Embarkation The morning of the cruise we drove down from Tampa to Miami, we live in Tampa, and arrived at the pier about noon. We had rented a one way rental from Avis, so we had to drop off our luggage and then return the rental. When we arrived at the pier our luggage got tagged by the baggage person and was whisked away to the ship. We thought we were going to have to be with our luggage more, so our plans changed and both of us drove to drop off the rental and we enjoyed a nice leisurely walk from Avis to the pier. It's a little over a mile and took about 30 to 40 minutes to walk. I really enjoyed walking over the long bridge to the pier.

Once we got the check-in area we waited in line for about 15 minutes and check-in was smooth and simple. I forgot to one important question about my account status, but that was my fault. More on that later. After we checked in we did stop by the Pier Coordinator on the off chance upgrades were available, they weren't, so we proceeded to the ship.

Ship The Jewel is in great shape and since this is the only class of ship we've been on, I really don't have any other RCCL comparison, our other cruise was on the Radiance in 2005. Since this was the Xmas cruise we thought there would be more Xmas decorations, but overall it was done nice. The main decoration was a very long table of Gingerbread houses which were just excellent. Lots of detail and different scenes from one end of the table to the other. I like the class very much, but do want to experience the other ships that RCCL has to offer. Read more