Norwegian Jade Review
Two star price for a three star experience. Sounds fair...
Rating by category
Additional details
Before our cruise, I read a lot of reviews on the Norwegian Jade. I have only been on a couple cruises, so I am not as seasoned as many are. But from all the reviews that complain of cold food, or bad food, or lack of service, I was expecting a horrible experience. But I found that for the price I paid for the cruise it was a pretty solid experience. The food was fine, sort of like Golden Corral (for the Americans reading this). Not awesome, but not horrible. There were often repeat dishes in the restaurants, but there were so many it was easy to not repeat our meals. I enjoyed our ocean view room as well.
I was not impressed with the entertainment in the Stardust theater. For a family cruise I thought much of the dancing was unnecessarily loaded with sexual overtones (why did the one dancer need to take her top off at the end of one of those numbers?) The people who performed were very talented, but I didn't find that the hype of the shows lived up to the reality.
The guitarist, Dave McHugh, who played at various places on the ship, was easily the most popular consistent entertainer. You had to show up early for his events if you wanted a seat.
Cabin Review
Mid-Ship Oceanview Picture Window
I think it's funny that people complain about the size of the cabins. They are not hotel rooms, and obviously the toilet and shower areas are small. Again, I'll take a lower priced cruise with a smaller shower than a more expensive cruise with a standard-sized bathroom. We had an ocean view room, and that made it not so claustrophobic. There were tons of drawers, hooks, and cubby holes, and even though we over-packed, there was plenty of space to put everything.
Port Reviews
St. Kitts (Port Zante)
Loved this island. We went straight to the Carambola resort at South Friar's beach (~8/person taxi) and rented a large cushioned "love seat" for $20. Lounged all day then returned to the port for a little shopping.
St. Maarten
Loved this day. Despite the cruise line telling us they had moved away from an excursion on Orient Beach because of the hurricane damage, we went anyway because of the good reviews we found here (...taking a taxi on your own is difficult; they work to make sure they are putting groups of people into the same vans. It cost us $9 per person each way in a van with 8 other people.) And we're glad we did! We stayed at the Bikini Beach portion of the bay. It's a very lovely beach, super clean, with a nice restaurant and bar right by it. The water was warmer than at the other islands, and swimming in the gentle water was nice. Renting chairs and umbrella was pretty standard...$20 or so for the day. There were a lot of people doing parasailing and riding jet skis, but it was a pretty chill group. The damage from the hurricane is still apparent in the nearby buildings, all of which were in various stages of repair. None looked habitable yet, though. We didn't notice that smoking was a problem, but you should know that it IS allowed on the beach. We saw a very small handful of topless women (probably count them on one hand) walking along the beach. So just be aware of that if you are bringing kids. The area further down the beach from us was a nude beach, and we assume that's where the women had walked from. But for the most part we didn't see many issues. On the way back to the port we still had a couple hours, so we asked our driver to drop us in downtown Philipsburg for some shopping. It was the same shopping as everywhere else, but we did note that the Philipsburg beach there was really nice, and with such great placement by the shops, we will probably go there next time. But it is definitely busier than at Orient.