We just returned from a wonderful week on the Gem! This was our second cruise with NCL, previous cruises have been on HAL and Princess. We usually do a ten day Caribbean cruise in February, but thought we'd try a Bahamas itinerary for a change. We think we'll go back to doing the Caribbean mainly due to the uncertainty of the climate of the Bahamas and Florida in the winter. The temps were mainly in the upper 60's and made it to 72 one day - going to the Caribbean it's pretty much a guarantee of 80's the whole time! It was sunny every day though, so that was nice.

This will mostly be just some observations and our opinions that hopefully will be helpful to future Gem cruisers.

Embarkation: We drove to the NY pier and arrived around 11:30. Very easy to do, just follow the signs for parking, pay, stop to let the dog sniff your luggage, find a parking space, head back down the sidewalk near where you pulled in and give luggage to porter then take the escalator downstairs. We booked through Casinos At Sea (CAS) and saw the sign for "VIP Casinos At Sea" right alongside the Suite and Garden Villa sign. Very nice - we zipped through the x-ray area, right up to the counter to get our key cards and then off to the CAS room to wait to board. We were only sitting there about 15 minutes when an NCL staff member came in and escorted us onto the ship. Got our glass of champagne and went up to the buffet - we were actually the first people to arrive at the buffet! Had a light lunch of sandwiches and salad and then took off to explore the ship. Read more