Jewel Panama Canal Miami --> LA: Quick Hits

[MBMGWM]

My wife & I ended our cruise on March 5th in L.A., then spent a week in Southern California. Back home now, and rather than a lengthy review, I thought I'd do a quick "likes/dislikes" kind of thing, so this is from the husband's (61/Platinum/enjoy cruises but not crazy about them) point of view. Your mileage may vary.

 

Likes:

 

- Cabin: aft-facing cabin was great; 3rd time we've cruised in one and we love the sight & sound of the wake below us and the panoramic side-to-side views; also, the cabin was extremely quiet as far as neighbors go - - we almost never heard so much as a clunk, a clink, or a voice. And our cabin steward was great.

 

- Food: I don't get the general complaints about the food on NCL; the variety, quality, taste, etc, of the buffet is very good (esp'ly the Indian selections and the fact that I could almost always find both hot and cold fish/seafood selections, including salmon and herring at breakfast. The specialty restaurants were more of a mixed bag (see "Dislikes" below), but we particularly enjoyed the teppenyaki grill food/performances, and Cagney's. The sushi bar at Chin Chins was also very good, and we hit it off with one of the chefs there. He made me non-menu sushi specialties a couple of times. The ceviche there was excellent - - spicy & flavorful; the Hawaiian poke was good too.

 

- Entertainment: We went to almost every evening show in the ship's theater, and enjoyed most of them. Other ship's entertainment was fairly standard cruise ship varieties: pool band; dance band; pop duo; guy with a guitar; piano singer; etc. All were at least OK, but none of them struck me as much more than cruise ship average. The exception could have been the guitar guy, but see more in "Dislikes" below.

 

- Ship: I think I've decided that the Jewel is my fave NCL ship. We've been on the mega-ships (Epic/Escape/Getaway) and I love them for the entertainment choices, but you pay with crowds and a feeling that you are in a floating Vegas hotel rather than on a ship. The Jewel seems to be a perfect size, with a wide variety of bars, restaurants, entertainment, places to socialize or get away as the mood strikes, plenty of things to do, etc, but we never felt crowded (except see "Dislikes" below).

 

Misc: We enjoyed most of the trivia shows (we went to most of the music/movie-related ones, not the general ones), but see "Dislikes" below. The pool area was frequently busy, but not overwhelmingly so, and we got a hot tub whenever we wanted one. The crew, staff and other NCL reps were uniformly polite and cheerful. One remembered us from a previous cruise on another NCL ship, which turned out to be handy when she saw us waiting in a long tender line to return to the ship in one port and called out to us to join her small group of Haven folks that she was leading to the front of the tender line. Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, we tagged along and saved a ton of time returning to the ship.

 

Dislikes:

 

Food: While I was pleased with the buffet, Cagney's, and the teppenyaki grill (and O'Sheehan's was OK, too), there were some disappointments otherwise. The salad bar in Moderno was very good, but the meats were too often overdone; you can ask for rare/medium rare, but you often have to wait...sometimes a long while. And the "shrimp stew" had been cooked so long the shrimp simply turned to mush on first bite. Sadly, overcooking fish seemed to plague Le Bistro and La Cuchina as well. After some waaaay overcooked salmon in La Cucina one night, the next night I asked the waiter in Le Bistro to ask the chef to be careful not to overcook my swordfish order. It arrived as practically swordfish sashimi - - raw just about all the way thru. When I sent it back, a new order arrived (after about a half-hour) that was overcooked. I picked what I could from it and left the rest. My one complaint about the buffet was the drill you had to go thru to get some cold sliced salmon in the morning. You have to ask for it, and apparently you have to ask at the cold selections food bar that is the farthest bar away from where the salmon is kept in the kitchen. Believe me, after I saw the trek the food server had to make to get the salmon the first time I asked about it, I asked at the closest food bar to the kitchen door the next time, but even though there were three staffers working at that bar, they directed me back to the cold bar where there was only a single staffer working, who then had to make the long trek to the kitchen door and back again. The entire set-up seems directed at discouraging folks from getting salmon at breakfast. I say either don't offer it at all, or make things much easier on the staff (and the guests) to get the salmon. By the last time I asked, near the end of the cruise, somebody finally got wise and there was a plate of sliced salmon at the cold bar, but it was kept out of sight underneath the bar, so you still had to ask for it.

