This article is republished from the WeChat public account of a reader in our WeChat group, Lazy 33’s Food, Drinks, and Fun. Original link.

This trip was a complete Caribbean cruise journey — by now, we’ve checked off the East, West, and South Caribbean, with 27 cruise nights in total, and completed everything except for a few islands. This trip really gave me mixed feelings. What I was happy about was taking a cruise with a group of friends — our 5 families, 20 people in total, all went on every tour together, and everyone stayed together as a group. What I wasn’t happy about was that this ship really wasn’t a great experience. On top of that, as the trip was nearing its end, all 5 families gradually caught Fluz A. Mine was pretty severe, and it still hadn’t fully recovered after nearly a month. I ended up having a miserable January.

Cruise Booking

The booking method has already been explained in detail in How to Plan a Cruise Trip, so I won’t go over it again. This time, we also booked through an agent. After requesting quotes from a number of places, this ship was one of the cheaper options during Christmas, and naturally it was an older ship. In addition to a lower price than booking directly on the official website, it also included prepaid gratuities for 2 people, 300 minutes of Wi‑Fi, and $25 of onboard credit.

The itinerary was a 7-night sailing out of Tampa, with four ports of call: COSTA MAYA, ROATAN eBay ISLANDS, COZUMEL, and HARVEST CAYE (NCL Private Island), plus 2 sea days at the beginning and end. I was pretty satisfied with this itinerary. When I was getting quotes, I found that unlike the East and South Caribbean, which have more varied ports, the West Caribbean basically only has these few ports to choose from, so the longest West Caribbean sailings are only 7 days.

Car Rental at Tampa Port

Tampa Cruise Port feels much smaller than the ones in Orlando and Miami. There aren’t many car rental options nearby. The two closest major ones are Hertz at Marriott Waterside and Avis at Embassy Suites.

Hertz has a shuttle to the port, but it’s closed on Sundays. Since it’s a hotel rental location, on Sundays you can simply leave the car with the hotel valet. Coincidentally, both our embarkation and disembarkation were on Sundays, and that’s exactly what we did on embarkation day. In this situation, remember to take photos when you drop off the car, so the valet can’t blame any damage on the renter.

Since it’s closed on Sundays, there’s no shuttle either. Fortunately, the City of Tampa has a free trolley, running every 12-15 minutes.

These two rental locations are right across the street from each other, and the midpoint between them — right in the middle of the road — is trolley stop #10. The Cruise Port is at stop #7. Our ship was docked at Cruise Port #3, which looked fairly close to both #7 and #8, but in practice #7 was still closer and easier for rolling luggage. #8 was a bit confusing, and on embarkation day we ended up taking quite a detour.

Cruise Port #2 is even simpler to figure out — stop #7 is right next to it.

The Avis at Embassy Suites was where we rented a car after disembarkation. It’s a very small office, not very noticeable inside the hotel, and there was a bit of a line on the day we got off the ship. Fortunately, the front desk lady was very friendly. I had matched status to President’s Club membership, and she arranged an SUV for us. Pickup was at the hotel valet area, and we had to wait a while to get the car as well. For those of us who’ve earned top-tier status with major rental companies through bargain hunting, it had been a long time since we had to wait at a rental counter, so the experience wasn’t great.

This is what the trolley looks like.

Embarkation and Disembarkation Experience on NCL Jade in Tampa

In one word: terrible. I don’t know whether it was NCL’s problem, Tampa port being too small, or both.

We usually choose the latest embarkation time, and normally there’s nobody there by then, so there’s no line at all. But even for this ship, the last time slot still had a huge line. Other cruise lines pre-print the key cards and leave them on the door, but NCL insists on handing out key cards during check-in, which really slows things down. On top of that, even green card holders had to go through separate immigration screening. Really bad, bad, bad.

Disembarkation was just as bad. Compared with previous cruises, which may not have been super smooth but still got us off the ship quickly, this ship had lines that made you question life. The staggered disembarkation times were basically meaningless. Immigration clearance for disembarkation was actually done on the ship, with only 2 facial-recognition machines.

