Norwegian Jewel Review
Rating by category
Additional details
In way of background, my husband and I have cruised on Royal Caribbean twice (our least favorite cruise line for a multitude of reasons, but a story for another day) and Princess four times (our cruise line of choice). Our children are grown and cruising is our way of getting away to spend some quality time alone, away from business interruptions.
Booking: As frequent visitors to the Harrah's hotels/casinos in Atlantic City, we were awarded this "free" cruise from Showboat Atlantic City in conjunction with the Casinos at Sea Program currently on NCL. We were skeptical but thought it was worth the phone call. We booked the cruise directly through NCL and they were quite helpful through this process. The cruise cost us approximately $300 pp for port fees and taxes for an interior room but we were able to upgrade to a balcony room for $200 pp additional - all-in-all still a very reasonable fare from New York. Once booked, we logged onto the NCL website and followed our progress while counting down to our departure on February 25. Although I did not find the website to be as user-friendly as other cruise websites, we were able to pre-book and prepay our excursion(s). There is also an option to prepay the service fees but we opted not to. On our next NCL cruise, we will certainly do that as well.
Embarkation: We were dropped at the port in Manhattan at 10:45 am, our luggage was taken immediately and we entered the port to go through security and check-in. Security was amazingly quick and there was no line to speak of. Once through security, an NCL representative asked to see our cruise ticket and informed us that we had "VIP" check-in, a definite perk of the Casinos at Sea program. We were whisked away to a separate check-in counter, received our cruise card, were given a card from a standard deck of cards (Ace of diamonds) as our number for embarkation, and waited for several minutes in a separate room. At 11 am, when the ship was ready for boarding, our room boarded second only to a bridal party that was getting married on the ship that day - 15 minutes from arrival and on board already! We had 2 carry-on pieces of luggage with us and were able to leave those in a lounge until our cabin became available. We briefly toured the public areas and went to the buffet for a quick lunch.
Cabin Review
Mid-Ship Balcony
Cabin 9108 (BA category, mid-ship balcony room on the 9th floor)
Having sailed on Princess and Royal Caribbean previously, I found the balcony cabin and balcony to be on the small side, but for the amount of time we spend in the cabin, it was comfortable for 2. The bathroom was the roomiest and there was adequate closet space. Cabin 9108 is in an ideal location - up the midship elevators and 4 doors aft on the starboard side. We never heard any outside noise and the room was central to all locations on the ship.