Hi everyone! I just got home yesterday from my 9-night cruise on the Jewel! What a great vacation it was!! I'll give you the low down on my experience and some pros/cons. First of all, let me say that I had only been on one other cruise before many years ago on old Royal Caribbean ship. I was so bored on that cruise that I was hesitant to go on this 9-nighter wondering if I would end up being bored out of my mind. That was NOT the case. I had a great time and this ended up being my best vacation ever!!! Embarkation was a BREEZE. We got to the port just before noon and it took less than a half hour to get onboard and get up to the buffet! From that point it was only a couple hours at most (if even that long!!) before we could get into our room. I found the ship to be beautiful and well maintained. It took me about 2 days to get used to having to have my hands sanitized every time I entered an eating establishment but soon was cleaning my hands about everytime I walked past one of the dispensers!! I was a fan of the freestyle cruising! I hated the thought of the forced dining times and dinner mates on the Royal Caribbean cruise and for that reason I never ate at the main dining rooms. I loved having the freedom to eat when and where I wanted. I had no problems getting reservations at the specialty restaurants I went to (Tangos and Cagneys). I love spanish/mexican food so I loved Tangos. Cagneys was where we ate our final meal of the cruise and it was the best. I had a perfect filet mignon with a Bearnaise sauce ... YUMMY! I very much enjoyed the shows. Most were very entertaining. I liked all the shows by the Jean Ann Ryan company. The ventriloquist was hit-or-miss. We were going to leave after 10 minutes into his first show because it was so bad but stuck with it and did get much better. The second show (not later that night but a different night) was TERRIBLE. It was by far the worst show I had ever seen! The BEST BEST BEST show of the cruise was the Ship-N-Males show. I won't give away any surprises but the HOT barely clothed men were NOT the highlight of this show!!! The only other 'negative' I can think of was the aggressiveness of the bar staff. I hated being asked every 10 seconds if I wanted a drink from the bar!! The staff were all very polite and helpful!! I won't go into details of the ports but you can email me if you have questions.