat from large cuts of meat. They had their knife sharpener hanging from their waists. One of us asked how often they had to sharpen their knives, and they said OFTEN! They were experts with those knives, and were making fast work of the task.

 

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They told us how there were different areas for seafood, pork, beef, and chicken, and how even the cutting boards were color-coded for each, so that they never got "cross contaminated", if that's the best phrase. They were even washed in different areas.

 

 

He showed us some of the freezers, and how they monitored the temperatures.

 

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[Planmaam]

Then it was on to my favorite area, the source of the wonderful smells wafting up to our balconies in the evenings: the bakery.

 

There were fresh cookies, and some more batches in the ovens:

 

 

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Chocolate melting

 

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They were making rolls in this area, and I found it interesting. Here they were placing dough on these red platters:

 

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Then they placed them in the top of this machine and pressed a button:

 

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Then the took them out and put them in the lower section and pressed the lever:

 

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There was some heavy-duty rattling going on, then they came out like this:

 

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Et Voila! Rolls!!!

[Planmaam]

Now that's a rolling pen!

 

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Some fresh cookies had just come out of the oven, and they offered us each one[/img]

 

 

That was the end of our tour, and we exited through Tsar's, and I took a picture of some of the gingerbread houses on display there:

 

 

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[medicalma'am]

It took some doing to get the rest of our galley tour. I made a call to Elvina the concierge and told her that some of us had to leave the galley tour to go to our appointed time for the bridge tour. I told her that they had told us to call them and they would see that we finished it. She asked to whom I had spoken and she said she would call me back. In no less than a minute she called and told us where to meet them! We felt so special.

 

The freezer in the picture with the temperature probe was a thawing fridge. The carefully monitor the temp as it thaws!

 

Do you see the big ball of dough and the 'baby' balls of dough? The magic machine turned them into rolls to bake in the oven. You saw them in Planma'am's post. The crew in this room saw us having cookies in the next room and invited us in to show off this machine! I told you we felt welcomed!

 

 

We were in the 'bowels' of the ship on this tour.

 

 

There were rooms that we went into that were for fish, which has it's own freezer room. Then one for chicken processing with it's own freezer. Then one for pork and it's own freezer, and one for beef and it's own freezer. Nothing is stored or processed in another area! The meats only come together where they are cooked. Everything has it's temperature monitored constantly. There is a cold room for fruits that has the humidity monitored and a mist turns on when needed.

 

He told us that when they get to NOLA early in the morning, they off-load the waste and start taking on supplies and it is a very busy 6 or 7 hours with trucks being unloaded and fork lifts moving things into the ship. They keep very careful track of stock.

 

They told us that they feed each person (passengers and crew) for a certain dollar amount a day. They keep careful track of this and corporate wants to know what happened if it goes up a few cents per person!

 

 

[medicalma'am]

We were told that the ginger houses in the bakery area were for the suites the next week, which was Christmas week.

 

 

I do not remember where we had lunch that day. We might have skipped it because we had reservations at Le Bistro again for this evening.

 

Planma'am and I went to the spa for the afternoon.

 

Le Bistro was excellent as usual. I had the filet again. I could not order anything else there, it was that good. I think we took our last bottle of wine.

 

 

Desert. I think this is the Chocolate Napoleon

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Planmaam]

We sure did feel welcomed; the Executive Chef himself giving the four of us another hour of a private galley tour! Kudos to NCL and their staff!

[Planmaam]

Medicalma'am, I think we ALL had the tenderloin for dinner that evening; I remember looking around the table and seeing them!

[medicalma'am]

Some of our friends had called our room earlier and invited us to the Quest in the Spinakker. We had packed our bags before dinner. I think that Planma'am and her DH went back to their suite to pack and skipped the Quest. We never miss it on a cruise.

 

Here are some of the contestants

 

 

After Quest, we went to the shops to make some last purchases. I have to agree with Mitsugirly here, the staff in the shops were not friendly. They weren't very interested in helping me find anything and the guy at the register who checked me out didn't even talk to me. I knew he spoke American sounding English too. It was like we had crossed a border into another country.....NOT NCL counrty!

 

While we were there, a few times the ship was jarred and bottles of liquor on shelves at the back all rattled loudly. I remember on the bridge they had told us that we would be entering the Mississippi at around 10:30 p.m. It was about this time. Our suite was just one floor above the shops.

 

We went back to our suite and I sat on the balcony for a bit watching the lights of oil rigs go by. We did not feel any of the bumpy jarring that we had experienced in the shops.

 

We placed our luggage out in the hallway and turned in for the night.

 

The next morning I got up early and sadly made my cappuccino. I sat and watched the sun rise again. We went to Cagney's for our last breakfast there.

 

 

In Cagneys you can order from the menu, but they also have a buffet table where you can get many things. They have rolls, sweet rolls and croissants, cereal, milk, fruit, oatmeal and yogurt and many toppings to put on them, smoked salmon, capers, cheeses and cottage cheese.

 

We went back to the suite to get our things and do a last check. Our butler, who had been quite invisible keeping our coffee machine stocked and juice in the fridge and our snacks delivered, stopped buy. We thanked him and said goodbye.

 

We went to the Japanese restaurant and met Elvina who escorted off off the ship. I took this picture as we left.

 

 

We found our luggage in the priority area and got in line for customs. We quickly were through that line and were on our way.

 

We walked the llllllooooonnnnnggggg hallway to the exit. It was raining and we went out the door for the bus riders to head across the street to the Whale lot. We again had the task of getting all our luggage into the car again! We had bought very little and really had nothing more than before. It was accomplished by the guys and in the rain at that. Out came everyone's phones to figure out how to get to I-10. I gave in and got out my book to read on the way to our dad's house, a 6 hour drive.

 

 

Edited January 12, 2014 by medicalma'am