This was our 4th NCL cruise and we have been pleased with all of them. We booked it for the price and destination. Since price was a consideration, we booked an inside cabin and rarely spent much time there. The Jewel was everything that we had hoped for and was simply beautiful. This was also our third cruise booked during the time of 9/11, our first being the week of the tragedy. One of the things that was really nice on this trip was the remembrance service on 9/11 on board the Jewel with the entire crew of officers in full uniform behind a wreath of white roses. There weren't a lot of people that attended that, but, we thought it was very special.

Embarkation: Other than problems with gate changes in Atlanta, the whole thing went very smoothly. Luckily, we weren't in a group that came through Heathrow, Gatwick, or Paris. There were multiple bad stories of luggage lost, delays, searches, etc. We were also lucky in that we were not in the group of 100 cruisers who never received their luggage the entire trip! From talking to them, NCL tried to help in a lot of different ways from taking them to a city to buy clothes and then washing/drying them free of charge every other day to reimbursing them for some of the loss.

The embarkation at Barcelona was very smooth for us, with luggage arriving relatively promptly and porters and buses ready for us when we arrived. We had hoped to be able to take a tour of the city before boarding the ship, but, were hustled out to the ship quickly without a chance to make other arrangements. So, we only saw some of the city from the port-to-ship ride. Read more