The luggage was delivered to our room without any issues, but baggage check-in happened in the middle of the boarding line, and I even forgot to tip at one point. The guy didn’t hesitate to ask us for a tip.

Cabin

Although it’s an older ship, it was refurbished in 2022, so the hardware still looked quite new and nice.

We all booked balcony cabins. The triple cabin had a sofa bed, and the quad cabin also had an extra bed that pulled down from the ceiling. What’s worth complaining about is that the ceiling pull-down bed didn’t even have a net or safety strap. It was clearly designed to have one, but our room steward didn’t know about it, so the two kids in the family with two children had to share one bed.

On the first sea day, the waves were a bit rough and it was raining too, and there was actually standing water on the balcony — first time I’d ever seen that. Luckily, the sea breeze was strong, and it dried up after a while.

This ship, or rather the 10th deck where we stayed, also seemed to have some plumbing issues. The sink drained very slowly. The toilet was extremely loud, similar to the one on an airplane. One night, all the toilets on our deck broke. The toilet in my best friend’s cabin was clogged, and ours wouldn’t respond when we pressed the button. We called guest services, and they said they would send a plumber to fix it from the outside. In the middle of the night there was a loud bang from the toilet, and sure enough, it worked again after that.

On the first night, we didn’t hang up our clothes and left them in the closet. Then the ship rocked so much that the hangers in the closet kept clanging loudly. After we hung up the clothes, it was fine, though it never rocked that much again after that.

Entertainment

The entertainment was probably one of this ship’s highlights. The daily activities were similar to those on other cruise ships (except Disney), but the shows on this ship were genuinely good, and many were suitable for young children. For example, the magic acts, acrobatics, and especially the award-winning Elements show were excellent. It was also the first ship where we went to so many shows.

We spent Christmas on a ship again this year, and this ship also had a Christmas gift-giving event for kids. The gifts were still divided by age group, and the kids all seemed to like what they got. Kids aged 3-6 received a reversible little octopus, and the 7-year-olds got a toy similar to a Rubik’s Cube. But this ship didn’t even put up a big Christmas tree in the lobby; the gifts were handed out in the theater, which felt a little stingy.

After picking up the gifts, there was also chocolate and candy to take.

A gingerbread house competition. They invited a bunch of experts to compete, and ordinary people could only stand by and watch.

Dining

Barely a passing grade.

I had originally planned to book one big table for everyone after we got on board, but it turned out to be full. The table our friends finally managed to reserve was later canceled because they couldn’t make it back in time for the evening show. Not being able to eat together as one big group was a little disappointing.

This freestyle dining concept that NCL promotes just really doesn’t suit a family like ours, where we like to eat at fixed times every day. On the very first night, it slapped us in the face—we waited in line at the restaurant for over half an hour. After that, it was either waiting at the restaurant door for it to open or rushing over the moment it did. That kind of luck-of-the-draw experience really wasn’t great.

NCL eliminated formal night many years ago, and along with it went the complimentary lobster. That was one of the meals my partner and I looked forward to most on every cruise, so this was another negative.

We ate most of our meals in the main dining room and the buffet. The main dining room usually did a good job with the appetizers, while the entrées were just okay. The buffet was hit or miss depending on the theme. There was a crepe station for dinner, which was pretty nice. The made-to-order omelets at breakfast weren’t very good; eggs Benedict was better.

The pictures below are the roast suckling pig from the Christmas lunch buffet.

Some photos of food from the main dining room.

There was also a 24-hour restaurant. Breakfast was pretty good, but the other meal times were really not great.

There was also a free Asian-style restaurant, which we didn’t dare try. According to friends, the entrées were awful, while the appetizers and desserts were good; it was hit or miss.

Service

The biggest thing to complain about on this ship was the service. In addition to extremely slow embarkation and disembarkation, problems getting seats at restaurants, not being able to find photographers, and so on, there was a whole list of other issues.

For example, we couldn’t even find anyone for the embarkation safety drill. For example, the Indian guy from housekeeping in our room said he’d get a life jacket for our kid, and then nothing came of it. One day he even put my pajamas under the bed. How are you supposed to wear them after that?

