My wife and I cruised on the Jewel from Anchorage to Vancouver. We have now cruised 27 times, mostly on Carnival, Princess, and Norwegian (six times). I occasionally post cruise reviews here, but only when the experience is pretty good or pretty bad. Our recent Alaska cruise on the Jewel qualifies in both categories. So here goes, starting with the good..
Fairly good cruise fare pricing ...
This was a bucket list item in that I wanted to visit Alaska (the only state I hadn't been to) and to experience the coast of Alaska. We did the land portion of our trip first and the cruise on the way back so it would be restful and that it was. The only disappointment was that the route is such that you only see minimal amount of the coastline and a lot of water. An up close view of Hubbard ...
The good: drinks, bar service, cabin service, food service (but not universally food quality) embarkation, disembarkation. Five for free.
The mediocre: food everywhere except Cagney's and La Cucina (and the one lunch we had in the main dining room). Especially the oily yellow lab that passes for low-rent velveeta, which is as close to cheese as you get in an omelette or on a burger. Also, ...
We chose this cruise for a couple reasons. First of all we sailed on the Jewel last year from Vancouver to Tokyo, and on to Singapore where it went into dry dock for a refurbishment, and we wanted to see the changes. Secondly, some friends of ours were sailing on it, and asked us to join them.
We also had made friends with many of the crew members, and were eager to see who would still be on ...
Alaska cruise was great. The ship was extremely clean, the staff goes out of their way to be friendly, The entertainment was good in quality of shows and variety. The cruise from start to finish was well organized. NCL made it easy to get on and off the ship. The two big disappointments on the ship were 1. The food served on board the Jewel was a huge disappointment. NCL does a lot of things ...
If you are not a meat eater, beware of this cruise line because the choices for you at dinner time are very sparse. I mean who wants to eat the same dish at dinner for 7 nights? Vegetable lasagna gets really boring after day 2.
Not sure why this cruise line does not step up like Celebrity has. It is certainly less expensive to serve well rounded vegetable or vegan dishes to your clients ...
Alaska is always a great destination, even when it was cold and rainy. But my concern is that the food on NCL seems to have gone downhill rapidly since our last cruise on the Jade last September. It was bland. Buffet looked like they had thrown together and mashed the food together from the night before on several occasions. Even the meals in the dining room sub par. My daughter had to remind ...
If you want to see what global warming is doing, do the glacier cruise. Over the past 10 years, the glaciers have receded by 100 feet and probably 50 feet in height. Due to the melting, the glaciers are covered with layers of rock. We did this cruise in 2005 and it was outstanding. Now, the little towns are filled with the same jewelry shops and tourist traps. Very few locals as it was in ...
We celebrated my 40th birthday on the cruise ship as well has a 30th wedding anniversary of a family member. The ship was extremely small and had limited shopping and things for kids to do. The outdoor activities, ping pong, golf, basketball were shut down by 8pm. The arcade was basically the size of a closet. My kids are 10 and 12 and could not go to the teen club and the other kid activities ...
We chose this cruse for the dates and itinerary. We celebrated a thirtieth anniversary onboard the ship. Our previous NCL experience was the Escape in the Haven suites. On this cruise we had two rooms, one inside and one balcony mini suite. The rooms were adequate in size with ample closet/storage space. The finishes did not appear to have been renovated with recent dry dock. There were chips ...
