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About Your Ship: Norwegian Gem

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Departs New York aboard Norwegian Cruise Line – Norwegian Gem - Featuring The Haven By Norwegian!

Sailing Date(s): Nov 2013, Dec 2013


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	Average Norwegian Gem Rating



	SORT BY: Most Recent \| Positive \| Negative \| Helpful 1 - 10 of 30 \| Next 10 >
	Overall Rating: About the Reviewer: Age: 30 - 49 Cruise Experience: First cruise Traveler Type: Couple Stateroom Type: Suite Norweigan Gem - Nice trip by Steve B from Seattle, WA Sailing date: Sep 2008 Pros: The ship was clean, fun and had good places to hang out and eat Cons: Excursions were too far from ports on two occasions. Staff seemed unhappy at meal time. Music too loud by pool. Disembarkation nightmare. The ship's check in was smooth and we were on within 30 minutes. Our room (mini suite) was nice and the ship was laid out well with nice public areas. The casino was fun, pool was great. Only a few things could make it better for our experience. Live music by the pool was so loud - no one could hear eachother speak. Some of the speciality restaurants weren't worth it. Le Bistro and Teppenyaki were the exceptions - very good. Disembarkation was a nightmare - reception had no idea on how to explain it to you. We had no checked luggage, so they were struggling with how to catch the bus to the airport. That was a free for all - no bus reservations, busses leaving an hour late. Its too bad that's the way it ended but it did. Not sure why you can't reserve a bus seat. Would make it so much easier. Ship Details: Ship Quality Cant complain. The ship was nice and layout was great. Signs well marked too. Dining/Food Overall pretty good. Wait staff at grand pacfic seemed unhappy and frustrated. Stateroom Quality We loved our stateroom. Balcony chairs weren't great, but ok Ship Staff Quality The cruise staff for housekeeping were always happy and positive. Read this user's port of call reviews: Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy; Naples, Italy; Villefranche-Sur-Mer, France; Valletta, Malta Collapse List of Ports Ports of Call: Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy We did Rome on your own. I think it was the best choice. Not too expensive and the guide on our bus told us how to do what we wanted to do within the 6 hours we had & gave us a map. We saw Trevi fountain, walked through the coliseum (must) and saw the Sistine chapel. Great time. Don't Miss: coliseum walk through! Naples, Italy Capri, Pompeii and Sorrento - it was exhausting doing it all but well worth it. A lot of fun Don't Miss: pompeii - amazing artifacts Villefranche-Sur-Mer, France Beautiful little town. Bring your bathing suit - the little sand beach in port is right on the Mediterranean. So much fun. Don't Miss: The beach Valletta, Malta Wine and chesse part of tour were nice. The place itself is not a real nice area. Our tour guide was unhappy most of the time and wasn't fun. Don't Miss: Vineyard -taste of malta 99 out of 108 people found this review helpful. Did you find this review helpful? Overall Rating: About the Reviewer: Age: 30 - 49 Cruise Experience: 2 - 3 cruises Traveler Type: Family w/young children Stateroom Type: Inside Hidden Costs Everywhere by Rick M. from Heidelberg, Germany Sailing date: May 2009 Pros: Staff was wonderful Cons: No Euro to draw off ATM, fees to take money, fees to exchange money, fees on everything. ie - $12 a day per person not in original price. Excursions were 4-6 times more than just getting a taxi yourself. Ship was very clean, but NCL truly works to rip you off at every turn. Ship Details: Ship Quality Good Dining/Food Excellent Stateroom Quality Good Ship Staff Quality Excellent Entertainment & Activities Good Children's Programs Excellent Read this user's port of call reviews: Cannes, France; Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy; Naples, Italy; Valletta, Malta Collapse List of Ports Ports of Call: Cannes, France Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy Not enough time. Naples, Italy Naples is not recommended. Pompei is. Valletta, Malta 21 out of 23 people found this review helpful. Did you find this review helpful? Overall Rating: About the Reviewer: Age: 50 - 65 Cruise Experience: 7+ cruises Traveler Type: Group Stateroom Type: Balcony 7 day cruise by Diane S. from Bay Area of CA Sailing date: Oct 2008 Pros: the service everywhere on the ship Cons: food (we ate at all the restaurants) was the same in each reastaurant, lacked variety of menus. Food was