Near perfect experience.

Item: Jewel of the Seas
Rating: 4
Author: ancab501

Jewel of the Seas Cruise Review to Europe - Mediterranean

ancab501

Contributor Level: Purser

Cruises: 2-3 cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 18

Overall rating:

4 out of 5

Verified Review

9 Night Greek Isles (Rome Roundtrip)

Sail date: June 02, 2017

Ship: Jewel of the Seas

Cabin type: Balcony

Cabin number: 8058

Traveled as: Family (older children)

Reviewed: 7 years ago

Review summary

Absolutely loved the mix of Greece and Italy communities. The dinning service was fabulous. Would have liked to have had more "locally" appropriate meals. The cruise line serves what they believe "American" guests prefer, I would have preferred more local fair, but our family got that in port each day. The trip to Santorini, Greece was shockingly poorly executed. Due to the number of cruise lines that port simultaneously there are too many people for the small port to manage. A fellow passenger broke their leg when being forced to walk down a hill to catch the boat due to so many passengers being in line to get down the hill otherwise. I strongly recommend some ground tour in Santorini otherwise you'll experience chaos.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

3 out of 5

Onboard Activities

1 out of 5

Entertainment

3 out of 5

Children's Programs

3 out of 5

Service and Staff

5 out of 5

Ship Quality

3 out of 5

Cabin / Stateroom

5 out of 5

Ship tip

Take advantage of shore excursions in Sicily, Santorini, Athens, and Naples.

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Ports of call

Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy

3 out of 5

Messina, Sicily

5 out of 5

Mykonos, Greece

5 out of 5

Rhodes, Greece

5 out of 5

Santorini, Greece

1 out of 5

Piraeus (Athens), Greece

5 out of 5

Naples, Italy

5 out of 5

10 Comments

JohnsonL 7 years ago

Santorini is an amazing location. Learning about the geological history, the Santorini caldera, and achievements of the ancient population, the Akrotiri, makes it a stop that should be on a bucket list. Our 9 day Greek Isles cruise on Jewel in October 2016 was wonderful and met or exceeded our expectations. That said, the major bottle neck at Santorini is the cable car system back down to the pier where the tenders come and go. We followed tips upon arrival to take the boat ride to bus tours that took you up to Oia. Our specific bus tour visited Oia then a beautiful winery, for tapas and wine sampling, and then back to Fira where we took the cable car back down. Again following the tips, we did not wait for the lines to grow long, before returning to the port area via the cable cars. (I hope I have the order of the cities correct, but this is pretty straight forward.) The bus ride gave us a good tour of Santorini, an extended stop at a picturesque winery, then plenty of time in Fira for sight seeing, more food sampling, and shopping. Note that we did not wait for the lines to the cable cars to grow long before heading back down to the port and the tenders back to Jewel. So we did cut short the tour somewhat, maybe by 2 hours (which would mean leaving before 3PM, with the benefit of no lines and no drama returning the the ship. The port stop was from 07:15 AM until 5:00 PM. We took the RCL excursion "SO01 Island of Santorini and Village of Oia". We were on the 07:15 AM tour group. This gave us plenty of time for touring, sightseeing, and free time before we made our 2-3PM return to the ship. I would not advise waiting to anywhere near the last call at this port. As indirectly referenced in other reviews above, the cable car system does not have the capacity to rapidly get a thousand or more tourists back to the port within an hour. My rough guess is that it is limited to a several hundred guests per hour.

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sandra99 7 years ago

You're welcome glad to be of help

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BonnieRuth 7 years ago

Sandra99

Thanks for the web site. Great find!

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savaryhazell 7 years ago

Great info sandra99. Thanks for sharing. ððð

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Froggylein 7 years ago

Thank you ,ð

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sandra99 7 years ago

www.cruisemapper.com/ports/SANTORINI-ISLAND-PORT-69 scroll down the page a little and go on schedule. This is not for port scheduled but a great site is Shorebee this has information a out the different ports where to catch a bus, how much it is, what there is to do, entry prices etc and you can print off your own cruise itinerary for each port

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Froggylein 7 years ago

Been to Santorini twice and never had issues with disenbarking or boarding. I'm scheduled for a cruise in September so hopefully it will be calm as I booked a tour with cruise line ð

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Froggylein 7 years ago

Sandra how did you check the ship docking? Can you direct me to site

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sandra99 7 years ago

We were looking forward to santorini, just checked there are 4 cruise ships docked when we are there next year, looks like we could be in for a long day

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GIL155 7 years ago

Sad to read this. Santorini is on my bucket list. Still going. Thanks for the warning.

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