Live from the Jewel 12/18 Eastern Caribbean

[KAGE]

Merry Christmas again!

Judy, Shanafan, Barry, and Emmy hope you are having great holiday season.

 

We just arrived at Nassau and we are waiting for the clearance of local authority.

 

This time, I would like to ask you a question.

 

How much do you usually give tip for a head waiter?

 

Gratuity guidelines says it is left to the guest's discretion.

I forgot how I paid last time.

 

I think he is doing a good job, but we had nothing special with him.

 

Thanks for your help.

[Merion_Mom]

KAGE: This is absolutely just one person's opinion, but if you mean "we had nothing special with him", as in: He hasn't come to our table, he hasn't said hello, he hasn't asked how your dining experience has been, he hasn't taken your lobster or shrimp out of their shells for you......(!), you owe him NOTHING. If you just think he is doing a fantastic job of running the dining room, and it is obvious that your dining experience has been better because he is in charge, EVEN THOUGH you haven't personally met him, $8 to $10 is fine.

 

Carol

 

Keep that ship clean for us! We'll be getting on as you are getting off! And we'll wave if we see you. :)

[DeRon]

Kage,

 

Thanks for the postings! Which ship do you like best? Explorer or Jewel? And, do you think the food was any better on the Jewel?

 

Thanks!

[KAGE]

This will be my last posting from the ship. We have to bring back the special code to connect my PC to their dial up service.

 

We were allowed to ashore at 1:00pm even though it had been scheduled at noon.

We had to come back to the ship by 5:30pm so we only had 4.5 hour here.

We went Atlantis by ourselves we walked around and took some picture.

Since we do not have much time the self tour was enough for us.

Then we went to public beach next to Atlantis. It was beautiful beach but wave was little high.

This beach was just for swiming not for snorkeling.

We took water taxi (ferry) to go Atlantis its cost was $6 round trip per person.

Since the port for the water taxi was far from Atlantis we had to walk long distance.

We did not use the tickets to go back. We took van taxi to go back to downtown by the ship.

Van taxi cost was $4 per person. I would use van taxi next time.

 

On the ship I went to Sauna and steam room that we had not used yet.

It was clean and is in spa but is free. I recommend you to try sauna when you go to solarium.

 

Carol

Thanks for your advice. Our headwaiter has been our table to say hello and to ask if things are going well sometimes. We prepared $10 for him this time.

Have good cruise with Jewel. I believe you will have wonderful New Year cerebration on the ship.

 

DeRon

Quality and taste of food on both ship seems not different much.

We thought that Explorer has more variety of foods to choose especially in Windjammer. On Explorer you may be able to choose something good for you every day. On Jewel, you may have less option but ship itself is less crowded so you may feel more comfortable than Explorer. We have never had trouble to find table for every meal.

[DeRon]

Thanks Kage! Thank you for your postings.

[ccjb]

Thanks so much for sharing your vacation with all of us!. We cruise on the Jewel in February and have enjoyed reading about your trip.

[sisocialworker]

Kage,

 

thanks for sharing. It made my week go quicker. I'm sure yours went too fast as well.

 

Barry

[emmy]

Kage...I so enjoyed your posts from the Jewel this past week. Wish you and your wife many more enjoyable cruises and you made me look forward to mine on the Jewel in 4 months...right Barry? :)

 

A terrific job...thank you

 

Emmy

[sisocialworker]

Kage-you did such a great job, have you thought of doing a "cut and paste" and submitting it as a full review to the CC board?

 

emmy-you're right, can't wait.

 

well I guess it's time to seek out another cruiser and their report, to help me get through another week....and dream of mine:D

 

thanks again

Barry

[Rubia_Boricua_PR]

Kage, thank you for taking us on vacation with you this week, we really enjoyed it. It sucks to finish our awesome week but we are looking forwar another vacation here. Take care and we'll see you around!

[emmy]

KAGE... I have a question that has come up recently on our roll call thread. Are the pools on Jewel fresh water or salt water...do you know?

 

Thanks

 

Emmy

[goodml]

I can't answer about all the pools because I was only in the Solarium but I can say for certain that it was salt water.

[emmy]

Thanks goodml!!! I was hoping you would see the post.... have read conflicting reports about RCI having fresh water on some of their ships..

 

So solarium is salt as I have experienced on all the other RCI ships I have been on.

 

Emmy

[KAGE]

Hi, we just came back home last night from our wonderful cruise.

 

Thanks for all of your messages. I myself could enjoy these feedbacks.

 

The cruise on Jewel of the Seas in this holiday season was great.

It was not crowded and we had many surprises.

 

Debarkation took little time. Since we are in almost last group we had to wait about 1.5 hour to get out. But debarkation process itself was quite smooth. I think it was about 10 when we got off the ship.

 

In our post cruise stay at Ft.Lauderdale we took Carrie B. Harbor Tours.

This is good for wrap up of our cruise.

We could meet Jewel again after our cruise and we could see her from sea and could take pictures with her again.

If you get a free guidebook named "Great Locations" which you can find anywhere in Ft.Lauderdale you can use $5 off coupon the fee for the tour become around $9 per person. We could enjoy "Venice of America" with the boat tour.

 

Emmy: Sorry I do not remember what water was it. I swam little onboard but I have not noticed that it is salt water. But anyway Solarium is my favorite place to swim and to relax.

 

Barry: Thanks for your suggestion. I will try to summarize my post and brush up to post as review.

 

Again thanks for all of your comments and feedbacks on my posting.

I could enjoy our cruise by sharing our experience and by reading your feed backs.

If you have any further question about the ship or excursion, please feel free to ask.

 

Hope all of you have great cruises soon.

 

Thanks.