A Week on the Norwegian Jade: Sailing to Puerto Plata, Tortola, and San Juan

 We spent a week on the Norwegian Jade for a Caribbean cruise! It was our anniversary cruise, and we had a blast!

We sailed out of Port Canaveral and flew in the day before. For our night in Orlando, we ventured into Universal CityWalk and had dinner at the Toothsome Chocolate Emporium & Savory Feast Kitchen. This area is quite a busy place with large crowds. In addition to the shopping and dining available in Universal CityWalk, the area also contains the entrances for Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. We really enjoyed our meal while we were here! The avocado bruschetta and burgers were delicious! I also loved the steampunk theming throughout the restaurant.

The next morning, we took our shuttle to the cruise port and boarded the Norwegian Jade. The boarding process is very smooth and only took about 20 minutes. Once onboard, we had a quick lunch at O'Sheehan's and explored the ship. The Norwegian Jade is a smaller cruise ship but still has a lot to offer.

We love to enjoy sailaway from the balcony, so we grabbed some drinks from Topsiders Bar and made our way to our stateroom to watch the ship leave the port from our balcony. After setting sail, we spent the rest of the evening enjoying some live music throughout the ship and playing Deal or No Deal.

Day 2 was a Sea Day, so we spent more time exploring this ship and enjoying all that the ship has to offer. We went shopping at the shops, enjoyed the buffet, and played some Bingo!

That evening, we enjoyed dinner at La Cucina. We had a delicious meal and ended the evening with an anniversary cake from the restaurant.

The next day, we were in Puerto Plata! For this day, we had an excursion taking a tour around the city. This tour took us on a bus ride through the city for some of the most popular areas of Puerto Plata. We visited Casa Museo, Macorix House of Rum, and the Amber Museum among other sites. We were also able to stop for pictures at the famous Umbrella Street and Paseo de Dona Blanca.

Back on the ship, we had dinner at Alizar, one of the main dining rooms on the ship. We also enjoyed the magic show that took place in the Stardust Theater. We had a great time and really enjoyed our night!

We spent day 4 in Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. The excursion we took this day was probably my favorite! We took a land and sea tour that took us on a boat ride across the sea. This was a lively boat ride with fun tour guides showing us different points at the Virgin Islands. Once we got to Frenchmans Cay as our halfway point, we took a tour along the rough roads of the islands back to the cruise port. It was such an enjoyable tour that I would do it again if we found ourselves back in Tortola!

Our next stop was in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Unfortunately, it rained for most of the day, so we didn't have an opportunity to explore too much. We did get breakfast and explored the city for a couple hours before having to head back to the ship during a downpour. We actually had a couple's massage scheduled, so the timing ended up being perfect. We had a relaxing and comfortable massage and enjoyed a peaceful evening before dinner. We had dinner at Le Bistro for an incredible meal!

Day 6 was another Sea Day, so we had a lazy day on the ship. We had the chance to play more Bingo and Deal or No Deal on this day. For dinner, we ate at the other main dining room, Grand Pacific.

Our last day on the cruise, we went to Great Stirrup Cay, Norwegian Cruise Line's private island. We'd rented a clam shell on the beach to have some shade while we enjoyed our relaxation time. My husband also got to do some ziplining while we were on the island. We had such a relaxing day here!