We left Fort Lauderdale on an 11 day Southern Caribbean cruise on the Jewel of The Seas on 1-24-11. Embarkation was a breeze. We arrived at the port at 10:30 and were on the ship by 11:30. The RCCL staff at the terminal were very friendly. What a great ship. It was spotless, and we explored it for 5 hours prior to sailing. We ate at he windjammer about an hour after we boarded and the way they have the food islands set up is terrific. It makes it less crowded and the selections were awesome. For those who haven't sailed on the Jewel one of the great things about the windjammer was the the aft seating, which is a covered outside area. They have the usual inside seating as well, but we enjoyed eating in the outside portion, which is covered, but you get a great view of the ocean as you eat and sail along. This is 5th cruise with RCCL and as usual the staff was extremely friendly and fun to engage in conversations. The windjammer was very clean, and we all thought the food selection was terrific. I sailed with my wife, brother in law and sister, and never had any issues with the food selection in the windjammer.

Our bags were at our door about 1:30 and there was plenty of room to put everything away and put our suitcases under the bed. We had a superior balcony room, a hump room, 9584, and for my wife an I it was plenty big. The bathroom was what we expected, small but very adequate, and the plastic wrap around shower doors were great.

The decor of the ship was impressive. It looked and felt like a new ship, and we all felt it was very easy to navigate around. We loved this size ship. We've sailed on the Mariner and Explorer with the promenade, but we liked the center, centrum lay out much better. We never felt crowded and the Centrum area was a great place to gather and listen to the music. Read more