NCL’s Norwegian Jewel:

A Radiant Newcomer

By Marilyn Green

The cruise industry does a superb job of bringing in ships that appeal to anyone with a capacity for pleasure. In spite of the similarities of design and policy within the major cruise lines’ ship classes, each vessel has a distinct personality, a melding of decor and service and something intangible: the spirit of the ship. Every once in a while a ship comes along that is somehow exceptional, that tickles the exact spot passengers love and has a personality that generates tremendous enthusiasm beyond its planned features. Norwegian Cruise Line’s new Norwegian Jewel is one of the radiant ones.
You can’t help feeling a little sorry for people whose first cruise is aboard the Jewel; this is going to be a hard act to follow. The ship has a childlike quality of delight, from the casino, described by more than one passenger as “the circus,” to the luscious, bright colors and irridescent fabrics. The jewel theme is repeated throughout, with sparkling collections of “gems” on the walls and screens to the spectrum of colors at the elevators and the brilliant charm of the pool deck at night.
A few steps away is a buffet that had veteran cruisers amazed. The Jewel’s Garden Cafe, Great Outdoors and Kids’ Cafe has an arrangement that allows more than 2,000 people to enjoy a remarkable abundance of selections with absolutely no lines. Even the omelet stations never had more than three people in line.
Breakfast offerings featured all sorts of hot and cold cereal, including real muesli, at least 10 kinds of fruit, waffles, French toast, pancakes, custom and pre-cooked eggs, bacon, sausages, beans, every form of pastry and spread, bagels and toast and, generally disappearing from other contemporary lines’ buffets, abundant and excellent smoked salmon and herring with all the trimmings. The Garden Cafe has another feature that brought passengers in flocks: top line Italian coffee machines that poured forth gallons of latte, cappuccino and espresso, complimentary at all hours.
“This is one of the best features we have ever introduced, along with the ice cream machines,” Klaus Lugmaier stated. “It costs so little money compared to the guest satisfaction. Passengers are constantly mentioning the free cappuccinos and lattes.”
The soft ice cream was a surprise to guests: unusually rich and delicious. Toppings included jellybeans, sprinkles and chocolate-covered peanut

