Our coach picked us up being on time and our first leg of the journey had begun to London. This coach has a choice of routes, either the M1 or M40. The driver chose the M40. Joining the motorway he had a message, nasty accident and major delays at Junction 10. Within a few minutes we were stopped. Moving slowly for two hours, with passengers on a day trip from York on a coach without toilets coming onto our coach. Eventually reached London 2.5 hours late. With coaches running every hour, we were soon on our way to Dover arriving a 5:00pm. Hotel was good, Dover being like any Yankee city full pf Americans. Costa Mediterranea being in port.

Next morning we went a walk to see our ship Norwegian Jewel, calling for a coffee on the way back towards our hotel. Our taxi was booked for 11:00am and arrived five minutes late. The short trip to the cruise terminal took just over five minutes, bags collected from taxi, and followed the signs for Latitude silver upwards members. Routine operation, card swipe, security photo etc, then we had to go to the waiting room. Thinking we may have arrived too early, the waiting room was jam packed full, managed to find two seats, and our boarding card colour was called before we could be seated. Slight delay for the nuisance ship photographers, but boarded and in cabin twenty minutes from leaving Hotel.

The ship seemed full, even though we started in UK with passenger ratio being 85% Americans, 10% German and Austrian and the other five per cent UK and the rest of the World including many Asians. It was nice to hear our friend from over the seas compliment how beautiful Dover looked from the ship. I must agree as a first tome cruiser from Dover, having only used ferries in the passed, it looked gorgeous.

Ship left on time and we came out of the harbour, into a very calm sea, with the White Cliffs on the port side, we proceeded up an unusual calm North. Having sailed on NCL Jewel a couple of years ago a few changes had been made in her last refit. The Blue Lagoon restaurant, Art Gallery had been moved, as standard to most NCL ships. The art gallery, as in pervious ships had replaced a popular area the English Pub. Many carpets had been replaced with a marked downtrend in colour; only one place was glitzy The Fizz nightclub.

We have sailed six times with NCL and enjoy their ships; we dine in the main restaurants, and have never used the ones with surcharge. My wife and myself don’t like Asian food so we stick to fairly standard fare. Food we found to be to the normal high standard and enjoyed our meals. This time there was an alternative choice on the menu, which was available every day.

We attended only three shows on this cruise, all featuring the resident entertainers. One spectacular featuring trapeze and high wire acts, we had seen before, but were still spectacular. Shows featuring a Comedian hypnotists and Second City, we did not attend. Pianists throughout the ship were very good and three men in a group were outstanding.

A brief description of the cruise is below; a more pictorial approach can be had with my photographs which the web addresses are at the end of this report. Some photos were took in atrocious weather, and others through windows with slight relections.

From Dover to Lerwick the sea was calm, and the Shetland Island was how we expected, very similar to the Scottish Highlands. We landed by tender . The tour was very good, which was made better by having a good guide. Saw many Shetland Ponies, my camera was either not ready or just closing, so I never took a picture.

We then cruised to Iceland, a country I had never visited. We docked in Reykjavik and we had booked a tour around the Golden Cirlce. Areas of outstanding beauty. We were informed Iceland had a fall of snow just before we arrived, and it made the mountains stand out. Throughout our tour we had atrocious weather, hail rain, and also cold. The first stop was in a magnificent valley with laver field, best described as below, a piece I copied from a third party source.
Þingvellir - the only place in the world were you can easily see the tectonic plates move apart from each other You can stand on the American tectonic plate and look over at the European tectonic plate. This is the only place in the world where it is easy to see it above sea level.
Þingvellir, 50km (31 miles) to the east of Reykjavík, is the national shrine of Iceland, its most historic site, and one of its most beautiful places. The oldest existing parliament in the world called the Alþing first met here in AD930. The Alþing met every year to enact laws, including the law passed in AD1000 to introduce Christianity into the island. It has always been the focal point for the country, and whenever a major event is to be celebrated, thousands of people come here. At the celebration of the 1,100th anniversary of the first settlement in 1974, more than 60,000 people packed into Þingvellir.
Nearby Lögberg is the cliff overlooking the place where the Alþing (assembly) met, and speakers stood to address the gatherings from this point. Nearby is Drekkingarhylur (The Drowning Pool), where mothers of illegitimate children were drowned. It is sited in the river Öxará in Almannagjá, a lava gorge, which with the Öxarárfoss waterfall, is an impressive sight.
We walked in hail and poring rain through the valley, and it was magnificent.

Our next call was the Geysers, as I have seen similar sights in Lanzorote and the Azores. Again it poured of rain. We also had lunch, consisting of salmon and potatoes.

Gulfoss waterfall was an outstanding sight. We proceeded back towards Reykjavik passing laver fields, and an area where an earthquake occurred a few weeks ago.

Iceland I would very much like to spend an extended visit.

The sea turned rough, the wind howled, the ship started lurching, and creaking, on our way to Newfoundland. A short two-day cruise, doing at times 23.7knts it was obvious we were not be stabilised. The crew christened the ship The Rocking Boat.
Many were affected, but apart from one time feely a little queasy it was not two bad.

The two Canadian ports St Johns and Halifax can best be described in my photos. Both places were different, but interesting. In Halifax Samuel Cunard had a statute as a memorial in his honour, but do to development work could only get a side view.

This was not a cruise we expected to have nice weather, we were not disappointed, the main objectives were the places we visited. The itinerary was great, and we enjoyed it. We had hoped for one of three events, The Northern Lights, Icebergs, and spotting a whale, none of the three we experienced, but I believe a whale was spotted. Between Halifax and New York we were followed by Dolphins and somewhere else we saw some porpoises.

Many people were disappointed at our final port of New York, as we were due to dock at eight o clock, they expected to see us pass the Statute of Liberty and proceed up the river to Manhattan. We arose at 5:30 and we had passed the Statute of Liberty halfway up the Hudson River, nearly to the cruise terminal.

Norman

Below are the links to my photos/

When loaded press slideshow and the photos will show.

Part One Dover to Lerwick

Photo Sharing by MyPhotoAlbum.com :: MyPhotoAlbum :: 2008 NCL Jewel Transatlantic - Part One

Part Two Lerwick to Iceland

Photo Sharing by MyPhotoAlbum.com :: MyPhotoAlbum :: 2008 NCL Jewel Transatlantic - Part Two

Part Three Iceland to St John’s

Photo Sharing by MyPhotoAlbum.com :: MyPhotoAlbum :: 2008 NCL Jewel Transatlantic - Part Three

Part Four St John’s to Halifax

Photo Sharing by MyPhotoAlbum.com :: MyPhotoAlbum :: 2008 NCL Jewel Transatlantic - Part Four

Part five Halifax to New York

Photo Sharing by MyPhotoAlbum.com :: MyPhotoAlbum :: 2008 NCL Jewel Transatlantic - Part Five

Part Six Circle Line Cruise

Photo Sharing by MyPhotoAlbum.com :: MyPhotoAlbum :: 2008 NCL Jewel Transatlantic - Part Six

Part Seven Water Taxi Waterfall cruise

Photo Sharing by MyPhotoAlbum.com :: MyPhotoAlbum :: 2008 NCL Jewel Transatlantic - Part Seven

Part Eight New York

Photo Sharing by MyPhotoAlbum.com :: MyPhotoAlbum :: 2008 NCL Jewel Transatlantic - Part Eight