Norwegian Jade Review

4.0 / 5.0
2,043 reviews

Christmas Family 10-Day Southern Caribean NCL Jade

Review for the Caribbean Cruise on Norwegian Jade
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Re-Fashionista
6-10 Cruises • Age 30s

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Sail Date: Dec 2017
Traveled with children

We, a group of 9, booked this cruise almost a year in advance. Being it was a holiday cruise, we wanted to be certain to get our reservations in early. With the impending $40 million refurbishment, it was an enticing choice. With a 65, 43, 42, 41, 40, 13, 10, 10 and 7 year-old, we spanned the generations. All latitudes members, this was our 3rd NCL cruise traveling as a group. It was the first time in Miami for my family, so we arrived a couple days early to explore the city. We stayed in a suite at the Kimpton Epic in the Port of Miami, FIVE STARS for this place. Even though the hotel was under construction, it was a perfect fit for us. The staff were friendly, the room was gorgeous and the pool was warm. Located right next door to a Whole Foods and a beautiful Bayfront walk (half mile, or so) to Bayfront park. It was a $15 Uber ride from the airport and a $12 Uber to the cruise terminal.

The Miami Cruise Terminal had a long line out the front door when we arrived at noon. Even in the latitudes line, we waited 2 1/2 hours to get checked in. The terminal was hot and with small children, this was not fun.

Splash Academy was a huge disappointment for my kids that have been on other cruises with much better facilities. Monkey was a familiar face, and she is wonderful. There were over 400 kids enrolled in Splash Academy this cruise (ages 3-12) with only a single room for all of them. They ended up splitting off the 10-12 year-olds to a conference room deck 6 forward and my younger daughter was on 12 aft. This made for 2 lines and a long walk through a smokey casino every night to drop them off individually. My kids still had fun and enjoyed the staff very much, although they do not ever want to go on the Jade again because there was really nothing special for kids on this ship. They removed the water slide in the refurbishment, so there is only a tiny kids pool for toddlers. There were no deck parties to really speak of. The sail-way party was more of just an introduction to the cruise director and staff. Jasper, the Cruise Director was vibrant, friendly and visible, but the activities were pretty boring and low key. We have been on other NCL cruises that have had a lot more going on, especially pool-side. There we no themed pool-side parties or buffets like every other cruise I have been on. The food on the pool-deck was the same burger bar every single day. The Garden Cafe was a pretty big let-down as well. The food was mediocre at best, I usually just had a bowl of fruit for lunch, as nothing else appealed to my culinary tastes. I prefer healthy, fresh organic foods to fried processed crap. Dinner in the Garden Pacific was usually good, not great. I am not a huge fan of Freestyle Dining. My complaint here is that with 6 nights of 5:30 reservations for 9, we never had the same wait staff twice and most did not speak very good English. Dinner usually exceeded the 7:30 showtime so we would have to leave before coffee or desert. Yes, for others with children, that is 2 hours to try and keep children engaged at the dinner table waiting for food. We ate at Cagney's one night for the $30 p.p. surcharge. I had filet minion, but there was no lobster on the menu anywhere. It was not worth the extra money. IMO for food you used to get for free. Le Bistro was OK, but again not worth the extra $, although they had the best French-pressed coffee on the ship. Modero was actually a culinary delight, the salad bar reminded me of what buffets used to be like with exceptional appetizers and higher end food choices. Teppanyaki was a bit us a disappointment as our local restaurant has better food with a lower price-point than the up-charge. The Complementary Asian Jasmine Restaurant was the highlight of our dining experiences. We were celebrating a birthday and the Maitre d' and Waiter made our dinner exceptional. The sushi was exceptional as well!

Cabin Review

Cabin Mini-suite

We had won an upgrade (for $250) from a mid-ship balcony to a mini-suite 11-536. The room was decent, beds were comfortable, and it was nice that our cabin steward returned the pullout to a sofa daily so we could get through to the balcony. It was still a bit tight for 4 people. Our steward was nice, but seemed overloaded. He usually didn't get to our room until 11 in the morning and 8:30 for turn-down. This was a bit annoying because we had dinner at 5:30 every night, would go to the 7:00 show, come back to the room at 8:30 and the poor guy was still working feverishly to finish turn-down. A few nights, he didn't have any towels left for us, although he did apologize for the inconvenience. Two of the days, we were without pool/beach towels and had to go to the pool deck and use our room keys to check them out and return them at the end of the day or we would have been charged. The house-keeping was kept to a minimum and I found myself cleaning up after the left (the draw-backs of messy children). We used the room to sleep, shower and change clothing, and that about it.

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