Janet LeBlanc
Itinerary: Baltic
Sailing Date: June 27th, 2009
Age: 58
Occupation: Art History Professor and Cruise Coordinator
Number of Cruises: 9
NORWEGIAN JEWEL BALTIC CRUISE
We just returned from a 12-night Baltic Cruise
aboard Norwegian Jewel. This was our family’s 9th
cruise (4 on Norwegian, 3 on Royal Caribbean, and 1 each
on Celebrity and Carnival). In our group we had 20
people traveling, 18 of whom “did the cruise together,”
and a mother and daughter who preferred to spend time
alone outside the group. Of the 18 who hung out
together, we had 2 grandparents in their early 80’s, 7
seasoned adults (late 40’s to early 60’s traveling with
their kids), 4 young adults in their early 20’s (all
single), and 5 teenagers between 14 and 17.
PRE-CRUISE:
While it’s possible to fly transatlantic overnight
and make your way to Dover to board the ship in one
Herculean effort, this didn’t appeal to our group as
we’d be starting the cruise exhausted. Instead, one
family flew to London several days ahead to do some
sightseeing, and the rest of us flew to London two days
before the cruise. This gave us an overnight in London
to collect our wits and start recovering from jet lag,
and then we took the train to Dover and spent a night
there before boarding the ship.
TIP: We selected a hotel near Victoria Station in
London to help reduce the friction factor of travel.
Victoria Station is the collective melting pot for the
Gatwick Express Train, the Heathrow Airport Coach, and
the train to Dover. By staying at a hotel within easy
walking distance of Victoria Station, we never had to
worry about finding enough taxis to move a large group
and their bags about town, nor did we have to haul our
cruise luggage up and down stairs between platforms in
the London Underground. The Tube is enormously
convenient if you are traveling light, but it would be a
nightmare to negotiate with large suitcases. Keep that
in mind when you make your travel arrangements. There
are several reasonably priced small hotels and guest
houses near Victoria Station; contact me if you would
like more information.
In Dover we stayed at the Churchill Hotel (managed by
Best Western) which has the perfect location right down
on the waterfront and which offered us a good price for
a comfortable night’s rest (beware of the sea gulls; our
friends left their bedroom window open and went out to
eat, then returned to discover a wily gull had
apparently popped in and enjoyed unwrapping and eating
their tea biscuits, leaving crumbs all over the bed!).
STATEROOMS:
Norwegian Jewel is a beautiful ship; this was our
second cruise on Jewel. We also sailed a 12-night
Mediterranean Cruise on this ship in 2007. Our group
was divided between interior and oceanview staterooms.
The balcony cabins are a little larger, but we all
managed in the smaller rooms which are cramped, but well
designed with good storage space if you follow a couple
simple rules. #1) Don’t try to live out of your
suitcase. Unpack as soon as your bags are delivered;
put things away in the closet and drawers, then stash
your suitcases under the bed. #2) Repack dirty clothes
that you do not plan to wear again as you go instead of
allowing them to pile up around your cabin. This will
also make your packing at the end of the cruise a breeze
because most of it will already be done.
TIP: I bring Downy dewrinkler spray in travel sized
bottles (available at Wal-Mart) to keep our clothes
wrinkle-free, but on this cruise NCL was offering some
very good discount prices to press clothes, so a couple
of the guys got some of their shirts pressed - $2 per
shirt I believe it was.
While the interior and oceanview rooms are on the cozy
side, the bathroom design on NCL is better than most
other ships in this class. The showers have a glass
door (no icky shower curtain that sticks to you while
allowing water all over the bathroom floor), and there
is decent counter space for toiletries. A hairdryer is
provided, and the electricity is wired for 110 small
appliances. I believe there was a plug for 220 as well
(please check on that to be sure).
