Norwegian Jade Cruise Reviews - Reviews

Overall, the cruise was pleasant.  Staff were very attentive and for the most part, the ship was spotless.  Still, the overall experience was less than perfect for sure.  I understand that Norwegian is dropping the Houston cruise in April 2016 and I'm guessing it's for the reasons I found things lacking and less than satisfying.  The port parking was ok and fairly easy to get done but the boarding process was horrible!  Long lines wrapping back and forth between make shift aisles with too few staff to get guests processed.  Then when ok'd to board the ship, the directions to go to the ship were lacking and I was constantly having to ask those few staff available, where we were to head.  While not quite as bad, the disembarking had it's difficulties as well.  Apparently, if you have a porter handling your baggage, you have a separate line for customs.  Well, that was very much not apparent at all and I got in the wrong line and wound up wasting valuable time as I was told to get in the much longer line for those carrying their own baggage.  Overall, very poor directions and management of the embarking and disembarking process.  Once on the ship, things were much better except for a couple of areas.  First, I noticed that the linens on the bed smelled like my old grandmother's attic--musty as if the bed had been made for months w/o changing.  Our staff member handling the room was great and I noted that after linens were changed, the smell still existed.  Linens were clean, just smelled "old".  Also, having to be shuttled/tendering  to and from the ports of Belize and Roatan was cumbersome.  While the effort was efficient for the most part and staff were attentive and gracious, being able to disembark directly to a pier is highly preferable as it was in Cozumel.  What is unfortunate,  I live in San Antonio and using Houston as a cruise port is extremely convenient as well as cost effective--drive versus fly to a embarkation port.  Overall, my wife and I had a good time but I've used cruise companies that seemed much more organized. Maybe it was the Houston venue that created the issues for Norwegian as far as my take on things and leaving from a Florida port maybe more enjoyable.  Overall though, a good time.  

Good cruise but twice we went to restaurants marked 24/7 and they were closed. The specialty restaurants were good but the freebie ones were very stingy with some items, like mozzarella on a 6 inch sandwich was quarter sized. Could not believe it. Seems like what was typical food on a cruise years ago they now charge for as a "specialty restaurant" and the regular food went downhill (my opinion).

Entertainment overall was pretty good.

Cabins is what I expected but better off using the public restrooms, much bigger.

Will definitely use NCL again. Embarking and disembarking went pretty smooth.

In the end we enjoyed ourselves, and that is what counts.

The balcony stateroom was the smallest I have ever been in! Wife is in a wheel chair and it was very difficult to enter and exit.no where to store chair and very hard to go to balcony!!!

We had a great price on this cruise and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Compared to past NCL cruises I felt this ship lacked just a little compared to the Jewel which we sailed on last year. To put anyone's concerns to rest about this ship it is clean, the staff competent and the food is fine.

We were well treated and have no complaints. I would recommend NCL and the Jade in particular to any family member or friend. The  professional entertainers were of a very high caliber. I enthusiastically recommend the magic act Cripton Magic as well as the 4 member singing group 4Ever. The acrobat duo  was very exciting and David Naster  is a very funny comedian that we had seen before. We spent several days around the pool stage enjoying the music of TruLife, which is a 3 piece Reggae band that does a lot of Bob Marley as well as other covers.

We did not go to the main dining room but for one meal and it was good with excellent service. Most meals we took at the Garden Room buffet for reasons of our own. There was always a great variety and the items we had were always warm and fresh. Yes, I gained weight as always.

We had an inside cabin on deck 11 aft. Plenty of closet space, everything worked,an attentive steward who kept the cabin straightened but whom we really never saw. My only slight complaint is that our cabin, 11643, was directly under the Great Outdoors area (which I really liked) on the aft of deck 12. About 5AM the crew would do some cleaning or table moving and I could hear the thumps in our cabin. Really that was a very minor thing. Otherwise, the cabin was convenient but not too close to the aft elevators which accessed the Garden Cafe and the Grand Pacific main dining room.

One of us had a foot injury which limited our mobility for the ports or excursions. We found the ships staff to be very accommodating about our injury especially the boarding and disembarkation processes.

