Our Choctaw Casino folks "gave" us this cruise.
We had other choices even to go to Europe and others, but decided to save the air fares instead.
Norwegian Cruise Line, NORWEGIAN JEWEL (Edited to show last Health Inspection Score 98%, a very good score.)
Out of and return to New Orleans.
Stops (ports):
Cozumel, Mexico (Best jewelry shopping)
Belize City, Belize
Roatan, Honduras (BEST STOP)
Costa Maya, Mexico
WHY WE WENT ON A CRUISE:
We wanted to get away from the kids (we have a grandson living with us (2yoa) and a girl my wife babysits (2 yoa). We wanted to be away from the phones and computers. We wanted to sleep and eat whenever we wanted to without having to clean the dishes and cook.
GOAL MET: Eating and sleeping (a lot).
SHOPPING:
Laura (wife) found two sets of earrings one gold and one silver. Laura has a sister who is some kind of jeweler/sales agent, independent. Laura has thus had a good schooling in the values of diamonds, gold and silver. It was a kick to watch her get the prices in line and see the reaction to her knowledge of fine diamonds and gold and silver.
NOTE: We saw many tourists who way overpaid. The starting price of the jewelry was high, 1/3 to 1/4 of what the price should have been to be reasonable.
The prices for gold and silver were much better on the ship than on land. Diamonds were a extremely high.
GAMBLING:
Normally, what we have seen on cruises is that someone hits at least a $10,000 jackpot the first night, the word spreads, then the casino does a land office business the rest of thee trip. We did not hear of any big hits the first night.
All blackjack was dealt from a continuous shuffler, thusI didn't play.
J or B poker was 25c - 5/6 (very, very poor) to $5 - 8/5 (better but not really playable) good.
I figured that if the JOB was so bad the slots had to be worse. We each donated about $200 and called it off for gambling.
ROOM STEWARD: Darwin was very good. The only error he made was forgetting to finish making the towel animal one night. The best towel animal was the elephant. the scariest was the mouse head sticking out from under the covers.
WASHY WASHY MAN: Rowan was the washy washy man who would squirt your hand with disinfectant when you entered the main buffet area. He had a great happy attitude and made the trip even better.
SEMINARS/CLASSES
The best was in the SPA. It was misnamed, "Secrets to a flatter stomach".
The SPA GUY from South Africa was very knowledgable. This seminar told us about the Ph level (Acidity to Akaline)in people.
I will as a result have mine checked. I didn't know that being over acid could effect the following:
Arthritis
Irritable Bowel
Swollen Ankles
Difficulty Losing Weight
Migraines
Low Energy
Hormonal Imbalance
Cellulite
Digestive Problems
Slow Metabolism
Excess Stress
High Cholesterol
PMS
Skin Problems
The KEY is to DETOX to remove TOXINS from your body. (Clean up the liver and Lymph Nodes).
By the way,
Coffee is 3 the acidity scale of 0 to 16. It takes 8 glasses of water to wash away the effects of one cup of coffee.
SODA (Coke Pepsi etc) is 2.2 on the acidity scale. It takes 56 glasses of water to wash out the bad acid in a soda.
Aspertine in artificial sugars (Sweet and low etc) and is worse for you than SODA or COFFEE.
Aspertine is often found in childrens vitamins to make them sweet. (VERY BAD).
SO... I suggest you have your doctor check your Ph level (acidity) then find the proper cleanse (health food store). Edited to include: Note: I checked at my Dr. Appointment and he said Ph? So I went to the Vitamin store and found Ph test strips 90 for $12.95. (On the cruise they will test your Ph for $45 for a couple).
DANCE LESSONS:
The dance lesson was advertised as "Two Step" lesson. In Texas and when I was on the East and West coasts what he "taught" (and I use the term loosely) was three step. He gave instruction one time then played a song where he helped those who didn't get his initial instruction (almost all present) then played one other song for "practice". He left before the practice song ended. All present were disappointed.
The Spinnaker Bar was where the dancers seemed to congregate. Unfortunately, they mostly played current rock and line dances. Neither of which a couple can dance to. We are really good country dancers (couples type dancing). I don't care for line dancing.
Every night about 11 when I checked the bar it was line dances.
EATING:
There were many venues in which to eat.
I found the staff to be average as servers. There were some better servers in the "Tsar's Palace" and the Cagney's Steak House.
The clean up staff in the Garden Café (the main buffet) were above average and fast.
The style was unassigned open seating. I found that I preferred the assigned seating of the Carnival Line.
The ship had a chocolate extravaganza with many type of chocolate desserts. We got there when it opened and it was overrun with people who had overloaded their plates, so we left to do other things.
