A review from the Aft of the Jewel - January 17, 2015

[Linda the Book Lover]

Forget lunch bring on the dessert and a Pear Pleasure please. I am still going back and forth about bringing the wine I prefer and pay the corkage or just bite the bullet and purchase a wine package.

[OUgal]

Jmele999 -- Really great review so far. I appreciate all the details you are sharing about your experience. Thanks for posting recent dailies too! I'll be on the Jewel the week of March 14 in an aft suite for the first time. Didn't think I could get any more excited until I started reading your review.

 

 

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[PathfinderEss]

Really enjoying your review, looking forward to more of it. Wonderful photo's too.

Edited January 28, 2015 by PathfinderEss

[jmele999]

Loving every minute of it! Your pictures are fabulous! :D

 

Thanks. More pictures to come.

[jmele999]

Forget lunch bring on the dessert and a Pear Pleasure please. I am still going back and forth about bringing the wine I prefer and pay the corkage or just bite the bullet and purchase a wine package.

 

DP was laughing when he read your comment about forgetting lunch and enjoying dessert and drink.

 

The wine onboard is not bad, but we prefer to bring a couple of bottles from home.

[jmele999]

Jmele999 -- Really great review so far. I appreciate all the details you are sharing about your experience. Thanks for posting recent dailies too! I'll be on the Jewel the week of March 14 in an aft suite for the first time. Didn't think I could get any more excited until I started reading your review.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

You are going to love the aft suite and the suite perks. Get ready to be spoiled.

[jmele999]

After lunch we went back to our room to check if the luggage had arrived. A couple of minutes after arriving in our room the door bell ran and it was our room steward. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that David Clarke was going to be our room steward again. He was our room attendant in 2014 and he said that as soon as he saw our names that he remembered us. David was great throughout the week.

 

Our luggage arrived shortly after (around 2:15 pm) and we asked David for some ice for the bottle of sparkling wine that we had brought home. We unpacked and set out to the explore the ship before the mandatory muster drill that was scheduled for 3:15 pm.

 

The Jewel was refurbished in May 2014 and one of the changes was the addition of O'Sheehan's to deck 8. Since we had never visited O'Sheehan's before, we decided visit the popular Irish pub and have our first drink of the cruise. One of our goals this cruise was to have a drink at every bar onboard. Stay tuned to find out if we were able to visit every bar onboard.

 

 

 

The menu that you see behind the drinks is the limited drink menu that it is offered throughout the ship on the first day due to the Texas state laws. Even though it is a limited menu, there is something for everyone from frozen drinks to martinis. However, as you can see in the picture below, the selection of alcohol is limited.

 

 

O'Sheehan's started closing around 3:00 pm because of the muster drill. We attended the muster drill, and went to our room to pick our sparkling wine for the sailaway celebration.

 

The Jewel departed the Bayport terminal at 4:00 pm and it was time for us to start the celebration.

 

 

Edited January 28, 2015 by jmele999

[aubreyc1988]

Great review, can't wait for more!

[Linda the Book Lover]

I am having a great time reading and viewing the pictures. Since we are driving (and I am the only wine drinker) I am thinking I will go ahead and bring some wine in a carrier. That way I am happy thanks for your thoughts on the wine.:)

[blondie1746]

We were on this cruise, too. We are silver latitudes members, but never got our packet with info on latitudes party. We just assumed they stopped doing them. We got busy, kept forgetting to ask Florentina about it until Friday. Then it was too late. I was not impressed with Jorge, the cruise consultant. He was late to his office for posted hours on the 2 occasions we tried to talk with him about cruise rewards. We finally just filled out the form and dropped it in the box. He left us a voicemail apologizing that we did not get our packet, but no explanation why. Still don't know where the mix-up happened, but guest services did give us a bottle of wine that night for dinner. But we really enjoy the latitudes parties, seeing how many cruises people have been on, etc. Oh well, next cruise we definitely won't forget to check. I"ll be gold by then!

[Marion B]

Loving this review, especially the great pics and daily program.

 

Since we are new to NCL, a question about the specialty restaurants: we have the specialty dining package but are not in a suite - does this allow us in any of the specialty restaurants for lunch, or is that reserved for the suite people only?

 

Marion

[AF-1]

jmele999, how far from the aft elevator or aft stairways is 10166? Will I be getting a good walk in everyday? Thanks

[jmele999]

Loving this review, especially the great pics and daily program.

 

Since we are new to NCL, a question about the specialty restaurants: we have the specialty dining package but are not in a suite - does this allow us in any of the specialty restaurants for lunch, or is that reserved for the suite people only?

 

Marion

 

Hi Marion,

 

The specialty restaurants are only open for dinner. However, sometimes Teppanyaki will open for lunch on sea days.

