After a thoroughly enjoyable Pacific Coastal Cruise on the NCL Pearl, my wife and I decided to return home from Vancouver BC to Seattle on the one night repositioning cruise of the NCL Jewel. We have never been on a ultra short cruise and I thought I would share some of my observations.

As posted elsewhere on the NCL forum, the Vancouver embarkation was unbelievably frustrating. 3 ships were loading (although just a fraction of the passengers were boarding the Jewel). We arrived at 1pm and didn't get on to the Jewel until 5:30 pm due to the incredible lines of people needing to go thru US immigration - there was no priority line for Latitudes or Suites. You were in the lines with Celebrity and Princess passengers all equally frustrated by the delays. None of this was NCL's responsibility. Due to the long delays our scheduled 5pm departure turned into nearly 8pm.

Once on the Jewel, everything was much better. Due to the very few customers, half of the buffet stations were empty and it seemed to me the selection of food was more limited. Had we been able to board earlier, lunch at the buffet and dinner in the MDR would have been better. The MDR had a typical dinner selection (we ended up just having Volcano desserts there). Many of the speciality restaurants were open including Teppanyaki and Cagney's so passengers had plenty of options. Read more