The cons: The check in process was very very slow. The ship itself was very clean but very basic in design and displays. The room we had was so small and you had to sit side-ways on the toilet as there was no room.  The officers and the people who served in the food and bar sections were quite unpleasant.  I don't think I ever saw any of them smile once.

The Pros:  The food was very good.  The rooms and the ship were very clean.

The entertainment in the Stardust theater  was outstanding.  I'd go back on this ship for the entertainment alone.  The parking made it a breeze to get on and off the ship.

The food was horrible, majority of the selections on buffet were the same every night and COLD.  In other restaurants, food was also cold!  Bartenders were slow and would ignore you.  One in Casino was especially RUDE!  Had problems with trying to get to my excursion on time... after 3 different attempts with 3 different staff members I finally got someone to help with catching an early tender to shore.  Room and cleaning staff were good.  

Need something in the closet to secure hangers down in rough seas. A couple of nights they clanged all night. 

I have cruised on Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, and Carnival for a total of 9 cruises.

Pros:

1. Inside Stateroom was spacious, had a queen bed, bathroom and shower was very spacious.

2. Room Steward was very accommodating. Folded towels 4 out of the 7 nights into animals.

3. Really liked Freestyle Dining. We were able to eat in the Grand Pacific (service was prompt and courteous) or the Alizar whenever we wanted with no wait.

4. Ship had a lot of activities we enjoyed and we never had any problems finding room to sit although we did arrive about 15 minutes early to most.

5. Ship was clean and well maintained. All bathrooms were functional and well kept.

6. Theater was large, well laid out any seat was good, never had a problem getting a seat, and the shows were enjoyable.

Cons:

1. Food taste was very mediocre through out the ship, we ate at the Garden Cafe buffet 1 time, the variety was impressive but taste was bland. All the other buffets were somewhat limited and suffered the same flavor issues.

2. Blue Lagoon was never open 24 hours even though they published that in the daily news letter. We were able to get 1 good meal out 3 attempts. Service was prompt and courteous.

3. Grand Pacific and the Alizar had the same menu. Service in the Alizar was extremely slow and after two meals we primarily ate in the Grand Pacific.

4. All complimentary venues refused to cook beef any less than medium even though the menus insinuated under cooked was possible.

5. We did not eat at any of the specialty restaurants. The entrance fee and entree up charges ($20 per person to get in and $10 on select entrees) made this just as expensive as eating at nicer restaurants in Dallas.

6. The Bars were open at odd times, other than the Atrium, Topsiders, and the Great Outdoors all the others did not open till 5:00pm or later and Tankard's was closed 4 out 6 days.

7. The bar wait staff would not serve you unless you stood up and waved at them, even then more times than not they would look at you and not serve you. You had to go up to the bar and the Bar staff was very rude especially at the Atrium and the Casino. I avoided those locations whenever possible.

8. The wait at the Bars was a minimum of 20 minutes to get served...very slow service. Gratuity was included on all drink orders and the service reflected that. If you bought a drink an 18% gratuity was added. NO SINGLE BAR STAFF I HAD CONTACT WITH DESERVED THAT TIP!

9. For those of you who purchase the Ultimate Drink Package the same issues above applied. The feed back from other passangers confirmed this not be isolated incidents. The average cost of a drink is $11.00 up to $13.00. We saved $600.00 by not purchasing the Drink Package!

10. My wife does not drink alcohol or sodas. It was near impossible to get tea or coffee away from the buffets. Only the Spinnaker would serve her coffee and NO OTHER bar would get her an Ice Tea. One morning we were up early for a shore excursion she went to the Atrium Bar where the had pastries out and was told she would have to pay for the coffee. They informed her she could go upstairs to the Blue Lagoon a get a free cup but she had gone to the Blue lagoon first and they were closed? The only other choice was to go to the top and rear of the ship to the buffets.

Summary: Overall I would not cruise with Norwegian again. There was no Midnight Buffet, no lobster served outside of the specialty restaurants, Chocolate Night was cancelled (stated due to cost) and substituted with a additional chocolate desert on all menus, bland food, and extremely poor bar service. I cruise for the food, drinks, entertainment (on ship and off ship), and accommodations in that order and this cruise only fulfilled entertainment and accommodations.

