Live from the Jewel 12/18 Eastern Caribbean

[Pumbaamd]

Ssatterly,

Saying the MM is great tells me enuf. Thanks.

[yankeesrule]

what is the murder mystery dinner ? help me out were on the jewel jan 15th any help would be great :)

[KAGE]

We are now in San Juan.

 

We missed to see El Morro when the ship go into the port. If you have chance to book your state room with balcony or wide window on a cruise to go to San Juan I recommend you to book left side cabin because you will be able to enjoy view of El Morro from your state room.

We were in Windjammer and were sitting right side so we did not aware El Morro was there. Our cruise schedule was 14:00 arrival but in fact we arrived at 11:00. We could see only some part of El Morro from the sea.

 

Jewel came alongside the pier1. Once we got out from the ship, we were in Old San Juan. We enjoyed walking tour of old San Juan and fortresses by ourselves. We went El Morro and San Cristobal Fortress. Both are interesting and have great view of Old San Juan and ocean. We took a lot of picture here. We could see other cruise ships coming to the port. We took pictures of Navigator of the Seas passing El Morro. It might be a good idea to check other arriving ships of the day.

 

We stopped by "Café Manolin" it is on the street in front of the pier.

It is not for grummet people but if you are going to first food restaurant I would like to recommend this place. Our waiter recommended egg breaded stake and dolphin filet and we took them. Both are great for their price ($7 each). Their coffee is also inexpensive, $0.35 but it has nice taste.

 

Well, we have not had any problem with toilet paper in our state room (though some problem was posted in other thread). We have choice of two different products of toilet paper. One is "Carlyle - Facial Quality Embossed Tissue" I do not remember the other's but both are good for me of course.

[goodml]

Great updates Kage. We came off the Jewel on Dec. 18 and had a great time. Your toilet paper update cracked me up!:D

[Rubia_Boricua_PR]

Kage, i love reading your posts eventhough i've never been on Jewel i feel like i am onboard too. There are 2 live posts, yours and Radiance and i am loving it. I read the post for the toilet paper and that's insane. I think they should've gotten some at one of the ports and avoid all those problems. Enjoy your vacation, will be looking for your posts. Where are you going tomorrow?

[KAGE]

We enjoyed dinner at the dining.

We had shellfish and Thai flavor shrimp today.

Both are great.

 

Production show, some singers are nice.

I personally, prefer the last night show.

 

We had chocolate buffet. We expected huge amount of cakes like we saw in Explorer.

But it was simply chocolate buffet.

[emmy]

Morning Kage..I see you are up and early and posting already.... interested in Antigua and what you will be doing there. We are doing this itinerary and have never been to that island.

 

Also if you have taken any ship excursions and what ones and how they were.

 

Enjoy your day on Jewel...thanks again Kage :)

 

Emmy

[Rubia_Boricua_PR]

Have a nice day Kage! We are you guys today?

[KAGE]

Hi, Rubia_Boricua, goodml, emmy,

Thanks for your all messages.

 

Today, we are now just leaving St. Maarten,

We did America's cup regatta excursion.

This was unusual experience. We experienced real race with high-tech regatta.

I was main sheet trimmer and I think I worked anyway.

As a result we won the race and had drinks.

 

We had 12 members and 3 staff on the boat.

This was exciting experience.

 

We walked to the town to enjoy window-shopping.

There are many jewel shops.

We tried to find something good for my wife but we could not figure out what we should buy here.

So we did not buy anything here.

 

Tomorrow we will be Antigua and we are going to attend Kayak and snorkeling excursion there.

We are looking forward to it.

[Rubia_Boricua_PR]

Nice to hear from you. Regarding the shopping, remember that the cruise will also lower their prices later so you can shop there too. Enjoy the rest of your evening.

[sisocialworker]

KAGE, hope you are having a great day! wish I was there too, although reading you posts are the next best thing.:)

 

Hope you have anice evening.

 

Barry

[KAGE]

We enjoyed crown & anchor society welcome back party.

Cocktail and canapés are served in the party.

Captain gave a nice speech on how Jewel is created and is being operated.

He also mentioned little about freedom of the seas.

We talked with him and took a picture with him. I think he is a kind nice person.

We could have good time at the party.

 

Today's dinner was Italian night.

We had shrimp something for our entree again.

We learn that if we choose shrimp something or lobster on the menu,

we will not get wrong thing. Every shrimp menus were nice so far.

Today all waiters entertained us with their Italian song of "O Sole mio!"

 

The song itself was not too good. But they surprisingly entertained us.

I will not explain in detail here but I'm sure you will enjoy it.

 

After we enjoyed the dinner we went to shops on board.

Shops are not crowded always. When we were on Explorer their shops are always crowded.

But they are not crowded here.

[KAGE]

We were looking forward to attending Kayak echo tour because of its reputation on various reviews.

It was blast. We could enjoy various activities including kayaking and snorkeling through the tour within 4.5 hours.

Operation of the tour was quite smooth and all staff are friendly and polite.

Everyone in the tour seems happy with the tour.

 

We walked around the town of St.John's after the tour.

We liked this town. They do not have too many shops for tourist.

But they have shops for their daily life. We could see the life of people here.

It was interesting.

 

We had late lunch at Windjammer on the ship.

Since it was too late waiters began to clean up around our table to prepare for dinner.

