Norwegian Jade Review

4.0 / 5.0
2,044 reviews

Freestyle = No Style

Review for the Western Mediterranean Cruise on Norwegian Jade
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LadyReadingOxford
10+ Cruises • Age 80s

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Sail Date: Sep 2013
Cabin: Obstructed Oceanview

A sea of thousands of bra straps, singlets, tattoos and baseball caps worn back to front. Photographers flashing at you all the time. Music blaring in every public room all day long and even outside the ship. Swirly garish patterned carpets everwhere, orange, purple, blue, fluorescent colours and plastic decorations and flowers assailing you.  Embarkation involved lots of queuing in the sun and carrying our own suitcases, until very nearly there at the ship, when they were removed and you had to wait for them to be delivered. YOU HAD TO PRINT YOUR OWN LUGGAGE LABELS AT HOME. Disembarkation meant another very long walk, queuing for coaches in the heat, and it took 40 minutes from ship exit to boarding the coach. The English of the woman who was announcing who in turn should disembark was so heavily accented as to be incomprehensible. The fares are relatively cheap, but, like Ryanair, once tempted by the low cost, the extras are exorbitant. Extra for fresh fruit juice in the morning, extra for any coffee except "regular", (which is not made plain on the menus, which give the impression that you have to pay for all coffees), extra for the specialty restaurants. We went to two of them, Jasmine Garden (Chinese)(extra $15 a head) and Cagneys,(extra $30 a head) and they were good, indeed very good, but really the rest of the food should have been more up to standard.

The main dining rooms - there was always a long queue to get in, in part because each group had to wait at the reception desk to show their cards and then for a waiter to seat them, instead of being able to walk into what was sometimes an empty restaurant. This created the impression that there were simply not enough dining spaces for the more than 2000 people aboard. If you went for dinner at 7.30, IT TOOK 45 MINUTES FOR THE FIRST COURSE TO BE SERVED AND WINE TO BE OFFERED, AND you would not emerge in time for the 9.30 show. The food was average. The steaks and fish were good, but the desserts were very artificial looking. The cheesecake tasted of nothing, the cheese likewise, and the sliced cheese on the buffet was warm and sweaty and unidentifiable. The menu in the main dining rooms, Grand Pacific and Alazar, was almost the same every night. Some variation on chicken, beef and lamb, and the dessert menu did seem to be identical every night.

Worst of all was the Garden Cafe, a giant buffet on the 12th floor, with all the atmosphere of a works canteen - those who were acquainted with works canteens told me that was not doing those canteens justice! A crowded scramble for the different dishes on display. Pushing and shoving around the coffee and tea machines; the coffee dispenser was frequently empty or out of order. The machine juice was watery. The patterned formica tables all displayed big plastic bottles of ketchup and mustard, and bottles of vinegar. There were no trays to serve yourself, so you had to take one plate at a time. If you were sitting on your own, you would then have to go back to the buffet for the next course and lose your place and cutlery. I surmised that trays were withheld in order to stop diners taking too much food. The breakfast pancakes were always hard and cold from having been left out too long before serving. Bottled water was $5.95, although you could buy it on shore for ABOUT $1. The first bottle was sitting in the cabin, not IN the MINIBAR, so I thought it was complimentary, but it wasn't.

Cabin Review

Obstructed Oceanview

Cabin clean, adequate, bathroom tiny, all worked well, bed comfortable. Hangers were the sort that have to be unhooked from a loop so you don't steal them, which was annoying. Wished I had paid extra for a balcony. Nowhere to sit except the bed and one chair.

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