Norwegian Gem Review

4.0 / 5.0
2,589 reviews

10-Day Cruise in Rough Weather

Review for the Eastern Caribbean Cruise on Norwegian Gem
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tffd01
6-10 Cruises • Age 60s

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Additional details

Sail Date: Feb 2017
Cabin: Mid-Ship Balcony
Valentine's Day Towel - Cabin
Orient Beach - Kontiki Bar - St. Maarten
Sunset Bar - Maho Beach - St. Maarten
St. Thomas

My wife and I just got back from a 10-day cruise on the Norwegian Gem to the Eastern Caribbean. It was our 9th cruise and our 5th on Norwegian. We like the ‘Freestyle Dining’ that they have on Norwegian so we can eat whenever we want each day. The Gem is a large ship compared to most of the Norwegian fleet. We were looking forward to this cruise because we had never been to any of the ports…Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, St Maarten and Tortola. We booked it a year in advance and were able to get a mid-ship balcony.

EMBARKATION: We arrived at the pier at 10:00 as we were told by the cruise line. We were able to skip a loooong line for security by having a VIP entrance from ‘Casino of the Seas’. Checking in was a breeze, a few minutes. After about an hour of sitting, we were able to board, also with a VIP twist to it. The whole process was easy.

STATEROOM: None of the cabins were ready as the ship had just arrived and people were still getting off at 10:00 when we arrived. So we had to carry our carry-on bags with us for a couple of hours. We stopped in to the buffet and had some lunch and walked around a little until about 1:00 when the stateroom was ready. Our room seemed a little smaller than we’ve had on other ships but it was still fine for unpacking everything (our luggage didn’t arrive until about 6 PM which was slightly annoying) in drawers and the closet and putting the luggage under the bed. The balcony was an average size with two chairs and small table. Everything worked (temperature of water for shower, air conditioning, tv, etc.). On the first night, while at sea during a storm, the balcony door would not open when we got back to the stateroom. Sometimes we like to sit out before we go to bed. I’m fairly strong and I couldn’t budge it. It was about 11PM and I made a call about the door. The steward came by and he couldn’t open it either and made some silly excuse that it could be the wind. I disregarded that and had him call maintenance to fix this problem. After about 25 minutes, I called again. Guest Services said that the steward had just called (I saw him call while he was in the room with me 25 minutes earlier) and that they would relay the message to maintenance. After another 25 minutes I called again. Guest Services had just changed shifts and the new person knew nothing about the problem and told me he would call housekeeping. I immediately got angry and said that we had already gone way past that point of calling housekeeping. He tried to explain to me that even employees (maintenance) need to rest sometimes. WHAT? It was now midnight and I told him that I’d better see somebody from maintenance in my room shortly. Evidently, Norwegian does not have a maintenance person ‘on-duty’ at all times. He is simply ‘on-call’. They were calling him and he didn’t answer, for some reason. Anyway, he showed up in about 15 minutes and was able to get the door open and put talcum powder along the rubber of the door frame. It seemed like he’d done this many times before. The whole thing was over in 90 minutes but was annoying nonetheless.

Cabin Review

Mid-Ship Balcony

Cabin BA
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