Norwegian Gem Review
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We just got off the Gem today (4/12) and loved it. My BF & I stayed in a Balcony room on Deck 10. The room is not very large; however the bed is very comfortable. A large 29" rolling suitcase fit comfortably laying down in the closet and a small 19" suitcase fit under the chair that was next to the small corner table. It was a relief not to have to trip over our luggage for the week! The closet had lots of hangers; there were also about 4 shelves and 3 drawers, so there was plenty of storage space once we unpacked. The vanity area had a hairdryer and 1 outlet. I was pleasantly surprised by how good the hair dryer worked. I loved the shower, the water pressure was nice and strong and the temperature adjustment was very user friendly. I thought the lighting in the room was a little lacking. Even with all the lights turned on, the room still felt a bit dark. During the day, opening the curtains helped a lot.
Don't expect to watch TV while on the cruise. The only channels that came in were CNN, Fox News, ESPN, Turner Classics and another Sports channel. Plus of course the ship's navigation, activities and ad channels.
We ate in the Grand Pacific Dining Room for dinner and breakfast twice and once for lunch. In my opinion dinner was the best meal to have in the GP. One night Beef Wellington was offered which was delicious! I thought it was great to order a bottle of wine, drink half and they can have it stored for you until you want it again. You get a ticket and then just present it to your waiter in any of the restaurants when you want to drink it. We did this twice and thought it would take very long to retrieve the bottle, but it actually took only a few minutes. For some reason when you order red wine (at least by the bottle) they bring you small white wine glasses. We thought this was strange and asked if they had red-wine glasses and of course they did and gave them to us. Not sure why they don't bring them in the first place, but they were happy to replace them if asked. As for breakfast in GP, the menu doesn't offer anything different from what you can get in the buffet, but the atmosphere is of course much more relaxing. We thought lunch in GP was just OK, maybe it was what we had ordered, but we preferred the variety of the buffet for lunch.