My sister and I went on the NCL Jewel Cruise that departed July 10th to Florida and the Bahamas. We are 30 and 31 respectively and had previously sailed to Catalina Island, San Diego, and Ensenada with Carnival and Royal Caribbean. Although neither of us take a lot of cruises, we were looking for a trip that would be easy and relaxing. We had looked at other cruises but settled on this cruise because we only had 7 days to vacation. We found that the ship and port destinations were great for the short period of time but were disappointed with the quality and level of service.
BOOKING - I booked our cruise last minute by calling Norwegian the day before we departed. The process was a bit confusing. The booking agent said that the oceanview cabins were unavailable even though I had seen rooms offered on the Norwegian website. We went back and forth a bit before she saw the rooms offered on the screen. She told me that the rooms were oversubscribed but that the worse scenario would be an upgrade to a balcony room. The transaction went smoothly and, once I checked in online, I had all the necessarily information I needed.
EMBARKATION - We got to the cruise terminal at 10am, got our luggage tags, checked in our bags, and sat at the waiting area before going through the embarkation procedures. I can't remember when we boarded, around noon I believe, but the boarding process was smooth and easy. Our rooms weren't immediately available so we had lunch. Our ship's departure time to set sail was also delayed by two hours so we just walked around the ship and took pictures before checking out our room.