ok, just not great. Beautiful ship, clean and easy to move from one area to another. Crew was very, very friendly, helpful and courteous. GREAT SERVICE! Ship Details: Ship Quality Dining/Food all was very good except the variety of the food served in the various restaurants. Food was not exceptional, just ok. Stateroom Quality Ship Staff Quality Entertainment & Activities Read this user's port of call reviews: Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy; Livorno (Florence & Pisa), Italy; Naples, Italy; Villefranche-Sur-Mer, France; Valletta, Malta Collapse List of Ports Ports of Call: Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy Livorno (Florence & Pisa), Italy Pisa is a once you have seen it that's enough, also too commercial. Walk too and from the Pisa site and bus was too long for too little. Naples, Italy Villefranche-Sur-Mer, France Would like to have ihad a lunch include in this even if price was a bit more. Valletta, Malta tour guide rushed us too much from one place to another, walking was not at a comfortable pace. 20 out of 23 people found this review helpful. Did you find this review helpful? Overall Rating: About the Reviewer: Age: 50 - 65 Cruise Experience: 2 - 3 cruises Traveler Type: Couple Stateroom Type: Suite Disappointed with Norwegian by rob from Smithville, NJ Sailing date: Oct 2011 Pros: Convenient Port; Overall friendly staff; Cons: Everything else This is my third cruise; first was with Carnival; second with Royal Caribbean; now this. I would call it "ok" nothing to be excited about. There are some pluses about freestyle dining and some downside. Ship quality was ok, layout ok... not great and some major shortcomings Ship Details: Ship Quality My first impression walking on the ship was "cheap"...there was nothing classy about this ship, unlike RC. The "gem" decor, the layout of the public areas (can say I didn't frequent the bars.. so I'm addressing the other areas), even our room. The doors in the main atrium swayed when the ship rocked; There were essentially no "really comfortable" chairs I found in any of the public areas that we frequented. Some were better than others, but the types of furnishings and the layout just didn't suit us (and we are not heavy, just average American size weight ) . The layout of main entertainment areas was poor. The stardust theater has some wierdly arranged balconies and due to my wife's inability to navigate stairs we sat up high and there are very poor sightlines (read that as having vision blocked by the balconies).... the seating is crunched; poor accessibility for handicapped / wheelchair bound folks. They had movies/entertainers in the attrium with poor seating and sightlines Dining/Food The food was average to good. I can say there are parts of the overall food service that were just plain awful. Worst coffee I can remember anywhere (except for the java express latte's), poor desert selection, outdoor buffets looked awful (wouldn't even touch any of that food) There were 3 dining areas we frequented: the garden cafe (buffet style), and the 2 main dining rooms: the grand palace and magenta, which both had the same menus. Of those, the buffet was poor to excellent depending on what your tastes are; the meal of the day (breakfast was better than lunch I'd say). The main dining rooms usually had something we enjoyed, though the quality between meals was inconsistent (for example steamed red snapper was dry and horrible, but a couple of their other red snapper dishes were about as good as I've had anywhere->excellent). The sherberts and sorbets were consistently good, the other deserts varied (my wife and I ordered differently for each meal and shared) fair to good. Stateroom Quality Our room was, to be frank, noisy. You hear other rooms toilets flush, staff working in the hallways, we had a balcony room, and the sliding glass doors made noise at nights on our way down knocked when the ship swayed for some reason We had a mini suite, with a couch and tub. The tub was very narrow to stand in, and very difficult to enter/exit. The couch was rock hard and the worst piece of furniture I've ever seen. I mean, this is inner city, garage sale quality stuff and frankly I'm doing a disservice to inner city garage sales by saying that. I was an ugly burnt orange velor and very uncomfortable even stacked with pillows. Ship Staff Quality While overall the staff is friendly, they were not as attentive as we've had on other ships. Perhaps the nature of the way tips are automatically built into everything you buy on board removes the incentive to go the extra distance. I recall the other ships