This was our 16th cruise and our 8th cruise with Royal Caribbean. Our last few cruises were on the Freedom (twice) and Allure. We really appreciated how pretty the Jewel is and that you can see the water from almost everywhere on the ship. The Jewel is ten years old but everything we saw looked very well maintained. The service was excellent through out the ship.
We ate in the main dinning room every night and really enjoyed the service and the food. We were pleasantly surprised by the quality and taste. We also enjoyed the food in the windjammer for other meals. We liked the Seaview Cafe better than Johnny Rockets on Freedom and Allure.
The negative for us was that there is not as much to do on a smaller ship. We really missed the activities of the larger ships, but, thankfully, we only had two sea days. On the first sea day my husband and I enjoyed the wine and cheese tasting. On the sea days, we went to the pool around 9 and stayed for a few hours. I wish the Jewel would take out that little, slow water slide and little pool area (it is weirdly small) and a replace it with a decent sized pool for kids.
Plenty of space for five people and all of our stuff. We liked it.