Norwegian Gem Review
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We just got back two days ago from a trip on the Gem to Port Canavral and the Bahamas. I've been on 4 cruises with my family at 8, 19, 21, and 23, but this was my first one with my fiance, and with another couple, who suggested it. While a cruise wasn't necessarily the type of trip I would have chosen for us, they had never been on one and were excited to try it, and I knew it would be a nice time. We got the staterooms with picture windows, which were very nice to have, and good for my fiance, who felt queasy the first two days, but fortunately was better after that.
The recommended times to arrive were conflicting on different parts of the site, but the request to arrive no more than 2 hours before sailing if you checked in online (which we had) and no more than 3 hours to sailing if not seemed most accurate, so we got there a little less than 2 hours to sailing. The check-in line wasn't too bad at that point, and probably took between 20-30 minutes. My father drove us to the port. It would have been helpful if the check-in information noted the cross-street to take to the pier, since instead we went in circles a couple of times looking for it. One gentleman directing the lines said there was no difference whether you checked in or not. We gave our luggage at the curb with the pre-printed luggage tags, and it was delivered to the rooms in a couple of hours.
I was pleased with the stateroom, and while of course it was small, this was expected, and the only difficult spot was due to the centering of the queen bed (two twins together), making the desk space impossible to walk around, and we kept hitting our knees until I gave up and just started crawling over the bed to get to the phone. There was a lot of shelf space and two sets of 3 drawers each, which was great, and I liked the high shine wood laminate. The TV and fridge worked well, and we emptied out the minibar items and put them back in the last night. Our friends' fridge was locked the first day until someone came to open it, so they used ours at first. Something in the interior of the boat was causing me to sneeze a lot, perhaps the carpet, so I took Benedryl at least 1-2 times a day.