Cheating on the Mouse Boats - Our Cruise on the Norwegian Jade

[dolphingirl47]

Day 1
"They took a box and looked if it would float!" This quote from the captain of the Disney Wonder was aimed at the Carnival Glory and the Mariner of the Sea, but it described my first impression of the Norwegian Jade perfectly. I had seen photos of the ship before and it looked like she had quite a classic shape, but this all depends on the angle from which the photo is taken.

We had flown to Southampton the previous day and spend the night before the cruise at a hotel right by the port. Our room overlooked the berth on which the Norwegian Jade was docked so we got a good view of her as soon as she arrived at Southampton.

We had been told by the hotel the evening before that no pedestrians would be allowed to enter the port and that we would need to take a taxi even though the entrance to the port was less than 100 yards aware. However, while we were looking at the ship, we noticed that people with suitcases walked up to the guard house and were admitted. So we took our luggage, checked out of the hotel and walked over to the port.

As soon as we entered the port area, they waived us over to hand in our luggage. Unfortunately we had not received any luggage tags and they did not have any either. We were advised to proceed to the check in area and they would sort out the luggage tags there.

When we got there, we were advised that check in was not open yet and that they are still trying to sort out the luggage tag situation and that other people had the same problem. At 11:00 the check in opened and I checked again what I need to do as I did not have any luggage tag. They send me to the building opposite where they had a member of staff with a passenger manifest to issue luggage tags. Most people in that line did not even have their cabin numbers yet. We at least had that. About 10 minutes later our suitcase had been tagged and taken off me. We then proceeded through security and to check in. We were given a short health questionnaire to fill out. Apparently we were directed to the wrong line and ended up with the repeat cruisers. As we had been sent to the wrong line, we were still given a red boarding card. Check in went very quickly and smoothly and we were directed to the departure lounge to wait until the ship was ready for embarkation. This was much less manic than what we are used to. They had displays with complimentary magazines (including World of Cruising) out and there was iced water, tea and coffee out. We were sitting there for about 20 minutes when they announced that embarkation would commenced and they called the first group of passengers. I was more than a little surprised when they invited anybody with a red boarding card to embark first.

We headed over to the gangway and the embarkation photo was taken. We then entered the ship and our key cards were scanned. Then we were on the ship proper. Rather than the wide open space of the atrium on the Disney Magic or Wonder, we stepped into a relatively narrow corridor in front of one of the main dining rooms. There were staff giving out glasses of champagne and orange juice. From there we were directed to the lifts. Above the lifts there were glass flower sculptures that reminded me of the flower chandelier in the atrium on the Magic and the Wonder and I felt right at home.

We headed straight up to the spa on deck 12 to get our length of cruise pass for the Thermal Suite for the first part of our cruise. They were offering an Ultimate Couples Pass, that for only $1.50 more than two length of cruise passes, they also gave you an hour in the Exotic Rhassul. I had been wanting to do this last year, but we were not entirely sure about it and never did it. However, for $1.50 we really could not lose. Once we had our passes, we headed for lunch.

True to form, they tried their best to direct us to the buffet on deck 12. Fortunately I had been reading up on the ship beforehand and was aware that one of the main dining rooms would be open for a sit down lunch and this would be a lot more relaxed then the buffet. So we headed down to deck 7 having a quick look at the pools on the way. The Norwegian Jade started her life as the Pride of Hawaii and a lot of the décor is still very tropical, including the pool deck. Add to that that the sun was shining and it was unseasonably warm and you could have believed that we were in the Caribbean rather than in Southampton.

We headed down to the Grand Pacific dining room, which is the bigger of the two main dining rooms and the only one that is open for breakfast and lunch. The Grand Pacific Dining Room looks like a ball room in an Art Nouveau style, but the art work is all Hawaiian, which to me does not really work. We were seated straight away and had a table for two by the window. The food was simple, but quite nice (split pea soup, ribs, potato wedges and coleslaw followed by peach and blueberry coppler with vanilla ice cream for me, fruit cocktail, Tilapia with rice and vegetables and apple spice cake for DH). After lunch and coffee, we headed out to explore the ship as the cabins were not due to be ready until 2 pm.

 

[dolphingirl47]

Deck 6 and 7 on the Norwegian Jade are comparable to deck 3 and 4 on the Magic and Wonder. The shops, a lot of the bars, the two main dining rooms, a lot of the speciality restaurants, the internet room, the art gallery, the photo gallery and the theatre are all on those two decks. The dreaded Casino is also on deck 6. So that is the area on which we concentrated. This was the only time that we set foot into the casino. We are not into gambling so for us it is a bonus that Disney does not have casinos on their ships. The casino is on deck 6 forward and the only thing that is even more forward is the theatre, but the main access to that is on deck 7. I was worried about reports that on most cruise ships with casinos, you have to go through them whenever you want to get from point A to point B. That is not the case on the Jade. The casino is a dark and slightly seedy looking space that stinks of stale smoke.

What I rather liked was the Medussa Lounge in the same spot on deck 7. This is the closest that the Jade comes to a nightclub. The theming was under the sea and it was stunning. They also had set up a left luggage drop there so we left our carry ons and carried on exploring. We headed up to deck 13, which is the sports deck. They have a multi-sports court there, the jogging track, golf practice nets, giant chess, shuffleboard and table tennis. We also headed up to the sun deck and the freestyle sundeck (decks 14 and 15 respectively). We decided to go and have a look at the bridge viewing room, but as this is at the end of a corridor with cabins, the access to this was still closed.

Shortly before 2, an announcement was made that the cabins are now ready. We collected our carry on and headed up to deck 10. For the first 5 nights, we had an inside cabin. Well, lets put it this way, it was compact. As a careful estimate, the inside cabin that we had on the Magic was twice the size. Still, we are only usually in the cabin if we want to sleep so this was fine by us. Considering the size of the cabin, the bed was huge and the closet was bigger than the shower. Needless to say, I never used the shower in our cabin as I preferred the shower in the spa.

