Norwegian Jewel Review
Rating by category
Additional details
* Excellent: the itinerary (Alaska Inside Passage 7-days northbound from Vancouver), including Glacier Bay which was a highlight; the food at Czar's Palace and Azura; the service at Azura was outstanding; the focus on leaving minimal environmental impact; the viewing room into the bridge was great
* Good: overall friendliness and service of staff; the entertainment and music were professional and well done
* Fair: value of the excursions; the food at restaurants other than Czar's/Azura and the buffet were just average, with the lowest grade going to Chin Chin
Cabin Review
Mid-Ship Inside
The cabin was where the age of the ship showed the most.
• Stateroom shower problems: cycles between scalding hot and cold water; the shower drain became backed up the last two days of our cruise; there were obvious cracks on the bathroom counter
• Cabin safe was broken; called service desk and waited for the promised repair person who never showed... after a maintenance person finally came by to "fix" it, the keypad remained difficult to use (had to press the keys really hard)
• TV: another cabin equipment that we had issues with... even after the batteries in the remote control were replaced, the television would not respond to button presses 80% of the time, occasionally we had to resort to unplugging the TV to turn it off.
Some positives: the bed was comfy... the sound-proofing worked well enough that we didn't hear our neighbors like we did on previous cruises... finally, being able to see the live view of the camera pointing at the front of the ship on TV was really nice.
Port Reviews
Ketchikan
Fun show for the younger members of our group, and I enjoyed it more than I expected!
Juneau
Rented a car and drove to Mendenhall Glacier where we hiked to see Nugget Falls
Glacier Bay
(Cruising-only port) Rangers from the Glacier Bay National Park boarded the ship and gave lectures (highly recommended) as well as public-address narrations about the glaciers as the ship sailed past the magnificent scenery. The ship spent about an hour near the Margerie and Grand Pacific Glaciers, and about 30 minutes at the Lamplugh Glacier. There's not a single best location for viewing the glacier; best to be on an *outside* deck where you can move from starboard to port and vice versa as the ship turns. One of the highlights of the cruise!!