Past breakfast, the Garden Cafe offers perpetual food. It has somehow perfected the art of removing elegant tea sandwiches on croissants and replacing them with full dinner selections in about 15 seconds. Lunch and dinner choices include carved meats, grilled chicken and fish, at least 10 vegetarian selections, a huge salad bar, including custom Caesar salad, and fruit, pastries and desserts that sent guests running to the fitness room.
Besides the Garden Cafe, Jewel guests crowded into Cagney’s Steak House, where the $15 per person fee is laughable for such top quality beef, chicken and salmon available with as many side dishes as each diner wishes (nobody should miss the creamed spinach) and fabulous desserts, flambéed or not. Guests in the top 46 suites can also choose breakfast or lunch at Cagney’s.
Asian dining is outstanding on the Jewel, where the line’s signature teppanyaki tables have been expanded in an attempt to meet demand. The show is as good as the food, with each chef tossing trimmings into their hats, and the limitations in seating mean that this is a good choice for advance reservations. The Sushi Bar, too, is a bargain, with miso soup and unlimited sushi of each person’s choice for $5 at lunch, $10 at dinner. Fresh and delicious Asian specialties like Peking duck crepes in the main dining area of Chin Chin brought some passengers back on a daily basis.
Mama’s Italian Kitchen is one of the most popular of the Jewel’s 10 restaurants. According to Lugmaier, the concept has been a huge hit. Like a rural trattoria, the room has long wooden tables and traditional farmhouse specialties, plus that incentive for gluttony, tiramisu.
In the main restaurants, the backlit pop art in Azura and the elaborate Russian decor of the Tsar’s Palace pleased guests. Le Bistro’s French cuisine and the tapas and Latin specialties of Tango encouraged passengers to claim the two restaurants as hangouts for the cruise.
NCL offers Cooking Light recipes in all menus, as well as culinary innovations designed by former White House executive chef Harry Haller, from Jacqueline Kennedy’s garden salad to President Lyndon Johnson’s chocolate mousse.
The line’s new restaurant management system worked extremely well on the Jewel. Adapted from the system of showing traffic on ski runs at resorts, it is designed to allow passengers to enjoy Freestyle Dining on impulse. For those who don’t want to make advance reservations, there are 17 screens in high traffic areas showing each restaurant’s current availability for parties of various sizes and the wait time. When a restaurant is full, guests are given a wait time and a pager so that they can enjoy a drink or wander about until their table is available.
To recover from the irresistible food, guests head for the Sports Deck, with basketball, volleyball and tennis courts and to the 24-hour Body Waves Fitness Center, where each piece of excellent cardiovascular equipment has its own TV. I showed up at 5 a.m., expecting to have the place to myself, only to find that at least 50 people were already there. At least a dozen had scattered mats in the aerobics and yoga area, which also holds spinning bikes, placed along a window wall that looks out on the pool deck through a waterfall feeding onto one of the swimming pools. Pilates balls, a reformer and weights are also available.
The Bora Bora Health Spa, run by Mandara, offers a full line of Eastern and Western treatments. Quite a few passengers opted for the cruise-long package in the thermal suite at $60, entitling them to steam, a plunge in the Japanese pool, thalassotherapy, etc. Special packages were offered on days when the ship was in port.
Dancing was available all over the ship, from cha cha lessons to ballroom dancing, and the disco to the exceptional house band in the Spinnaker Lounge, where passengers staked out the attractive and very comfortable stuffed fabric chaise lounges for two.
The Jewel Club Casino was filled virtually every moment it was open, with 200 video and traditional slot machines from a penny to $100, with a guaranteed 95% payback on selected machines. Besides blackjack, roulette, 3-card poker, Texas hold’em, Caribbean stud poker and craps, the ship features pai-gow poker, pai-gow tiles and even a mini baccarat table on request.
The Jewel’s Stardust Theater is one of the highlights of the ship. With the balcony area broken into individual sections, it has great charm and excellent sight lines, and the entertainment is outstanding, with some performers Broadway theaters would love to have, bringing passengers to their feet in repeated standing ovations. Magic and stage shows are varied with performances by The Second City — not a secondary company, but really wonderful comedy using some cruise material and some universal situations and doing improvisation from suggestions by the audience. During the day, movies are shown in the theater, as well as on stateroom TVs.
Another new concept for NCL is Bar Central, featuring a martini bar, champagne bar and a beer and whiskey pub, all connected. The bar area has virtual artwork on huge screens that passengers found exceptionally attractive.
The three private karaoke bars were booked often during the cruise, so guests gravitated to the FYZZ Lounge and Bar, the Star Bar with piano and the Sky High Bar, designed as a hot air balloon basket.
With all the activity, the staterooms are havens for relaxing and reading. After a long day on a shore excursion, many people, particularly families, enjoyed “ordering in” from the 24-hour room service. Guests in general were very enthusiastic about the spacious bathrooms, with their three separate areas, and about the rich wood finishes in staterooms. In-room coffee and tea makers were appreciated, as well.
Lugmaier said that the new Courtyard Villas, built around their own infinity pool, Jacuzzi, fitness room and luxurious lounging area, are packed. The two 4,390-square foot Garden Villas are booking solidly, as well. Hundreds of staterooms on board, including suites and junior suites, connect to create two, five-bedroom areas for families. Colors are as bright and joyful as in the rest of the ship and the service is warm and efficient.
The Splashdown Kid’s Club and Sapphire Kid’s Pool cater to younger cruisers, although adults sneaked onto the attractive corkscrew waterslide, just as they sneaked treats from the children’s special buffet. Club Underground for teens has a New York subway themed disco and a bank of computers; nearby is a very popular video arcade.
The Jewel has 27 wheelchair accessible staterooms; all feature collapsible shower stools mounted on shower walls. Staterooms have vibrating alarm clocks, a door beacon that flashes when someone knocks and TV with caption decoders; fire alarms feature flashing lights, as well. All staterooms have Braille text and there are dedicated wheelchair positions in the Stardust Theater. Eleven wheelchair accessible public bathrooms are located throughout the ship and there is an electric hoist for access to pools and Jacuzzis. Service animals are welcomed and an NCL crew member will tour the ship on the first day of a cruise with passengers having vision problems to help them get their bearings.

Shopping was something between entertainment and passion on our cruise, with passengers sweeping through the Galleria shops like the tide to gather duty free perfumes, alcohol and tobacco, discounted brand names watches and jewelry and signature NCL hats and T-shirts.
In spite of the very wide choice of activities on board, the Jewel is very navigable. For one thing, signage is notable. The entire contents of the ship is shown in each elevator and as a car approaches a given deck, a message over the door identifies the features of that level. In addition, NCL indicates at each bank of elevators which direction is port and which starboard, with the result that by the evening of embarkation passengers were unfailingly turning in the right direction for their staterooms, a feat usually reserved for the end of the cruise. And colorful fish worked into the hallway carpets swim down the numbers, helping passengers to easily figure out which way to walk.
The ship has a very strong appeal to both North American and international passengers. On the second cruise in the Caribbean in November, fully 1,000 internationals, mostly British and German, had booked on, and the various language groups were handled very smoothly.