We are a family of four from Michigan, with two teens, David(16) and Rachael(14). This was our 12th cruise. The Jewel is a Dream, and the Southern Caribbean itinerary is beautiful. We left home as soon as the kids were out of school on Wednesday, the 13th, since we were driving down to the port. The kids did miss school on Thursday and Friday, but were off on midwinter break during the cruise. The first night we drove to Beckley, W. Virginia; then on Thursday we stayed in Titusville, Florida. The drive down was easy with no real delays.

We awoke early on Friday, eager to get to the ship. We still had a few more hours of driving, but had no real traffic until we hit the Miami area. It was about 10:30 am, and I had hoped we avoided rush hour, but traffic was at a stand still. We crawled along, but finally made it to the pier at about noon. We parked at the pier, $20 per day, so $180 for the 9 day cruise. Embarkation had started, but there was a short line outside to get into the building. Once inside though, everything went very quickly. We have Platinum Latitudes status, so are considered VIP, even though we don't stay in suites. The VIP's are ushered into a small lounge with beverages and snacks where they check you in. From there we were escorted past all the lines, through security, and on to the ship...unbelievably awesome. We had sailed on the Dawn and the Pearl before, so the ship felt very familiar, even though it was our first time on the Jewel. The ship is two years old now, but she still feels fresh and new. I knew where our cabins were, two forward deck four insides, so we took our carry ons to our cabins. The cabins were cleaned and ready, fruit baskets and wine waiting in each. These are the cheapest cabins on the ship, but they are well planed out. There is storage room for everything, and the bathrooms are great. Our bar set-up was there, as were notes from the group coordinator about our meet and greet I had set up, and notes from the hotel director, and our concierge Alex. We had sailed with Alex twice before, and he really is wonderful. His note informed us that Cagney's was open for lunch, so we headed up. Cagney's has limited hours for breakfast and lunch daily for VIP guests. We sat down in Cagney's, and Rachael heard the name Adele, at the next table. It was a member of our roll call. As we said hi, others started saying hi, and it turned out that almost everyone in the room was from Cruise Critic. We had a lovely lunch, chatting and getting to know one another. After lunch we went back to our rooms to find all of our luggage had been delivered. On our last cruise, we were sent to the "naughty room". I purchased a bar set up this time, but still smuggled a bit, plus had mixers, soda, and water packed in a duffel bag. We had no problems this time. We did see people lined up at the naughty room though. Once we were unpacked, we headed to the reception desk to get extra key cards for the kids room. As we walked up, I did a double take,..no it couldn't be...it was...my favorite receptionist, Miss Maria Virginia! We had sailed with her this New Years on the Majesty, and she had been our concierge on the Dream last New Years. She let out a little squeal when she saw us. She was supposed to be on vacation, but they had called her the week before to ask if she would come help on the Jewel. What a great surprise! I had written about her in my review of the Majesty, and she had a passenger ask if she was the famous Virginia from Cruise Critic! He told her about my review, and she printed out a copy for her bosses. While we were chatting, another clerk made the key cards for DH, but when he got to the room, they didn't work. He headed back to reception, but wasn't smart enough to ask Virginia to fix them...so when he came back, none of our cards worked! I took all six cards back up, and let about six people go ahead of me, while waiting for her. I explained the problem and she made all new cards for us. Then she escorted me down to our cabin to make sure that they all worked. We had no problems with them the rest of the trip. While she was there, she noticed that the lock on our door was blinking yellow. This means that the battery in the lock is about to die. She was surprised that the room stewards hadn't reported it, but put a note down to have it changed. Virginia to the rescue again. The muster drill was very easy, as all of the stations were inside and seated. It only lasted about 20 minutes. We had planned an informal Cruise Critic meeting at the Sky High Bar after the Muster Drill. We had over 35 roll call members this sailing. Adele made name tags for everyone, which made it easy to put a face with a screen name. Thank you Adele! We sat and chatted until it was time to get changed for dinner. We had a 6:00 reservation for Tango's. My son took one look at the menu, and asked to be excused. He is afraid of anything spicy. DH enjoyed the seafood skewer, while Rach and I had El Popo. El Popo looks like a torture devise. It comes out on a cart, a metal bell shape with lots of prongs sticking out. The beef, chicken and veggies are skewered onto the prongs and then flamed with tequila. Rachael suggests getting the hot fudge cream puff for dessert, but the berry dessert was really good too. After dinner we were off to the shops. The first night they offer 10% off of all alcohol. If you are looking to buy high end liquor, buy it now. On the second day the specials will come out on the normal stuff...Jack 2 for $40, Crown Royal or Baileys 2 for $36, Bacardi, Absolute,... mostly two for specials. We headed off to the welcome aboard show. This show was the worst show of the cruise, just show casing a few of the singers on board. It was ok, but the rest of the shows were much better.

