DAY 8: COMING HOME

So here we are...the end of our cruise. Insert the biggest sad face ever here AND the biggest happy face as well for a much needed cruise and break from life.

We woke up Sunday morning and headed out to the balcony in my undies. Oops, I forgot, we're in port. I darted back in quickly and got dressed.

Ok, starting over...out to the balcony. Everything looked wet like it had been raining. Well darn. This seems to happen whenever we return to NOLA from a Christmas cruise.

I looked the other way and it seemed as it the sun "might" be trying to come out in the distance.

Boy did I turned out to be wrong in this case. 

The taxi's were all lined up and ready to make their $$.

I watched for awhile and reflected on what the day was to bring. Then I noticed this pulled up to the Jewel:

Anyone know what they were doing with it?

We decided to head up to the buffet for breakfast...our last breakfast. I felt like it was our last meal ever (or at least the last time we would be able to feast for a week like this any time in the near future).

We looked over the room one last time. The hubby double checked. We grabbed our bag and took one last look at our balcony and S-L-O-W-L-Y shut the door behind us. :tear:

We headed up to the buffet and it was hopping just like any other day and again without even more food. We leisurely ate our breakfast. We were not in any hurry to get off the ship since our flights didn't leave until after 3pm. It was raining by then.

Once we were done with breakfast, we decided even though it was raining, we were going to head out to the pool deck for a little while to relax one last time. It was very chilly. Then it started pouring...then the lighting and thunder started. I have to say it was probably the loudest thunder I have ever heard. I don't know if it was because it was bouncing off the high buildings down town, or because we were up high, or it was indeed actually the loudest storm ever.

We quickly headed inside and decided it was probably time to leave. We wanted to meet up with our Epic friends one last time and they had texted me that they were in the Fyzz lounge. We met up down there and talked for a little bit. Originally we had all thought about sending our luggage to the port and exploring a little more of NOLA. But with the weather spoiling the day, that wasn't going to happen obviously.

We decided to head down and be "escorted out" to the VIP line. Our friends followed. We were off the ship in no time and picking up our brightly colored luggage that's super easy to spot. We walked up to the port security, handed her our customs form and she smiled and said "Have a great day." I have never had customs go this quickly or this friendly. There were no desk to come up to with some intimidating person sitting behind it glaring at you as if you were a hard core criminal. They were just standing there and waving everyone goodbye. Wow. Best experience yet.

We said our goodbyes to our Epic, now Jewel friends and got a cab easily.

We checked into the airport and after standing in line forever, we were told it was too early to check in and the earliest you can check in prior to your flight would be 4 hours. I was thinking it was an hour, but it's 4 hours.

The airport was PACKED and what I hate about this airport in NOLA is that it's so huge in length and width, but yet hardly ANY chairs. They could add so many more chairs in these areas and it would we so much nicer and prevent people from having to sit (or sleep) on the floor. The chairs that they DO have are the most hideous looking, uncomfortable, worst designed chairs that ever existed. I felt sorry for this guy, he could only fit 1 butt cheek on it.

Our Epic now turned Jewel friends text me and we met up again in the airport. Their plane didn't leave until after 3 as well. So, it looked like it would be a day of just hanging out in the airport and chatting some more.

After several flights left, we were able to take possession of some comfortable chairs and Sakari sat around and played with her new big friend. They played and he was drawing pictures for her on her notebook to amuse and amaze her. After awhile, I think she wore him out because he fell asleep. She quietly sat beside him continuing to draw pictures. 

At one point our Epic/Jewel friend decided she wanted some coffee, which just happen to be at the OTHER end of the airport and in the opposite way of our flights. I had never been down that way before, so I was happy I went.

When we made it to that side, it looked really different. I couldn't believe how different it was. Now you know how I always carry my camera? Well of course I didn't think I was going to need to just to take a walk to get coffee with a friend.

The only back up would be my not so great phone. I know in this day and age people use their phone for pictures all of the time. However, for someone like me that is so into photography, a phone is a phone, a camera is a camera. I hate using a phone for pictures and the quality is horrible. But here's what you get anyhow.

They had a stage set up for music in a huge open area.

Around 3pm it was time for us to check in for our flight. Once again, we got to use the VIP line and whisk right to the other side with our shoes on and our computer in our bag still.

Once we arrived to our designation, we were informed that there was a delay because of the weather. The lighting and the storms were causing the planes to not be able to land...not only here but where our connecting flight was as well.

I have to say, the employees for Air Tran (which is who we were taking back) were very rude and cold. When I stood in line to ask a question she was really rude and instantly told me to sit down and wait because they had no idea how long the delay was. I told her all I wanted to know is if we had time to eat since we hadn't eaten since 8am. She mumbled something and shooed me away. We decided to go ahead and head back to Subway and grab a bite.

