Norwegian Jewel Review

First Experience with NCL

Review for the Bahamas Cruise on Norwegian Jewel
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lmd1212
First Time Cruiser • Age 40s

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Additional details

Sail Date: May 2010
Cabin: Mid-Ship Inside
Traveled with children

My family and I just returned from a 7 day cruise on NCL's Jewel. We sailed 5/22/10 - 5/29/10. Our ship left from NYC and sailed to Port Canaveral, FL, Great Stirrup Cay, Bahamas and Nassau, Bahamas. Our group consisted of myself (31), my husband (31), our 2.5 yr. old son and my mother (58) and sister (26). We've all cruised in the past with other lines. This was our first cruise on NCL. What got us to try NCL was 1) Price 2) Sailing out of NYC. We are from CT and enjoyed leaving out of NYC and avoiding the hassle and expense of flying down to FL (as we have done with prior cruises). Other than typical Manhattan traffic, leaving from NYC was convenient and we would do it again.

I'll start with the Pro's of the trip:

We enjoyed the 'freestyle dining" option. It allowed us the opportunity to eat dinner when we were hungry, rather than at a designated time. We weren't forced to schedule our days around dinner time. We also enjoyed eating with our family exclusively, rather than having to eat with other passengers. Not that we are anti-social, but we prefer eating with one another. Most of our dinners were in Tsar's which is their fancier dining room. While NCL doesn't push "dressing up" for dinner, most guests looked presentable although you will see some in shorts, flip flops, jeans and sneakers in the dining room. While we didn't dress up to the extent we would on other cruise lines for dinner, we did put some effort into our dinner attire, while others looked like they showed up in beach attire. No biggie, just a heads-up.

Cabin Review

Mid-Ship Inside

Cabin IA

Floor 11, Room 11093, Interior Stateroom: Smaller cabin than other cruise lines, but sufficient shelves for clothing. Bathroom was decent sized for cabin. Downside, we think there was a service hallway behind our room as during the middle of the night we heard metal banging, things dropping/crashing to the floor. It was loud enough to startle us from our sleep as it was the wall against the headrest.

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