 

Entertainment: The guitar guy could have been a cut above because he had a good voice, but he stuck to the smooth, mellow, pop side of things (think latter-day Neil Diamond/James Taylor/John Denver /etc) way too much; one time we sat in to listen and he did three John Denver songs in a row; I mean, John Denver is OK, but three in a row? C'mon...more variety, please And no, it wasn't a "John Denver tribute" night. He badly needs to add a little edge to his song selections, or it's just snoozeville (to me).

 

 

Ship: Cattle call shore excursions - - NCL has GOT to figure out a better way to do its shore excursions than to unleash three or four popular shore excursions at the same time into the stairwells and long hallways to the gangplanks to disembark where you shuffle along with a thousand other folks. We generally do our own thing on shore, but on most cruises we end up doing one or two thru the ship. I regret it every time, and no difference here.

 

 

Misc: Trivia shows: enjoyed most of them; won one, came in a close second in several others. Most of the hosts were pretty decent, but we had one guy who was unbelievably inept as host. It was Beatles trivia and he botched a handful of the trivia questions by playing the title of the song in the clue itself; he also managed to include two identical songs (out of just 20 Beatles songs) in his list - - and as the kicker, both times he played the titles in the clue sample! It was head-shakingly inept, but the participants managed to keep their sense of humor about it all.

 

 

I tried to keep this short, but it still went on longer than I intended. Overall, it was a GREAT cruise - - one of our faves. The likes thoroughly outweighed the dislikes, even though I gave them equal billing here.

[Jumping Castle]

Thanks for the great review.

 

Glad you had a wonderful trip. :)

[mimi-papa]

It was our first time with NCL on the same cruise. We loved everything about the ship. We've always cruised Carnival but I think NCL's crew and officers are more customer friendly. We ate at LeBisto, Cagney's, Italian, Moderno's, Tzar Main Dining Room, Azura dining room, O'Sheehans & Garden Café. Moderno's was our least favorite because they overcook the steak. That was fine with me but not hubby. We had no problem getting off the ship for private & NCL excursions. It was very well organized to us vs Carnival. Our one dislike was our cabin service. I don't know if they've cut back on stewards but our cabin was cleaned too late in the morning and at night. We got back from an excursion at noon & our cabin still hadn't been cleaned. Some days we had to sit on balcony when he was cleaning. At night we would put the Do Not Disturb on our door because he was so late. That's my only complaint about he cruise. We loved the rest and felt like NCL was a step above Carnival. We're Platinum on Carnival but it was a nice change.

[808cruisef]

We were on the cruise as well. Were you in a suite? Did you know that you could go to Virginia and she would take you off the ship in a priority line? We loved every part of our cruise. No bad food experiences. Great suites. Great entertainment. Great steward/butler/ concierge. Wonderful experience.

 

 

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[easyboy]

Thank you for your feedback.

[mispi]

Same cruise, first time with NCL. Cruise, food and entertainment was very good, my only complain is targeted to the music. 95% from ´50´to 60´. Tropical heat band music was cold like Iceberg...

[MBMGWM]

We were on the cruise as well. Were you in a suite? Did you know that you could go to Virginia and she would take you off the ship in a priority line? We loved every part of our cruise. No bad food experiences. Great suites. Great entertainment. Great steward/butler/ concierge. Wonderful experience.

 

We were in one of the standard aft cabins, not a suite (#9476). But we had met Virginia on a previous cruise on another NCL ship when we lucked into a Haven upgrade, and she recognized us immediately (after a year+) when she saw us on the Jewel. She's the one who called to us to pull us out of the tender line. Glad you had a great time, and overall we did too.

[MBMGWM]

Same cruise, first time with NCL. Cruise, food and entertainment was very good, my only complain is targeted to the music. 95% from ´50´to 60´. Tropical heat band music was cold like Iceberg...

 

We took the "behind the scenes" tour on the Jewel this time, and during that tour we passed a chart in the galley area that broke down the passengers by age range. I asked about the chart, and our guide said that NCL alters its food buying for each cruise based on the age of the passengers. While the entertainment clearly doesn't shift from cruise-to-cruise on a weekly basis, it's possible the age ranges may influence the eras of music the entertainers choose to play. I can't remember the exact numbers, but the age ranges for the Panama Canal cruise we were on was something like:

 

Under 18: 50

Under 21: 75

22-59: 350

60+: 1700

 

That could help explain all the 50s/60s music on board!