Places to eat were:
AZURA Dining Room (Main dining room)
Garden Café Buffet
Great Outdoors Snacks 2:30 to 5:30
Sky High Snacks NOON to 4pm
TSAR'S PALACE Dining Room (My favorite)
Moderno 8:00 to 10:00 am
Early Riser's 6-9 am
Blue Lagoon Snacks
COVER CHARGE APPLIES:
Cagney's Steakhouse
Chun Chin (Asian)
La Cucina (Itailian)
Le Bistro (French)
Moderno (Brazilian Meats)
Mongolian Hot Pot
Sushi Bar (Japanese)
Teppanyaki (think Benehana) (Was always full) You'd think they had been to one of these before!!
ALL TIMES:
PIZZA ($5)
Room Service
The vessel had many ways to spend money, from alcoholic drinks, "art", pictures of you taken all over the ship, stores, different gambling from bingo to raffles.
I imagine many of those who drank a lot were surprized by their bill.
BUGGED:
My wife is a smoker and in Cozumel she stepped out twice (6pm and 8pm) during the evening to our "veranda" to smoke only opening the door to go out and return. About 930 I noticed two flies divebombing me. I borrowed her flipflop and dispatched them. About 10 minutes later I started seeing mesquitoes, and other bugs. After killing 17 including two spiders, I called for help. The ship sent an exterminator and a supervisor who asked us to leave for 10 minutes so they could fumigate. They sprayed the interior of the stateroom and the veranda. In 1/2 an hour there were many dead bugs on the floor. We saw no more bugs after that, but I had them come back and spray again anyway. (This all pretty well po'd my wife [she didn't freakout]. I had seen much worse in Vietnam so I was not real concerned.
Well... the customer service department called the next day and gave us a "free" dinner and a bottle of wine. We don't drink alcohol so we kept the bottle for a regifting. We ate at Cagney's Steak house. It was great and the server was tops.
The entertainment was OK. The comedian JP was good but not great.
They would do better to have a calypso band on the pool deck.
COSTS:
We spent about $ 225 on ships jewelry and $250 on tips (billed to you at the end)
$112 parking the car (at MachuPiccu Tours NOLA)which we would recommend.
Off the ship, about $35 for silver earrings.
We have been on many cruises so we don't buy all the extras (we did like everybody else our first cruise).
FOOD QUALITY:
Excellent
Fruit was really ripe and sweet. Really good!
PASSENGERS:
3% kids (a good thing)
12% foriegners from everywhere
85% US people
14% 18 to 40
16% 40 to 60
70% over 60
30% weight normal
70% overweight
SUMMARY:
We enjoyed the food and relaxation. (I could have done another two weeks.)
Over all good!
Our next cruise will be in May out of Galveston TX on Carnival. (We like Carnival)
SCORE: Laura 2 John 0
We had other choices even to go to Europe and others, but decided to save the air fares instead.
Norwegian Cruise Line, NORWEGIAN JEWEL (Edited to show last Health Inspection Score 98%, a very good score.)
Out of and return to New Orleans.
Stops (ports):
Cozumel, Mexico (Best jewelry shopping)
Belize City, Belize
Roatan, Honduras (BEST STOP)
Costa Maya, Mexico
WHY WE WENT ON A CRUISE:
We wanted to get away from the kids (we have a grandson living with us (2yoa) and a girl my wife babysits (2 yoa). We wanted to be away from the phones and computers. We wanted to sleep and eat whenever we wanted to without having to clean the dishes and cook.
GOAL MET: Eating and sleeping (a lot).
SHOPPING:
Laura (wife) found two sets of earrings one gold and one silver. Laura has a sister who is some kind of jeweler/sales agent, independent. Laura has thus had a good schooling in the values of diamonds, gold and silver. It was a kick to watch her get the prices in line and see the reaction to her knowledge of fine diamonds and gold and silver.
NOTE: We saw many tourists who way overpaid. The starting price of the jewelry was high, 1/3 to 1/4 of what the price should have been to be reasonable.
The prices for gold and silver were much better on the ship than on land. Diamonds were a extremely high.
GAMBLING:
Normally, what we have seen on cruises is that someone hits at least a $10,000 jackpot the first night, the word spreads, then the casino does a land office business the rest of thee trip. We did not hear of any big hits the first night.
All blackjack was dealt from a continuous shuffler, thusI didn't play.
J or B poker was 25c - 5/6 (very, very poor) to $5 - 8/5 (better but not really playable) good.
I figured that if the JOB was so bad the slots had to be worse. We each donated about $200 and called it off for gambling.
ROOM STEWARD: Darwin was very good. The only error he made was forgetting to finish making the towel animal one night. The best towel animal was the elephant. the scariest was the mouse head sticking out from under the covers.
WASHY WASHY MAN: Rowan was the washy washy man who would squirt your hand with disinfectant when you entered the main buffet area. He had a great happy attitude and made the trip even better.
SEMINARS/CLASSES
The best was in the SPA. It was misnamed, "Secrets to a flatter stomach".
The SPA GUY from South Africa was very knowledgable. This seminar told us about the Ph level (Acidity to Akaline)in people.