explicitly asking us to consider giving extra for the non room specific support staff... anyway just a guess. Our room attendant was ok and friendly enough. The front desk folks seemed stressed. Entertainment & Activities Leo, the guitarist, was good (not awesome IMO :) ) but very good. The stardust entertainers were ok, standard ship type entertainment. They had a hypnotist who was excellent, and a couple advertized as "cirque de sole" type entertainment who were not that quality, but who were excellent in their own way. Read this user's port of call reviews: King's Wharf, Bermuda Collapse List of Ports Ports of Call: King's Wharf, Bermuda Don't Miss: The south beaches starting at Horseshoe Bay. 17 out of 20 people found this review helpful. Did you find this review helpful? Overall Rating: About the Reviewer: Age: 50 - 65 Cruise Experience: 4 - 6 cruises Traveler Type: Family w/older children Stateroom Type: Inside free to part with your money by rene g. from philadelphia suburbs Sailing date: Apr 2009 Pros: cleanliness of ship Cons: pay for everything staff not well informed about anything, room steward told me to get beach towels myself at the pool, everything is extra, specialty restaurants food very mediocre, dining room food poor, service poor, excursions pricey and staff unhelpful Ship Details: Ship Quality no wow factor Dining/Food no midnight buffets and only one place to get snack of micro portion Stateroom Quality nice bathroom, good shower Ship Staff Quality told to get my own beach towels the first day, never enough towels Entertainment & Activities good magician, no adult entertainment Read this user's port of call reviews: Freeport, Grand Bahama Island; Nassau, Bahamas; Great Stirrup Cay (Cruiseline Private Island), Bahamas; Port Canaveral, Florida Collapse List of Ports Ports of Call: Freeport, Grand Bahama Island waste of time, there only 3 hors with nothing to do Nassau, Bahamas go to atlantis, dolphins fun, very disorganized for excursions Great Stirrup Cay (Cruiseline Private Island), Bahamas weather was too bad and didn't get on went early to nassau where everything except the bars was closed Port Canaveral, Florida if you want disney go there 13 out of 18 people found this review helpful. Did you find this review helpful? Overall Rating: About the Reviewer: Age: 50 - 65 Cruise Experience: 4 - 6 cruises Traveler Type: Couple Stateroom Type: Balcony Our Spring Break Cruise by Debra N. from New Jersey Sailing date: Apr 2010 Pros: The weather was perfect Cons: The quality of the food was a little disappointing Our spring break cruise aboard the Norwegian Gem was a full ship, and we had a wonderful time. We have cruised with Norwegian before and in fact, we had cruised on the Gem once before about 3 years ago, so we were able to make a comparison of the services offered on board the Gem this time around. What we found was that the ship still remains beautiful and pristine, and the overall cleanliness has actually improved, with careful attention given to avoiding the spread of germs. Our balcony room was perfect for us. What we did notice, however was that the daily menus in the free dining rooms were limited and disappointing. The quality of food was not as good as we remembered from our previous cruise aboard the Gem. Perhaps the effects of the economy and the cost factor has had an impact on the selection of food, it seemed that the paying resteraunts were the way to go, however that did not fit into our budget. We love cruising and plan to cruise for many years to come. Perhaps our next cruise will be with Royal Carriabean or another line! Ship Details: Ship Quality No complaints there! Dining/Food Stateroom Quality Ship Staff Quality Entertainment & Activities 9 out of 10 people found this review helpful. Did you find this review helpful? Overall Rating: About the Reviewer: Age: 18 - 29 Cruise Experience: 2 - 3 cruises Traveler Type: Couple Stateroom Type: Balcony Very good time by Chris L from Brighton, MI Sailing date: Sep 2010 Pros: Destinations Cons: One day of bad weather We really had a good time on the Dubrovnik, Athens, Izmir, Nafplion trip. Good amount of time in port, nice crew. Ship Details: Ship Quality Dining/Food Stateroom Quality Ship Staff Quality Entertainment & Activities Read this user's port of call reviews: Dubrovnik, Croatia; Izmir, Turkey; Piraeus (Athens), Greece; Nafplion (Nauplion), Greece Collapse List of Ports Ports of Call: Dubrovnik, Croatia Head to the maritime museum to get up on the city walls for free. We went on the croatia rivera tour and it was great. Izmir, Turkey If you want to get to Ephesus, which