Norwegian Jewel Review
A Great Little Cruise - Jewel/Western Caribbean
Rating by category
Additional details
My wife and I completed a five day Western Caribbean cruise on the NCL Jewel, March 29-April 3. This was our 26th cruise - the fifth on NCL with the remainder split among Celebrity, Princess and Royal Caribbean.
There are a number of reasons why we chose this cruise: it corresponded with my wife's spring break, embarked from a Florida port, was relatively cheap, allowed us a weekend "off" before and after the cruise, and we had a good experience on the sister ship NCL Gem last May in the Mediterranean. We've visited the two ports on this cruise - Cozumel and Georgetown, Grand Cayman - many times on previous cruises so the itinerary held no particular interest to us. We were just looking for a relaxing cruise that would be no more expensive than a stay in a resort hotel in Florida.
While NCL is not our favorite cruise line, we greatly enjoyed this cruise. About three days into the cruise I commented to my wife "this ship feels like a comfortable shoe", which I meant as a compliment. We didn't encounter anything outrageous on the ship e.g., the other passengers were laid back with no drama, no out of control kids (we were told there were 600 on board), no drunken groups taking over the pool, etc. (despite the low prices and the spring break timeframe). The ship was clean, in very good condition, and easy to walk around.
Cabin Review
Mini-Suite with Balcony
Noise warning: we had cabin 11132, which is located in the starboard aft section of the ship. At times there was considerable noise from the area above us (buffet tables). While this didn't bother us, I would strongly recommend against this cabin or cabins in the same general area if you're sensitive to noise. On last year's Gem cruise, we heard virtually no noises in cabin 11120, which is located a few cabins forward, so perhaps it's just the last few starboard cabins to be wary of.