Our vacation on the Jewel was amazing. We had originally booked an aft penthouse suite and accepted an upsell to one of the courtyard villas. All I can say about the Villas is WOW, amazing. I will start by saying that our butler, Lanie, was absolutely the best. Our previous cruise on the Dawn was in 2004 in an Owner's Suite. The service by Lanie on this cruise was much better. Lanie was always there to bring us our breakfast, make suggestions etc. Our concierge was Gary, he was very nice and made all our specialty restaurant reservations for the week, we always had wonderful tables by the window. We made all our reservations for the week on the first day of the cruise and Gary gave us a day-by-day restaurant confirmation with times and the restaurant. Because we were in a suite, we got to have breakfast and lunch at Cagney's, these restaurants are free at these times and only for suite passengers, a nice touch for sure.

We had the dreaded tent embarkation. Let me tell you it was indeed quite chaotic and unacceptable for sure!!! NCL needs to figure something out, as this just is not working. We live in Florida and drove to the port, followed the signs to drop off our luggage and were directed to park in parking garage C, some distance from "Tent City" and take the shuttle back. Pulled up to Parking garage C that clearly had a flashing sign for Carnival and Norwegian Jewel parking and were told we were to proceed to lot 10. We pulled out and around to parking lot 10 and the girl told us we needed to park at C, we told her we just came from C, she got on the radio and we were sent back to C, were we did indeed park. We walk to the tent from here. We got to the tent city line about 11:00 a.m. and there had to be about 200 or more people on line outside the tent. My husband went to inquire about priority for suites and he was told absolutely not. We waited on line not moving for 10 -15 minutes, he went back to ask someone again about priority for suites and he said sure, I'll get you through. We got to bypass at this point and right back to another line at yet another tent. Waited here about 30 minutes before we went through security and onto the ship were you actually check in. At this point, we were escorted by our butler and concierge. NCL needs to remedy this tent situation.

The room was wonderful, we were in 14008, nice size room, with a wonderful shower and separate tub. This also had the separate kid's bedroom which we didn't need as there were only the two of us. The separate courtyard was very nice, had a hot tub and a small swim against the current pool. Never was crowded only a few people. The sundeck on 15 was great, no fighting for space by the pool. Read more