Norwegian Jewel Review

The Jewel was nice but Alaska was ok

Review for Alaska Cruise on Norwegian Jewel
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GoAndHaveFun
First Time Cruiser • Age 30s

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Sail Date: Jul 2014

After having been on European, Mexican Riviera, Caribbean and Bahamas cruises, an Alaskan cruise was one we have yet to go on. We left from Seattle and it was definitely more convenient than flying to say NYC, Miami or Europe as we live in California. The Jewel was actually our 7th NCL cruise (my parents are loyal to NCL) and we actually just got back from the Jade not too long ago. For starters, the Jewel is a sister ship to the Jade and the layout is completely the same except Jewel has an O'Sheehans (the 24 hour complimentary spot) now while Jade still has Blue Lagoon.

Check-in was pretty fast for us as my parents are Gold Latitude members and this allows for priority checkin. we had a balcony room at the forward of the ship and the room was decent even though it can feel cramped at times due to the lack of space for walking.

I thought the food was ok-decent at the buffet even though as predicted, it's always the same recipe but with different meats (think curry chicken, fish in curry, curry beef etc). It was very interesting how unlike the other cruises I have been on, they have a designated ice cream server for you. I am guessing they do this on the Jewel because people (guessing little kids) would waste a lot of ice cream or something. We only went to the sit down restaurant once (I believe it was Azura) and the grilled shrimp was delicious. The waitress was enough to put the grilled shrimp with my sirloin steak. For breakfast and lunch, I actually ate at Moderno's as my parent's Latitude Gold allows us to dine there for free for breakfast and lunch. For breakfast, there's French toast, waffles, 2 eggs any style with sausage and bacon, petit steak and eggs, a lobster and shrimp toast dish and others. There's also a buffet of pastries, fruits, cereal, and others and I know I love the chocolate croissants. I thoroughly enjoyed the steak and eggs and the waffle with berries. We also ate at Moderno's for lunch everyday and just about every day, I had the steak with fries and they were delicious. For dessert, I tried the banana cream pie, brownie with pecan ice cream and marinated berries. I recommend all 3! The sword fish burger was okay. I also tried Moderno for the first time ever and I really enjoyed it. I really like the filet mignon, the bacon-wrapped chicken and garlic beef. The salad bar was also good although I like to think it was a ploy to try to get you full before you get to the main course. I think I was already 30% full from the salad and soups.

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