Jewel of the Seas Review
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Jewel of the Seas Western Caribbean 12/17/05 12/23/05
This will be a fairly long review. First a little background on my wife and I. This was our third cruise, first on Royal Caribbean. We chose the cruise because we wanted a cruise that would get us home prior to Christmas. All things considered this was a very memorable vacation. We booked the cruise in early June and had originally booked a room on the port side on deck seven, direct through Royal Caribbean. A little later in the year my wife was checking the Royal website and noticed that they had a price drop. The drop was substantial to the tune of about six hundred dollars. My wife found an aft cabin on the 10th deck, and she rebooked us to that cabin and still saved about three hundred dollars. We got a great price on direct flights between Kansas City and Fort Lauderdale, with Midwest Airlines. And we booked a room for one night at the Best Western Marina Inn and Yacht Harbor. In the mean time, my wife got on the cruise forums and got on a meet and mingle board for the Jewel of the Seas. This turned out quite well in that we were able to get acquainted with a lot of very nice people. This really added to our enjoyment of the cruise and I would certainly recommend this sort of thing for anyone.
On 12/16 we left Kansas City on Midwest Airlines. I know that Midwest is more of a regional airline, but I would highly recommend them. The service was excellent, and again we were able to get direct flights both ways. Considering all of the problems we heard of, with people getting their itineraries changed frequently, we were very happy we chose Midwest! We arrived in Fort Lauderdale on time and caught a taxi to the hotel. The hotel is right on Port Everglades and you can see all of the ships coming and going. It isnt exactly the nicest place in Fort Lauderdale, and is somewhat dated. The room was modern, but not particularly clean. One of two elevators didnt work which is a pain if youre on the 3rd floor. But they had a convenient shuttle to the cruise port, which was very nice.