[jmele999]

jmele999, how far from the aft elevator or aft stairways is 10166? Will I be getting a good walk in everyday? Thanks

 

Funny that you ask because I actually counted how many steps there are from the Aft to the front of the ship. It should be between 75 to 100 steps from 10166 to the aft elevator. We typically walked to the mip ship stairs and walk up or down from the. There are approximately 350 steps from the aft to the front of the ship.

[Marion B]

Thanks OP.

 

This thread has really increased my anticipation that we are trying something new instead of our usual cruise line.

 

Marion

[jmele999]

After sailaway we went back to the room to the enjoy the view from the aft. We also met our butler, Jennifer, who stopped by to pick up our dinner reservation requests for the week. The concierge is the person who can assist you with making dinner reservations, but since the concierge is in charge of all butlers, Florentina (concierge) asked Jennifer to stop by our room to pick up our reservations request for the week.

 

The view from the aft is incredible.

 

 

By 6:00 pm, we were near Galveston.

 

 

For those of you who did not read my last review, one of my favorite things about cruising is having the ability to enjoy some wonderful sunrises and sunsets. The sunset as we left Texas did not disappoint.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 29, 2015 by jmele999

[jmele999]

On this cruise we decided to purchase the Ultimate Dinning Package (UDP) ($99 per person - Platinum discount), and as such we made reservations for each night, except for Tuesday, at a different speciality restaurant. Most people would not recommend getting the UDP if you are getting the free dinners at Le Bistro, but in our case, it made sense since we also wanted to have dinner at Cagney's ($30), Teppanyaki ($25), Moderno ($20), La Cucina ($15) as well as enjoying appetizers at different restaurants before dinner. Having multiple meals per night at different specialty restaurants is allowed if you have the UDP. .

 

Here is the list of restaurants we visited during the week. It was great having a list to remind us of each reservation.

 

 

On Saturday night we went to Chin Chin (Chinese) for appetizers at 6:30 pm, followed by the welcome aboard show (7:15 pm), and then dinner in La Cucina (Italian) at 8:30 pm. The appetizers at Chin Chin were great, and dinner at La Cucina was also good (sorry forgot to take pictures).

 

 

After dinner, we were full and tired, but made a quick stop at the casino to contribute to the NCL fund. After that we took a quick walk around the ship and went to bed early.

[jmele999]

Day 2 - Sunday - At sea

 

 

 

 

I love days at sea and we had a full day planned with activities - Cruise critic meet & greet, Latitudes welcome back reception, relaxing, martini tasting, VIP reception, dinner at Le Bistro (our favorite restaurant), and Norwegian's Night Out Party.

Edited January 29, 2015 by jmele999

[jimbri]

Enjoying your review. Photos are great, especially the sunset!!

[Marion B]

OP,

Do you remember how much before your cruise you received your boarding passes? We just did our on-line check-in for a March 28th departure and am wondering when and how we get our docs.

Thanks,

Marion

[jmele999]

OP,

Do you remember how much before your cruise you received your boarding passes? We just did our on-line check-in for a March 28th departure and am wondering when and how we get our docs.

Thanks,

Marion

 

You can print your e-documents right after you check in. Go back to my NCL and they should be there waiting for you.

Edited January 29, 2015 by jmele999

[mncruiser84]

OP,

Do you remember how much before your cruise you received your boarding passes? We just did our on-line check-in for a March 28th departure and am wondering when and how we get our docs.

Thanks,

Marion

 

Hey Marion my wife and I will be on that same cruise. We have are docs and luggage tags all ready to go even though it's still along ways away.

[Marion B]

Thanks OP and mncruiser84 for your responses - unfortunately, my e-docs were not available for printing after the onlinecheck-in; I called NCL and they advised me that since we had a guaranty cabin (the only option available at booking), we won't be able to do the e-docs until a month or so before departure.

Has this been your experience? I'll just keep checking and I'm optimistic that we'll have them before embarkation.

mncruiser84 - very much looking forward to our first Ncl cruise!

 

Marion

[divamimi312]

Thanks OP and mncruiser84 for your responses - unfortunately, my e-docs were not available for printing after the onlinecheck-in; I called NCL and they advised me that since we had a guaranty cabin (the only option available at booking), we won't be able to do the e-docs until a month or so before departure.

Has this been your experience? I'll just keep checking and I'm optimistic that we'll have them before embarkation.

mncruiser84 - very much looking forward to our first Ncl cruise!

 

Marion

 

Ours took about 3 or 4 days to show up ready in my ncl but ni cabin assigned for several more days.

[jmele999]

Thanks OP and mncruiser84 for your responses - unfortunately, my e-docs were not available for printing after the onlinecheck-in; I called NCL and they advised me that since we had a guaranty cabin (the only option available at booking), we won't be able to do the e-docs until a month or so before departure.

Has this been your experience? I'll just keep checking and I'm optimistic that we'll have them before embarkation.

mncruiser84 - very much looking forward to our first Ncl cruise!

 

Marion

 

Glad to hear that you are excited about your first NCL cruise. If you have any specific questions feel free to ask.