[808cruisef]

We took the "behind the scenes" tour on the Jewel this time, and during that tour we passed a chart in the galley area that broke down the passengers by age range. I asked about the chart, and our guide said that NCL alters its food buying for each cruise based on the age of the passengers. While the entertainment clearly doesn't shift from cruise-to-cruise on a weekly basis, it's possible the age ranges may influence the eras of music the entertainers choose to play. I can't remember the exact numbers, but the age ranges for the Panama Canal cruise we were on was something like:

 

Under 18: 50

Under 21: 75

22-59: 350

60+: 1700

 

That could help explain all the 50s/60s music on board!

 

 

Very interesting about the food/demographics. I'm actually shocked that there were even 50 under 18. My girls were only 2 of 4 teens on the whole ship. Now I know why at 45 I felt like a minority. I had such a great time anyway.

 

 

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[rjrpar]

We took the "behind the scenes" tour on the Jewel this time, and during that tour we passed a chart in the galley area that broke down the passengers by age range. I asked about the chart, and our guide said that NCL alters its food buying for each cruise based on the age of the passengers. While the entertainment clearly doesn't shift from cruise-to-cruise on a weekly basis, it's possible the age ranges may influence the eras of music the entertainers choose to play. I can't remember the exact numbers, but the age ranges for the Panama Canal cruise we were on was something like:

 

Under 18: 50

Under 21: 75

22-59: 350

60+: 1700

 

That could help explain all the 50s/60s music on board!

 

 

Makes sense. More cruise lines should do the same.

 

 

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[Turtles06]

We took the "behind the scenes" tour on the Jewel this time, and during that tour we passed a chart in the galley area that broke down the passengers by age range. I asked about the chart, and our guide said that NCL alters its food buying for each cruise based on the age of the passengers. While the entertainment clearly doesn't shift from cruise-to-cruise on a weekly basis, it's possible the age ranges may influence the eras of music the entertainers choose to play. I can't remember the exact numbers, but the age ranges for the Panama Canal cruise we were on was something like:

 

Under 18: 50

Under 21: 75

22-59: 350

60+: 1700

 

That could help explain all the 50s/60s music on board!

 

OP: thanks for your comments and review; we did the Panama Canal cruise on Jewel (the 16-night itinerary) not quite two months ago, and had a wonderful time. (Link to my own review thread, with photos, is in my signature.) On our sailing, the Restaurant Manager told us there were all of 17 passengers under age 21, and that the average age of the passengers was 64.5 As a result, they turned up the lights to full brightness in the larger MDR, destroying all ambiance. It was like an overly-lit diner. The Mgr said they got complaints that people could not read the menus if they dimmed the lights (to what they should be for dinner). Terrible atmosphere for dinner. We only at there twice. A small negative in an otherwise terrific trip!

[MBMGWM]

OP: thanks for your comments and review; we did the Panama Canal cruise on Jewel (the 16-night itinerary) not quite two months ago, and had a wonderful time. (Link to my own review thread, with photos, is in my signature.) On our sailing, the Restaurant Manager told us there were all of 17 passengers under age 21, and that the average age of the passengers was 64.5 As a result, they turned up the lights to full brightness in the larger MDR, destroying all ambiance. It was like an overly-lit diner. The Mgr said they got complaints that people could not read the menus if they dimmed the lights (to what they should be for dinner). Terrible atmosphere for dinner. We only at there twice. A small negative in an otherwise terrific trip!

 

Yep - - we've seen your terrific review of that cruise, Turtles. Good stuff!

[MBMGWM]

Very interesting about the food/demographics. I'm actually shocked that there were even 50 under 18. My girls were only 2 of 4 teens on the whole ship. Now I know why at 45 I felt like a minority. I had such a great time anyway.

 

It's possible that the 18 & under category was actually 30, instead of 50 - - I just remember it being very low, and a round number. And my wife & I had a discussion later wondering if the "21" number actually included the "18" number or not. In other words, if the chart said there were 30 under-18's and 75 under-21's, did that mean there were a total of 105 passengers under 21 (75 + 30), or just 75 total passengers under 21 (of whom 30 were under 18 as well). We didn't think to ask at the time.

[808cruisef]

It's possible that the 18 & under category was actually 30, instead of 50 - - I just remember it being very low, and a round number. And my wife & I had a discussion later wondering if the "21" number actually included the "18" number or not. In other words, if the chart said there were 30 under-18's and 75 under-21's, did that mean there were a total of 105 passengers under 21 (75 + 30), or just 75 total passengers under 21 (of whom 30 were under 18 as well). We didn't think to ask at the time.

 

 

Great question. I really have a hard time believing that there were 105 people under 21. They were looking, lol. We saw one other teen the whole Trip and about 10 young kids.

 

 

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