Bad Food. No A/C 3 days. SEWAGE backed up in room 2 days. LIGHTS out one day. Pool opened twice only. SLIDE 1 DAY ONLY. Excursions  were canceled in one port and delayed in the other two so there was no ahopping. The sjows were faboulous. The drinks slow but good. The Tender boats were the Life boats so they were hot and over crowded. Horrible  Experience all arounf. And no compensation  for it.. 

Summary: with younger kids we are not coming back to Norwegian Jade.

If I was 55 years old with not kids looking for gambling, drinking and a occasional evening attraction this would be perfect (I'm not joking).

Pros:

Great price, great route, balcony cabin has a decent size, evening shows are great

Cons:

Some restaurants are pretty bad, lack of crew training, no attractions for kids besides the clubs during the day, short stop time in Routan Island.

good remarks:

Bistro excellent french restaurant

Cagney excellent steak house

Blue Lagoon - excellent sports bar like menu

Cripto and Renata

"happy-happy washy-washy"

Steawart_ Mhark

bad remarks:

Restaurants:

Moderno cannot be called a Brazilian restaurant. It is all wrong. Terrible service.

La Cucina also is not the best that Italian I ate....but good service.

Grand Pacific the worst food we were ever had in a cruise.

We had to get tenders for Routan Island. And there was just 2 for a 2 thousand people cruise. With the departure time programmed for 3o'clock local time we decided to stay in the cruise as our calling time was after 1230.

If I could give this cruise line zero stars I would. EVERYTHING on this cruise was terrible from the food to the staff to the execution of getting people off the boat at the different ports. "Freestyle cruising" as they call it is a joke. Instead of assigned dining times, they have multiple restaurants on the ship and you are supposed to be able to eat what you want, when you want. The "good" restaurants charge an additional $20 to $30 per person to eat there. We got the "Ultimate Dining Package" which was supposed to allow us to eat at these restaurants without the additional charges. However, people were making reservations for dining six months in advance which means there was no available seating at the "nicer" places to eat. We were then relegated to eating at their disgusting buffet every meal. When we looked in the pay restaurants, there were hardly any people in there and but they still claimed to be full. Apparently they didn't plan to serve many people here?

At the various ports, Norwegian didn't pay to dock the boat. Instead, they stopped 5 miles out in the ocean and used the life boats to ferry people to shore. This process took many hours leaving most people with just a few hours to visit the islands. When visiting Honduras, half of the people scheduled to be on out shore excursion had to miss it because they couldn't get off the ship. If you booked your excursion through anyone other than Norwegian, you were not going to be reimbursed.

Everyone we talked to had the same feelings. No one was happy with the experience and you could tell by the "mood of the ship" that people were extremely unhappy about the cruise. I will never give a second thought to taking a Norwegian cruise.

Did not like to pay $7.95 every time I wanted to order room service. On board extra restaurants to expensive. There was not enough for my 17 and 18 year old daughters to do together. The weather was not on our side and it rained a lot and water was choppy got sea sick first day in bed.

Worst ship and worst cruise line we have ever been on. Previously have cruised on the following:

Royal Caribbean (X2)

Carnival (X4)

Princess (X2)

Now I cannot even submit this without problems as I have to have a minimum of 150 characters.

The cruise started off rough kids got seasick the first day. We felt like the ship was moving too fast. We never been on a cruise where we felt that much movement

The first day of the shore excursions there was confusion as to what floor we should be at inorder to board the tenders. It was hard to hear what was being said over the speakers. There should be signs throughout the cruise to help navigate the passengers.

The main dining area(sit down ) Grand Pacific the food was not as tasty.

The waitress we had the first day we did not have a good experience with she was not friendly and courteous.

Overall crew members especially in the buffet area lacked customer service, friendliness, no smiles seems like they hated to be there.

Everyone should be more happy like happy happy , washy washy man! (the kids loved him that made there day!)

We loved our housekeeping, room cleaner room #10043 kudos to that team they did an excellent job in keeping our room neat and clean at all times# That was very important to us.

