CRUISE HELp!!?

Question

im going on the Norwegian Cruise line gem in March.

Do you have any information for me?.........any important things i should know? Hows the food? staff.....and is it a good place for my kids?

thanks in advance!!! :)♥☻♥

Answer 1

I thought I answered this already but here it is again.  We just cruised on the Gem a few weeks ago. Here's what I wrote for my Cruise critic review.

Every since NCL started the Freestyle cruising I do not care for them any more. In spite of that I booked this cruise because of the good price and the itinerary which included Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Gibraltar. I could not find another line with this combination of port stops.

We took a taxi to the port around noon and check in went smoothly and quickly. We saw after check in that there were special windows for Latitudes members but we didn't need them. We were informed verbally and in writing after we checked in that one of the port stops, Casablanca, Morocco, had been canceled due to safety concerns. Many passengers were upset about this and especially since they had not been informed via email or otherwise before getting to the ship.

Overall I would rate this ship about a 5 on a 10 point scale. Other than being nice due to its newness (we were on its third voyage) it does not have any special features that stand out. Its one unique feature is the bowling alley but as a serious bowling I declined to pay the $5.00 per game to bowl. Bowling is about $150 a game at my local alley.

In my opinion the ship is not decorated very well. It has a lot of dark wood grain wall panels and not much in the way of good decor to complement the dark wood. Consequently, many areas of the ship are very dark. The ship has a Promenade Deck that allows you to walk all the way around the ship. But the walls of the rooms on deck 7 have been extended out a couple feet and that, along with equipment, the deck lounger chairs, and two shuffle board places on each side of the ship, restricts the ability to enjoy walking on the Promenade deck. There were NO seats on the Promenade deck, only lounge chairs for laying down.There was no passenger access to the bow of the ship.

The main dining hall is single story and accessible by a stairway between decks 6 and 7. It is also rather dark although it has picture windows looking out the back of the ship. The ship has a nice roomy casino with table games and a variety of slots, including a good selection of penny and multi-denominational slots. The main showroom is also dark and is not of a very good design. It can be accessed from deck 6 or 7 but if you enter on deck 6 you find yourself halfway toward the front of the room. Navigation in the room is not good at all because you have to cross over other passengers to access seats other than those on the two isles. Access would be better if there were isles along the walls.

The ship's gym was adequate with about a dozen each treadmills, and stepper/elliptical, plus some weight machines. I did not tour or use the spa facilities. The pool deck has two pools that are about 20 ft by 40 ft. They are separated by a stage for the band. One pool is for adults only and there are 4 hot tubs which will accommodate about 8 people each. The couple times that I used these the water was not very hot. There is a kids water play area and a water slide. The pool deck has some nice thick padded lounge chairs and different type sitting/lounging areas. But space was limited; there is no covered pool or hot tub. There is a game room and library and these were quite often full.

The ships atrium is not much of an atrium as far as I am concerned. It is mid ship and two story with the purser's desk, tour's desk and a very small Internet café on deck 7 and on the second level reached by stairs as well as elevator, two of the free specialty restaurants. The ceiling and furniture in the atrium could stand a make over; not very pretty or stylish.

The ship has several shops with the usual fare. BUT, what was conspicuously missing was any souvenirs at all from any of the countries we made ports stops in. Instead there was "stuff" that looked like it was from Holland (windmills, shoes, etc.) but not a single item from Spain, Portugal or Morocco.

The ship has a very nice lounge called the Spinnaker which is on the front of the ship on deck 13. Its nice and also has some very unusual decor and furniture. It has a couple TV screens, an automated Roulette table for gambling, a couple dart boards, a pool table, and a table top shuffle board game. These latter two you must pay to use; do not know how much.

Our balcony cabin was nice but not as nice as others I have had. It had a nice bed, a rather small 15 inch HD TV, plenty of closet space, lots of shelf space, but only 3 drawer. It has a fee basis mini bar and a safe. It also had some furniture that I do not think needed to be there, i.e., a stool, a straight chair, and a pedestal table that all seemed to be out of place.

The TV had more channels devoted to things on ship, like tours, activities, the bow view, the art sale, etc., than it did usable channels for viewing. It had one English language movie channel and two others that were Spanish and German/French. The TV program guide advertised CNN but all we got was FOX news and BBC World. The TV had ESPN but all it ever had on it both in our cabin or anywhere else we saw it on ship was soccer or tennis. There were TV screens at various places on ship but no real sports bar.

As I said up front we booked this cruise knowing we did not care for freestyle cruising and nothing on this cruise changed our minds. My plan was to just book a standing 6:00PM reservation for the main dining hall each day. But we found that they would only accept reservations for 2 days at a time. So every other day we had to remember to make a reservation. Those who did not reserve were often left standing in line awaiting a table or to be seating (the line was usually about 10 couple deep). At some point each evening they went to issuing buzzers for those waiting a table.

Service in the main dining room the first day was terrible; took an hour and a half. After that the service was OK. The meals were OK, nice food but nothing I wanted to order seconds of. The lobster night turned out to be half a lobster tail along with a couple shrimp, scallops and muscles. There was a prime rib night but not a fillet mignon night. There were no special deserts either and most were passe and the same as what was available in the leisure meal buffet area, the Garden Café. The Garden Café was the buffet meals place and you always had to hunt for a seat there. It was always crowded and on a couple occasions I reported to the staff that they needed to do something about the flies that were buzzing around in the window wells.

We ate in two of the alternative "specialty" restaurants; the free ones, La Cucina (Tex-Mex) and Blue Lagoon (open 24 hrs). The best things we had a in either was the soup and salad. The fish in the fish & chips was more breading than fish. The Chicken Fahitas was missing a lot of chicken, mostly onion and pepper.

The shows on ship were pretty good, except there was a juggler who was terrible. The ship has a very small internet cafe with 8 stations situated in the atrium area. But in addition to the very high cost of internet access, they also charge a fee of $4.50 to sign up.

I had several things happened that sealed my/our never going on another NCL cruise. First, on the first day of the cruise we never saw our cabin steward until about 9:30 PM when we were headed in for bed. Before that she never came around to introduce herself, as has been my experience on other cruises. On several occasions after she came in she did not remove dirty dishes and glasses from the room and her cleaning schedule was more suited to her than to us. We would go out for 3 hours and when we returned she had not cleaned or made up the room.

On the first formal, or as they call it "dress up if you want" night, we went to the atrium to have photo taken. We wanted just one on the atrium stairs. The photographer refused to take the picture unless we also took three other shots in front of painted canvasses. In addition, when we went to look at our boarding picture we found that all of the photos in the gallery were locked under glass and you had to have the attendant unlock the cabinet to retrieve them to look at. This was not like I have ever had it on any other ship.

On the day of one of our port stops I went to the purser's desk to get a $50 Euro bill changed; all I wanted was 2 twenties and a ten. The purser refused, saying that he didn't have that much change. Then as I stood there the next person in line behind me asked to BUY $200 worth of Euros and the purser then had plenty of change for that. Seems that he wanted to save all of his Euros for people buying money. A few days later I learned from another passenger that she had the same problem with the purser refusing to change a $50 Euro bill.

Three tours that we took from the ship were really good and I do recommend them. One was called Fire Mountain and Camel Ride on Lanzarotte. The second good tour was the Horse Show and Fantasia in Agadir. And the third was the Gibraltar In Depth in Gibraltar. The other tours that we took were nice and informative but kinda passe.

The cruise was OK and you will enjoy it if you do not let minor inconveniences annoy you.