The Eastern Mediterranean - exciting, exotic, beautiful ports of call. These were the thoughts that came to mind when first booking this cruise for my mom and myself. I have been on several cruises around the Caribbean but this would be the first to Europe and the first on NCL. My mom is a veteran cruiser too many to count but had not been to Europe for some time so we were both very excited. A few days after I had booked the cruise a friend of mine decided to come with us and brought both of his parents along - all first time cruisers. The five of us were set for our adventure.

Our travel arrangements were included with the cruise and we had transfers from the airport to the port. However, we weren't sure what to expect when we arrived in Barcelona at 7:30am and could not check in on the ship until noon. We were pleasantly surprised when our transfer to the ship included a 4 hour tour of Barcelona (at no extra charge). We would have paid more than $100.00pp if we had booked this as a shore excursion. Our tour guide couldn't have been better. He was very informative, authentic & entertaining. It was definitely a great addition to our itinerary but a surprise none the less as we almost booked a tour on our own knowing we had a lot of time to kill before we could board the ship. We arrived at the dock around 12:30pm. Embarkation went fairly fast and we were in our staterooms within 30 minutes. Debarkation went fairly smooth also and we were off the ship in about the same amount of time.

We had balcony staterooms on the 9th and 10th floor, one on the port side and one on the starboard side. I found the staterooms to be a bit smaller than the same category staterooms on other lines. No counter space, 3 drawers, 6 open shelves and one small closet. Even the couch seemed to be about 2/3 the size. It was tight, cramped for my friends with 3 in their room. I think the starboard view was a little more scenic than the port, but both had views as the ports were all in narrow waterways with something to see on both sides. After settling in we set out to explore the ship and I was surprised to find the Jades all Hawaiian motif not fitting for the Mediterranean venue. The ship was billed as being completely re-outfitted but the only change I could see was the exterior had been repainted. Read more