Once I had checked out the cabin, I joined a restaurant tour. This was extremely useful. We had a look at all the restaurants and they explained to us how we could make reservations and what the cover charges are and what is included for each restaurant. One of the highlights was a visit to the French Bistro. Each Jewel class ship has a piece of authentic art. For the Jade, this is a Van Gogh painting that is displayed inside the Bistro.

Once the tour was over, it was time to get ready for the safety drill. DH had been trying out the unheated adult pool while I was on my tour, so I suppose he would have been well prepared for a swim in the sea. Having suffered through two safety drills on the Magic and the Wonder where everybody lines up by the life boats and the whole thing is utter chaos, I was positively surprised by NCL's version. Our muster station was one of the main dining rooms. They had signs with the letter and numbers for each muster station up in various parts of the dining room and we were ticked off as soon as we approached our station. Once everybody was there, they demonstrated how to put on a life vest and then everybody put theirs on. After some more announcements about emergency procedures and general safety in German and English, everybody was dismissed.

We took our life vest back to the cabin and then headed up to the Freestyle sun deck to watch the sail away. On the pool deck they had set up a barbecue and there was a sail away party of sorts as well. Once we were out of the port, I headed down to the spa.

Now, I love the Tropical Rainforest Room on the Magic / Wonder, but the Thermal Suite on the Jade is something else. In the changing rooms, there is a sauna, steam room, plunge pool, hot tub and some comfy loungers with a view. This is strictly segregated. There is also a uni*** area with heated tile loungers with a fantastic view and a Thalosso therapy pool (essentially a large square hot tub with submerged loungers on which you lie down). Let's just say, the Tropical Rainforest Room on the Magic / Wonder will never feel the same again. I will post some photos of the Thermal Suite later on in this trip report.

Once I had enough of the tile loungers and the hot tub/ Thalasso therapy pool, I headed back to the cabin. Shortly afterwards, DH came back as well and we got changed for dinner. Our plan had been to have dinner at the Grand Pacific Dining Room. I had a look at the second and smaller main dining room Alizar as part of the restaurant tour and did not like it at all. However, when we got to Grand Pacific, the line was half way down deck 7. So we headed down to Alizar where we were told that there was a 15 minute wait and were given a pager. We were asked if we wanted to share and we said we would.

Just outside the dining room, they had set up a photo background and we had our photo taken while we were waiting.

Our page went off very quickly. We were shown to our table. We ended up sitting at a table for four by ourselves. The menu was a little bit too fancy for my taste that evening, but they have certain menu items that are available every evening and I chose a steak from that section. Their were a soup, an appetizer and a dessert that appealed to me. On the whole, the quality of the food was comparable to the Magic/ Wonder. For dessert I had a Vanilla Bean Souffle with a Grand Marnier sauce that was out of this world. The famous chocolate souffle at Palo does not come anywhere near to this.

After dinner we were both tired and headed to bed. There was hardly any movement that night, but I still fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

 

[dolphingirl47]

Day 2

After our early night the day before, we were up nice and early. We got up and headed down to the Grand Pacific Dining Room. I was very pleased when I spotted Eggs Benedict on the menu. This is my guilty pleasure whenever I am on a cruise. Breakfast was OK, but not comparable to the quality on the Magic or Wonder.

After breakfast DH headed for the gym and I went to the Thermal Suite. I had the area all to myself. It was great to just laze around on a tile lounger and enjoy the view. They also had fresh orange juice, iced water and various teas in the Thermal Suite so I had everything I could wish for. Only when I was ready to leave and got changed, I met some other people.

Outside the library on deck 12, they have a photo board with all the ships officers. As I was heading for a Meet and Greet that had been organised by somebody from Cruise Critic and knew that some officers would be present for this, I studied the board so that I would know who is who. While I stood there, a group of kids and some staff from the kids club turned up. This was just before 11:00 am. I overheard the councellors explaining to the kids that the next 3 activities had been cancelled due to the weather and to meet back at 3:30 pm. I was absolutely floored. On my way down I checked the schedule posted outside the kids club and the activities in question were two sports activities and a photo scavenger hunt. I can understand that it would have been too dangerous to go ahead with the sports activities (it was windy and there were showers and therefore the decks were slippery). As far as the photo scavenger hunt goes I am sure it could have been adapted to take place indoors. In any case, the Jade is sailing in Europe for the foreseeable future. Weather in Europe is unpredictable. Rain is pretty much a certain at one point of the cruise or another. I could not believe that they did not have an indoor alternative, but were just turning the kids loose for some 4.5 hours.

The Meet and Greet took place in the French Bistro and NCL had provided pastries, juice, water, tea and coffee. It was nice to meet up with some people that I had been chatting with on the forum for a while. The had provided a member of staff to welcome us and then once everybody had arrived, the captain came to join us. He was very sociable and good fun. I learned loads about the ship and about NCL in general. A little later, some of the other officers arrived. The hotel director, the cruise director, the executive chef, and the assistant food and beverage manager had all come to meet us. I was really impressed. The captain stayed for a little while after the rest of the officers had gone and then we stayed behind for a little longer after he left to talk amongst ourselves.

Once the Meet and Greet was over, I went in search of DH who I eventually tracked down in the Thermal Suite. We headed for lunch at the Grand Pacific. Lunch was great. I finally understand now why people are raving about cold fruit soups. I had a cold pineapple soup with coconut that was out of this world. After lunch, I headed back to the Thermal Suite for another session of chilling out on the heated tile loungers and lazing in the hot tubs.

I was less than impressed with the activities on the Norwegian Jade. On the Magic and the Wonder, there was so much to do that I needed a holiday afterwards to recover from all the fun. The standard fare on the Norwegian Jade as far as entertainment is concerned was Trivia, Bingo and Ball Room Dancing during the day. However, that afternoon they had a Martini tasting that I decided to participate in. I had done this on the Magic and it was great fun. Well, it turned out to be great fun on the Jade as well, but it proved that I had bitten off more than I could chew. They started off with the history of the Martini and gave us a sample of what is believed the cocktail from which the Martini originated. To my immense surprise this cocktail was red. Unfortunately it also tasted of cough mixture. Fortunately we only got about a shot glass full and I politely declined seconds. Throughout the tasting there were trivia questions and the bar staff was fantastic. I started working on the trivia together with the couple next to me and we stayed behind to chat for a bit after the tasting as well.

