We left Mahwah NJ at 11:15AM in the midst of the snow storm, our limo driver sliding up and down the hills in our neighborhood in 5 inches of snow. As we got closer to NY City, the roads had more slush and less snow. There was absolutely no traffic at all at the Washington Bridge, probably the first time in my life I've ever seen that. It took about an hour to make the normally 45 minute ride, which to my thinking was fantastic.

The car dropped us off at the boat terminal where we got through a long winding security line in about 10-15 minutes. It took another 10 or 15 minutes to check in and we walked onto the Jewel. Total time from our front door about an hour and a half. If it wasn't for the snow storm, there would have been much more traffic and it probably would have taken two hours.

We walked around the ship a few minutes, exploring, and decided to get a bite to eat. The buffet was a madhouse and the Great Outdoors was closed because of the ice and freezing rain, so we went downstairs to Tsars for lunch. Service was a tad slow but the food was fine. Read more