Norwegian Jewel Review

5 days of wonderful

Review for the Western Caribbean Cruise on Norwegian Jewel
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dortrust
6-10 Cruises • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Feb 2015
Cabin: Balcony

We departed Bayport on February 28 for 7 wonderful days. Always look forward to travel. We had not not been on a cruise for 6 years, 9 years since a cruise with just my DH and I. We arrived around Noon a porter was right there for our bags. I had the tags attached already but I did hear comments that they had staplers. Went into the terminal(it was cold outside) I don't know how long it took because at that point we were on vacation. The line just kept moving. That was the security line. Went on to check in. Not a real long line but we went to lattitudes members line and there was no one. Got our cards and was happy to see our UBP sticker was already on it. I think our room number was 10915 it was forward balcony room. Proceeded to atrium area and got our first drink. O'sheehan was packed so we went to the buffet and explored the ship. I found this ship Very easy to find our way around. The only problem was aft. where one of the elevators did not take you to all floors but I think that is typical. The first day was not horrible because it was all new. Got into our room right away and received our luggage fairly early. I had planned to really unpack the first day because the weather w a s so bad and stash my suitcase under the bed. My DH insisted on leaving his on our small couch all week. Whatever choose your battles. First night we ate(I forgot where) went to show(it was just Ok and went to casino. Comfy bed slept well. Day 2 beautiful weather. We are sun people so we spent the next two days by the pool. Great bar service and friendly cruisers. No problem getting a chair but we are early risers. We tended to sit slide side of pool because smoking was in that area. You can't smoke by your chair, you have to go in the shade. Found the pool area Very crowded, they give you 0 room between chairs and 2 pools on a sea day are Small!. We h a d been in Cozumel a month prior to the cruise so we did not get off. We could not see spending the money to go to a beach when we had 7 days a month before. Really enjoyed the quiet on the ship. Sea day they had a nice barbeque on the pool deck. Nice variety. Cozumel day we ate lunch in the buffet. Tried the Great outdoors one day for breakfast but it opens later so we just went to regular buffet. Food was great everywhere. Overall we ate in Azura probably twice( just a little slow) good. We preferred Tzar. We are there the most for breakfast and dinner. 2 times we told them we would share a table and met many nice people. Belize we got off and shopped a little at the cruise port and beyond. It was a little difficult to figure how to get out of cruise area. We had been here before and wanted to go to wet lizard beer 2/$5.. Norwegian tenders was $4 for 1. We were back to the ship by noon. Ate and enjoyed the beautiful day. Roatan day we loved just walking off. By the way we enjoyed sitting on the balcony each morning and watching the ship dock. We went through the gate and walked through the small town I believe it is Coxen Hole. Several scruffy people bugged my DH but eventually they left him alone. We walked a ways to a grocery store and bought 2 different brands of coffee for US $5. Good coffee and the grocery store was very interesting. We are older and have trouble walking too far so we took a cab to West Bay Beach. BEAUTIFUL!!! Loved it. The cab we negotiated to$8 but gave him $12 because it was quite a drive. We went by the zip line place and the monkey place ( we don't like being hearded around) Go to Bananarama I think the beer was $3.50 each and it has a beautiful beach. We did get questioned by a beach dressed "security" because we did not have an armband but when I showed him I bought a T shirt he said we were ok using their chairs. We only wanted to leave our stuff to go in the water for a bit. We had worn our suits. Walked down the beach to infinity bay resort, beer was the same price there. Behind Bananarama there was a bench with taxi drivers waiting to take us back. Price back was higher than getting there. Go figure by then we were hungry and tired so we negotiated $12 back and gave him more . Nice driver spoke fairly good English and told us real estate at West Bay was really really expensive for locals they h a d to live inland. Passed by interesting g homes where they were dumping wash water outside. Went back to ship to eat. Next day was sea day and we LOVED IT! By this day we had made many friends but the pools were super crowded. Music was getting old. The outside band was pretty good. But it was supposed to be Caribbean music and they only knew a limited amount of songs then they played country songs. The pools were weird some days they had full water and sometimes not. The days they had full water were the best because the whole edge you could get your feet wet a find a spot to cool off. The last day was bad. When we woke up we were back north of cozumel and again it was cold. Spent the last day indoors. We even watched "The Theory of Everything" which was good but we prefer sun to being indoors. The movie was shown at 7 -9 and when we got out it was difficult to find dinner. We went to the buffet but by the time we got our salad they were closing and when they close they do it within like five minutes. We will rethink going out of Texas because you really lose 2 days ( we can't imagine going out of New York!) My DH complained about the toilet area being too small and he is not a big guy. Our consolation on this cruise was that we were able to visit my brother-in- law but Texas weather is a drawback. You only get 5 days. The UBP was the reason we were able to cruise again. If they continue this promo we will be back.

Cabin Review

Balcony

Cabin BX

Toilet area REALLY small. Grab bar was good. Room was fairly roomy if you are prepared. I had magnetic clips for papers and a shoe organizer for misc stuff. DH lived out of his suitcase so I had the closet for myself. Coffee pot was nice but messy. Steward was great and earned is extra tips. Johnson was his name.

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