Well to the tasting itself. On the Magic we got four Martinis, but they were served in tiny glasses and it was gone in two sips. Still, Martinis are potent concoctions and there was a lot of movement afterwards even though there were no waves. Well, fast forward to the Jade. We still got 4 Martinis, but they were full size. After the first two I was no longer quite sure what was up and what was down. They had an ambassador from Grey Goose Vodka on board that week so all the Martinis were made with Grey Goose Vodka. At the beginning of the tasting, we were each given a shaker with ice. The bar staff came round to put the spirits in the shaker and then we had to shake our own Martini. I thought this was a nice touch. The first one was a classic vodka Martini. I really enjoyed this and it was incredibly smooth. Most people hated it. This was then followed by a Cosmopolitan (way better than the version on the Magic), a sour apple Martini and the Chocolatini (again in a different league than on the Magic). Throughout the tasting, the bar staff explained what went into the Martini, how to mix it perfectly and a bit about the history of the drink. We were all sat at the bar rather than on little tables as was the case on the Magic. Initially I found this an odd choice and sort it would make this a less social event, but I was wrong. It just gave them the chance to really show us how the drink was created. The cost was the same as on the Magic, $15. Considering that those were full-size Martinis and they normally charge around $10 for a Martini, this was the bargain of the week. Unlike on the Magic, they added an auto-gratuity of 18% to the tasting classes, but considering how brilliant the bar staff was, I was quite happy to pay this.

 

[dolphingirl47]

Once I was brave enough to get up, I headed up to deck 8. They have a little diner there called the Blue Lagoon which is serving comfort food 24 hours a day. I just knew that I needed some food to soak up all the alcohol. I had a great Chilli Dog and some serious quantities of ice water and then I headed back to our cabin for a nap.

When DH came in and woke me up about an hour later, I felt as good as new. While I had been indulging in the Martini's, he had been doing a yoga class up at the gym. The gym is free to use, but they charge for most of the classes. From memory they offered Yoga, Spinning and Pilated at $12 per class.

That evening was "Dress Up Or Not" night. This is essentially the closest NCL comes to a formal night. I was a little upset that my evening gown would not get an outing (especially as I just got a new one which I have not worn yet), but I took a nice cocktail dress. There was no one dressed up to the nines (evening gown or tuxedo), buy the looks of things everybody had dressed up for the night, which had not been the case on the Magic or the Wonder (we had people in denim outfits sat at the table next to us on Formal night on the Magic). On the Jade, there were loads of cocktail dresses, nice skirts with sparkly tops and dress shirts and ties.

We got dressed up and headed out to check out the photo opportunities. I had seen in the Freestyle Daily that there would be photos with the captain on offer as well. They also had loads of interesting backdrops out so we made the rounds.

The background in the the photo with the captain was not a backdrop, but the actually staircase that is linking midship on deck 8 (where two of the restaurants are) with the attrium on deck 7.

Once we had all the photos taken, we browsed the shop and got a resin model of the Jade to go with our model of the Wonder (we forgot to get one of the Magic last year, but that will be put right in October). We also had a look at our photos in the photo gallery. Once we had everything we wanted, we took the stuff we had acquired back to the cabin.

That night was "lobster night" on the Jade. I don't eat seafood, but DH quite likes it. I had planned to eat again in the main dining room so that he could get his lobster, expecting that it would be lobster tail like on the Magic. I was wrong. They served some kind of lobster and grouper stew over rice. DH passed on this. But I am getting ahead of myself. I was hoping against hope that we might be able to have dinner at the Grand Pacific dining room that night. However, the lines were insane and therefore we headed down to Alizar again, where were given a pager and advised it would be a twenty minute wait. They had a photo backdrop up just outside Alizar again so we had our photo taken while we waited.

As the pagers work in all public areas of the ship, we headed towards bar city. They have window seats in the picture windows there and we made ourselves comfortable. What happened next was definitely the highlight of the day and probably of the cruise. We were both looking out of the window when DH suddenly said that we had company. I did not see anything at first and was quite disappointed. He kept pointing at different points on the horizon and I could not see anything at all. Suddenly something broke the water right in front of me. It was a beautiful Common Dolphin. I had seen common dolphins before during a boat tour on Catalina Island in California, but not anywhere near as close. All over sudden there were Common Dolphins everywhere. They are smaller than the Bottle-nosed Dolphins that you can see at Seaworld or swim with at Discovery Cove, darker in colour and have distinctive hour-glass markings on their sides. If any of you have been to Discovery Cove and have met CJ, he is half Bottle-nose and half Common Dolphin. Anyway, there must have been over 100 Common Dolphins there and they were all performing for us. DH said that he also saw some Bottle-nosed Dolphins closer to the ship, but I never saw those. This was such a great experience. People started to gather around. Just as the dolphins had left us, the pager went off. This was perfect timing. I don't think I would have left while the dolphins were still around.

Dinner was nice. We had a great server that evening. he was from Jamaica and great fun. For the first time I wished we could have the same server for every dinner. As DH was not impressed with the lobster dish, he went for the always available steak. I had Beef Wellington that night and it was the best Beef Wellington I ever tasted. They also do a mean Caesar Salad. After dinner, we headed back to the cabin and went to sleep, knowing that when we wake up, we would be in port.

 

[dolphingirl47]

Day 3

When we woke up the following morning, we were docked in Dublin. Due to tides the captain at a 45 minute window starting at 4 am to dock the ship. When we got up, we headed down to the Grand Pacific dining room. We ended up with a table by the window. The port is primarily a container port and therefore not exactly pretty. The weather was pretty aweful as well so we decided to stay on the ship for the day.

Well, the ship was virtually empty. We decided to head up to the spa. The spa prices on NCL are very expensive. They are already not cheap on Disney, but are about 30% higher still on NCL. They did however have random offers. Well, that morning we encountered one of them. They had a range of 25 minute treatments and you could choose two for $99. That sounded fair to us. I had an Elemis Ginger and Salt Glow on the Wonder last year and loved it, but normally this is paired with a massage. My one and only massage was a disaster. However, as part of the offer I could just have this as a stand alone treatment and then I chose a facial as my second option. DH had the Elemis Ginger and Salt Glow with a half body massage. They managed to fit us in straight away.

