Background Information: This cruise was our honeymoon; we chose it for the unique itinerary (Normandy France, British Isles, Amsterdam, and Bruges). We saved up all year and splurged on a balcony room and specialty restaurants - both ended up being good decisions. The honeymoon package offered by NCL was a nice gift from our parents and saved us a fair bit of money and treated us to some experiences we may not have opted for otherwise.
Ship Info: The Jade was recently introduced to Europe from its original post in Hawaii. Her interior is decked out in a Hawaii/South Pacific theme. For us that just meant a Hawaiian cruise in Europe (best of both worlds). As it was explained to us, few ships are theme decorated and for better or worse millions of dollars were spent decorating the ship for Hawaii and it would take millions more to redecorate her to a more European theme. Also she may not always stay in Europe so it didn't make sense to completely re-do her interior for a temporary stay. It was colorful and we frequently enjoyed the ironic contrast of huge glass exotic flowers with a backdrop of the quiet and ancient Irish coastline. Activities: The Star Bar was our favorite - quiet with classic Sinatra and a great view. We had hoped for more dancing - the Spinnaker had good music but as we were only among a handful of younger cruisers (the mean age on the cruise had to be at least 60) the dance floor was often empty. The White Party being the exception. The cruise director and staff (especially Red) did a great job of getting people on the floor and moving. The Medusa Lounge also had dancing but mainly tunes appreciated by those 1-2 generations older than us - that didn't stop us from getting up there several nights. And to their credit, we saw a lot of elder dancers with way more moves than I think we'll ever have. The Monte Carlo party in the Casino was fun. We actually won over a hundred dollars and I used it to get my hair cut and colored in the spa a few days later. Through the honeymoon package we got couples massage and then stayed to enjoy the spa facilities. I spent an easy 2.5 hours enjoying the view, the hot tub, steam room, sauna, plunge pool, AND the really cool unique spa showers. They have a "tropical rain" and "ice shower" function - I'd never done anything like it before - simply awesome. As we were in Northern Europe it was usually too cool to take advantage of the pool. Though quite a few people (including us) used the hot tubs. On our second day at sea it was warm and we finally saw all the kids playing in the pool. It was great to see them enjoying themselves as it was otherwise quite an older adult oriented cruise. Trivia was fun - though several players argued to ridiculous lengths about answers. We gave the crew (Red) a lot of credit for managing such an unruly crowd. We never did play bingo.
Service: The staff was always very attentive but never pushy. We never felt rushed or had to wait very long. If anything, we often felt embarrassed by the treatment of the staff by some of our fellow passengers. Most passengers were polite and appreciative. But there were a handful that we witnessed repeatedly abuse the staff. I understand people come on a cruise to be catered to but that is no excuse for some of the shameful behavior that was on display. One particular instance that stands out in my mind was a woman who sent back her food 3 times - the eggs were too hard, they were inedible... She complained loudly to the waiter, the restaurant manager, and finally the officer in charge of all of the ship's restaurants was summonsed. He apologized to her for the staff (even though they clearly did nothing wrong - the kitchen was experiencing difficulties entirely unrelated to the wait staff), wrote off her entire party's bill, and then cooked their food himself. The woman was finally satisfied and loudly bragged that she had gotten away with the same thing in one of the other specialty restaurants the night before. We were so upset we nearly left the restaurant but didn't want to cause additional stress to the staff. If we saw any disconnect in service it was between Corporate and the ship staff. Corporate made a lot of promises I think the ship just couldn't practically deliver on - which put them in an awkward position. For example, every time we called NCL prior to the trip they listed off all the 2.0 upgrades before taking our call. Once on the ship we saw only a few of these upgrades in practice. We didn't mind but many other passengers were pretty incensed.