Jewel Jan 3, 2010 - Jan 10, 2010

This was my 5th cruise, 4th on NCL having previously sailed the Sky (before she was the POA), the Dawn & the Gem. It was DH's 2nd cruise, all on NCL. We had gotten engaged on the Gem two years earlier and were on board to celebrate that anniversary.

Embarkation was awful. We arrived at the pier around 1 pm hoping to be behind all those people who had to be first on board. Usually that is a good time to arrive but not this time. The line still snaked out of the building. We made it through the 1st turn but the man ran out of the health questionnaire forms and said we could get them inside. When we got inside the reps were annoyed because we hadn't filled out the forms we didn't have. When we were about 10 people away from the x-ray machines the system broke down. All we were told was that there were problems with the computers. We could see people milling about down the hall but that line wasn't moving either. It took about 45 minutes -1 hour to straighten out. To TSA's credit they were letting ship's personnel through and were letting people through to the bathrooms but you had to come back out again. They also relaxed the no cell phones rule but still wouldn't let you take pictures. Read more