Alaska was wonderful, but skip the Jewel
Norwegian Jewel Cruise Review
Contributor Level:
Purser
Cruises: 2-3 cruises
Reviews: 2
Helpful Votes: 8
7 Night Alaska: Hubbard Glacier & Skagway (Vancouver To Seward)
Sail date: April 29, 2024
Ship: Norwegian Jewel
Cabin type: Inside
Cabin number: 5081
Traveled as: Singles/Friends
Reviewed: 17 days ago
Review summary
I loved visiting Alaska and was blessed with a fantastic week of sunny clear skies on port days. The Norwegian Jewel itself has such poor value proposition that I would never take it again, and I will also skip Norwegian going forward. It doesn’t make sense that I’m paying $20/day (I paid only $16 for my balcony on Princess) for service fees to have my room cleaned so late, with subpar service, and got sick on their buffet breakfast twice! Not that the main dining room was a lot better. I’d go to Alaska again but with a different cruise line.Embarkation
Pretty smooth process although it was confusing when you first arrive at the Vancouver port because there were no signs telling you where to go. Those only appear way later but thankfully staff were around to direct people.
Got onto the ship within 30 minutes without significant waiting.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
Truly I will never go take another Norwegian cruise again. The food quality compared to the Princess cruise in took in January was like heaven and earth. Especially the buffet - the buffet food is atrocious! Breakfast fare is just standard eggs and bacon, no smoked salmon! (Even though we were going to Alaska). I missed my buffet smoked salmon from Princess. No special juices and drinks either.
Actually the eggs taste like powdered stuff and were so bad that I even got sick.
So I ate all of my meals in the main dining room after the buffet and lemon water actually made me so I’ll I had almost fainted. The food selection was really mediocre and many of the dishes were not even warm when they arrived. The only good thing was their strip steak.
I didn’t pay for any specialty dining given they were extremely overpriced and the general food quality was already so bad. My standards weren’t high but this is very noticeably much, much worse than the food I had on the regal princess.
Onboard Activities
Just the standard cruise stuff, all salesy, except due to the Jewel’s lack of several great easily accessible lounges and a smaller atrium, I did not spend any time there. Mostly just walked around the ship or watched the waves since I had no interest to buy anything else on board.
Entertainment
The comedian, Nicki Carr, was amazing and I went to both of her shows. The Norwegian famous Le Cirque Bijou performance was really good too. I skipped the other shows because the acoustics of the Jewel was really bad so it felt like I was going to go deaf if I stayed.
The theater was really poorly designed, and they even flashed stage lights onto the audience. Blinded me a few times by surprise!
Service and Staff
I cannot say the staff was trying but maybe it’s a Norwegian or a Jewel issue. When I was on Princess I left my room by 7am and if I asked for it to be serviced it would be done by 9:30am for sure. Here, I left at 7am and asked for it to be serviced and my room wasn’t serviced until noon! That is so disorganized that after 2 days I talked to guest services about how I would like for my room servicing to be completed before this time so I can go in and rest in the afternoon.
They don’t turn the ends in the evening, and my cabin steward didn’t know my name or introduced himself to me even once.
This kind of service was quite shocking after my fantastic experience on the regal princess.
My toilet had also stopped working in the middle of the cruise randomly, and it took 5 hours for someone to be sent to fix it!
Nothing memorable about the restaurant staff because it’s fully on a first-come-first-serve basis, with no reserved seating. So I saw different people for each meal and there was no build up of recognition.
Ship Quality
Ship’s design is really poor imo. There also isn’t a good map around and I cannot tell you how many times I got lost trying to find Tsar’s Palace main dining room but ended up walking towards the other end of the ship to the Stardust Theater.
It would be nice if the signs were better and it was maintained well, too. But there were always elevators and bathrooms out of order and that was really annoying.
Also no one really policed the smoking policy only in designated areas, so every time I go out on deck and try to take in the sea breeze, it would be full of cigarette smoke! I have asthma and wear a mask around and even got a sore throat on the final day, so truly I felt annoyed at inhaling so much smoke around!
Cabin / Stateroom
I selected a solo cabin this time and it’s quite spacious. Really there isn’t much problem I had with it until after the first night when I realized it’s right below a crew-only door on the 6th deck and people went in and out so much from 1am to 7am…so I couldn’t get much sleep from all the door banging and closing.
You can also hear that from doors nearby down the hall so sound isolation was really poor.
Definitely don’t recommend this cabin if you’re a light sleeper.
Ship tip
Don’t sail on the Norwegian Jewel. I absolutely hated it and got sick by their food and overall poor cleanliness
Thumbs up
0
Ports of call
One star purely because the ACT big bus had such a huge delay and even though it told everyone to be ready at 10am, with a departure at 10:30am, we couldn’t actually board until 10:40am due to the bus actually ferrying passengers to the cruise terminal and many of them don’t want to take their luggage so that had to be dropped off elsewhere.
It was a big mess that endangered my flight home, but sadly the cruise terminal is 2.5 hours away from the airport and only 2 companies are operating buses there. Other passengers were saying that they much prefer the Florida ports.
Vancouver (Canada Place), British Columbia
I went on the White Pass Yukon train and it was absolutely amazing. I also took the original streetcar trolley tour which was gear as we had a very knowledgeable guide who has been a local for 51 years.
It was also really sunny when I visited so everything was gorgeous.
I loved the Mendenhall Glacier and hiking the trails. It’s so sad how much the glacier is left.
Also don’t recommend taking the $50 tram that’s right in the downtown area. It’s not really worth it and the views from the glacier are much better.
Pretty amazing experience to see a large glacier with the naked eye, although we only saw it from 8-9am and afterwards the ship just continues on normal water.
Disembarkation
No congestion. I just walked right out at my chosen time at 8:15am and got to the terminal in 5 minutes. Of course, leaving Seward to get to Anchorage airport is another thing altogether that was incredibly chaotic and forced many people to wait for a much longer time than our bus’s stated departure time, but getting off the ship itself was easy.
Traveler Photos
