Sailed on the NCL Jewel from Miami on 1/24 for a 7 day, Western Caribbean itinerary of Roatan, Belize, Costa Maya and what was supposed to be the private island Great Stirrup Cay (GSC). However, because there was a tender problem with one of two boats at GSC, the captain took us to Nassau instead. If you've ever been to the private island you'd probably agree that this was a blessing - we had not planned on getting off at GSC

This was our 3rd cruise with NCL having 2 previous trips on the SKY with 12 cruises under our belts altogether (Celebrity, RCCL and Carnival) The ship was very nice and well maintained except for a lot of wall damage on deck 8 (our deck). It didn't take long to realize why there was such damage observing the crew delivering baggage to the cabins, scraping and gouging the walls, having to navigate numerous 90 degree turns in the corridor (lifeboat deck)

Kind of got off to a rough start arriving at about noontime and having to wait 30 minutes to get into the parking garage with maybe 15 cars in front of us. This was the first time I had experienced prepay parking with only one lane for CCard payment. Why, I don't know, but it was painfully slow. Registration was crowded but was not too bad taking maybe 20 minutes, but then came another 30 minutes waiting to get onto the ship. For whatever reason the registration agents were giving out group numbers and they were apparently calling numbers to board the ship. Our agent neglected to give us a number, but it didn't really matter because as we had gotten into line to board they announced all numbers - mad rush of about 100 people! Pity the folks who had been sitting, waiting for who knows how long. However, the line was not moving and we were guessing it was because of the photographers who probably had to reload/download/whatever they do. Read more