Saturday morning we were off to Cagney's for breakfast, then had our official Cruise Critic Meet and Mingle at 10:30 am. We had decided to bring gifts that represented our home states for a gift exchange. Rachael and I participated, and Rach got a cute stuffed flamingo from Florida, and I received two tee shirts from Newport, RI; thank you Sharon and Tara! We had most of the senior staff at our meet, from the Captain on down. Hotel Director, Asst. Hotel Director, Cruise Director Jimmy Kovel, Executive Chef, Restaurant Manager, Chief Engineer, Group Services Coordinator Jennifer, and Alex. I think I'm still missing some that were there. We asked Jimmy how he was feeling, as he had just came back onboard after having his appendix removed in Antigua. He is well, but the joke is that he now only has one kidney. He shared some funny crew stories with us,...ask him about pennies and diapers. We asked about Freestyle 2.0, and were told that they would begin on the Jewel on April 6th. There were actually chefs onboard our sailing trying out new recipes in the kitchens, but nothing that we were able to try or view. We asked about NCLA, and our HD had launched most of the NCLA ships, so they are dear to him. He felt that with them only having the Pride of America now, they will be able to perfect the concept, and bring the Pride of Hawaii back in the future. He said that the option has been left open?! Hopefully he is right. He told us all to book the P of A so that they can turn a profit. We had decided to do a Cabin Crawl after our M&G, and everyone wanted to start at the bottom, and work our way up...so we started at my cabin, visited an OV, a balcony, AE, AB, and AA. Thank you everyone, since I've only stayed in balcony or lower, it was nice to see some of the different suites. I've seen the GV's on the Pearl and Dawn. We tried to have a quick lunch in Cagney's before a 1:00 Latitudes party. We had noticed that although we did enjoy eating in Cagney's, the service was slower, and the food not quite as good as it was on the Pearl last April. It had been awesome, so it was still good....and I hate to even complain...but it wasn't quite the same. We ended up arriving just as the latitudes party was starting, and the place was packed...standing room only...I think that they said that there were about 700 members onboard. One couple had sailed with NCL 48 times. We went for an early dinner at 5:30 in Azura. It was Lobster night...or should I say Seafood Extravaganza. This time the lobster was over cooked, but Doug enjoyed the rest of the seafood in the dish. He feels that in general the food is better prepared on the smaller ships, since they prepare fewer meals. We noticed that if you ordered your beef medium rare on the Jewel, it could be anywhere from rare to well done. I never sent anything back, but if it was too bloody for me; he ate it. With all the appetizers, I never went hungry. VIP reception was at 7 pm, then on to the shows... Band On the Run was a Jean Ann Ryan production, and was a colorful and fun visit back to the music and fashions of the 70's. They even had Carol Brady introduce the show. Next was up to Spinnakers for karaoke. A lot of the singers were just bad....although one big guy singing the Bee Gee's in a really high voice was really funny. The newly wed/ Not so newly wed game was up in Spinnakers next, and is always good for a few laughs. Spinnakers also celebrated 70's night later, complete with the Village People. Read more