My beauty therapist was wonderful and I felt so relaxed afterwards.DH enjoyed his treatment as well. Afterwards we headed to the Thermal Suite to just chill out. Throughout the morning we had the whole place to ourselves. I made use of this and took plenty of photos.

Plunge pool (a chilly 14 C)

Showers to cool down

Hot tub

Comfy loungers

Heated Tile Lounger

Heted Tile Loungers showing picture windows

Thalasso Therapy Pool

We spent all morning their and we just had the place to ourselves. It was wonderful.

At lunchtime we headed to to buffet on deck 12. On embarkation day and on the sea day, the place was manic and we had opted to eat lunch in the main dining room, but that day with the ship being so empty, we had no trouble getting a table. Now, I am not a big friend of Topsiders Buffet on the Magic so my expectations were very low. I was so surprised. For those of you that have been to Boma, they have a similar setup with different pods. They have a salad bar on one pod, various hot dishes and side dishes plus a carvery on the second pod, a grill were a chef cooks burgers, hot dogs, etc to order. The third pod has soups (soup of the day plus a chicken broth with various things you can put in) and cold meats and cheese). They have a make your own pasta dish station next to the grill. Another pod offers breads, pizzas and grilled sandwiches. Yet another one oriental and Indian dishes. Another pod offers deli sandwiches and the last pod has fresh fruit, cold deserts and one hot desert. Sometimes they also had a chocolate fountain in this area. I was amazed. The food was fantastic. I had a cheese and chilli chowder that day that was amazing.

After lunch I headed off to do some Trivia and DH to see if he could get a game of chess. Both of us had limited success. Considering that the Norwegian Jade is based in Europe for the foreseeable future and that most people on this cruise were European, I find it very strange that the questions were decidedly American. The person doing the Trivia rather gleefully told us that they best score so far for this particular set of questions was 12 out of 30. I wonder why this might be? I wonder even more why they don't draw any conclusion from this? Anyway, I did not do particularly well, but I still enjoyed it.

DH found somebody to play chess with, but the strong wind kept blowing over the pieces so they gave up in the end.

 

[dolphingirl47]

As there was nothing else to do and the weather was still rotten, we opted for a nap. Once we woke up we headed back to the Thermal Suite for the serious business of relaxation. One or two people had drifted up there, but it was still really quiet and we had a wonderful time.

When we got back to our cabin to get changed for dinner, we found a towel animal on our bed. This was the first and only time this happened. It was a lobster.

Now, I have to admit that coming back to our cabin every evening on the Magic and Wonder last year and finding out what towel animal our room host had left us was one of the highlights of the cruises. However, the absence of a towel animal does not spoil the enjoyment of the cruise. I had noticed that there were none on NCL, but that was fine by us. Still, I was positively surprised when I spotted the lobster and it put a big smile on my face. However, this smile was wiped of my face pretty quickly when I saw the piece of paper that was leaning against the lobster. It said that they were hoping that we were enjoying our towel animals and that we could purchase a DVD about how to make them. Now, I found this all rather cynical.

On its own that would not have been all that bad. The captain on the Magic has been known to refer to the customers as cargo, but I am sure that the powers that be on NCL secretly refer to the customers as cash cows. The whole day there just seem to have been things designed to draw cash out of people's pockets. That night was the Monte Carlo party at the Casino. Well, all over sudden the servers, the room hosts, the bar staff, the cruise director's staff and pretty much everybody else you might come across wore t shirts advertising this. To say that this got on my nerves was the understatement of the year.

Still, life is too short to stay annoyed. The piece of paper ended up in the bin fairly swiftly and we got changed for dinner. We had a reservation for the Teppanyaki that evening. We were a little bit early and I was delighted that they had the white backdrop for what they call "lifestyle photography" out. I had seen some great photos like this on the Magic and the Wonder, but we never got around to having those photos taken. So we jumped on this. Unfortunately this did not work. With my grey hair and being quite pale, I just looked like a ghost.

We then headed to the restaurant. After having been seated by ourselves the last two days, it was nice to share a table for a meal. We were sat with 4 ladies from Colorado on a mother and daughter trip and a Canadian couple. The food was fantastic and the chef put on quite a show. We also tried some Sake. We were recommended to try it warm, but that was not really to our liking. So we tried some cold Sake as well and that was beautiful. We had a really lovely meal and it was definitely worth the $25 per person cover charge.

Needless to say we did not go to the Monte Carlo party, but headed to bed instead.

 

[dolphingirl47]

Day 4

When we woke up, we were still at sea. We headed down to the Grand Pacific dining room and were lucky enough to be given a table by the window again. We were able to watch the docking process while we had our breakfast. This was absolutely fascinating. They had sent little boats to collect the mooring ropes from the ship. The boat then went back to the dock and the ship was pulled into position by the ropes.

I suppose this was the only thing that made me glad that I had got up for breakfast. Rather than my usual Eggs Benedict, I opted for the Southern Biscuit and Gravy with a side order of pork link sausages and hash browns. Well, the sausages and hash browns never materialized and the biscuit was rock hard. When I tried to got into it, it jumped clear off my plate and nearly hit DH. I could not find our server for dust either so I just gave up. I don't tend to eat breakfast at home, so it was not a big deal and I still had fruit and pastries.

After breakfast, I went to the cabin to get my camera. From the ship, Cork looked beautiful and I took lots of photos. Across the bay was another cruise ship, The Astor 2 of Transocean Tours.

When we woke up, we were still at sea. We headed down to the Grand Pacific dining room and were lucky enough to be given a table by the window again. We were able to watch the docking process while we had our breakfast. This was absolutely fascinating. They had sent little boats to collect the mooring ropes from the ship. The boat then went back to the dock and the ship was pulled into position by the ropes.

