Just came back from our 7 night cruise out of Bayport Houston to the Western Caribbean. We set sail on March 28th 2015. The embarkation process was real smooth. We got there pretty early, around 10:30 and there were lots of people already there. The lines move fast and before you know it, you are aboard the ship. We happened to bring a case of water, which the porters will not bring onto the ship. You do have to bring it yourself, so if the room isn't ready when you get on, you will be lugging this around the ship. It was worth the hassle because everything on the ship is an upcharge. We opted for the $200 room credit instead of the other options, but had we thought about it, we would have picked the speciality dining.

We've cruise before, on the Royal Caribbean Allure of the Seas, so we were used to a gigantic ship. The Jewel is pretty small. We had the aft part of the boat with cabins on the 8th deck. This proved to be fairly inconvenient since everything seemed to be at the front of the ship. Elevators were slow, so we took to using the stairs quite a bit.

We had three ocean view rooms, two adjoining and one a few doors down. The rooms were actually pretty nice. The kids loved the bunk beds and the bathrooms were quite large considering we were on a ship. The ship had been renovated in 2014 and it seemed like they spent money on the rooms and some common areas. Read more