NCL Cruises, Norwegian Jewel, Baltic

We have just returned from Baltic cruise on Norwegian Jewel. We had sailed some years ago with NCl on Norwegian Crown ,a smaller ship where the food was a gastronomical delight so had no hesitation on sailing with them again. The Jewel was very nice but we would not go with them again, owing to the dining arrangements. We had breakfast and dinner most nights in the Zsar`s Palace. But had to queue most times and the service was very slow. We had dinner in the French Bistro once which was lovely with excellent service and once in the Italian Mama`s which again was very nice. We tried The Garden Cafe for lunch which was self-service but you were not allowed to touch anything and it was a free for all going from one counter to another to find what you might like to eat, so had lunch on sailing days in the Blue Lagoon which served snacks but had superior service. We were always willing to share a table in the Zsar`s Palace and met a lot of nice people, some British, American, Canadian and a few French The entertainment was quite short but quite good, but the entertainment director `Soozy` was a pain. We quite liked the Spinnaker lounge bar on the top deck later in the evenings. We only did the ship`s excursions in St P, going ashore ourselves using the hop on buses elsewhere. We found Tallin, Helsinki and Stockholm delightful - so clean and beautifully maintained old buildings. Altogether the food was not as good as we expected, afternoon tea was poor with the same two slices of cake every day. The stateroom with balcony was OK with goodsized bathroom and separate toilet. We will not sail with them again owing to the free style dining which we considered a disaster. All the sanitising of hands and everything was a pain but we were happy to do it and only heard of one man who took ill. He sent immediately for the doctor and was given injections and was fine the next day but weak for another day.