FREESTYLE DINING:
There are two main dining rooms with open seating for
dinner (NCL’s signature “Freestyle” Dining). Tsar’s
Palace is the larger and dressier of the two, while
Azura is smaller and more informal, although guests are
requested to not wear jeans or shorts at night
(especially Tsar’s Palace and the specialty
restaurants). We found to our disappointment, however,
that despite posting the dress code in the Freestyle
Daily, the rules were not well enforced on this cruise
(two years ago the dress code was enforced on Jewel,
which made the dinners onboard more pleasant). Both
main dining rooms serve the same menu on any given day.
We made reservations for the first formal night (Tsar’s
Palace) and also for a surprise birthday party for my
husband (Azura), but otherwise never had reservations in
the main dining rooms, and never had to wait to be
seated despite that we regularly had a sizable group
eating together. If I had one criticism of the main
dining rooms, and I offer this reluctantly, it was that
the service was slower and uneven on this cruise by
comparison to two years ago. The exception was my
husband’s birthday party where the staff in Azura could
not possibly have knocked themselves out more to make it
a success. Otherwise it seemed as if the main dining
rooms were a bit short staffed, and my hunch is that
this is a cost savings measure on the part of the cruise
line as they tough out the recession like the rest of
us. We paid a little less for this cruise than we did
for our 12-night cruise on the same ship exactly two
years ago, and I don’t know about you, but I am paying
more these days for just about everything from gas to
food at home compared to a couple of years back. The
travel industry is trying very hard to weather the
storm, and in the process they surely must be forced to
cut a few corners here and there to stay afloat while
offering folks like you and me a swell vacation, and
doing it at a price cut. All in all the meals in the
main dining rooms were delicious and the staff was bo!
th cordial and attentive.
Jewel also has a cafeteria style buffet, alfresco dining
at the Great Outdoors, Blue Lagoon is open 24 hours a
day for burgers, chicken fingers and fish and chips fare
(the teenagers and twenty-somethings regularly went
there for a “second supper” in the wee hours of the
morning after dancing the night away at the disco), and
a tapas bar that serves light fare if you are not
especially hungry. These are all included in the price
of your cruise. Additionally there are a number of
specialty restaurants onboard, each with a modest cover
charge: Mama’s Kitchen Italian, Tango’s TexMex, Chin
Chin Asian with an adjacent Sushi Bar, Teppanyaki
Japanese (like Benihana or Kanpai of Tokyo), Le Bistro
French and Cagney’s Steak House. We ate at both Le
Bistro and Cagney’s on this cruise and both were
excellent. The doting service was measurably better
than the main dining rooms, but of course, for a cover
charge one expects better. On our 2007 cruise on Jewel
we tried Tango’s (immense burritos) and Mama’s, the
latter not being as splendid in our opinion as
Impressions Italian restaurant on Norwegian Dawn. There
are electronic boards throughout the ship that offer
updates on seating availability so that in a pinch you
can check to see which dining room or restaurants are
full and which have room for your party. Two families
in our group were able to make last minute reservations
at Teppanyaki (one family even went twice!), which is
often the hardest specialty restaurant to nab because of
its small size and the “show” that goes along with
dinner.
Breakfast and lunch are offered in a dining room (Tsar’s
Palace I believe?) but we preferred to eat at the Great
Outdoors. There was always a substantial selection of
tasty dishes available plus fresh fruits, made to order
omelets at breakfast, and salads at lunch. We enjoyed
The Great Outdoors, even if it was just for a cup of
coffee or tea, taking in the fresh air and the passing
sights. Freestyle Dining worked like a charm on this
cruise.
TRAVELING WITH KIDS:
Although we still have teenagers in our group, none of
them used the teen center on this cruise as they are all
“veteran cruisers” and have no trouble meeting others
their age onboard. Having offered that caveat,
Norwegian ships offer a marvelous staffed program for
kids from toddlers through teens divided by age group.
