| |
First Cruise, will not be the last. I hope |
| Reviewed By: dunnett, hampton on 15th Oct 2008 |
| Cruise Line: NCL Cruises |
Times cruised before: 0 |
| Cruise Ship: Norwegian Jade |
Sailed:
September,
2008 |
| Destination: Mediterranean |
Age: 56-65 |
|
A bit of background info first. Myself & husband took our daughter on this cruise as a present for finishing education so we are looking at this from two different age groups. We decided on this cruise based almost entirely on the itinerary as we had no personal experience to help our choice and at that time had not looked at any review sites. So, first THE SHIP. Yes some of the decor is a bit over the top, but I would not say that was detrimental to our enjoyment, indeed it gave us all a bit of a laugh and made some amusing photos. I never saw a single sign of the'dirty and dusty', that I had read about. In fact our room and all the communal areas were kept very clean. Public facilities on the ship were of a high standard from our point of view, but we have nothing to compare with and we did not go around looking for faults. Cabin was small but satisfactory for our needs. BED WONDERFUL
THE FOOD. I am lucky that I am an eat most types of food person, but even my very fussy daughter was able to find something that suited her at every meal except one. Breakfast in the Garden Cafe was sometimes busy but as it was the main self service dining room we expected that. A lot of comments have been made about lack of trays and food being cold, but we got round this by not trying to take everything to the table at once. It was not that difficult. The range of foods was enormous. A case of too much to choose from sometimes. Lunches were generally taken in the Garden Cafe or from the poolside grill. Here the choice is much more limited, lots of burgers, hot dogs etc, but they did do a couple of barbeques as well. Dinners were spread between the inclusive and surcharge restaurants which my husband and I preferred or the Garden Cafe which our daughter preferred. All food in either type of restaurant was well presented and of reasonable quality. The surcharge restaurants we used were all worth the extra bit, in fact we ran out of time and budget to try all the ones we would have liked.
THE ENTERTAINMENT. We all (especially our daughter) enjoyed Second City and we thought the British comedian was good but we did not bother with most of the shows so can not comment.
THE ITINERARY and shore excursions. The itinerary is superb and here we had done a bit or research and only took two NCL excursions. Most of the time we did a mixture of private tours with a small group or went off on our own. The NCL excursions were expensive and you tend to get told a lot of information you will never remember so did not suit us. Lastly THE SERVICE. I can honestly say that I saw no evidence of surly, unhelpful or unhappy staff. We all smiled and said hello to everyone and they did the same. Yes the bed time chocolate did not arrive most nights, but am I going to fret about it; no way. Now the few niggles. We had booked without knowing about the $10 pppd service charge and when we found out were prepared to go to reception to discuss its reduction or removal, but the sevice overall was so good we left it as it was. However, I would be prepared for much more cost research the next time we cruise. The drinks prices with bar surcharge did seem overly expensive. Our on board account was not enormous as we do not drink a lot but we did feel that not being able to bring your own wine for your cabin was not fair. The ship never felt really crowded but the area round the pool is fairly small and got very busy. I imagine in the school holidays it could get very noisy. You need to be careful about taking part in entertainment designed to part you from your money. We had one poor weather sea day so decided to go along to the bingo. I was a little shocked at the cost of the cards. Nothing less than $40 for paper cards, and a lot more for electronic devices which checked your cards for you, but as you did get a lot of cards we thought we would have a go. NCL took a huge amount of money that morning so we expected the payout to be good. Not so. If you spent $80 on a device you could only expect to get about $200 back if you won and as there was often more than one winner you could end up sharing that. POOR SHOW NCL.
Well as you can probably guess the good things about the Jade well outweighed the bad. Will we be back? Yes to cruising, not to NCL unless we have checked out the likely final price and it proved to be the best.
|
| Quality of Food |  |
| Garden Cafe very busy but always excellent choice for breakfasts | | Entertainment |  |
| Second City very enjoyable improvisation show | | Shore Excursions | |
| Best thing is to do it yourself as much as possible or in small private groups | | Staff | |
| All staff friendly and helpful | | Children's Facilities | n/a |
| | Onboard Activities | |
| Did not really use much | | Cabins | |
| Cabin small but well designed, bed wonderful | | Overall Rating | |
|
|
|
