At the start of the year we thought a cruise for us in 2015 was well off the radar but after a change in direction with regards to our future plans, the opportunity for us to be able take a cruise materialised and so we leapt at the chance to take Alex away for half term at the end of May. The only 7 day itinerary we could find in the Mediterranean with a cruise line of our liking and which also fitted with the dates was on the Norwegian Jade so I sent out the usual enquiries to the various agents that have served us well in the past. To be honest there wasn’t a great deal of difference in price between them but I eventually chose the cheapest one which was with a US agent that we have used several times previously. The booking was for cruise only and by the time the flights were added in it worked out £200 cheaper than those of our home based agents could offer.
After being notified of a price drop by an e-mail alert from www.cruisefish.net in early February I contacted our TA and managed to get the 3rd person in the cabin free plus all 3 of us benefited from an all inclusive drinks package.
We have read so many good things about the Norwegian Jade and are really looking forward to experiencing the ship for ourselves, the itinerary is not the most exciting but it will hopefully provide us with a nice break and with a bit of good fortune some warm sunshine. It starts in Venice and ports at Dubrovnik, Piraeus, Kusadasi & Split before returning to Venice. We have nothing planned at any of the stops with the exception of Split where we are hoping to visit the Krka National Park and because this will be a tender port along with the fact we are due to be there for only 7 hours it will unusually for us mean we will likely opt for a ships tour.
Being totally frank, this cruise is an any excuse to take a cruise and with half term and taking Alex away it just fitted the bill nicely so we are basically just looking for a bit of R & R and we fully intend not to do too much rushing around so don’t expect there to be loads of exciting details of exotic and adventurous land excursions. Much of what I post will probably be our day to experiences on board with a few photos to embellish the posts. (So its just the usual stuff really)
| DATE | LOCATION | ARRIVAL | DEPARTURE |
| Saturday, May 23, 2015 | Venice, Italy | — | 06:00 PM |
| Sunday, May 24, 2015 | Dubrovnik, Croatia | 02:00 PM | 09:00 PM |
| Monday, May 25, 2015 | At Sea | — | — |
| Tuesday, May 26, 2015 | Piraeus (Athens), Greece | 07:00 AM | 05:00 PM |
| Wednesday, May 27, 2015 | Kusadasi, Turkey | 08:00 AM | 05:00 PM |
| Thursday, May 28, 2015 | At Sea | — | — |
| Friday, May 29, 2015 | Split, Croatia | 11:00 AM | 06:00 PM |
| Saturday, May 30, 2015 | Venice, Italy | 08:00 AM | — |
Our cabin selection was made with the consideration that it needed to be large enough for 3 of us and we thought that what NCL have called a mini suite would be a good choice. After reading a couple of reviews on the Cruising Mates Forum and then passing a few PM’s back and forth with the reviewer at the same time as consulting the deck plans we eventually opted for a Cat MB suite which is situated towards the aft of the ship. The reason we chose this grade is that the MA mini suites all appear to suffer from an overhang but the MB’s don’t and being as we like our sun we opted for the latter. The space given for this cabin is given as 26.5 M² which is roughly 6 M² bigger than the last cabin we shared with Alex last August on the Celebrity Reflection.
I always like to have a look at what other ships we might encounter on the cruise and the timetables are suggesting that we will see MSC Poesia in Venice, Splendour Of The Seas in Dubrovnik, Celebrity Reflection in Piraeus and Norwegian Spirit in Kusadasi.