was very interesting, we took a guided excursion for this one. It's about an hour away from Izmir, so it'd be tough to get to on your own. We were taken to a Turkish rug making school. But be warned to salesman were VERY pushy. Piraeus (Athens), Greece We didn't need an paid excursion for this. We just walked to the train station (1 euro per person) and took it in to the city then used the simple map that we got from the ship to circle around and see the acropolis and all the little sites along the way. Long day of walking but a ton of fun. There were a ton of cab drivers trying to get us to spend the whole day with them when we got off the boat. Nafplion (Nauplion), Greece If you head southeast from the marina, there is a path that will either take you up to a structure at the top of a cliff or you can go to a nice pebble beach. 6 out of 6 people found this review helpful. Did you find this review helpful? Overall Rating: About the Reviewer: Age: 30 - 49 Cruise Experience: 4 - 6 cruises Traveler Type: Family w/young children Stateroom Type: Balcony A fantastic cruise. by Sharon P. from Hartford, CT Sailing date: Apr 2012 Pros: The sportscourt (kids loved it), bowling alley, food, pool, waterslide and staff. Cons: Some of the staff was not very accomodating....but most were wonderful. This was my 5th cruise, first on NCL and I would definitely return and recommend! Ship Details: Ship Quality Very organized ship and staff. Dining/Food Stateroom Quality Ship Staff Quality Overall. Some staff was not very accommodating when asked for assistance/direction, but most were. Entertainment & Activities Loved the sportscourt and bowling alley and Nickolodeon characters. 5 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you find this review helpful? Overall Rating: About the Reviewer: Age: 30 - 49 Cruise Experience: 2 - 3 cruises Traveler Type: Family w/young children Stateroom Type: Suite Good Cruise, Not Great by Charles G. from New York, NY Sailing date: Dec 2008 Pros: Big Ship, Friendly Staff Cons: Food wasnt great, same stuff all the time. Overall the cruise was ok. Out of the 4 ports we stopped at (Cape Canaveral, Great Stirup Cay, Nassau and Freeport) only the Great Stirrup Cay was right on the beach. The other locations required taking a cab to the beach. Other then that the food was alright but pretty much the same at all restaurants and buffet, we got sick of it by the 4th day. The drinks were weak and expensive. Also they charge a $10 per person perday service charge. No one ever mentions this untill the last day when you see it on your bill. You cant even dispute it without having to speak to atleast 2 managers. I feel that if you like the room service you should be able to tip the house keeping staff yourself. Dont just charge me a fee for it. Ship Details: Ship Quality Dining/Food Stateroom Quality Ship Staff Quality Entertainment & Activities Children's Programs Read this user's port of call reviews: Freeport, Grand Bahama Island; Nassau, Bahamas; Great Stirrup Cay (Cruiseline Private Island), Bahamas; Port Canaveral, Florida Collapse List of Ports Ports of Call: Freeport, Grand Bahama Island This is the worst port we stopped at, there is nothing in the imidiate vicinity. Its an industrial port. The closest beach was 11 miles away and we were in port from 8:00 AM to 1:30 PM. You do the math!!! Nassau, Bahamas Right next to the town, good for shopping and walking around. Nothing else really there. Great Stirrup Cay (Cruiseline Private Island), Bahamas Good beach and good snorkling. Port Canaveral, Florida Kennedy Space Center is a lot of fun! 8 out of 12 people found this review helpful. Did you find this review helpful? Overall Rating: About the Reviewer: Age: 30 - 49 Cruise Experience: 4 - 6 cruises Traveler Type: Couple Stateroom Type: Balcony Freestyle is the way to go! by Roy L. from Philadelphia PA Sailing date: Apr 2011 Pros: The crew was awesome. Cons: At some point over the past couple years - NCL switched from Coke to Pepsi :( It sounds petty perhaps but for someone who doesn't drink booze, but really enjoys his soda, being stuck for 7 days on a ship who has switched to Pepsi was a bit of a shock. I suppose if that's the worst thing I have to complain about, it was a great cruise. From the captain down' the crew were awesome. Food and facilities were great as well. The entertainment was wonderful. Ship Details: Ship Quality Dining/Food Stateroom Quality Ship Staff Quality Entertainment & Activities 3 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you find this review helpful?
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