Jewel Baltics Review

[Doeymeister]

I'm not inclined to write a novel here, but I'll touch on the highlights and lowlights as I saw them on the 7/4 sailing of the Jewel.

 

Highlights:

 

Great service from top to bottom. Cabin stewards, wait staff, officers - all were friendly and went out of their way to assist you.

 

Inside cabin was well designed and had ample storage space, shelves, and drawers. Even the bathroom was laid out well so that you didn't feel like you were squeezed into a closet.

 

Port disembarkations were smooth. We went on zero NCL tours, but never felt like we were delayed while the chosen ones got priority. It looked like first come - first off for most ports. NCL may have had a separate line coming off in St. Petersberg, but even there, we got off in a reasonable time.

 

With the exception of St. Petersburg, we did every port on our own. Very easy and never were in any danger of missing the ship. There was one poor woman who missed the ship in Stockholm. We watched her run up just as the ship was pulling away from the pier.

 

The wings are pretty good in the Blue Lagoon.

 

My box wine came through in my luggage with no problem.

 

NCL also had a bottle of wine waiting in our cabin along with a plate of chocolate dipped strawberries. I'm not sure why since we're only bronze latitude members, but I wasn't complaining.

 

I also was able to carry on a bottle of gin purchased in Warnemunde. Of course, it was only a pint, and I had it in my pocket, but still a small triumph. Tonic and lime was less than $2 on the ship.

 

To my knowledge, no cases of noro-virus on our sailing.

 

 

Lowlights:

 

First, I am not picky when it comes to cruise food. I don't expect gourmet, and I've always come away from previous cruises satisfied with the food offerings. That is decidedly not the case here. The food in the main restaurants for the most part arrived hot and cooked correctly, but it was almost as if the chefs were following bad recipes. Lack of seasoning, poor choices of seasoning, etc. Also, lots of strange recipes that didn't sound very appealing. In short, it just wasn't very good. I would opt for the buffet at a Ryan's before any of the meals we were served in the main restaurants. We also tried Mama's, Chin-Chin, Tapas, and Cagneys. Only Cagneys was good in our opinion, and, even there, the ribeye was only mediocre (but the strip was excellent). Of course, a mediocre ribeye still beat the shoe leather that passed for a sirloin steak in the mains.

 

Internet is slower than dial-up. You spend more time waiting for pages to load than you do actually reading the page.

 

Entertainment was weaker than most ships we've sailed on. There were only three nights that we were even tempted to attend the main show, and we walked out on one of those because I kept nodding off.

 

All of this is just our opinion obviously, so take it for what it's worth. I'm sure there are lots of folks who loved the food and attended every show.

 

I'd be happy to answer any questions.

[leenie29]

I'm not inclined to write a novel here, but I'll touch on the highlights and lowlights as I saw them on the 7/4 sailing of the Jewel.

 

Highlights:

 

Great service from top to bottom. Cabin stewards, wait staff, officers - all were friendly and went out of their way to assist you.

 

Inside cabin was well designed and had ample storage space, shelves, and drawers. Even the bathroom was laid out well so that you didn't feel like you were squeezed into a closet.

 

Port disembarkations were smooth. We went on zero NCL tours, but never felt like we were delayed while the chosen ones got priority. It looked like first come - first off for most ports. NCL may have had a separate line coming off in St. Petersberg, but even there, we got off in a reasonable time.

 

With the exception of St. Petersburg, we did every port on our own. Very easy and never were in any danger of missing the ship. There was one poor woman who missed the ship in Stockholm. We watched her run up just as the ship was pulling away from the pier.

 

The wings are pretty good in the Blue Lagoon.

 

My box wine came through in my luggage with no problem.

 

NCL also had a bottle of wine waiting in our cabin along with a plate of chocolate dipped strawberries. I'm not sure why since we're only bronze latitude members, but I wasn't complaining.

 

I also was able to carry on a bottle of gin purchased in Warnemunde. Of course, it was only a pint, and I had it in my pocket, but still a small triumph. Tonic and lime was less than $2 on the ship.