My own kids claim that they have enjoyed the best
counselors on NCL ships. Note also that while most
cruise lines start their little kids’ program at 3 years
old and potty trained, NCL has organized programs for
2-year olds where parents are given a beeper to be paged
when needed for a diaper change (no staff on any cruise
line can change diapers due to health regulations). All
cruise lines end their teen program at age 17, which can
often leave the 18-20 year old crowd in limbo … they
cannot participate in the teen activities, but they are
also not allowed in the adult venues either. On most
NCL ships (I believe the exceptions are Alaska and
Hawaii where the ships remain in US waters) your 18-20
year olds are allowed to hang out in the adult disco and
bars and if you sign a consent form, they are permitted
to have beer and wine onboard (no hard alcohol).
Perhaps we are lucky, but our kids in this age bracket
have not abused this privilege and they have a terrific
time joining in with the early 20’s crowd dancing and
going to the clubs at night.
NCL initiated a change in their booking policy on this
cruise which caused considerable last minute heartburn
for our group. In the past we have been able to book
our kids in the cabins next door to the parents. We
have sailed NCL for years and never had any trouble
reserving 3 and 4 staterooms for a large family; in
fact, this is one of the reasons we liked NCL. When I
set up this group last November, that booking policy was
still in place. When I went to pay all the final bills
in April, however, I discovered the policy had changed,
and now NCL is requiring all staterooms to have someone
over 21 booked in each cabin (I was told that this has
always been the policy, but I know for a fact that this
is not the case as we are not newcomers to NCL). This
new policy is a nightmare for large families because we
need more than 2 staterooms for a family with only 2
parents over 21. In the end we had enough people in the
group to shuffle folks around on paper, sometimes
placing people who had never even met in the same cabin
in order to show somebody over 21 in with each under 21
passenger (all involved were people we knew ahead of the
cruise who agreed to this of course), but what if we had
not had a surplus of older people in our group? Would
we have had to cancel our cruise at the last minute? As
it was, once onboard, it was like an episode from a Pink
Panther spoof with people swapping rooms the first
afternoon – crazy! I am hoping NCL will come to their
senses and change back to their former policy (and
change the online check-in which they have also monkeyed
with, to the detriment of family travel). NCL is in
every other way so well suited to families; it would be
a shame to have to cross them off my list, giving all
our business to Royal Caribbean and Celebrity (among
others) who remain family-friendly in their booking
policies.
ENTERTAINMENT:
Norwegian has the best entertainment at sea, and Jewel
was excellent both this year and back in 2007 too. We
have seen superb magicians, jugglers, comedians, and
singers in the main theater, plus they always have a
quiet piano bar or guitarist (our cruise had both)
playing in one bar or another throughout the evening.
The pianist, Michael Chio, in particular was wonderful –
nobody whispered a word over drinks when he played
Phantom of the Opera. In addition to their main shows,
often the entertainers put on a cabaret on another night
in a smaller venue, such as a magician act doing a big,
glitzy show one night in the theater, and then a more
intimate sleight of hand cabaret for a smaller audience
in a lounge another night.
The Jean Ann Ryan Company put on performances like you
will see nowhere else at sea. Most cruise ships have
competent Broadway / Las Vegas style reviews, but in my
experience, not up to what you will see from the Jean
Ann Ryan Company. On the 12-night cruise they put on
two high energy shows with singing, dancing, and some
gymnastics. But where they really shine is their
cirques; on Jewel it’s the Cirque Bijou. Gymnasts fly
overhead, East European aerialists are exquisitely agile
and graceful, and the singing and dancing are
spectacular – everything from Latin to Bollywood to
Irish Riverdance. Bravo!
Norwegian Jewel also has its own show band onboard (no
canned music for theater shows like on some ships). On
our cruise we were delighted to discover the band was
Rama 111 from Poland. We had seen them before
(Norwegian Majesty, Christmas Cruise 2006), and we were
so impressed then that we bought their CD. They are
apparently quite well known in Eastern Europe as they
play all the jazz festivals there. As a show band they
can play anything from country to Broadway and pack a
wallop, but we were especially glad that they had
occasions on our cruise to play a few sets in Spinnakers
- big band one day, jazz or bossa nova another – a
welcome change for many of us from the rock and roll
band (Crossroads) that played more often than not at
night in that club.
