Review of Jewel, Feb 4-11, 2012

Background: This was our third mother/daughter cruise -- my fourth time on NCL, DD's second, and about my 14th overall. Thanks to the new Latitudes structure, I was silver going in and am now gold. I'm 55, DD is 27. DH and I left SW CT about 9am, picked up DD in Queens at 10, and DH dropped us at the pier about 11. Jewel was the only ship in port on the 4th. It was not as crazy-crowded as I've seen it at other times. We found a porter quickly and turned over our bags.

Once inside the terminal, there was NO line getting through security. We walked right up to the scanners and then to a check-in station. We were given boarding # 5 and directed to a waiting area. NCL staff had just set up the table with specialty restaurant menus, and since we knew we wanted to eat our first dinner at Teppanyaki, we made our reservation for 7pm. We were pleasantly surprised to be told there was a 20% discount that night. (Although the girl still wrote "$25 pp" on our reservation slip, we received the discount at dinner.) They started boarding about 11:30, and we were on board before noon. Thanks to Cruise Critic, this time I knew we could check our carry-on things instead of dragging them with us to lunch. We boarded through the forward doors on deck 7 and were among the first to check bags at Fyzz, only a few steps away. Having been on Jewel a year earlier, I enjoyed the feeling of knowing where I was going. Read more