I suppose this was the only thing that made me glad that I had got up for breakfast. Rather than my usual Eggs Benedict, I opted for the Southern Biscuit and Gravy with a side order of pork link sausages and hash browns. Well, the sausages and hash browns never materialized and the biscuit was rock hard. When I tried to got into it, it jumped clear off my plate and nearly hit DH. I could not find our server for dust either so I just gave up. I don't tend to eat breakfast at home, so it was not a big deal and I still had fruit and pastries.

After breakfast, I went to the cabin to get my camera. From the ship, Cork looked beautiful and I took lots of photos. Across the bay was another cruise ship, The Astor 2 of Transocean Tours.

After I had taken enough photos, we decided to get off the ship. At the gangway, they had photographers and a character. Disney might have Mickey and Co, but NCL has dolphins. That was too good to pass up. Of course we had a photo taken. Unfortunately DH was trying to strangle the poor character.

 

[dolphingirl47]

As soon as we got off the ship, I thought I was in Nassau apart from that it was not quite as warm. We were mobbed by people trying to sell us tours or taxi rides. There were announcements over loudspeakers trying to sell various presentations. We got out of the port area as soon as we could. We had a walk around the town, but did not really like what we saw. What looked so beautiful from the distance, looked downright shabby close up. I took some photos of the ship from various angles and then we headed back onboard.

Once we had dropped off our passports in our cabin, DH headed to the gym and I headed to the Thermal Suite for some more relaxation. There is nothing quite as nice as relaxing on a tile lounger reading a good book.

Once DH had finished his workout, we headed to the buffet for some lunch. The food was wonderful again. After lunch, DH decided to have another go at finding a game of chess. Unfortunately due to high winds the result was the same as the day before. He did however find himself a game of 5 aside football on the sports court. I gave the Trivia another go with the same end result as the day before. I am afraid I still have no clue about American football, roads through Boston or who changed the address of the White House and the name of Air Force 1. Still, the company was good and that made it good fun. We kind of got a competition going who would get the lowest score.

After the trivia, I headed back to the Thermal Suite. Later that afternoon, we had our appointment for the Rhassoul. I had wanted to try this last year, but DH was not too sure about this. As we could get this added to the couple's pass for only $1.50, I put my foot down. We checked in at the spa reception about 15 minutes prior to our allotted time and the receptionist took us to the Rhassoul room. She showed us how everything works and explained what to do with the various lotions and potions. Then we were left to our own devices. We had been given a bowl with the Ginger and Lime Salt Scrub as well as a tube with an exfoliating face mask. We were advised to press the button that switches on the steam in the steam chamber and then take the scrub and the exfoliating face mask into the steam chamber. We then applied the products and the steam worked its wonder. There were three recessed alcoves in the chamber to relax. There were also a number of shower heads on the ceiling and after 15 minutes, the water came on. The water was just the perfect temperature. Once we washed off all the scrubby stuff, we set the steam going again and collected the next set of products. This time round it was a facial mud and a bowl of seaweed mud for the body. Again we applied this and let the steam do its work until the showers came on. Afterwards I had a proper shower and a hair wash in the main part of the treatment room. In that part there was a selection of cleansers, toners, face masks and facial moisturizers as well as some body lotion which we used. We came out an our duely scrubbed, cleansed and moisturized. We both really enjoyed this and plan to repeat the experience on the Magic.

Once we had dropped off our stuff at the cabin, we felt quite hungry. We decided to check how long the wait time was for the Grand Pacific dining room and to our surprise, there was only a short wait. We took our pager and went for some fresh air on the promenade deck and enjoyed the sunset. This time we got to share a table and it was nice to have some company for dinner. We sat with a couple and their mothers. Dinner was really enjoyable. The food was very tasty again. Almost everybody on the table had prime rib, which was cooked to perfection. I was very please to spot Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie for dessert, but that was not as nice as on the Magic. We lingered a bit over coffee and then headed to bed.

 

[dolphingirl47]

Day 5

That day was our second sea day and to my surprise they pretty much recycled the entertainment from the first sea day. The only difference was that there was no behind the scenes tour, the wine tasting had been replaced by a beer and food pairing and they had added a presentation by the Grey Goose Vodka ambassador. We also had another "Dress Up or Not Night". I wish I had known that before so that I could have brought a second cocktail dress.

We headed down to breakfast and this time I stuck to my beloved Eggs Benedict. We ended up sharing a table for breakfast as well and as we were in no rush, we had a very leisurely breakfast. After breakfast, DH went to the gym and I headed back to the Thermal Suite with my book. Once this filled up and people were waiting for the heated tile loungers, I headed to the other room and chilled out on the comfortable normal loungers for a while until things had quietened down a little.

I decided to attend a future cruising presentation. When I got there, I realised that the bingo that happened before had overrun. I played a fair bit of bingo on the Magic last year and really enjoyed it. I stayed clear of it on the Jade as I had been warned that the prices for Bingo on NCL were completely over the top. Well, I was glad that I did safe my money. On the Magic, Bingo was great fun with little competitions and price draws thrown in for good measure and the callers were hilarious. On the Jade they just called the numbers - no little sayings, no banter, no nothing. I could not really understand what caused the session to overrun.

Once the future cruise presentation started, this was really interesting. She explained about the different ships and what their key features were. She also did a short presentation about the Epic. She then showed slides from the different ports of call that you can go to on NCL and told us a bit of the itineraries on offer. There are definitely some itineraries I would love to do. Their Baltic cruise, cruise around the Hawaiian islands and a Southern American cruise all seemed tempting to me.

After presentation I went back up to the spa to retrieve DH. We decided that we did not really want to brave the masses at the buffet and there was nothing on the menu at the Grand Pacific that we fancied that day. So decided to head down to deck 8 for a bite of lunch at the Blue Lagoon. We had about 20 minute wait, but they asked us to sit down at Paniolo's (the Mexican restaurant) while we were waiting. Paniolo's is only open for dinner so they used this as a waiting area for Blue Lagoon during the day. They have huge floor to ceiling windows and we were quite happy to admire the view. Blue Lagoon is specialising in comfort food and are doing this rather well. We shared potato skins and fried mozzarella sticks for our starter. DH had fish and chips and I had Southern Fried Chicken tenders and chips for our main course and then DH had some cheese cake and I had what they called a brownie sundae (a whole warm and very gooey brownie with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, chocolate fudge sauce and a cherry on top).