We saw little sad situation here.

A women waiter(I am not sure if she is actually waiter or other type of staff.) was wiping a table next to us.

After she cleaned up a table she started to wipe lowest part of legs of the table.

I do not know how I should call the part of legs in English. It is the lowest part of table's leg that we step sometimes with our shoes.

Firstly I was impressed by that they are perfectly cleaning up such part of the ship.

Then I noticed, "Oh, she is using the cloth to wipe table's leg that was used to wipe top of the table!"

I watched her carefully. Then she started to wipe other table with the same cloth as we badly anticipated. I would like to think this is happen only for her. But I am not sure if this is happening in other places. This is little disappointing.

[Tex_Jen]

KAGE, thanks for all of your reports. I have enjoyed them immensely. I'm glad you are enjoying your trip. I am looking forward to spending time on this ship soon as well, especially after your reports.

 

Jen

[judyinar]

Kage, thanks so much for your reports. I'm sailing on the Radiance Jan. 2 (Eastern Caribbean), and I'm enjoying your trip, too. I too hope that the workers do not normally clean the tops of the tables with the same cloth that they clean the bottoms of the tables. It just seems yucky...(if you're not familiar with "yucky", ignore it. It's not an important English word, except in my slang vocabulary.)

 

Again thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts, Judy

[sisocialworker]

KAGE,

 

your reports are great and a welcome diversion from "land life". sorry to hear of the poor hygine practice of the staff. I hope this is an isolated incidence.

 

have a great day

 

Barry

[Rubia_Boricua_PR]

Many people don't realize that if they clean the top of the table with a cloth they should use it just for that purpose. Actually, they should use a new kind of cloth for each table, like a bounty type of paper since hygene should always be enforce at a dinning room.

[KAGE]

Hi, Jen, judyinar, Barry, Rubia_Boricua_PR and others.

 

I am happy to hear from all of you.

This is going to be one of my ways of enjoying a cruise.

I myself am enjoying to share own experience with people like you.

 

Today we were in St. Thomas USVI.

We had U.S. immigration inspection. Since we are non U.S. citizen and our cabin category is not good, we have to wait for about 40 minutes to get back our passport and to be ready to go out. I do not know how was the inspection for U.S. citizens.

 

We went to Coki beach by a shared taxi. It costs $7 one-way for each person.

Coki beach is very small beach but water is very clear.

We rented snorkeling gears, costs are $5 for mask and snorkel and 5$ for fins.

And we got free chairs.

 

After we went under the sea, we could easily find variety of fishes.

We could even see many fishes from the surface without masks.

Once we went under the sea we could see at least more than 30 fishes from small to learge.

We saw more than 15 different types of fishes today.

Coki is famous for snorkeling and it is true.

If you are not serious diver I would like to recommend to rent only masks and snorkels simply because that is enough here. Finding fishes is so easy here and you do not need to dive deep. So you can save money for fin that you do not need to use so much.

 

We enjoyed snorkeling for 1.5 hours there then we went to downtown to do shopping.

Taxi was easy to get at Coki beach cost of Coki to downtown was $7 as well.

On the way to downtown we could see great view from top of mountain.

It wa great view small town in beautiful bay and it has three huge cruise ships those are our Jewel of the seas and two cruise ship of celebrity.

 

We have heard that St. Thomas is the best for shopping in our itinerary.

We might expected too much but downtown of Charlotte Amalie was not so impressive.

There were many jewelry shops but they look similar. So we did not spend much time there and went back to the ship. Cost of taxi of from downtown to the Ship was $3.

 

Tomorrow, we will be at sea and will have our 2nd formal night.

Next port is Nassau the day after tomorrow.

 

Thanks

[KAGE]

Merry Christmas to all!

 

Here, I made a live photo album of the cruise.

 

http://community.webshots.com/album/236577201Vqijni

[judyinar]

Thanks, Kage, for the photos. And Merry Christmas to you!

 

Judy

[Shanafan]

Merry Christmas to all!

 

Here, I made a live photo album of the cruise.

 

http://community.webshots.com/album/236577201Vqijni

Thanks for posting the beautiful pictures! I can't wait! Under 50 days until we go---lost count with all the hectic pre-holiday days!

[sisocialworker]

Great pictures and description. I WAS there ( in feelings). keep it up!!

 

merry christmas

 

Barry

[KAGE]

Merry Christmas!

 

Midnight of Chistmas eve it was snowing on Jewel of the Seas. From the top of the centrum huge amount of white balloons(snow) began to fall at the end of Christmas Carol. This was fantastic spectacle. Centrum space was filled with huge amount of snow!

 

I uploaded a picture taken after the falling snow.

[KAGE]

At 8:35 the Captain announced that the radar of the ship detected a flying object that supposed to be Santa Claus. He said that the target is approaching to the ship and estimated to arrive about in 10 minutes. He suggested all kids want to see Santa Claus to go up to the pool deck. Santa Claus arrived on deck 13 and walked around the pool deck. Then he went to the coral theater and gave presents to kids. Kids were taking picture with him. This was fun and nice event.

[emmy]

Merry Christmas Kage!! Loved your photos from Christmas Eve with Santa and all the white balloons...so festive. Have to do a cruise at Christmas one of these years.

 

Enjoy!

 

Emmy