Jewel of the Seas Review

Unimpressed

Review for the Southern Caribbean Cruise on Jewel of the Seas
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Zutot
First Time Cruiser • Age 30s

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Sail Date: Mar 2018

I chose to go with Royal Caribbean due to recommendations from a friend who used to work for you and I believed that Royal Caribbean was the gold standard when it came to cruise ship holidays, however I was very disappointed. I was looking for a relaxing holiday, however from the moment I set foot on the ship, I was bombarded by sales pitches from crew trying to sell me drinks packages, jewellery, photograph packages, spa treatments, dinner packages, shore excursions and the list goes on. When reviewing the timetable of activities, it was amazing to see how many activities were either pay extra for, or were tasters to something where you ultimately had to pay something for the full experience. Ship crew always seemed to have an agenda to upsell something to you, get you tip them or towards the end of the trip, they would be practically begging you to name drop them on the customer satisfaction survey. I don't blame them at all, I assume it's a part of the work environment/culture they are a part of, but for me it felt totally over the top.

The ship we were on, the Jewel of the Seas was a bit run down. I found the shows that were on the boat to be for the most part sub-standard (compared to the Broadway shows I have been lead to believe some of the larger ships have). The comedian on the first night and the show on the second night were totally cringeworthy and I walked out of the half-filled theatre quickly. The other shows were better and much more entertaining though (the acapella group, the Broadway to West End show and the comedian on the lat night).

I didn't like the fact that unless you booked a shore excursion, hardly any useful information was provided to you about the island you were visiting. What would have been good was if you were provided with a decent map of the island marking off some of the top places to visit and information on how to get around. But again, it seemed like unless there is a financial incentive for Royal Caribbean, they are not really interested in helping their customers make the most of their stay. As 2/3 of our pre-booked shore excursions were cancelled due to rough seas, myself and my finance were often faced with a situation where we didn't know what we could do on the islands and ended up wandering aimlessly trying to find a tourist information office to help us.

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