When we returned they started offering to reschedule people for the next morning flights because they had no idea how long it was going to be. We decided to wait it out. After all, it was pouring and nasty out so we wouldn't be able to do anything exciting if we were to get a room.

Luckily, our flight finally arrived a little over an hour late. We boarded the plane and hoped for the best. We were also informed (in the most negative way of course) that if we were to board the plane, it didn't necessarily mean that we were going anywhere and might sit on the runway not moving. Then of course once we made it to our connecting airport, we might be able to land...because of the same weather. So it was up to us. I understand they were being honest and giving us a choice, but it was just done in such a negative way and voice.

We were able to take off in between the lighting attacks and we were on our way. They did warn that there would be a lot of turbulence, but I didn't think it was bad other than when we were going through the clouds (which normally happens anyhow). It was beautiful once we made it above the clouds. It was like sitting on our balcony watching the sunset with the beautiful clouds and colors of the sun going away in the distance.

We were able to land with no problems and we remained on the plane for this connecting flight. I want to add that the staff on Air Tran doesn't hold a candle to the hilarious staff on Southwest. Southwest always has jokes and are some of the best people ever. Air Tran was dull and boring. No jokes, no anything. Sigh.

We were able to clear and we were off on our flight home. There was a time change (which I happened to ask one of the lovely flight attendants about if we had changed times yet... her reply, well first was to ignore me and the second time around was a "What are you talking about?!? Just what are you asking me?!?" Sigh. Ok nice lady, let me put it to you as simple as I can Blondie...It was ___ time when we left NOLA, WHAT TIME IS IT NOW??? Is that put easier for you to understand?" Yea, I'm a little agitated with her at this point and I wasn't afraid to let her know. (Other things occurred prior to this). So I got an affirmative on the time change and instead of coming in to our home town at 8:10pm, we were actually coming in at 10:30ish instead. Go us!

We arrived and was glad the day was over.

I hope you have enjoyed my review as much as I liked sharing with you.

So my final thoughts for the Jewel: 

I love cruising. There is no such thing as a bad cruise to me. I’m a true believer that you are what you make of a cruise. I try to see the best in every cruise and understand that it will never be perfect. I try to see the best in people and completely understand that people have “bad days” or “off days” and although their actions may affect my day, it will not make or break my day. I also know that given another chance, tomorrow may be completely different from the previous day. I also understand people vary in likes and experiences. You can be on the same cruise and maybe even doing the same thing…some may like it and some may not. I write my reviews based on MY experiences and likes and I do it for fun, entertainment, but most of all for the pictures to help people out searching for information. I DO NOT expect people to base their decisions on what I may or may have not liked or done. It’s only a helping tool. I myself love to research and I will read everyone’s reviews (and I especially like it if they include pictures) and make a sound choice based on my thoughts and not their experience. 

With that being said, here we go… 

My all-time favorite ship of the NCL fleet was the Epic. It was new, it was beautiful, and the entertainment was out of this world. I like the bigger ships with more to offer. That’s just me. (This would be one of the reasons I decided to try out Carnival this past year in March…it was a newer, big ship with a huge waterpark and we loved it). If/when I try the Breakaway and/or Getaway, I know they will become a favorite…just because it’s newer, bigger, and has all the upgrades with the water park and sports area. However, Epic did not have that huge grand atrium that I love.

My second favorite ship has remained the Spirit. She’s just so different than the rest of the fleet. I love her Asian flare, the nice kid’s water park area on the back and it holds a dear place in my heart because it was the first cruise we decided to take Sakari on…which of course got her hooked on cruising as much as we are. Her grand atrium was beautiful…and well, so was the rest of the ship.

In third place, I would have to say it’s the Star. Mainly because she was beautiful and had that WOW factor that I like in the grand atrium. When I cruised back in the 80’s and 90’s, that MADE the cruise ship. The Star did have some flaws (and I found several), but it did not make or break my cruise of course. I did seem to run across several needed repairs, but I still loved the ship. 

