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Norweigan Gem - Nice trip by
Steve B from Seattle, WA Sailing date: Sep 2008Pros: 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 QualityCant complain. The ship was nice and layout was great. Signs well marked too. Dining/FoodOverall pretty good. Wait staff at grand pacfic seemed unhappy and frustrated. Stateroom QualityWe loved our stateroom. Balcony chairs weren't great, but ok Ship Staff QualityThe cruise staff for housekeeping were always happy and positive.  
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Civitavecchia (Rome), ItalyWe 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, ItalyCapri, 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, FranceBeautiful 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, MaltaWine 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.
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  Hidden Costs Everywhere by
Rick M. from Heidelberg, Germany Sailing date: May 2009Pros: 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 Staff QualityExcellent Entertainment & ActivitiesGood Children's ProgramsExcellent
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Cannes, France
Civitavecchia (Rome), ItalyNot enough time.
Naples, ItalyNaples is not recommended. Pompei is.
Valletta, Malta
21 out of 23 people found this review helpful.
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7 day cruise by
Diane S. from Bay Area of CA Sailing date: Oct 2008Pros: 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 Quality
Dining/Foodall was very good except the variety of the food served in the various restaurants. Food was not exceptional, just ok. Stateroom Quality
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Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy
Livorno (Florence & Pisa), ItalyPisa 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, FranceWould like to have ihad a lunch include in this even if price was a bit more.
Valletta, Maltatour 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.
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Disappointed with Norwegian by
rob from Smithville, NJ Sailing date: Oct 2011Pros: 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 QualityMy 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 )
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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/FoodThe 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 QualityOur 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 QualityWhile 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 & ActivitiesLeo, 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. 17 out of 20 people found this review helpful.
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free to part with your money by
rene g. from philadelphia suburbs Sailing date: Apr 2009Pros: 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 Qualityno wow factor Dining/Foodno midnight buffets and only one place to get snack of micro portion Stateroom Qualitynice bathroom, good shower Ship Staff Qualitytold to get my own beach towels the first day, never enough towels Entertainment & Activitiesgood magician, no adult entertainment
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Freeport, Grand Bahama Islandwaste of time, there only 3 hors with nothing to do
Nassau, Bahamasgo to atlantis, dolphins fun, very disorganized for excursions
Great Stirrup Cay (Cruiseline Private Island), Bahamasweather was too bad and didn't get on went early to nassau where everything except the bars was closed
Port Canaveral, Floridaif you want disney go there
13 out of 18 people found this review helpful.
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Our Spring Break Cruise by
Debra N. from New Jersey Sailing date: Apr 2010Pros: 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 QualityNo complaints there! Dining/Food
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9 out of 10 people found this review helpful.
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Very good time by
Chris L from Brighton, MI Sailing date: Sep 2010Pros: 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 Quality
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Dubrovnik, CroatiaHead 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, TurkeyIf 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), GreeceWe 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), GreeceIf 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.
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A fantastic cruise. by
Sharon P. from Hartford, CT Sailing date: Apr 2012Pros: 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 QualityVery organized ship and staff. Dining/Food
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Ship Staff QualityOverall. Some staff was not very accommodating when asked for assistance/direction, but most were. Entertainment & ActivitiesLoved the sportscourt and bowling alley and Nickolodeon characters. 5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
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Good Cruise, Not Great by
Charles G. from New York, NY Sailing date: Dec 2008Pros: 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 Quality
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Freeport, Grand Bahama IslandThis 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, BahamasRight next to the town, good for shopping and walking around. Nothing else really there.
Great Stirrup Cay (Cruiseline Private Island), BahamasGood beach and good snorkling.
Port Canaveral, FloridaKennedy Space Center is a lot of fun!
8 out of 12 people found this review helpful.
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Freestyle is the way to go! by
Roy L. from Philadelphia PA Sailing date: Apr 2011Pros: 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 Quality
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3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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