Had an awesome first cruise experience

Norwegian Jewel Cruise Review to Caribbean - Bahamas

Cruises: 1 cruise (first)
Reviews: 0
Helpful Votes: 8

Overall rating:

4 out of 5
Verified Review
Norwegian Jewel

7 Night Bahamas & Florida (New York Roundtrip)

Sail date: September 04, 2010

Ship: Norwegian Jewel

Cabin type: Inside

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 13 years ago

Review summary

The inside room cabin was very comfortable and the bathroom and shower bigger than I had expected. The ship was clean and easy to navigate your way around. Some of the specialty restaurants were very good. Love the large amount of options at the buffet for breakfast. Main dining rooms took way to long for food I can get at the buffet. Staff in main dining room and Blue Lagoon not friendly. The newsletter with all the activity's was extremely informative. Staff who ran activities were very friendly and helpful.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

3 out of 5
Again free restaurant food was bland and not of great quality. We chose to pay the extra cover charges and go to the specialty restaurants. Favorite Tangos . 2nd favorite Tepanyakki Would have liked more late night dining options.

Entertainment

5 out of 5
So much to do we were exhausted. Comedy shows made by staff and Second City were great. Didn't care for Cat's Meow. Ciurqu De Bijou was a good effort. Loved Bingo. Tried dance lessons. Chocolate Buffet was a dissapointment.

Service and Staff

3 out of 5
Asst Cruise Director (Bingo Boy) was hysterical. Lauren (Dance Captain) went out of her way to be friendly from the first time we met her. Washy washy happy, happy lady made us smile each time we saw her. Again wait staff in Main dining room and Blue Lagoon were not very friendly and appeared miserable.

Ship Quality

5 out of 5
Large ship, Easy to navigate. Clean. We chose to use hot tubs in the spa (go with thermal package for 2) rather than deal with outside hot tubs.

Cabin / Stateroom

3 out of 5
Inside cabin was small but functional. Shower was surprisingly larger than I expected. Room was cleaned 2x per day. Next time I would choose a room with a window because we would wake up and think it was 4am and it was really 8am.

Ports of call

Nassau, Bahamas

3 out of 5
Next time we would have spent the day at The Atlantis which during a tour we realized was beatiful. Took a decent tour which we arranged ourselves. Almost had our bags stolen on a public beach. Two main shopping blocks near the port were nice. Would have liked to seen the large fort. Lessons learned: Don't try to walk to sites on your own. Take advantage of excursions for this island arranged through the cruise.

Great Stirrup Cay (Cruise Line Private Island), Bahamas

3 out of 5
We walked around and the water was warn. Since we didn't get to the island early all the chairs on the nice part of the beach were taken. Wanted to hike to the lighthouse but most of the island was chained off due to construction. They cut lunch without notice and there was no food to be found after that.

Pros: Thermal package- $175 for 2 people for the entire week. So relaxing. The cruise and the amount of stuff there was to do.

Cons: Staff in the free restaurants were generally unfriendly

Recommends Norwegian Jewel? Yes!

Was this review helpful? 13

Be the first to comment