Norwegian Jade Review
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We are a family of four from Long Island, New York. My husband and I are in our 50's. My son is in his 20's, and my daughter is in her teens. This trip was her graduation present. We were on the June 28 NCL Jade cruise to Malaga (Granada), Barcelona (o/n), Cannes, Livorno (Florence/Pisa), Civitavecchia (Rome), Gibraltar, Lisbon and Vigo. This was our 4th NCL cruise and our BEST! Everything about this trip was magical! In the beginning, I wanted to book a mini suite. I even picked the room I wanted. After much thought (adding the cruise fare, airfare, and port expenses for all four of us), I decided that it was too expensive after all, so I settled on the last balcony stateroom available at the time. NCL messed up my reservation by giving the stateroom I had already booked to somebody else. As a result, I was upgraded to a mini suite - for FREE...AND the room they gave me was the very room I wanted! How strange is THAT? This was just the beginning of our magical trip!
Jade was not only the largest NCL cruise ship we were ever on; it was our most expensive one. With a child about to go to college, I needed to keep this trip within my budget, but I certainly didn't want to go all the way to Europe and not see the fabulous sites. What's a mom to do? Why, I googled, of course! By doing research and planning ahead, I saved a lot of money on port excursions ...but more on that later.
We flew overnight on American Airlines, arriving at Heathrow Airport at 7:35 AM Sunday morning, London time. We arrived one hour later than was scheduled due to heavy traffic and weather conditions at takeoff. It also took a while at the London Immigration Dept (about 35 minutes) before the passengers were allowed to proceed. It was warm and stuffy there and we were all rather uncomfortable. After we picked up our luggage, we looked for the National Express Coach Terminal, where I had booked the 9:50 AM bus, scheduled to arrive at Southampton at 11:40 AM. The walk there was very long. Follow the signs. The bus terminal had its own waiting area. Our bus arrived 10 minutes before the scheduled time. I showed the voucher I printed from home to the driver, stored all our bags in the trunk, and we were off.
Cabin Review
Mid-Ship Mini-Suite with Balcony
Our room was ideal, with a large balcony and room that had curtain to separate the space. I found having a fridge and a safe extremely convenient and a big factor in our quality of life onboard. The bathroom was spacious and bright. We had a tub! Although our room was situated right underneath the Garden Cafe, we only had one night where some children were running after midnight. Overall, our 2-week stay in our mini suite was very restful.