3 Nights Great Stirrup Cay & Nassau from Miami, Florida Cruise

Good ship for older cruisers

My first cruise, so nothing to compare it to. I had a cheap inside stateroom with modest expectations to match, so that is my perspective. This ship seems to cater mostly to adults, limited activities for kids other than the pool and limited thrill-seeking activities that cater to the younger crowd. As a solo cruiser, I wanted to meet people. I found the open back deck aft of the main buffet was a great place to strike up conversations. I met several people that I spent quite a bit of time with on the back deck throughout the cruise and many other people that I could have conversations with. The table seating makes it easy to converse with nearby tables; more conducive to meeting people than lounge chairs. Much of the seating was covered with a tarp so could enjoy even when it was raining. The 180 degree view off the back of the ship was great as the ship left ports. Staff: excellent. friendly. attentive. Could not be better. You couldn't go anywhere without seeing staff cleaning and wiping down pretty much everywhere that someone could touch. Dining: mostly did the buffets, enough variety to keep from eating the same thing every meal. Food at buffet and main dining room was good. I did not do any specialty dining. Entertainment: solo act lounge music was mediocre. Predictable familiar songs. Probably the right thing to cater to many tastes, but not my thing. Band at the pool was decent. I did not go to the big show at the theater, but I heard good things about it. Crowding: a bit crowded in the atrium area in the evening, but not bad in other areas of the ship (theater, buffet, pool, elevators not crowded). There were plenty of places on the ship where you could get some sun or shade away from the crowds. Excursions: were surprisingly good, but short. Often got back to the ship around 1 or so. Good if you want a quick island tour. If you want to hang out at the beach, take a taxi instead of a ship excursion. In conclusion, I think I lucked out on this one, being a smaller ship. My next cruise is on a much larger ship. We'll see if it's too crowded and too noisy for me. There doesn't seem to be any equivalent to the outdoor seating on the back deck of the Gem, but I'll make do. I must add that I see a lot of reviews online that are mediocre-to-poor across all the major cruise lines, not just this ship or NCL. If you read these, you will never cruise. My take on this is that there are a lot of long-time experienced cruisers out there who have seen that the cruise experience is not as good as it may have been in the past, for example things that might have been free or cheap years ago are no longer free or cheap. I also think that people who buy a stateroom that is 3X what I paid are less tolerant of something not working out. My advice is go with the flow, be tolerant, expect a thing or two will not work out, so it doesn't ruin your whole trip, and you don't end up writing a one-star review when most of your cruise experience was good.