This set us up for the afternoons entertainment. At the Martini tasting, they had mentioned that there would be a presentation about Grey Goose Vodka on the second sea day and that everybody attending would get two free Martinis. We decided to check this out. The presentation was very interesting. The guy doing it explained how vodka is made and also a little bit about the history of cocktails in general and Martinis in particular. He then mixed a Peach Martini followed by a Pear Martini. The Peach Martini was yummy, but they had run out of the Pear Martini before they got to us.

We got some fresh air before we went to re-organise our stuff and pack as we had to change cabin the next day. I headed down for another Trivia session and this was very different from the previous ones. They called it a Tri-Bond Trivia and they gave us groups of three words and we had to guess what they had either in common or what linked them. This was much more inclusive and only two questions were particularly aimed at Americans (three Baseball Teams, which I knew and three American Football teams, which I did not know). I really enjoyed this. After the Trivia we made use of our length of cruise pass for the Thermal Suite for that cruise one last time before heading down for dinner.

This time there was no wait at all at the Grand Pacific restaurant. They did not even have the desk with the pagers set up. Again we ended up sharing the table. After this dinner I could understand why many people do not want to share a table on a cruise. We were seated with an elderly male solo traveller and a lady with her grand daughter. They had already been seated for a couple of minutes when we joined them and were talking with each other. We initially believed that they all belonged to each other. I have never before met any people who were quite so miserable. I think the grand daughter would probably have been OK if she dared opening her mouth. DH tried to draw her into a conversation, but no such luck. If he had to sit with those people every meal, we would have demanded to switch tables. For one meal it was rather amusing. We just kept looking at each other.

After dinner we headed back to our cabin. That evening they had the famous Chocoholics Buffet from 23:00 to midnight and I was determined to stay up for this. However, I was really tired and with 20 minutes to go before it started, I gave up and went to sleep.

 

[dolphingirl47]

Day 6

This was the end of the first cruise. We were rather rudely woken up at 7:00 am by our stateroom host wanting to clean our cabin, even though we had the "Do Not Disturb" sign out. I was even more surprised as NCL goes on a bit in their publications that with Freestyle disembarkation, people can enjoy a lie in on disembarkation day. Well, 7 am is not a lie in in my books. Having said that, our stateroom host was terribly apologetic.

Because this was our first back to back cruise, I went and saw guest services on our first sea day to find out how this would work. I was advised that we did not have to leave the ship unless we wanted to, that we should vacate our stateroom by 8:30 as we were moving rooms and that we should report to guest services before 9:00 am to collect our new key cards which we would need if we wanted to get off the ship. The day before we received a letter to advise us to let our stateroom host know when we were ready to leave our cabin and he would then arrange for our stuff to be taken to the new cabin.

Well, we were ready to go shortly after 8 am and tracked down our stateroom host to advise him that we were ready to vacate the cabin. According to the letter we had received, he had been made aware. Well, he did not know what we wanted or what he was supposed to do. He asked us to ring guest services, which I duly did. They advised us to just leave our stuff in the cabin and they would arrange for our stateroom host to take it down to our new cabin.

We headed down for breakfast. The line at the Grand Pacific dining room was half way down the deck that morning. So we decided to head to guest services to get our new key cards. At first she could not find us and then she advised us that the people who had stayed in our new cabin on this cruise were still on board and therefore she could not check us in. She advised us to come back at 11:00. Good job that we did not intend to get off the ship.

We ended up going upstairs to the buffet for some breakfast and managed to get a table. The food was quite nice and there was a huge choice. After breakfast we watched the disembarkation process from the sports deck for a while before heading down to the pool area.

There were still a fair few people around up to shortly before 11:00. At that time they had a final call for people to disembark. It was another beautiful warm day and the family pool was nice and warm, so I decided to have a swim after I took some photos of the pool area with hardly any people around.

Family pool:

Adult pool:

Once the passengers from the previous week had disembarked, a member of staff came to ask if we wanted to use the slide. I had been eying this all week so I very enthusiastically said yes and he opened it up for us. DH for some reason did not move at all on the slide, he was just stuck half way down and had to work hard to get to the end. I had no such trouble and did the slide probably a dozen times.

Once I had enough of the slide, we dried off and headed back to guest services. By now it was shortly before midday. Again the person had trouble finding us. We finally got our new keys and he tried to take our old key cards of us supposedly for security reasons. I explained to him that we had cruised before and we were always able to keep the key cards and that I quite like them to put in the scrap book. He went to speak to somebody and then handed them back to us. He then proceeded to ask us were our luggage was. I was absolutely floored. I told him that we had been told to leave it in the cabin and that it would be taken to the new cabin. He rang house keeping and then advised us that we needed to go back to our old cabin as the luggage was still there. He was going to give us a blank key card to get access as our old key card would no longer work, but he could not figure out how to do this either. He rang house keeping again and advised us to go back to the old cabin where we would be met by our stateroom host. Indeed, he was already waiting for us and the luggage was outside our old cabin. He then helped us to get our stuff downstairs. We only had one suitcase and one carry on and could have managed quite happily, but he insisted.

The new cabin was right by the aft lifts on deck 9 and it was huge. We had a balcony cabin this time round. Once our luggage was safely in the correct place, we headed back down to deck 7 to make a dinner reservation for that evening. We had decided that we were going to try Paniolo's, their Tex-Mex restaurant that night.

 

[dolphingirl47]

We then headed up to the spa to get a length of cruise pass for the Thermal Suite. They had a really good deal on a couple's pass which we gladly took.

Once we had sorted out all the formalities, we headed down to deck 6 for our complimentary embarkation drink. We got a glass of champagne each and took it up to the Grand Pacific dining room. We got a window table again and they were still in the process of refueling the ship. This is done via a tanker ship that was moored alongside the Jade. The lunch menu was identical to the one served on the first day on board, but as I really enjoyed what I had that day, this was no hardship.