There should of been more kid activities during the day rather than at night.

None of the crew members knew exactly the location of any of the events. They should be more well versed  

Our room steward was great! But the rest of the staff was clearly inexperienced. If the cruise line is going to staff with newbies it should have 1 on1 mentoring! Disappointed in how poor the main dining area staff performed. Required repeating order request and very slow!

The Norwegian Jade is a very nice ship and this itinerary is hard to beat.  Cozumel, Belize and Roatan are great places to visit.  We were very happy with the ship.  The staff were very pleasant and the room attendants were great.  We only ate in the complimentary dining venues so I can't speak for the specialty restaurants but we were very happy with the food.  The selections were good and the quality of the food was good with a couple of exceptions: 1) The sirloin steaks that are on the menu at every dinner were tough and three out of four were over-cooked, even when one was sent back the cook still over-cooked the next steak by a full degree (I'm sure that they are way better at Cagney's Steakhouse, they better be or there would be a mutiny on the bounty). 2) The chocolate butterscotch brownies were dry and a real disappointment.  The wait staff service ranged from VERY slow and non-attentive to VERY good.  If you want a really good waitress ask for Rosalie from the Philippines.  She was great and so we asked for her section after we found her.  The ship was three hours late departing Houston due to time required to fuel up; therefore, we were late arriving in Cozumel which resulted in us missing our scuba diving trip.  That was a real downer.  We went out on a snorkel boat but the so-called reef (Sky reef) was really lame and disappointing.  Belize is a shallow port requiring tendering to shore.  This process was painful.  I found out why they call it Norwegian Cruise LINES.  The LINES are seemingly endless.  It took 1 1/2 hours to get to shore and that was with getting up and standing in line for tender tickets an hour before they were to start giving out tickets.  As luck would have it, all of the piers were full when we got to Roatan and we got to tender to shore again.  Another 1 1/2 hour standing in line and riding a tender boat full of people.  The late arrivals to all three ports was a huge disappointment on this cruise and is the reason that the cruise did not rank higher. The entertainment was good.  The comedian was OK, not great but he was entertaining.  The acrobats and magician were truly amazing.  I didn't really care for the dancers but most dancers don't interest me so don't judge them on my account.  Nathaniel Reed was amazing on the piano at night.  If you get a chance to see this guy he is awesome!  Disembarking at Houston was the last of the painful experiences.  Another huge Norwegian Cruise LINE!  It wouldn't have mattered when you chose to leave the ship you were going to have to stand in line for another 1 1/2 hours to get through customs.  The exception to this is if you are a Latitudes Platinum member in which case you get expedited in the short line, probably about a 20 - 30 minute wait.  

Already did this once... Bar tenders did not even know what drink of the day was or what to charge. Charged wrong amount then lied about why he charged more "its the the system and it will be corrected at end of cruise" it was BS, an officer came to room and confirmed he was BS ing. Got a bottle of wine and some cheese, nice gesture but not enough. Almost everyone except Steward and two bar tenders had bad attitudes like they were pissed they had to be there. Very under staffed and under trained. Wont do NCL again will stick with Carnival or others from now on. We cruise at least twice a year. We had 13 people in our group no one was happy. Talked to others and same thing wont come back. We told newbies not to judge by this cruise.

Enjoyed our cruise on the Jade not the best Norwegian cruise we have been on. They were very late leaving some of the ports. Buffet dining options were short on many items on the bar. We would have to wait for them to be refilled. They did not include several items that have previously been offered. The food was good. They didn't seem to have enough help. 

Over all it was still a good cruise.

I have cruised for a number of years and been on quite a few different lines and NCL several times.  I sailed on the sister ship to the Jade in January 2015.  The ship, the food, and the service was excellent.  We decided to book the Jade on the November 14th sailing out of Houston.  The ship was almost identical to the Jewel.  We realized very quickly that it wasn't the Jewel.  The wait staff was poor at best for the first 4 days.  Normally on a cruise they are waiting on you hand and foot and you very seldom have to go to the bar to get your drink and when you do they are very prompt, at getting the drink.  On the Jade they had very few servers in the various bars and long lines at every bar.  We ate on the pool deck for lunch one afternoon no service and every table in the pool areal was dirty and not bussed.