I will as a result have mine checked. I didn't know that being over acid could effect the following:
Arthritis
Irritable Bowel
Swollen Ankles
Difficulty Losing Weight
Migraines
Low Energy
Hormonal Imbalance
Cellulite
Digestive Problems
Slow Metabolism
Excess Stress
High Cholesterol
PMS
Skin Problems
The KEY is to DETOX to remove TOXINS from your body. (Clean up the liver and Lymph Nodes).
By the way,
Coffee is 3 the acidity scale of 0 to 16. It takes 8 glasses of water to wash away the effects of one cup of coffee.
SODA (Coke Pepsi etc) is 2.2 on the acidity scale. It takes 56 glasses of water to wash out the bad acid in a soda.
Aspertine in artificial sugars (Sweet and low etc) and is worse for you than SODA or COFFEE.
Aspertine is often found in childrens vitamins to make them sweet. (VERY BAD).
SO... I suggest you have your doctor check your Ph level (acidity) then find the proper cleanse (health food store). Edited to include: Note: I checked at my Dr. Appointment and he said Ph? So I went to the Vitamin store and found Ph test strips 90 for $12.95. (On the cruise they will test your Ph for $45 for a couple).
DANCE LESSONS:
The dance lesson was advertised as "Two Step" lesson. In Texas and when I was on the East and West coasts what he "taught" (and I use the term loosely) was three step. He gave instruction one time then played a song where he helped those who didn't get his initial instruction (almost all present) then played one other song for "practice". He left before the practice song ended. All present were disappointed.
The Spinnaker Bar was where the dancers seemed to congregate. Unfortunately, they mostly played current rock and line dances. Neither of which a couple can dance to. We are really good country dancers (couples type dancing). I don't care for line dancing.
Every night about 11 when I checked the bar it was line dances.
EATING:
There were many venues in which to eat.
I found the staff to be average as servers. There were some better servers in the "Tsar's Palace" and the Cagney's Steak House.
The clean up staff in the Garden Café (the main buffet) were above average and fast.
The style was unassigned open seating. I found that I preferred the assigned seating of the Carnival Line.
The ship had a chocolate extravaganza with many type of chocolate desserts. We got there when it opened and it was overrun with people who had overloaded their plates, so we left to do other things.
Places to eat were:
AZURA Dining Room (Main dining room)
Garden Café Buffet
Great Outdoors Snacks 2:30 to 5:30
Sky High Snacks NOON to 4pm
TSAR'S PALACE Dining Room (My favorite)
Moderno 8:00 to 10:00 am
Early Riser's 6-9 am
Blue Lagoon Snacks
COVER CHARGE APPLIES:
Cagney's Steakhouse
Chun Chin (Asian)
La Cucina (Itailian)
Le Bistro (French)
Moderno (Brazilian Meats)
Mongolian Hot Pot
Sushi Bar (Japanese)
Teppanyaki (think Benehana) (Was always full) You'd think they had been to one of these before!!
ALL TIMES:
PIZZA ($5)
Room Service
The vessel had many ways to spend money, from alcoholic drinks, "art", pictures of you taken all over the ship, stores, different gambling from bingo to raffles.
I imagine many of those who drank a lot were surprized by their bill.
BUGGED:
My wife is a smoker and in Cozumel she stepped out twice (6pm and 8pm) during the evening to our "veranda" to smoke only opening the door to go out and return. About 930 I noticed two flies divebombing me. I borrowed her flipflop and dispatched them. About 10 minutes later I started seeing mesquitoes, and other bugs. After killing 17 including two spiders, I called for help. The ship sent an exterminator and a supervisor who asked us to leave for 10 minutes so they could fumigate. They sprayed the interior of the stateroom and the veranda. In 1/2 an hour there were many dead bugs on the floor. We saw no more bugs after that, but I had them come back and spray again anyway. (This all pretty well po'd my wife [she didn't freakout]. I had seen much worse in Vietnam so I was not real concerned.
Well... the customer service department called the next day and gave us a "free" dinner and a bottle of wine. We don't drink alcohol so we kept the bottle for a regifting. We ate at Cagney's Steak house. It was great and the server was tops.
The entertainment was OK. The comedian JP was good but not great.
They would do better to have a calypso band on the pool deck.
COSTS:
We spent about $ 225 on ships jewelry and $250 on tips (billed to you at the end)
$112 parking the car (at MachuPiccu Tours NOLA)which we would recommend.
Off the ship, about $35 for silver earrings.
We have been on many cruises so we don't buy all the extras (we did like everybody else our first cruise).
FOOD QUALITY:
Excellent
Fruit was really ripe and sweet. Really good!
PASSENGERS:
3% kids (a good thing)
12% foriegners from everywhere
85% US people
14% 18 to 40
16% 40 to 60
70% over 60
30% weight normal
70% overweight
SUMMARY:
We enjoyed the food and relaxation. (I could have done another two weeks.)
Over all good!
Our next cruise will be in May out of Galveston TX on Carnival. (We like Carnival)
SCORE: Laura 2 John 0
