My spouse and I enjoyed on our 7 day cruise to Florida and the Bahamas on the Norwegian Gem! After staying in NYC for a couple days prior to go to a Yankee game and just hang out (recommendations: Gild Hall for hotel; Spicy Village in Chinatown; and Leo's Bagels in Financial District), we embarked smoothly with about an hour and a half wait to get on the boat from arrival to the Manhattan cruise terminal. Our cab ride from Wall St area was $27, thanks to traffic on the Westside Highway, but it beat lugging our suitcases into and out of the subway and on a crosstown bus.

We had so much fun that everything from this point on is a blur if you are expecting a day-by-day play-by-play. Here are the pros and cons of our trip by category:

Food: The good was good to pretty good. We usually ate in the Garden or Great Outdoors for breakfast and lunch. Scrambled eggs were terrible (powdered?), but I was able to get "real" eggs at one of the many omelette stations. Fresh fruit was always available, and the breakfast pastries were usually tasty (once in a while a little dry). The Garden Cafe was usually crowded and hectic, but I blame this on the aimlessly wandering masses of guests who just wanted to see everything there was to offer (even though the stations offered the same things in different parts of the cafe). We ate dinner in Grand Pacific 5 nights; no complaints there except for the turf part of the surf and turf on Night 1 (just was not good steak) and the risotto primavera on the last night (seemed like the cheese sauce was made with canned nacho cheese), but overall it was good enough. One night we ordered pizza and a bucket of beer to our room and watched football (totally worth it), and the other we went to Cagney's. For $30 a plate, it wasn't worth it until we got our entrees, which were well above the quality of the Grand Pacific food (I think they save the good steak or Cagney's). The service was fantastic in both places! Everyone was so attentive and pleasant in every dining area that we experienced. We did not go to any other specialty restaurants, Blue Lagoon, or Magenta. BBQ on Great Stirrup Cay was better than usual Garden food! Read more