Norwegian Jewel  

Norwegian Jewel sailing the Northsea Canal passage from Amsterdam to IJmuiden at the 10th of august 2008.

This ship is the name-giver of the Jewel-class, her sisters being the 2005-built Pride f Hawaii (now named Norwegian Jade), the 2006-built Norwegian Pearl and the 2007-built Norwegian Gem. In looks, the ships do not differ much from the earlier Libra-class, that is Norwegian Star of 2001 and Norwegian Dawn of 2002, but on the inside both classes are different in various ways. Because of these differences, the ships are seen as two classes. This also has something to do with the fact that the Libra-class was originaly ordered for Star Cruises of Malaysia, the then owner of NCL. The Libra class was a slight diversion from the SuperStar Leo and SuperStar Virgo, the first megaliners within the fleet of Star cruises. The Jewel-class was based on these ships but designed and ordered for Norwegian Cruise Line. 

The ship nmeasures some 93.502 tons, so although she maybe look very midsized now, she still is a large ship of almost 100.000 tons. Her lenght is 294,13 meters, she is 32,20 meters wide and her draft is 8,50 meters. Her normal speed is 24,6 knots, provided by diesel electric engines which power 2 azipods, and her passenger capacity is 2376. For them, 1126 crewmembers are running around on the ships 15 decks, of which 12 are available to her passengers. The homeport of the ship is assau at the Bahamas.

Norwegian Jewel floated out of her building dock at the wharf of Jos L. Meyer in Papenburg, Germany at the 10th of june 2005. After completion, the ship was handed over to Norwegian Cruise Line at the 5th of august 2005 and she made a short introduction cruise to Amsterdam, which was her first port of call. From Amsterdam, another short cruise started at the 7th of that month and this took her to London, from where she undertook her first real cruise in northern Europe. At the end of october, she set sail for the port of Miami, where she was named at the 7th of november by one of Donald Trump's children, Melania Trump. Of course, father Donals also used the ship for an episode of 'The Apprentice', when he asked the contestants to make a short promotional clip for the ship, using both interiour and exterious shots. After her introduction, she sailed Caribbean cruises and European cruises. Later, she was mostly sailing north American cruises, to Alaska from Seattle and in the Mexican Gulf from Houston.

As normal for a NCL ship under the Freestyle concept, there are a lot of dining and drinking options. As a novelty, the ship offers a place called Bar City, where three bars are together and connected. If you do not choose your drinks easily, try to avoid Malting's Beer and Whiskey Bar, where 46 different beers and 23 single malt whiskey's are available. There also is Magner's, which is decorated in art-deco style reminding of the great French liner Normandie of 1935 and as a thirth option there is Shakers Martini Bar, that took its inspiration from the movies featuring James Bond.