My daughter and I just returned from a 7 night cruise on the Jewel, and we both agreed that it was the best cruise we have ever taken. Everything was perfect; I was truly amazed at how smoothly and efficiently the whole operation ran, from embarkation through disembarkation. The ship, although a bit too colorful to my taste, was beautiful and immaculate. The crew was the friendliest I have ever encountered; everyone was so gracious and seemed to go out of his or her way to do whatever he or she could do to please us. ( FYI, we have been on seven cruises and have cruised on Celebrity, RCL, Disney and once prior on NCL).

Our cabin was great, I was very surprised by its size and by the size of the bathroom; we were up-graded from a category BC to AF a few days before we left. We found the food to be very good to excellent. We ate dinner mostly at the speciality restaurants; Chin Chin, Le Bistro (2X's), Cagney's and Tango's, and at Tsar's twice. The service was excellent, the food always arrived in a timely manner and was never cold. We had breakfast at the Garden Cafe or ordered room service when we were in port and would leave early on a tour. We usually ate lunch off the ship, but when we did have lunch on board, we ate either in Tsar's or the Garden Cafe.

The entertainment on board was great, better than most cruises we've taken. Except for the last port of call in France,we took tours. We booked all our tours though NCL, and once again, I was really surprised by how efficiently they ran their tours. Perhaps we could have saved some money and did tours on our own, but since we weren't familiar with the ports and not speaking a word of Italian, we were happy we booked with the cruise line. In Messina we took the Taromina and vineyard tour, our favorite! Capri was beautiful, but very hot and crowded; our guide was not the best, but who cared, we were in paradise. We did the Taste of Rome and had four hours on our own to explore. Our guide in Rome was very helpful, he took the time to show us on the Map where and how to get to whatever we wanted to do - he also gave us tour of the city before he dropped us off. We didn't go to Florence, we opted for a half day tour of Lucca instead. Our last day we didn't take any tours, Villa Franc was beautiful and could be covered in two hours walking around - the beach there is great, just a 10 minute walk from the cruise terminal. Read more