There was also a string quartet on the cruise which
played classical selections (unfortunately often in the
Atrium Lounge which is too noisy with people passing
through – a pity because the quartet was quite good),
and a Latino guitar trio that offered a wide range of
music in their sets. On Norwegian Jewel there is a wide
variety of entertainment to carry you through until
about 1am daily, and after that usually the only people
still going strong are the younger generation tearing it
up dancing in Spinnakers at the late night disco.
ONBOARD ACTIVITIES:
We enjoy participating in the trivia competitions,
which usually got a good turn out on this cruise. Bingo
also attracted a crowd, although that isn’t our scene,
nor is the casino. In fact one of the things that I
appreciate about the design of Norwegian Jewel is that
the casino is completely self-contained, and you are not
obliged to walk through it to get places like on most
ships. Norwegian doesn’t go in for cultural or
naturalist talks onboard like some cruise lines
(Celebrity comes to mind) and we would go if talks of
this type were offered. They did have assorted seminars
on wine / beer / and martini tasting. We did the
martini class and it was fun, not to mention getting a
bit loopy sampling the drinks. Two of the most
accomplished Jean Ann Ryan dancers, Svetlana and Roman,
offered dance lessons. We attended one session and they
did a first class job. There was lots of humor to keep
it fun, and they didn’t skimp on offering detailed
instruction with personal attention. I have remembered
the steps (now if my husband will join me on the dance
floor we may have accomplished something!). I could do
without all the overhead loud speaker announcements, but
given that sometimes people even in our own group hadn’t
read their Freestyle Daily, I guess half the ship would
never know anything that was going on if they didn’t
make announcements. We also found that the ship seemed
to always have muzak playing … I don’t remember that
from our cruise on Jewel in 2007, and we preferred the
quiet over hearing recorded background music all the
time. Here’s some information on the ports of call:
COPENHAGEN: On European itineraries we tend to
wing it rather than book cruise line shore excursions.
In Copenhagen we walked over to Tivoli; the adults
enjoyed a light lunch while the kids did some rides.
Then we went to Nyhavn and did a canal cruise. It was
enjoyable, but Copenhagen is a large city and we
discovered we spent a fair amount of time just getting
from here to there, hobbling over cobblestones past lots
of buildings that we often could not identify. The
grandparents did the HoHo (Hop On Hop Off double-decker
bus) and I think they got the better deal in
Copenhagen. In addition to being taken round to see the
narrated highlights of the city, they had a convenient
stop at Nyhavn for everyone who wanted to take the canal
cruise or enjoy a canal side pub, then hop back on the
bus to the port. For $25 (US) the HoHo here is a good
deal – take it.
WARNEMUNDE: We loved this port of call!
Hundreds of people opted for pilgrimages into Berlin,
and I use the word pilgrimage advisedly because the trip
is long and arduous (that night onboard it was dead as a
doornail. If the Berlin folks were not penitents
setting out for the journey, they perhaps wished they’d
done something else in port as they collapsed from
exhaustion after). About half our group got up and out
early enough to catch the ferry to Rostock and we had
fun there. The kids played at a city park (teenagers
and 20-somethings having a hoot – helped to offset that
none of them had a decent night’s sleep the night
before), we walked the city walls and ate lunch outdoors
in the beautiful old Hanseatic town square, then paid a
visit to the maritime museum. Warning – they don’t
speak English at the museum. Fortunately my husband
speaks German and one of the staff was delighted to give
us a private tour. We returned to Warnemunde
mid-afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed this wonderful
little seaside resort village; the other half of our
group spent the entire day there. We swilled a couple
pints at the sidewalk cafes and met some German couples
who were either there on holiday, or were catching an
Aida cruise from Warnemunde the following day. This is
a charming, relaxing port. Unless you just have to get
to Berlin right now for some reason, skip it on the
cruise, and take your trip to Berlin another time. It’s
a LONG way from Warnemunde.
