My transatlantic cruise on the Jade was a lot of fun. I met some really great people the first day at the solo cruiser group as well as at night at bar city. Speaking of bar city, I thoroughly enjoyed having cocktails down here. The entertainment that would play in the evening (they had two really talented guitarists) was very good. The main showroom entertainment as usual was hit or miss. Different strokes and all that. The casino was smaller, but was virtually empty the whole time so I did my very best to fund their staff for a few days. I didn't really win. I think my favorite place to hang out outside was the Bali Hai bar. It has a great view over the pool deck and is an excellent place to people watch or just listen to the music. And the burger bar at lunch time, even though I know it uses the same ingredients, just tastes better.

My balcony room was nice. Rooms were smaller than Epics. But that is ok. Since it was just me there was no shortage of storage space and I had room to stretch out. My cabin steward Benson was amazing. He was on top of things and any time I had a request he too care of it but there is only so much that he can do. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the Jade is showing her age a bit. Some of the paint in my room wasn't looking so hot, my shower had some broken tiles, and god help you if you had an inside cabin with two people in it since they looked like shoe boxes. I'm only hald joking since the insides were quite small. My friend had an aft suite and I think I may book one if I can for next year. I understand that the Jade is going into dry dock soon so I expect they will address the smaller issues like pain and tiles. Not much can be done about the insides though.

Food! Yes, there is a lot of it. On my previous cruise I had only eaten at the upgraded restaurants. This time I had 4 nights of fancy restaurants and the rest were at the normal dining room. The two main dining rooms, Alazzar and the Grand Pacific, were very good. I don't think I had a bad meal in these places the whole cruise though I know some of my dining companions did but they were picky. Bravo. Great job. However, our upgraded dining took between 2 and 3 hours at both Cagneys and Le Bistro. It wasn't like it was torture since it just meant more time to enjoy our little groups company, but it was a bit on the long side. However, as usual, the staff was very accommodating and placated us with wine and drink while we had interesting and fun discussions and the food was fantastic. Read more