Then that brings us to the Pearl and the Jewel. Since they are sister ships, they are basically alike in many ways than not. There’s just no “wow” factor with the grand atrium only being 2 stories tall. I guess the advantage with the Pearl over the Jewel is the Pearl did have a bowling alley, which got a lot of use from us and it was an added extra. I also had my oldest daughter and her boyfriend with us on the Pearl cruise, so it was special for that reason as well. I do have to take into consideration that the Pearl cruise is where I met Kevin Sheehan at and got my picture taken with him. It’s always a special cruise when something new and exciting happens and meeting the CEO of the company was definitely one of those moments. I was like a high school kid meeting a movie star that day. Now the Jewel cruise, we were able to cruise with several friends that we have cruised with on other ships. That also made it a “special” cruise for us. We were able to cruise with friends from the Epic and friends from the Star that we have kept in contact with and it was like a reunion cruise. We also cruised with several other people from the ships we’ve been on, and they have been on my roll call, but I didn’t become close with them. L It was also a special cruise because we were able to meet new friends (the ma’ams) that I had been looking forward to and they are just lovely people! So it’s kind of hard to pick which ship wins on this one and I will call it a tie. 

Some of the PROS to the ship: 

Since we had been on the Pearl, this ship felt “familiar” to us, which was nice. We knew the layout and it was easier to maneuver around this time.

Our roll call was a huge success-we had 101 members actually show.

Check in at the port was probably the fastest I have ever experienced. Debarkation was just as fast.

Port security was the friendliest and quickest ever and so informal.

I had VIP status, which made things really nice. The nice little snack plates, the VIP tendering, entrance into the chocolate buffet, VIP invitations to party’s. It was a nice little added touch…for no rhyme or reason. (We also received VIP for no reason on the Pearl…maybe these sisters like me?).

WE HAD A BALCONY!! Well, what more can you say right? This was an experience of a lifetime for us and although I could say that we’re hooked, it doesn’t mean I’ll be able to book another one on our next cruise…but it sure would be nice. We loved the location of the balcony and the way it was kind of enclosed blocking all of the air that a normal balcony has. 

We had wonderful weather during the cruise. Maybe not when we returned, but while we were gone, it was wonderful.

The staff was friendly, as they usually are on every cruise. They are always cleaning and keeping things in tip top shape. They always have a smile on their face and laughing and dancing while trying to make your cruise a good experience. It’s kind of amazes when you think about how they just did this to all of the new people the week before and then they do it all over again week after week with new people. They make it feel like it’s their first cruise and they are so excited to be doing what they are doing. I know this takes a special kind of person. For me, it would get old, so I’m not that person that could ever do the job they do. They work hard to please and make it enjoyable. That’s one thing I love about NCL.

The shows at night in the theater are always great. Their Cirque show was absolutely fabulous. I can’t say enough good things about NCL’s entertainment. Yes, this time around I didn’t find the ventriloquist too funny, but it is different than what you would get on a Carnival cruise for sure. 

I think the food is pretty good. I definitely don’t go hungry. Actually, I can’t imagine going hungry on any cruise. There’s always such a great variety to choose from and if you can’t find something, maybe you don’t belong on a cruise. Since we have tried the specialty restaurants on the other NCL ships, we didn’t find a need to do any on this one and I am perfectly happy with that. I might add that the pretzel rolls are still to die for! Also, this time around they not only had the rolls and the logs of pretzels, but they also added an actual pretzel too…like in a pretzel shape. That was the first time I had seen that before. We also can’t forget the crepe station…one of my favorites! 

Hats off to the staff that are always there to help when you need it. This will be the second cruise that a staff member in the buffet has noticed that I have a young daughter and trying to hold two plates in the buffet and they came along with a tray and helped me. Just a nice little added touch. She also reminded me of the La Cucina being open to eat at and even served us drinks while we ate. 

We noticed something new this cruise (it’s little, but it shows they go the “extra” mile), they are now making the toilet paper “fancy” by folding the edges of them into a point. We noticed that the hotels do this when they clean and so does Carnival. Like I said, nothing big, but just a little added touch I noticed this time around. 

This was the FIRST cruise that our room steward allowed us to keep all of the towel animals the entire cruise. Sakari liked this and loved her collection of “friends”. It also gave Trixie someone to keep her entertained while we were away.

I have always noticed that NCL is very thoughtful and we have left port many times late waiting on passengers that are missing. They at least try to give them a chance to make it back to the ship in time. I have read so many horror stories about people being left in port, and it’s your own fault, but NCL will make announcement after announcement, trying to locate people missing and many times wait for them. This cruise would be no exception.

The Nick Jr staff was excellent. They were so spunky and got the kids so excited. Sakari loved this cruise and the characters and party’s they had. It’s definitely an added plus if you have kids. They have so many opportunities to have your pictures taken with the characters and the dance party at the end was wonderful. It’s also nice that they do allow you to take your own pictures as well (even though all you get is a green background). I wish they had this on all of the ships. 