TALLINN: Another absolutely delightful town. We
were fortunate to arrive on a sunny, warm day with a
marvelous youth orchestra playing in the town square.
We pulled up chairs at a sidewalk café and stayed awhile
over refreshments to enjoy the performance, which was
outstanding (mostly violins and accordions – hundreds of
them). Tallinn’s old town is a magical fairy tale place
full of turrets and pointy roofed skinny buildings along
narrow, twisty cobblestone streets. It’s small so you
can’t get lost, and each turn offers more eye candy to
those of us whose countries (US and Canada) only date
back a few centuries. Tallinn was a Hanseatic town,
like Rostock, but more of the original medieval city
remains intact here (it helps that it wasn’t bombed to
smithereens during World War II). Make the most of your
visit by having lunch at Olde Hansa. The restaurant has
no (apparent) electricity – it’s dark inside with
candles and the menu is about as medieval as the
atmosphere – we loved it:
http://www.oldehansa.com/oldemail/OldeHansa_short.mpeg
SAINT PETERSBURG: This is the one port of call
where I would NOT recommend you try to wing it. First
of all, you would have to obtain a visa to do so, and
then what? You are docked in an industrial port many
miles from anything you want to see, and at each
attraction you will stand in line for hours while those
of us on tours zip right in ahead of the throngs of
independent visitors. My recommendation is that you do
as we did and book a private tour. It cost us about
half what the cruise line shore excursions charge (we
paid $260 for 2 full days; $234 for those with student
IDs and also for our octogenarian grandparents), plus we
had a comfortable midi-van for 20 people with a private
guide rather than a big bus with at least twice that
many people being herded about. We used Natalia at
Guide Guru and I would recommend her highly (feel free
to mention my name):
http://www.guide-guru.com/
I was able to work with Natalia to customize our tour
(impossible with a cruise line shorex) so we got to see
exactly what we wanted to see for the amount of time at
each place that suited us. The first day we spent the
morning at Catherine’s Palace and the afternoon seeing
the gardens and fountains at Peterhof plus the inside of
Montplaisir, and ended the day with a stop at Saint
Isaac’s Cathedral before heading back to the ship. An
evening program was available but we passed on it
because we knew the older members of our party would be
tired, and the teens and 20-somethings would want to
enjoy the social activities onboard the ship in the
evening. The second day we did a bus tour of the Nevsky
Prospekt, took in a long visit at the Church of Our
Savior on Spilled Blood, then visited the Hermitage for
a few hours and topped off the day with a relaxing canal
cruise.
There has been much discussion about cruise ships making
life difficult for passengers who book private tours, so
heads up on this matter! Natalia warned us about it,
and true enough hundreds of people on OTHER cruise lines
have been hassled if they did not book shore excursions
with the ship. I am pleased to say that Norwegian is
one of the very few cruise lines which did NOT interfere
with us trying to disembark and join our tour as soon as
we docked. Evidently most other cruise lines have been
telling their passengers that the Russian authorities
insist that they clear all the cruise line shore
excursions through immigration before allowing any
private tours or independent travelers to disembark.
This is baloney! It’s a perk the ship is offering to
passengers who bought their tour from the cruise line at
the expense of others; it has nothing to do with Russian
immigration policy (they could not care less whether you
are on one tour or another so long as your documents are
in order). On Norwegian Jewel those who had private
tours were asked to use one gangway and NCL tours use
another, but as far as I could tell this was mostly to
help them keep their own tours organized as groups.
