We booked this 22 months ahead of time. We were unable to get our favorite cabin, JS. We did not like the balcony cabin! Way too small for us. I can't remember how many times we ran into each other between the bed and door.
The Jewel of the Seas is old, built in 2004 and updated in 2016. It needs so much work. Paint peeling, titles cracked, Wi-Fi was almost nonexistent. unless you were in the ...
The food was mediocre at best.
The itinerary was why we chose this cruise. I have been around long enough to know that the new, splashy ships have the least interesting itineraries, and the older tired ships have the most interesting itineraries. However, I did not expect the older ship to offer subpar food and experiences.
The salad dressings had no flavor at all, and the soups were just ...
We chose this cruise primarily because of the itinerary. We are not novice cruises, having done over 60 of them. The ship is older, but appears to be well maintained for the most part. Embarktation was slow, stood in line for over an hour before we boarded. We had a balcony cabin that was spacious and featured good storage. Most employees try very hard to please, but overall management is ...
It would be incorrect to say that our recent voyage aboard Royal Caribbean's Jewel of the Seas was the worst cruise experience we have endured. That honor still belongs to a Carnival cruise to Mexico that we took a few years ago. This trip, however, was a far cry from the fabulous cruise experiences offered by some of the better cruise lines such as RCI's sister company, Azamara.
To be fair, ...
So we decided to try cruising again and chose the Royal Caribbean Jewel of the Seas because the dates, embarkation port and the ports of call matched what we wanted to do. But we had no idea we were sailing with the "No You Can't" cruise line....
Jewel of the Seas is a beautiful ship with lots of light, space and lovely areas to relax. The crew was uniformly wonderful - attentive, polite and ...
OK, this was my first time on this cruise itinerary, boring! The ship could have left me in Bar Harbor for what is was worth. This was the most boring cruise that I have ever been on! The people, older crowd, were all in bed every night by 10:00pm. The crap table was hardly ever open on ship due to lack of activity.
Ports: Portland a nice city port
BarHarbor: One of the MOST beautiful ...
Pros:
Production Shows were excellent. The acts brought on board were all high caliber and entertaining and the ship's singers and dancers were talented.
The ship was were maintained and actually had a Canadian born, English speaking Captain, which is a first for me after 20+ cruises.
Waiter in the Dining Room was very good and attentive. Cabin Steward did a similar nice job ...
First off the Jewel is a beautiful ship!
Embarkation was painless and our room was ready when we boarded at 1pm. Our cabin steward was fabulous ~ asked him to empty the fridge so we could fill with our own beverages and he did this right away ~ only complaint fridge wasn't very cold.
Dining room staff was great - food just okay - menu basically the same since our S Carribbean cruise last ...
If you are already booked on a RCI cruise, or if you are an ardent fan of RCI, you may not want to read this review. I am serious. If you do and disagree or think it will spoil something, I have warned you. Really.
It is long.
First cruise on RCI, 20 something total cruises.
I will not talk about the ports visited, only the ship. It is a cruise review, not a port review.
Sat. ...
Jewel of the Seas by ktsc100 New England/Canada September 27 and October 4, 2008
We repeated the same cruise twice because we had taken a similar one several years ago and missed several ports due to two hurricanes. This time we thought we would see all the ports even if we missed some on the first or second cruise. Fortunately all went well and we saw every port twice. We still had two ...