This was my wife and I's second time on the Jewel. We are fairly new cruisers, having only been on one other cruise before the Jewel (Carnival Imagination). As with the other 2, we loved it. We live in Brooklyn, so the commute to the ship is a quick 45 minutes or so on the subway. On this cruise, we took my really, really old parents, so I came to the ship via car service with them. It was their first cruise ever.

Embarkation was incredibly easy. We got there super-early, so there was basically no one there. I think we might have been in the 1st dozen to board (we go by the 1st on/last off theory, so as to squeeze every possible second out of our vacation).

Our stateroom was fine. We got an inner cabin, since we basically spend no time in the room. My parents had a balcony room which they loved. Read more