Fabulous Cruise on NCL Gem

We loved our time on the Gem. It was or first cruise ever and we are now sure to cruise as often as we can. The crew in particular stood out. And the music from all the bars and lounges that were filled with great music to every single staff member int he various restaurants, everyone was great. It makes my head spin how they can get such a large team to give great service because I have been in charge of large teams giving service. The two best parts of the entire cruise were the introduction of the crew in the Stardust ofter one of the shows and the behind the scenes tour. The introduction was 10 minutes of waving and cheering and maybe 200 crew filed in followed bu some of the senior staff. Much excitement was built and then the corny NCL song. But it was heartwarming and a bit corny in the sweetest way. You can see how they motivate the staff. That feeling was only made stronger when we took the behind the scenes tour. Again, the folk who you never see, like a supervisor in the laundry, takes such pride. It is almost impossible to fake it. We saw two shows in the Stardust and both were great fun. The Broadway one was brand new. We missed the 3rd show. The showband was incredible and they played individually and in various groupings. Upgrade, Rondon and Los Paisanos were all really great as well. And there were more but there was only so much we could take in. There was always something else we wanted to do. The ship itself was in outstanding condition. It is old but it is richly decorated with lots of wood and brass and lighting. We are glad there was so little of the bells and whistles of large ships. The food was outstanding in the specialty dining restaurants. We had an outstanding pizza and calamari in La Cucina, a fantastic classic french meal in Le Bistro, and our favorite, Moderno. We are big fans of Fogo de Chao and Moderno was better from the salad bar wich is of course much smaller but higher quality to the meats. But best was the service. Our favorite waiter worked in Moderno so we dined there twice just to sit at his table! The MDR was mostly very good. The service was quite good from our embarkation day lunch to our disembarkation breakfast. The buffet was OK with the Asian section being pretty good, the burgers very good {available in three different places} Our favorite bar was Maltings with a great bar tender Deng. We loved the Spinnaker and my wife danced a bunch and I even got on the floor, a first in many years. We met lots of really fun folk. One advantage of a small ship is that you keep running into people you might never see on a ship with three times the passengers. And even though the ship was small, you could always go somewhere else if you wanted to avoid people. The thermal suite was incredible and a bargain at $199 for the week. The spa manager gave me a coupon for a discount treatment and then let me know that the next day they were running crazy specials while in port. My wife and I wound up getting incredible 70 minute treatments for about what we would pay back home. The cabin was one of the sideways inside cabins. We loved the arrangement although it made for a bit of crowding at the closet and bathroom but you got more space around the bed. Our room steward was always around and we spoke to him several times every day. We did not feel any nickle and diming. Yes there are things with a charge. And I am fine with that as it means I am paying for the stuff I want and not the stoff other folk want. And I chose the Gem specifically for a lower key cruise. My wife works under incredible pressure and this was almost life saving! And we thought that NCL delivered great value. No other line had a cruise similar with all we were looking for at this price. Oh yeah. The ports. Incredible. Bar Harbor was very nice with a great tour of the park and an oceanarium visit with a superb guide. Halifax was great for wandering the waterfront after a wonderful tour to Peggy's Cove. We had great food iin Sydney. But the star of the cruise food wise was Sea Rocket Restaurant and Oyster Bar in Charlottetown PEI. The best oysters ever! Our port stop in Saguenay got cancelled and as a result we cot a cruise in and a cruise out mid morning and then cruise out in the afternoon until it got dark. This was incredible! We has such a good time we bought 2 sets of Cruise Next Certificates. We are looking at Panama Canal on the Jade next. Only real negative of the cruise is we had to get off!

Exceeded Expectations!

Though I was certainly excited about this trip in the weeks preceding it, given that I hadn’t been on a cruise in almost 15 years, my expectations were moderate. For months, I had been watching tours and Vlogs of amazing cruise ships, primarily new mega ships, and was particularly impressed with Icon, Oasis-class Royal Caribbean ships, Celebrity, and Princess. I was skeptical of NCL - and I was not overly excited about going on an older ship like Gem. However, I am pleased to say that my father and I (yup, left my wife and kids at home) had an awesome cruise experience. It certainly helped that we stayed in an Owner’s Deluxe Suite and were part of the Haven program. Some things that stood out as positives: - The ship was tremendously clean. - The Haven courtyard and sun deck were beautiful, and always virtually empty. - Huge shout out to the ship’s Internet cafe manager. My own IT team couldn’t figure out what was preventing my computer from connecting to the ship’s WiFi, but he did a deep dive on my device and figured it out. - Loved walking the promenade on deck 7, and spotted an amazing orca between Bermuda and Maine. - The town of Bar Harbor was absolutely lovely, and Acadia National Park was a great place to visit for a day. - Priority embarkation and disembarkation - super smooth. - The guest entertainer Tom Franek was seriously impressive! - We rented a small electric car in Bermuda, and that was a great way to explore the island. - The food was somewhere between fine and very good. I thought it was fine to good, and my dad (who is not a foodie like me) thought it was very good. Le Bistro and Cagney’s were the top meals. My only critiques: - They inadvertently gave us coupons in our cabin for two free speciality dining dinners. When we went to used the first one, they discovered that they had mistakenly given them to us. While ultimately they did honor the coupon (given that we booked it because of the coupon), it took a couple of days to sort that out. - Room service breakfast was a miss. Cold omelette, cold coffee. It was the only thing that was a legit miss during the whole week.