This is a personal review of a beautiful new ship and delightful 10 days of cruising. We've taken two NCL cruises and two Carnival Cruises (I've done a few more). Being based in Florida we've only cruised from home state and wanted a little different experience. This was an excellent choice offering both the briskness of NYC in February and the warmth of the Caribbean. The NCL Gem is exactly that - a GEM. It is beautiful outside and inside. Being greeted with free glasses of champagne was a really welcome surprise. This is part of the new NCL program and seems to be going over very well. Our mini suite was lovely, with more than enough storage room. The bed was very comfortable, and the new features of a lighted make-up mirror, 4 cup drip coffee maker and mesh balcony chairs were delightful! Our room steward was great, always making sure we had plenty of ice and some cute towel animals. We thoroughly enjoyed our suite for our 10 day journey. There is nothing that equals falling asleep with the balcony door open and listening to the sound of the ship moving through the water. Absolutely heaven!

In general the food was acceptable, but not noteworthy. I'm not sure if we're just spoiled or if we are becoming more critical, but even in the specialty restaurants (we went to Cagney's for Valentines Day, and also visited LeBistro, Teppanyaki, Orchid Garden and Tequila) and although good, not spectacular. One really fun surprise was our server at Cagney's didn't like our dessert choice (we're both diabetic and watch our sweets) so he make us Banana's Foster for free and brought it over to us as a special Valentines Day Surprise. Very nice and greatly appreciated!

Our best meal was actually in the main dining room, Magenta. We really liked the decor there and the one time we went our meal was fabulous. Breakfast found us four times at the Blue Lagoon. Nice quiet space next to large windows and wonderful breakfast with eggs as ordered, etc. One breakfast in the Grand Pacific was not as good as the Blue Lagoon and we found we didn't enjoy the decor as much as in the Magenta. We frequented the Garden Cafe for snacks like cheese and fruit to take back to the room. We ate lunch there twice and found the food more than acceptable. Taking our meals out to the back deck for the Great Outdoors environment. Wonderful area to sit, sip, eat and watch the water flow by. The room service menu is greatly improved and we took advantage of that twice for lunch and multiple times for snacks. Read more