After lunch, I went to take some photos of the art work around the ship:

At 2 pm, we were allowed to go to the cabin. First impressions had not been wrong and this cabin was huge. It was one of the wheel chair accessible cabins that had been assigned to us. This also meant that the shower was nice and big unlike the one we had for the previous five days. DH headed straight out on the balcony while I took some photos of the cabin.

We just chilled out in the cabin and on the balcony until it was time for the lifeboat drill. Our muster station was again the Grand Pacific Dining room and again this was really well organized. This time round, the announcements were only made in English, which speeded the whole process up considerably.

Once we had dropped the life jackets off in our cabin, we headed up to the spa. They did a raffle for everybody who had visited the spa during the day, but unfortunately we did not win anything. We then relaxed on the tile loungers while we were sailing away.

 

[dolphingirl47]

Once we were duly relaxed and out in the open sea, we got showered and headed back to the cabin to change for dinner. We had a look at what photo opportunities were available. There was one that I particularly wanted to do with the bow of a ship and a sunset as a backdrop. Well, we were in luck.

I know that on the next two photos I look like I had been caught doing something naughty. The reason the photographer had me look down is that for some reason there was often a green reflection on one of my lenses when I looked straight at the camera (as you can see on the above photos). I was not quite sure about those photos at first, but they have rather grown on me.

Once the photos were all done, we headed up to Paniolo's. Paniolo's is one of their speciality restaurants with a cover charge. We were charged $10 per person and that included a small frozen Margarita. We love Tex-Mex food so we decided to give it a go even though the reviews on Cruise Critic agreed that the food is unremarkable and it was not worth the $10. We figured that $10 per person not a great deal was lost even if it turned out to be nothing special and we really did not fancy the run on the main dining rooms.

We got there a little early and were seated straight away. They have floor to ceiling picture windows and we got a window by the table. The restaurant manager was a real character. He showed us to our table and came by occasionally to check if we were OK and to have a bit of a banter with our servers. We had two servers and we were utterly spoiled. This was the kind of service we were used to from the Disney ships. The food, being far from unremarkable, was fabulous. They brought us some tortilla chips and salsa and the Margarita that was included in the cover charge once we were seated. I had Southwestern Eggrolls as my starter and DH had the nachos, we then had the Black Bean Soup and the Tortilla Soup respectively and then had their house speciality for two. It is called Il Popo and it comes on a sizzling contraption that looks like a medieval torture instrument. On this there is grilled steak and chicken (marinated for 48 hours), pineapple, pepers, jalopenos, onions and mushrooms. The give you the option to pour some Tequilla over it, which we did. It is served with Mexican rice, Guacamole, salsa, sour cream, cheese and refried beans. This was so yummy. We washed this down with a standard sized Margarita on the rocks. This was huge and although Salt Island in Orlando still serves the best Margaritas, this was a close second. At $4.95 it was also a bargain. We also had some dessert that was yummy, but I cannot remember what it was. The reason, I can't remember is that while we had dessert and coffee, we witnessed the most spectacular sunset.

We loved the food so much that we decided to book Paniolo's again for the next evening which would be the final evening of the cruise. After dinner we headed back to the cabin. I had the best intentions to look for stars on our balcony, but I was so tired that I fell straight into bed.

 

[dolphingirl47]

Day 7

When we got up in the morning, we thought we were still underway as we were surrounded by water. However, we soon realized that we were anchored. We had picked up some company. The Black Watch (Fred Olsen Cruises) was anchored right across from us. Guernsey was right ahead of us as well.

We had wondered how the tendering would work. We got our reply very soon. They used the ships lifeboats as tenders. We were watching them going backwards and forwards for a while and I took some photos.

Because we were so fascinated by the boats, we missed breakfast at the Grand Pacific Dining Room. We headed up to the buffet, but there was not a single table available. They use the Italian speciality restaurant as overflow seating at breakfast and lunch and even there was no space. So we gave up on breakfast. With this being more of a party cruise, people got up later, but they still kept the opening times of the main dining room the same.

We went to get our swimming gear and headed to the spa. DH decided to have a hair cut and I ended up going to the Thermal Suite. I had hoped that with it being a port day, it would be quiet in the spa, but it was really busy. Still, I managed to get a heated tile lounger for half an hour. I then enjoyed the view from the loungers in the changing area for a bit, used the Thalasso Therapy Pool and then had another session on the heated tile lounger. DH had made it to the Thermal Suite by then as well. When our 30 minutes were up, DH headed to the Sauna and Steam Room and I relaxed in the hot tub in the changing room. There was TV right opposite the hot tub and they were showing a rerun of one of the semi-finals of Britain’s Got Talent. So I settled quite happily into the hot tub watching this for a while.

Once DH and I met up, I sent him to take our wet swimming stuff back to the cabin while I grabbed a table at the buffet. When I got there, they were still preparing the buffet for lunch, but I got myself an ice tea and just sat. By the time DH came back, lunch had officially started. We enjoyed our lunch and then decided what to do with the rest of the day.

 

[dolphingirl47]

I am more than just a little nervous about small boats to the point that I was actually thinking about staying on the ship at Grand Cayman in October as this is a tender port. I most certainly had no plans to get off the ship at Guernsey. However, there was something slightly quirky about using the lifeboats as tenders and quirky definitely appeals to me. So we decided to give it a go. On the information sheet that had been given out the evening before, it said that you would require tender tickets and that they would be available at the internet café on deck 7. So we headed there, but nobody was in there. So we just headed down to the tender lobby on deck 4. As soon as we got there, our key cards were scanned and we were advised to get on board. They had two lifeboats docked at the end of a gangway and getting on the boat was no more difficult than getting off the ship at a dock. The lifeboats are actually small catamarans that will fit about 100 people. It was absolutely amazing sitting in a small boat next to a huge ship. The ride over to the island was very calm and peaceful. St. Peter Port is beautiful and I loved seeing all the yachts as we were pulling into the port.