Immigration the first day was slow for everyone, but we
were being processed just the same as everyone else. On
other cruises I have read that passengers were delayed
by as much as 2-3 hours before being allowed to
disembark. I would be livid!
HELSINKI: I am sure Helsinki is on the itinerary
due to its convenient location, but in my opinion there
isn’t enough here to warrant a full day of sightseeing.
Since there wasn’t a priest on our cruise
(disappointing, as in the past we have had priests on
our NCL cruises), we spent our Sunday morning seeking
out and attending Mass. Fortunately the church was
located along the HoHo bus route so that’s what we did,
although in 20/20 hindsight the HoHo here is expensive
(25 euros or $35 and change at today’s exchange rate)
and frankly not worth it because there is so little to
see, and the docks are not that far out for most folks
(not the elderly) to just walk into town. After Mass we
wandered through town and saw the humungous Lutheran
Cathedral (very plain – not worth the hike up all those
stairs unless you are into huge, plain white
buildings). From there we walked over to the lovely
conservatory-styled Kappeli Cafe near the gardens. It’s
charming, but OUCH, I paid about $100 bucks for four of
us to have a snack / light lunch (ie a croissant filled
with tuna salad or a slice of pie) with coffee or
cokes. We then strolled over to Uspenski Cathedral
(Russian Orthodox) which was beautiful, though small
after the spectacular churches we visited in Russia. We
took the HoHo out to the rock-cut church (Temppeliaukio)
but it was closed so we didn’t get to go inside. All in
all we exhausted Helsinki in a couple of hours. It was
very clean, which was nice, and everything was in tip
top repair (given how expensive everything was, small
wonder they have the resources to keep the place tidy
and maintained), but I could enjoy similar countryside
vistas visiting Wisconsin, and find livelier pubs there
at a better price. If I had my druthers we would have
skipped Helsinki and gone straight to Stockholm,
spending the extra day (or even just an extra half day)
with an overnight there instead.
STOCKHOLM: I was worried that with a 4pm sailing
time we would be cut short here as we could have easily
spent two days at this port. In the end, how much you
will have time to see depends on where you are docked,
and if you are planning a Baltic Cruise, this is one of
the questions you need to ask. We were docked at
Stadsgarden which is right in the center of town. It
could not possibly have been a better location. Many
cruise ships however, including Norwegian Jewel in 2010
I believe, dock at Nynashamn which is way the heck
outside of Stockholm (it really shouldn’t be called
Stockholm at all it’s that far away). Check them out on
Google Earth and you will see what I mean. In our case,
we were in the heart of the city, and the HoHo ferry (a
real bargain at something like $12 or $13 per person)
docked literally about 30 feet from the bow of our
ship. The HoHo circuit runs continually at half hour
intervals with stops at most of the places anyone would
want to visit. We spent half a day at the Vasa Museum
(the actual 1628 galleon raised from the sea - it’s a
magnificent ship to behold and the accompanying museum
exhibits are superb) and then had to choose whether to
do the Nordic Museum next door, or Skansen, or Gamla
Stan, and opted for the latter. It was a very
low-stress fun day.
Once back onboard we understood why we set sail at 4pm
rather than crowding the dinner hour. The sail away
through the Stockholm Archipelago was magnificent, and
it goes on for hours before the ship reaches open
water. We nabbed prime seats up in Spinnakers, and the
views were awesome. Sometimes the shipping channel cut
in so close to wee little islands that it seemed like we
were cruising through people’s front yards; on one
occasion a couple of pugs came out to bark at the
passing ship, the way dogs do at cars back home. Awhile
later we spotted a deer swimming between islands.
Immense ferries passed by us like any two vehicles on a
thoroughfare, sounding as the ships slipped past each
other. It was a splendid finale as we departed our last
port of call heading back to Dover.
Please feel free to contact me directly (JBFLeBlanc@aol.com)
if you have any questions about Norwegian Jewel, or
about Baltic Cruises.
Janet LeBlanc
