Our sail on Jewel of the Seas, April of 2016, was our first cruise. We wanted to see what cruising was all about. We travelled with our six year old on a three night cruise to the Eastern Caribbean, stopping at CocoCay, Nassau, and Key West. We arrived at Port Canaveral on the same day as embarkation. Next time we will arrive the day before, as we had several misadventures in getting to the ship, none of which is anyones fault but our own.
The Jewel is an amazing feat of engineering. I understand that this is not the newest of ships, but we were very pleased with the amenities offered. The ship was so large that we didn't have time to explore it all. It wasn't until disembarkation that we discovered the cinema! While my husband was a little disappointed in the size of the pool, we all loved the amazing experience of sitting in the hot tub watching a movie play on the big screen. The ship was wonderfully clean, even more so given that it's basically a floating city.
We were booked in a balcony room, and while I was expecting the room to be small, I was pleasantly surprised. It was more than adequate for our needs, and we loved waking up and having breakfast on the balcony, watching the sea or other ships roll by!
This wasn't our favorite port. We walked the island, but should have booked a tour.
I enjoyed the quirky nature of Key West. We walked from the port to Hemmingway house, where we took a break to pet the cats and learn a little history. Then we had lunch and wandered our way back to the ship.