Norwegian Gem Review
Rating by category
Additional details
This was our third cruise in the last 13 years for the three of us (DW and DS10). Our last cruise was the Disney Dream on the Concierge Floor two years ago. Our only other cruise was the RCCL Enchantment of the Seas in 2001 in a regular window room. All I can tell you about is what we encountered so it is possible and probable others on the same cruise may have encountered different things.
We all felt this was our best cruise to date. We all had an absolutely wonderful time. Everything was not perfect, but there was nothing that impacted our enjoyment of the time on board the Gem. Most of the negatives are me being really picky (we are not normally picky and do not have sky high expectations either). Anyways here goes:
EMBARKATION
Cabin Review
Deluxe Owner's Suite with Large Balcony
We were in Deluxe Owners Suite #15000 (aka the Black Diamond Suite). On the Gem there are only two DOS, both on Deck 15 - Deck 15 is a small deck consisting of only the two DOS rooms. It is only accessible via the mid-ship tower where you take the elevator to Deck 14 and walk up the stairs to the DOS's. Deck 15 is also the highest floor so you are literally on top of the ship.The room had one king bed with a sleeper sofa. Bed was very comfortable as the sleeper sofa (much better than expected). Also the room had a table with two chairs and a desk with a laptop computer. Also found a nice pair of binoculars in the desk for you use. If I knew about the laptop and binoculars in advance, I could have left mine at home.Bathroom was large with a bathtub with TV, shower stall (with a rain shower head), dual sinks and toilet stall. Lots of storage space. Plenty of room for all our stuff.The view from the room is amazing. You are located mid-ship above the deck 12 pool/outdoor area. You can see everything going on on Deck 12 with a 180 degree view of the ocean/front of the ship area.Also there is a large deck that comes with a table, 4 chairs, two loungers and a hot tub. Hot tub has no temperature setting - only filled with HOT water. Too hot to use right away but we learned how to handle it. We basically left it filled (we left note to cabin attendant to not drain it at night). So now with the water left over from the prior day which was cool/cold. You can set the temperature by partially draining it (we typically drained it around 50-60%, then started the refill to mix the new HOT water with the cold water to our desired temperature.Room also comes with a CD/DVD player that is connected to a wonderful Bose surround sound system (little speakers were everywhere around the room). They had a list of 100 DVD movies that we can have our butler bring us. We got most of the movies we wanted except two - apparently one suite hogged these two movies the entire cruise and would not give them up no matter how many times the butler as them for them back.Room had mechanical blinds that you can raise and open with a switch located near the door. Only thing annoying was during turn down, room attendant always closed the blinds and drapes even though there was still 2 hours more of day light. We finally told her not to close anything and we were capable of doing it ourselves (not really hard - just push a button).