Let me start out by saying that I cruised with the NCL Gem in May 2011 and had an awesome experience. We chose to book on the Jewel because we thought we would get the same service and quality. Unfortunately we were wrong.
Hotel info: We stayed at the Westin Times Square which we loved. Very central to everything in the city. Rates were reasonable. We paid less than $10 for a cab to the cruiseport. We would stay there again.
Embarkation - We left from NYC which was convenient for us. The whole process wasn't overly long but we had an issue with the woman we dealt with at the port to set up our onboard account. She told us that when we set up our onboard account to use our credit card and not debit because on a debit a hold is put on the card. She said this to us three times so we used our credit card. Later on in the cruise we got a letter saying that our card had been denied (I already had a hold on my credit card because of a hotel we stayed at in NYC, and only used my credit card because the woman at the desk told me to) Long story short, when I went to the financial desk to settle the matter, the manager was very rude to me. When I gave her my debit card she said she was going to authorize the card for $100, and then she said "do you even have that amount on your card?" how rude is that? the comment made me very upset.