The kids club was wonderful as always. They always have the best activities planned for the kids with a theme for every day. The kids love the parades and the circus show at the end is a favorite of Sakari’s. Since Sakari has an unusual name, they usually learn her name fairly quickly in the cruise. She always comes home with an activity folder of things that she had made during the cruise. 

Slime Time was also a positive experience to the cruise and hilarious to watch. Getting audience members to help with the games got the kids excited and next time, we will know what to expect and so will Sakari when they pick her. 

One port day, after finishing breakfast in the buffet, we witnessed the staff doing life drills in the pool. They were swimming across the pool and had a huge blow up thing at the end and where trying to climb up it and doing drills. This was the first time I have ever seen this (which I’m sure they do this during port time of course when most people are off the ship), but it was nice to see they practice…just in case. 

CONS: 

We were sailing at full capacity and I don’t think I have ever been on a NCL ship when it’s a full capacity before (at least it never seemed like this before).

The buffets this time were absolutely horrid when it come to the amount of people. Finding a place to sit was next to impossible. After a few days, they seem to run out of things like the cereal selection. By the end of the cruise, there were not many choices. We also didn’t find the little small cartons of milk much this cruise. They had them in the beginning, but they quickly went away. The milk station was a joke and a hit or miss, with most days they were running out of milk. They also could not keep up on the food a lot of times. When something ran out (especially the round hash browns in the mornings), they were not quickly replaced. They seemed under staffed this cruise for some reason and was either just not prepared for the amount of people on this cruise this time around or they just didn’t have enough staff to keep caught up. 

The MDR’s were a mess with wait times. I mean a mess. It’s the longest I have ever had to wait for food on a NCL ship. It caused us to miss shows we wanted to attend and kind of messed up our schedules on the nights we went. For that reason, we only dined once in each place. I have found the service in the MDR seems to be declining over the last few cruise with each time getting a little slower and slower. I’m not sure what is going on here. The fact that they had given my daughter her starter, meal and desert before we were even served our first starter was a complete screw up in my book. We want to eat together as a family, not have our daughter finished with everything and being bored and wanting to leave before we even get to eat. This made things challenging to keep her entertained and another reason I prefer the buffet over MDR for meals. I’m a buffet type of person. I like going in, seeing what my food looks like ahead of time to know if it’s going to appeal to me, grabbing what I want, sitting down and eating, and being able to go back to get more of the items that I really enjoyed. That’s just me.

Love the food at the Blue Lagoon and it’s always a nice way to grab a bite to eat any time you want with a great variety of things to choose from. However, I don’t know what the issue with the artichoke dip was the night they tried and tried to get it right. This may be an isolated incidence. I’m not sure since I didn’t try it again. For the most part, we love the Blue Lagoon. Their cheesecake is to die for! The “new homemade fries”…well those were not the greatest either. 

The new ice-cream police-really? Not cool. I don’t know what the reason behind this was (probably some unruly kids making a mess or something), but now you can only get ice cream when someone is stationed there. This is as bad as the bacon police on Carnival. Geesh.

Our room Stewart…ugh. He was the worse we had ever had on a cruise. I have to say that all of my previous cruises, our room stewards were like ninja’s. I swear they were in and out cleaning several times a day. Honestly! We would go to breakfast and come back and our rooms would be cleaned. We would come back later in the day and change for swimming, cleaned again. Come back before dinner, cleaned again. They are just cleaning fools I tell ya. Well not this room steward. He cleaned our balcony maybe twice during the entire cruise. He would forget to empty the trash cans. He wouldn't replace used glasses. He wouldn’t remove glasses brought from outside the room from different venues for about 2 days. He even left one of the VIP trays in our room for 2 days. There were 2 items on it that we didn’t eat and obviously wasn’t going to eat, but it still took him 2 day to remove it. I can’t imagine him thinking we were saving it for later…especially since it had laid out for days. Ewww. I can only confirm that they cleaned the room twice a day (which is probably the standard of what they are supposed to do, but not the “norm” that I have found on the other NCL cruises). We would come back to our room around 2:30pm and the room would still not be made up from the morning…and this happened every sea day. In the evenings, it was very late before our beds were turned down and cleaned. Thank goodness we did not come back and go to bed early with our little one, otherwise we would not be coming back to a clean room or a bed for Sakari made (from the couch). This will also be the first cruise where we did not have a towel animal on the first night. I know towel animals aren’t a big deal to some, but to Sakari, it is…and she remembered. Also the fact that we met him while we were first checking in to our room, and he knew we had a young daughter, and then he proceeded to ask us 2 days later if we “still needed the couch turned into a bed at night” left me dumbfounded.

