The embarkation process was smooth, less than one hour. The ship staff for the main dining room were very good and our room steward too was quite good. The food was the same as the Serenade of the Seas we were on in December 2014. The quality of the food was pretty good overall and the service was very good to excellent. The first port of Santa Barbara was a tender port. The ship's tender service was putrid. They recognized problems early in the morning and attempted to solve some of the problems by hiring private fishing and tour boats for as far away as Long Beach. it still took over 90 minutes to get to the pier in Santa Barbara. The community was great and I will return, but not with this cruise line. We waited close to 3 hours to return to the ship and hundreds of people were forced to wait in the hot sun with temps @ 84+. The ship left this port over an hour later than scheduled or they would have left hundreds in Santa Barbara.

San Francisco is a great town. The shore excursion staff were ignorant to the bus tours and provided false information that we thankfully did not follow. Monterrey was a tender port too. This time, the Jewel did a much better job or organizing and responding to the cruisers. The only negative was riding in a stinky fishing boat getting back to the ship. At least there was no waiting this time.

Back in the port of Los Angeles (San Pedro), there were more problems with the ship resulting in leaving over 95 minutes late for an excursion. The ship staff forced us to wait 34 minutes in 88 degree heat in the hot sun waiting for our luggage. Once we got our bags and feeling ill, we finally found our tour bus. The tour left late. This forced us to get a cab from Santa Monica to LAX ad pay an additional $50 to get to the airport. I notified the cruise line by email and US mail and as of 10/15/2015, we are still waiting for a reply.