The crew knew that the service was not adequate and at the meet the officers event their were so many complaints about the service we expected some kind of apology.  Instead what we received was baffling the ship had just came back from Europe and this was its first trip in the Caribbean and they said that I guess the Texans drank so much they couldn't keep up.

Their were some bright spots the food was quite good and the steak I had at Cagney's was excellent as well as the service at both Cagney's and the main dining rooms.  The cabin steward was ok but not quite good.

We were late arriving at every port on the cruise and we had to tender at both Belize (always tender), and Roatan, but in Roatan we used the life boats to tender.  I think the drivers of the life boats had very little or no experience driving the tenders.  They lowered the life boats and gave the drivers a few minutes to practice and then started to taking passengers ashore.  Their inexperience showed and everyone was talking about that evening,  In fact when we were tendering back to the ship, our driver actually ran into the ship hard enough that one passenger was injured.  Overall I think giving them a 3 star is a little high if they had a star for "fair" I would have given them that. 

Horrible cruise!! Started in Houston with bad customer service on check in. One of the managers stopped to help the first day rookie check us in and advised my roommate had an expired passport. Then laughed and shrugged off without apology when we all was clearly upset. Took three hours to get on the boat. Our rooms where not ready. Had to ask customer service twice to separate the beds in both two passenger rooms. Went and tried get a drink and it took an hour at two bars. When we made it to the front we found the beer was warm and just arrived. We left late from Houston due to issues. Service was not present through the complete trip. Dinning halls where packed and we normally ate before any drinks (7UP) arrived. Cozemel port was late and thus we had an extra hour. Getting on and off was a chore. Second port, we totally missed our shore excursion due to tender issues. Spent the day in Belize with Five other boats making it packed hot and nasty. Getting back aboard was a chore again. Nightly entertainment was bad. The comedian was soo bad we walked out during the show. Kareoke was limited and the songs where old. When it was out turn they closed it to have the band up that was just on stage before. The room cleared out only a few remained after the packed room from karaoke. We did ask the cruise Director and he advised they shortened Kareoke due to reports from the Jewel. I rode the jewel, and that was the most effective gathering every day for the boat! Honduras took three hours to get off the boat. Tinder was a mess!! Did get our shore excursion however it took two hours to get back on the boat. My mother was in hell due to the heat and sun. Again that night the shows and service was very poor! First day back at sea we found out poeple had died, one was bit by a viper, and someone was robbed and shot. Our boat moved to Cancun where people were evacuated off the boat. No information was given from the crew or staff on what was going on. Heard from one bar that the service staff was all new to boat and some had missed or could not board from Houston. Last day at sea was a cleanup so we could get off the boat asap.

I will be asking for someone to contact myself on this subject before any additional cruises are ever booked with NCL. I had six family members attend this cruise with me due to my past cruise in February on the NCL Jewel which was amazing. The Jade was duplicate ship so clearly it was not prepared and or staffed correctly thus creating the single worst vacation my family and I have had to date. Just to be clear I feel my full family is owed a full refund and or a full seven day cruise on a boat of our choice. Being back on the Jade is not an option. This would be due to each member of my family taking vacation from work, and spending hard working money for a less then sub par experience.

I Have been on 16 cruises and this near the top.The Staff is the spa  was outstanding. The Spa manager is great and make thing right if its not.

I can sat anything but the best. The Cruise Director and his staff was great. Val in the Rest. is a true woman  to seat you.

Alex in The bad place to drop your money is well  Can i say Awesome also.

My cruise was a 9 ot of 10. I have friends and now  a bigger family because of the network and love care i got in a week.

I love you all and will see some some soon but close to my heart and will forever live there.

Let me just say a few Jessica,alex  in the spa alex in cusino  shanaya,eleni, val and many many more. Thanks for the best  friends and  and family a man can have, Love you all. and miss you

Can I thank the Captain and the whole crew top to bottom.

A smile and  kindness goes for miles