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Royal Caribbean's
Jewel of the Seas
November 6 - 9, 2009
Cruise Review
by
Doris Steele

From: "Doris Steele" <hmsdos@msn.com>
Date:  Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 11:19:46
Subject:  Jewel of the Seas - November 6 - 9, 2009 - Cruise Review

Jewel of the Seas, short weekend cruise

Ports: Key West and Nassau
This was our first cruise on the gorgeous Jewel. This ship was launched in 2004 and is one of the Radiance class. The ship layout is wonderful and the use of glass and open vistas to the sea are awesome.

Embarkation:
We were already on a Majesty cruise so just packed our bags and walked over to the Jewel check in at “category F”. Check in was the usual “easy” system using our pre-printed SetSail pass. The delay was with the machine that takes your picture. That seemed to be a problem, which caused a line to form for a few minutes.

The Ship:
We boarded on deck 5 and began a tour of the ship. The staterooms are ready at 1 PM so if you board early be prepared to keep any carry-on luggage with you.
The main elevators are glass located on the port side of the ship. The “inside” elevators overlook the Atrium and the “outside” give you an awesome view of the sea. Be sure to go to deck 13 using the outside elevators…. There is a delightful surprise… think Flamingo’s! Speaking of deck 13 there is a Vortex bar at the level that rotates! It is really pretty at night. Another interesting item on this ship is on deck 6, in the Safari Club… there are self-leveling billiards tables. Also located on Deck 6 are Portofino’s and Chop’s Grill Restaurants, The Schooner and Pit Stop Sports Bars. The Schooner has a delightful ship shaped bar and a number of tables and chairs all with a panoramic view of the sea. Another interesting thing we spotted on deck 13 was the slide that went down to the pool. This was between the rock climbing wall and the putting green. The Solarium/pool located on deck 11 and is beautiful… don’t miss it.

Dining:
Dining rooms, called The Tides, are located on decks 4 and 5. We had requested a small table for four… but, as often happens we were assigned a large table of eight. Meeting with the Maitre’D/Head Waiter was useless. Their suggestion was to move from the 8:30/late seating to the first seating. This is a major weakness we keep experiencing with RCCL. The Windjammer Café is located on deck 11 so that is where we had our lunch and dinner meals. They were surprisingly good. We did have breakfast in the main dining room. The chandelier is beautiful and is visible whether you are on either deck 4 or 5 for dining. Of course the “My Time Dining” is available and being strongly “marketed”.

Entertainment:
There was a production show, comedy show and, of course, the Farewell show. The Comedian was Steve Shaffer whom we have seen on several ships so did not attend this time. The production show was City of Dreams. We have never seen this on other RCCL ships so really wanted to attend… however we got involved in other activities and missed it so can’t give you any feedback. The Farewell show had another comedian we had seen before, Michael James so we went in towards the end of the show just to wave goodbye to the Officers and Crew who come down for that event. Other activities were resented by the Activities Staff such as bingo, trivia quizzes and Quest, the adult scavenger hunt.
On the second night which was formal night there was the Captain’s Welcome Aboard Party and also the Dancing Under the Stars on deck 11 from 11 PM until 1 AM.

Ports:
The ship first stopped in Key West, arriving at 7 AM. This is one of our favorite ports so we got off as quickly as possible since boarding time was 2:30. We went to several “local” attractions and made sure we were back in time for “sail-away” with the band playing on deck 11. On Sunday we stopped in Nassau. Arrival time was 10 AM with boarding scheduled for 5:30 PM. We have visited this port so many times over the years, and many of the shops are closed on Sunday, so we decided to stay on board and enjoy the ship.

Disembarkation:
We did the Express, which means we had to be able to handle all our luggage without help. The advantage is that you do not put your luggage out the last evening. The expected disembarkation time starts at 6:15 am, but is dependent on the ship clearing the US Authorities. We were allowed off at 6:35 am, went down the escalators, cleared customs and were headed to our car by 6:45 AM…. A very smooth process. We find this is the “normal” process we experience at the Miami Port.

Cabin:
Our Cabin was a Junior Suite, 293 square feet, on deck 10. The cabin was very clean and comfortable. The only “surprise” was that we could hear every word spoken in the cabin that was adjacent to the head of our bed???? Additionally we had told our Cabin Attendant that we would be leaving early for express departure. Our bill did not arrive in time to meet the stated departure so we went to Guest Services and very quickly received a copy.

Final Comments:
The Crew is used to much longer cruises. We thought that they did an excellent job dealing with this short schedule. We met a number of Crew we had met on other ships and many of them recognized us before we saw them and came over and introduced themselves, which made us smile and feel welcome.
We are already booked to take one of the longer cruises on this ship!

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