We travelled on the Jewel from New York to Vancouver. The cruise was 24 nights. We chose this cruise because of the Panama Canal transit. Our longest cruise to date had been 14 nights and we were interested how we would manage with so many sea days. We really enjoyed this cruise but have decided that shorter cruises/less sea days are more appropriate for us. We enjoyed all the ports except Puerto Chiapas where we took our only ship booked tour, Mangroves. It was very disappointing. Everywhere else we either booked tours privately or took taxis.

Our balcony cabin was on deck 10 forward. The motion of the ship was not a problem even when we had rough seas. The cabin was fine and there was plenty of storage.

Having travelled on the Star last year where I hadn't really enjoyed the food I was concerned that the same issues would apply but I found the food to be good. We usually ate in the main dining room and while sometimes we had a pager we found the wait was usually less than 20 minutes. Service was usually good, our only issue was with the lady at the entrance of the dining room who was brusque and failed to acknowledge us on many occasions. We also ate in the Garden Cafe and while it was certainly crowded we always found a table towards the back of the ship or in the Great Outdoors. The food was varied and everything we tried was good. Read more