The Jade was recently papered over with a top-to-bottom refurbishment. Yet it felt like just a thin veneer over an old design of a ship, and the cruise's target seemed to be for something above the average age of 62 that took this cruise.

With nothing like the modern amenities being shoe-horned into newer ships, the Jade has only a couple things beyond the bars, resturaunts, and theaters to keep travelers occupied. There are two tiny pools, a fitness center stocked with 1990's equipment (plus some 1980's spinning bikes), a casino, one basketball/tennis court upstairs, and that's about it.

The exotic ports were the main reason we chose this cruise, and the destinations didn't disappoint. But there's very little on the ship that helped. There were no books in the library about most port cities we landed in. And while the crew did show some 1990's style static Powerpoint Presentations about the ports, they had just a few slides on each city taking maybe 10 minutes each. They prepared the same for exotic ports as they would have for Poughkipsie. Read more