For example, the kids club had very strange opening hours: it wasn’t open on port days at all, and on the first sea day it didn’t open until 2 p.m. The hours were also shorter than on other ships.

For example, the health center was only open for an hour and a half, from 8:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.

For example, at restaurants it often took forever for food to come out, and there was almost no service to speak of otherwise.

For example, the SPA phone agent had a terrible attitude, which is why, for the first time in my five cruises, I didn’t go to the spa for a massage at all during the entire trip.

Overall, this ship felt like reduced service everywhere, and the crew had no energy or spirit. I remember chatting with a restaurant server on RCL last year, and she said she had heard that RCL was a company that treated its crew very well, better than other companies. You really could tell that RCL’s employees were full of energy and happy; they were much better than on this ship.

The last time I sailed NCL was Christmas 2016. This was the second time, and maybe the last. After getting off the ship, my partner took this photo to express dissatisfaction with the ship.

Laundry

Laundry on this ship was cheaper than on RCL: one big bag for $29. You could stuff in as much as you wanted, and everything came back intact, including the kid’s little socks—nothing was missing, so that was a plus. For clothes we washed ourselves, we hung them like this over the arm of the balcony chair, and they were basically dry overnight.

Photos

Last year on RCL, the photo package was such a great deal. For $199 or maybe $299, we got 99 printed photos plus all the digital versions. When I bought the photo package this year, I already felt that NCL’s version wasn’t as good as RCL’s, but who knew it was not only worse, but a complete trap.

It was hard to run into photographers both on and off the ship, so you had to go look for them. In the restaurants, we only saw photographers walking around on one day. It felt like the photographers were all part-time or something. And NCL doesn’t print the photos after taking them; they ask for your cabin number and you view everything later on a computer. While that’s more eco-friendly and better for privacy, it still felt like it was just a way to save money...

My photo package at the time said it included all digital photos, but when we went to pick up the photos, they told us it only included 8 digital photos. I was so annoyed that I went to check the order, and there were no details at all on it. So basically, they can say whatever they want. When I looked at the product page on the website, it had already been changed to 8 digital photos. How did I stop caring? Because there weren’t that many photos in total, taking

In short, a complete trap!

Moments on board

Cruising with good friends is just so much fun!

We happened to run into the ship I took on my very first cruise with my partner 8 years ago.

While waiting in line to disembark, this was the square next to the pier.

Loading supplies in Tampa—just think how much food and drink a ship must go through.

One photo included in the photo package.

Seeing a doctor after disembarking

Our family is the type that goes to see a doctor as soon as someone gets sick. Our kid woke up with a fever on the morning of the last sea day, and we had originally planned to see a doctor. But when we called our travel insurance, they said that because the ship was round-trip within the U.S., it didn’t count as international travel (???), so it wasn’t covered. Since the fever had gone down after taking fever medicine that morning, we decided not to go.

Then in the afternoon, the fever wouldn’t come down even with both Tylenol and ibuprofen. Since the ship’s health center was only open from 8:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. every day, we had already missed the time to get medical care, so we could only tough it out. We decided to disembark, rent a car, and go straight to see a doctor.

We went to TGH urgent care. You can join the queue online ahead of time, but even after getting there we still waited about half an hour to an hour. There were 2-3 groups ahead of me, so it was still pretty slow. Then we waited another while for the doctor. I really miss my West Village zoom super.

When the doctor said the word “flu,” my experience from having seen a doctor many times told me it was probably that. The test results came back. Sure enough, after testing, it really was Type A flu, and Tamiflu was prescribed. I quickly told my friends to go get tested too, and not to miss the 48-hour Tamiflu window.

While I was at the doctor’s office, fireworks (or smoke bombs?) suddenly went off outside, in all kinds of colors.

Scenery Photos

A bright moon rises over the sea.

Next Part

This post covers life on the ship; the next part introduces the four ports where we got off the ship.

About the Author

This article is reposted from a WeChat public account by a reader in our WeChat group, Lazy 33’s Food, Drink, and Fun. They’re all original, high-quality articles, so if you’re interested, please follow along.