As this was such a spur of the moment decision, we had not brought any money or credit cards. So the scope what we could do was fairly limited. We decided to go for a bit of a walk and then headed back to the ship about 30 minutes later. This was so well organized. By the time we got back to the port they had reduced the number of lifeboats so that one was docked at the ship loading, one was at the port loading and one was on its way somewhere between the ship and the port. So we had to wait a little while until we could get back on the boat. The whole process was very well organized. They checked the key cards as soon as you entered the actual port area and they had refreshments (iced water and juice) set up as well. All this was handled by NCL staff.

Shortly afterwards, we were back on the lifeboat. This time round the boat was quite full and they had also loaded two wheelchairs. The journey back seemed to feel a little rougher, but as it was only a short distance this was not a problem. The fun and games started when we had docked back at the ship. They have a wheelchair lift as there is a flight of stairs between the tender lobby and the actual gangway that you use to board the lifeboat. The disembarked the wheelchairs first. The first wheelchair was no problem. When they unloaded the second wheelchair, the lift broke down halfway up the flight of stairs. They tried to get it working again for about half an hour and nobody else could get off the boat. Once they realized that it was not going to be a quick fix. They untied the boat and moved it to the second gangway. The poor person in the wheelchair was still stuck half the way up the lift when we got back on the ship, but as we were heading up to deck 6, the chief engineer came the other way. So hopefully he managed to fix this before too long.

DH headed up to the gym and I decided to give the trivia one last go. This time they put everybody in teams. Everybody participating in the quiz was from the UK. I have to say that the questions were such that probably people from the USA would have had trouble answering them as a lot of the question seemed to be fairly localized. One question that seemed to be fairly harmless was the following: What herb is widely used in South-East Asian cooking? Seems harmless enough. All the Brits knew that the answer was coriander. Unfortunately with the quiz person being American, the correct answer was cilantro, which is the American name for the same thing. The team I was in, was the only one to get this right.

After the quiz, I headed up to the Thermal Suite one last time and it was absolutely packed, but I still spend a couple of hours relaxing. I even managed to get a heated tile lounger for a little while.

Once I had enough of the spa, I went back to our cabin to organize our luggage and get changed. We still had plenty of time before our dinner reservation at Paniolo’s so we went to look at the photos that were taken the previous night and had some more photos taken. The backdrop for that night was just plain black and they used plastic pillars as probs. They told us the photos would be ready around 21:30.

We headed up to the buffet to get some ice tea. We managed to get a table by the window and we just watched the world go by. The buffet was really quiet in the evening. There were some guest eating up there, but a lot of the tables were taken up by ship’s officers. I wish we had tried the buffet for dinner at some stage, but it just never occurred to us.


After a little while, the time for our dinner reservation approached. We headed down to deck 8. This time we did not have a window table, but that was fine by us. The food and the service was again fantastic. We both had the South-Western Egg Rolls that night and DH tried the Black Bean Soup and I tried the Tortilla Soup. We had Il Popo again for our main course. Everything was washed down with their lovely Margeritas. This time we did not leave room for dessert.

After dinner, we checked out the photos, but decided that we did not like them enough to purchase them. We headed to bed for one last sleep on the ship. Unfortunately the sea was flat calm and we were not rocked to sleep that night, but we still slept like logs.

 

[dolphingirl47]

Day 8

When we woke up bright and early the next morning, the ships was already in port. We packed the last few odds and ends and headed down for breakfast. I had expected long queues, but we were seated straight away and ended up sharing a table by the window with another couple. They did a slightly modified breakfast that morning and there were no Eggs Benedict, but I just had a normal cooked breakfast.

NCL are always advertising that they want people to relax on the last morning and in there advertising materials it suggests that people might want to have a lie in, work out in the gym or go for a last swim on the last morning. Normally the last call for people to get off the ship is 11:00, but for some reason on that particular cruise, they wanted everybody off by 9:00. This was not a problem for us as we had a 11:00 flight and our plan was to get off the ship as soon as we could. I did find this a bit strange though especially as this was only a two night cruise. I would have thought that people would have valued the extra two hours.

Normally you have two options for getting off the ship: collecting colour-coded luggage tags with each colour corresponding to a different disembarkation time or easy walk off. With the first option, you put your luggage out the night before and with the Easy Walk Off you just keep the luggage and take it with you when you are ready to get off the ship. On that particular cruise they only offer the Easy Walk Off. As this had been our plan anyway, this was fine by us.

We had left our luggage in our cabin when we headed for breakfast. When we came back to collect our stuff, the cabin had already been made up for the next people. Personally I don't really think this is on. It was not really a problem for us, but I don't think it is fair to the next people who stay in the cabin. Our stateroom host did not know where we had gone, but we might well have wanted a shower and use the toilet or the sink on our return. So this would have meant that the incoming people would not have started their cruise in a cabin that had been cleaned since the last occupants had left it. We did not do anything of the sort, but just grabbed our luggage and left.

Disembarkation was from midship on deck 6. During disembarkation, the midship elevators do not stop at deck 6. We just took the lift closest to our cabin down to deck 7, walked to midship and took the stairs down. The cruise director was by the gangway to say good bye to people, which I thoughts was a really nice touch. Our key cards were swiped and returned to us by the security staff and there was no suggestion that this was against the rules :tut-tut: We walked down the covered gangway, through the luggage hall and out to the taxi. We did not even see any customs/ immigration officials. From picking up our luggage to sitting in a taxi going to the airport, it took less than 10 minutes. This was definitely the smoothest disembarkation we have experienced so far.

 

[mandymouse]

Thanks for sharing your great Cruise trip report Corinna. I liked all your comparisons to the Disney Ships and your photos are lovely too (love the one with the dolphin ). I look forward to your next update

 

[dolphingirl47]

Next update posted. I will finish off the trip report over the weekend.

Corinna

 

[dolphingirl47]

Trip report completed.

 

[suzycute]

Great trip report - I really enjoyed reading it - sounds like you had a good time!

 

[TotallyAngelic]

HI Corinna
I have just found and read your wonderful trip report. Thanks for sharing your experiences on the Norwegian Jade and your comparisons to the Disney ships. Wonderful photos I think you spent most of the cruise in the thermal suite That mexican restaurant sounds divine. We hope to try out the rhasul therapy thingy on the Disney Magic in September ...it sounds great