Jewel of the Seas Review
Rating by category
Additional details
Embarkation: We had a delay due to fog in Tampa. This was mostly handled well; we were informed quickly, given options for activities while we waited, a $20 credit per person for the inconvenience, and there was a well organized paper system in place to begin late boarding. Unfortunately, the terminal building only holds a limited amount of people and many people were stuck outside in line without water, seating or shade. We didn't board till 5:30 PM with Priority Boarding. We finally sailed away at 10 PM.
Public Rooms: With the exception of the Pit Stop Bar which has an inelegant "race car" theme, all the spaces on Jewel are beautifully designed. Every room seems to have a panoramic view of the ocean, and is very elegant.
The Centrum is the hub of activity, and can be seen from nearly every level of the ship. The elevators are in a large hump, which is beautiful, but makes it difficult when one arrives. You hear the tone of the arriving elevator and if it is on the other end of the hump, you have to hope you can run fast enough to catch it before the door closes. Stand near the middle of the elevator bank and watch if one is coming near your floor and stand near it to board near that elevator. The shops of the Centrum was a real bottle neck during the evening hours, with "sidewalk" sales causing people to stop and no way to get around without going through the shops (maybe by design).
Cabin Review
Superior Ocean View Stateroom with Balcony
This cabin is in the middle of the aft on deck 8. There are other aft cabins directly above and below it on 7 an 9. It is at the end of the hallway, but the door cannot be seen in the hall, it is around the corner on a short aft hallway with only 3 cabins, so it gets very little foot traffic in the hall. We heard no hallway, or service noise in this location. The cabin did have a lot of vibration noise when backing into a dock due to the aft thrusters, and on our cruise we arrived at ports early and this did wake me, but did not last long.
It has a phenomenal view and huge over sized balcony. It had 2 lounge chairs and 2 chairs and a small, short table. The cabin is considered D2; The set up is exactly the same as 8170 inside,(our family members had this cabin) but the balcony of 8170 is ever so slightly tapered on port side and slightly smaller (not even noticeably so) than 8672.
Inside this cabin has loads of storage; its all bilateral (sets of drawers on either side of the vanity and two sides of the closet) which makes it easy to share.