 

To my knowledge, no cases of noro-virus on our sailing.

 

 

Lowlights:

 

First, I am not picky when it comes to cruise food. I don't expect gourmet, and I've always come away from previous cruises satisfied with the food offerings. That is decidedly not the case here. The food in the main restaurants for the most part arrived hot and cooked correctly, but it was almost as if the chefs were following bad recipes. Lack of seasoning, poor choices of seasoning, etc. Also, lots of strange recipes that didn't sound very appealing. In short, it just wasn't very good. I would opt for the buffet at a Ryan's before any of the meals we were served in the main restaurants. We also tried Mama's, Chin-Chin, Tapas, and Cagneys. Only Cagneys was good in our opinion, and, even there, the ribeye was only mediocre (but the strip was excellent). Of course, a mediocre ribeye still beat the shoe leather that passed for a sirloin steak in the mains.

 

Internet is slower than dial-up. You spend more time waiting for pages to load than you do actually reading the page.

 

Entertainment was weaker than most ships we've sailed on. There were only three nights that we were even tempted to attend the main show, and we walked out on one of those because I kept nodding off.

 

All of this is just our opinion obviously, so take it for what it's worth. I'm sure there are lots of folks who loved the food and attended every show.

 

I'd be happy to answer any questions.

 

Your experience was very similiar to our 6/22 Jewel experience. While we really loved the cruise the one area we really had problems with was the food in the main dinining rooms. My husband was more disappointed by the food in the main dining rooms than I was because I was able to find things in the buffet or Blue Lagoon that were much better than the dining rooms. He likes the whole experience of eating in the main dining room while me and our boys just want to eat anywhere. My husband also felt there was more of a overt push on this NCL sailing (we cruised on the Dawn in 2004 and loved the food in the main dining rooms) to have passengers not eat in the main dining room but eat in the pay restaurants where the food was far better.

 

Eileen

[Doeymeister]

I guess that's one way to get you into the pay restaurants: make the food so bad in the main dining room that you'll gladly pay extra.

 

We only ate in the specialty restaurants on port days during the 2 for 1 early dining period, so at least we weren't having to pay full price. We did eat at the buffet several days for lunch and once for dinner. I was disappointed that the items seemed to be the same every day with the exception of whatever meat was being carved that day. I usually ended up with a salad and a slice of carved meat. Few of the prepared items appealed to me.

[CarRex]

 

Entertainment was weaker than most ships we've sailed on. There were only three nights that we were even tempted to attend the main show, and we walked out on one of those because I kept nodding off.

 

Did they have The Jean Ann Ryan Shows, specifically the Circque show?

[Doeymeister]

Did they have The Jean Ann Ryan Shows, specifically the Circque show?

 

Yes, they performed once or twice in addition to the Cirque Show. They're not one of my favorites. I get tired of the ballet numbers with the couple.

[shoreless]

I was on this cruise, and I have to agree about the food. I was surprised because I've always been pretty satisfied with the food on my other NCL cruises, and I thought 2.0 might mean an improvement. I only ate in the main dining room a few nights, but always seemed to find myself ordering the "always available" steak (which fortunately wasn't bad). I thought the buffet had ferwer options than I remembered, but that could be my imagination (I did enjoy the crepes :) ). Also, I always seemed to be getting back on board from ports in the middle of the afternoon and wishing there were more options for a late lunch.

 

I did a Royal Caribbean cruise (my first) just before this cruise, and, although there were fewer places to eat, I thought both the main dining room and the buffet were better than the Jewel's. I also became totally addicted to the incredible mango shakes in the coffee bar, and was not happy that there were no shakes of any kind on the Jewel.

 

I did enjoy the Baltics cruise and found the service to be excellent, especially our totally great stewards.

 

I enjoyed all the ports and most of the shore excursions we took, but was disappointed that one of our St Petersburg excursions had very little shopping time, and the other had none.