The issue with the sliding glass door continuously being unlocked every night (even when the balcony was not cleaned) is still a mystery to me. There was even one night it was left opened. Um ok. I realize that you would be risking your life if you tried to come across the ship from an adjacent room to get into someone else’s room, but still, it made me feel uneasy.

Our room steward forgot to give us our ship pin. Grrrr!!!! 

I also didn’t like that our room steward left this huge black cushion (which I have learned now that this was the extension to the bed) in front of our sliding glass doors the ENTIRE cruise. It was never put away and made it so that we couldn’t open our curtains fully the entire time. Now that I know what this cushion is, I will make sure any future cruises in a balcony, this item will be put away somewhere during the day! 

Every once in a while you could smell a sewage smell at night. I’m not sure what this was about, but I heard several people mention it and have also seen others mention it in their review that was on our ship this week. I personally have sinus problems and don’t smell good to begin with, so I did smell it several times, but it wasn’t strong to me. We did not smell it in our room thank goodness. 

The “new” latitudes program. People had mentioned how they changed it that you no longer get a percentage off your total purchases in the gift shops anymore and NCL’s site mentions you get a 10% discount off 1 NCL item during your cruise. I think this is crappy, but what can you do. I do have a PRO here, they did discount ALL of my NCL items the entire cruise, not just 1 item. 

We found that almost everything on this cruise was running late. The shows would start later than they were supposed to, getting off the ship was late one day, just late, late, late on things. Not that it made a difference to me when it came to the shows; we were enjoying ourselves no matter what.

If anyone read my review of the Star, you would have noticed that I found several places on the ship that the carpet had a “bump” in it where it was no longer glued down. I did find 2 places on this ship as well like that. I remember others on the ship (Star) saying “well we never came across anything like that”…well just because you didn’t, doesn’t mean I didn’t. I even took a picture of it. LOL But there were 2 places on this ship that I found the same thing. I can tell you one place was in the gift shop, toward the back in the jewelry section. It caught me off guard. I don’t remember where the other place was, but I had to laugh when I showed the hubby. But everything else on the ship seemed to be in excellent working order and repair (minus the 1 bathroom I came across that was out of order the entire cruise). 

The meet & greet-I have to say it was the first time that I had encountered the coordinator asking me for my plans and the way she made me feel was very off and ashamed that I had no agenda. I was also a little disappointed that they didn’t offer a bridge tour or something. Before, it seemed like when we have such a good turnout at a meeting, they usually offered something extra. Not this time around. But each ship is different. I also didn’t like the way they had arranged the chairs in rows, making it hard for everyone to get in and out. They were very close together. It made it feel a little too formal and it felt like we were sitting in church. It was hard to sit around and talk to people or get to know them this way. Everyone scattered like flies when it was over. L I think this was the first time that the Captain had not attended one of our meet and greets.

Latitudes party-issue with the waiter never making it to us with the drinks, or running out before they ever got to us only to start over back at the beginning and repeating the process. This was also the case with the snacks. There wasn’t much to pick from once they DID make it to us. Once again…under staffed? 

The only rude worker we came across was the guy in the gift shop 1) not knowing his product and lying to me 2) telling me to go to the dressing room to try on a jacket and just having an attitude with me.

The ONLY gripe I have about the kids club is them not informing you of the events that day…like when they will have a parade (starting time so that you can look for them) or the fact that they went into the theater one night and got on stage and did a dance (which we missed because we didn’t know about it). If they would just inform the parents of these things, it would be nice to know about them so that we could catch our precious little ones doing something they are proud of. 

I guess the other gripe with the kids club (and not the staff) is the policy NCL developed of closing it from 12-2pm & 5-7pm. While I understand the “need” for this and the reasons why, it’s not practical for all families…especially ours. We are night owls, not morning people. It completely messes up our days. We eat breakfast late, so by the time they are closing the kids club (for you to feed your child lunch), we have just eaten and Sakari is not hungry at those times. The same goes for the afternoon (dinner) closing. We have usually just eaten lunch and she isn’t hungry for dinner. We usually eat a later dinner, but were forced to eat early the entire cruise…meaning that by the time she was picked up from the kids club, we were starving again. It’s just inconvenient times for us that’s all and does not coincide with our schedules.

Tendering + Cozumel + the busiest port to choose from = disaster. I will still never understand why NCL would decide to tender us from 1) a different port than the rest of the NCL ships & 2) pick the port that has the most cruisers at. I’m still shaking my head at this one. 

Well, that’s all I can think of at the moment. Don’t get me wrong, we loved this cruise and it was a much needed cruise for us. It’s been a rough year with schooling and work and we had a great time. We had a blast with our cruising friends and it was definitely a special cruise for us. My review is only an opinion and based on my experience. Keep this in mind.