I read a lot of these reviews before my trip, and I was overwhelmed with negativity, so I wanted to post an honest review about my experience on the Gem. I'm not a super experienced cruiser, but I have been on Carnival and Royal Caribbean in the past, and this was my first cruise with Norwegian. I traveled with my husband, our two 13-year old sons, my 19-year old daughter and her 19-year old boyfriend, my parents, my husband's parents, as well as my husband's sister and her 2 sons aged 16 and 8, and a friend and her 3 kids aged 20, 19 and 13. We had a large party which could make it difficult to coordinate at times, but it was a really fun experience. I'll try to start from the beginning

Embarkation - Since there were 17 of us traveling from Delaware and PA, we hired a 21-passenger limo bus to drive us to and from the pier, which saved us money rather than having 5 cars parked at the pier, and made it much more convenient. We spent a total of $1400 on the bus, and it would have cost $2000 to park 5 cars there. Plus it was nice and convenient not having to drive. We got to the pier really early, around 10 am. Going through security and check in was a breeze, but the problem came after that. The previous cruise that just came back had an outbreak of norovirus on the ship, so they had to do an extensive cleaning and sanitizing process, which delayed our boarding. We weren't able to get onto the ship until after 2 pm, which was a long boring 3 hour wait for us. Some people in my party complained, but the way I saw it, we were going to have 10 days on the ship, and I'd rather it be clean and not get sick and just wait a little longer. Once we got onto the ship, all was good.

Stateroom - We had a port hole window room on the 4th deck next to our kids. Honestly, compared to my last cruise on Royal Caribbean, I was extremely pleased with the room. We all know that cruise cabins are small, which is expected, but our room on NCL was extremely functional. We could fit all of our suitcases under the bed, and there was plenty of shelf space and cloest space for all of our things to be put away nicely. Also the size of the bathroom was great. The bed was very comfortable, and the temperature of the room was perfect for us. Next door there were 4 of them staying in the same room type, and they also had adequate space for their things. So that worked out well. This was my first time getting an ocean view room rather than just an inside cabin, and I loved being able to see the water. No complaints about the room. Read more