A monkey riding an ant eater and lionfish earrings
Norwegian Jewel Cruise Review to Panama Canal, Central America
Contributor Level:
Purser
Cruises: 4-6 cruises
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 20
9 Night Panama Canal (Colon To Fuerte Amador)
Sail date: January 26, 2023
Ship: Norwegian Jewel
Cabin type: Suite
Cabin number: 11598
Traveled as: Family (older children)
Reviewed: 1 year ago
Review summary
NCL could've been better organized, taken better care of Spanish speaking travelers. Cartagena is worth visiting but expect it will take forever to get out of port. Avoid NCL's shore excursions and book your own- English and Spanish are widely spoken in all these ports and you won't have a problem.Embarkation
Well, we eventually got on the boat... No signs and 2 ships loading. HUGE line left everyone waiting in the sun for more than an hour, pushing all their luggage and not so much as water available. The port building looks like it will be lovely, once construction is finished but that seems a ways out. Line after poorly laid out line even inside the building to drop off luggage, get room cards, go through customs and then finally the metal detector.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
Main dining was good, service throughout was very good. Buffet had excellent presentation, okay food- as expected.
The only 24hr food was my least favourite. I got an artichoke dip that was more like unseasoned soup, the rest of the options were burgers and hot dogs. The pretzel bites were the only thing worth ordering.
Teppanyaki had an excellent show but used so much miso in the soup and the meat that it was rendered nearly inedible.
Steakhouse and Italian were good, excellent service- they even brought a full (free) kids menu dinner up 6 floors to the Italian place for our kid.
I think our favourite though was the churrascaria. Delicious, great service, they even do the roasted pineapple.
Onboard Activities
Pool was great, family games were good but they struggled to estimate attendance and adjust. We did a painting class, which was good but needed more time. If it had been allotted an extra 15 minutes, it would've been excellent.
Kiddo loved ping pong, despite being in an area without airflow (hot in that climate). Daily origami class is worth it if you have a minute. Half a dozen or more kids willing to play pick up soccer any time the courts are open.
Entertainment
Aerial shows were GREAT. Advertised that "rock you tonight" is most popular-- we're in our 40s and the first half was music so old we didn't know it, after that it got inexplicably worse. We left after they butchered our favourite bon Jovi song.
The flamenco performers were very talented but their show was less than half flamenco, the rest included a lot of scarf waving and a terrible PowerPoint.
Children's Programs
Excellent security, friendly staff, elaborate check in and out process. Lots of activities, also enough noise to give an only child a headache from time to time.
Biggest complaint: family glow party cancelled die to "excess water on the pool deck." Remarkably, for other events, they had someone with a squeegee to remove the water. It was never rescheduled.
Service and Staff
The staff was extremely kind and helpful. A note for my Spanish speaking friends though: aún tienen muchos quien hablan solo español, menos que lo mitad de los empleados lo hablan. Eso sigue que los hispanos tuvieron que esperar más por asistencia y disfrutieron menos de los beneficios. No es justo, especialmente llegando desde Panamá con tantas personas hispanos.
Ship Quality
Ship was clean, well kept. So many things seemed to be accessed through the buffet though, even when it was "closed" the seating was open.
Sole smoking area is on 13. On this itinerary, there was a lot of wind and on several occasions the doors to the outside in that area were "closed due to excess wind".
Cabin / Stateroom
The room design was great. Our SPECIFIC cabin was not. The bed was so hard. The a/c unit above the couch leaked brown water onto to the rollout couch 2 days in a row. Maintenance manager, housekeeping manager, etc were all in there to fix it. Twice.
Location on the ship was good. Quiet, easily accessible.
Closet was always the tiniest bit open, which caused the motion sensing light to wig out.
Probably the next cabin over was great.
Ship tip
Bring cash for ports and cabs. Uber works great in Panama and Columbia. Get yourself a drink or two before getting in line for guest services.
Thumbs up
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Ports of call
The parts of the city we got to see, excellent. My husband is from new Orleans and the old city parts are exactly like the French quarter, complete with street vendors, musicians, cafés and narrow cobblestoned streets.
Getting out of the port involves walking through a small zoo (nice to see the animals but seemed.. out of place? Only half curated?) And then into the worst traffic jam you have ever seen. There were 3 ships in port. Bus tours spent an hour trying to leave the immediate area. Cabs were 3 deep on a 2 lane street, charging $20 a person. Hop on hop off bus had a 2 hour wait to board. We strongly recommend that you walk as far away as you can and then call an Uber.
Went to the caves and did a brief city tour. Lovely place, tour guide had earpieces for everyone. Caves have a lot of bats, but they are small and eat fruit, expect lots of stairs, wet slippery rock. Would have preferred if tour guide stopped a bit in the market to let us shop otherwise great. Recommend finding your way to the hidden shop that is Lionfish Caribbean just up the street from the pontoon bridge. Lovely jewelry and delicious food made to order from an invasive species.
We did the tuk tuk city tour. It was... Not good. Guide was friendly and informative but highlights included "here is the parking lot where we learn to drive", "this is my doctor's office", multiple mentions of how low the pay is on the island and how lazy the people are... Not one mention of the fact that the royal family of the Netherlands were on the island at the moment doing a speech..
Beach was good, but as others have said, rocky. Many, many brightly colored lizards being cute and doing lizard stuff. As we visited on Sunday, some things were closed.
We privately booked the jolly pirates snorkeling. No problem getting a cab there off the boat, had a phenomenal time with them. This port had 3 levels of cruise ship market, a building to enter/leave the ship, stalls across the street, and an open air under tarps across the street from that. Lots of merchandise overlapped, unsurprisingly. I like to put my money to its best use and in local communities so I went to the tents and tarps. Here, Spanish was widely spoken, vendors were helpful and friendly but not pushy and prices were good.
I'm literally removing 1 star because despite the number of chocolate farms, no one seemed to have a single local bar of chocolate. Cocoa powder, roasted nibs- everywhere. Bar of chocolate- nope.
We booked a private tour of a chocolate forest and the rainforest. Tour involved a 90 minute drive each way, more than I was expecting but the man guiding us around the chocolate forest was knowledgeable and interesting.
1) not a port. 2) very cool. We barely fit in the old canal and it feels like you can touch the sides. We had a guide on board explaining all about the canal all day in English and Spanish.
Disembarkation
NCL booked our flight. We asked guest services how our fairly early departure would be handled and they assured us we'd have an early luggage tag assignment. We did not and had to go back to guest services to get it changed. Shouldn't have happened. Then bussed over more construction to the convention center, where absolutely nothing was checked and we were left to wander out. Of note: cab driver wanted $80 to take us to the airport. NCL wanted $50/person for transfers. Uber was $25 and a 15 minute wait.