Our family decided when would we have another opportunity to travel together-we're in our mid 50's and the kids are in their 20's-so we picked the Gem and it's 7 day adventure to Malta, Italy and France from Spain to be our big trip.We must tell you NCL and the Gem were great! The ship is very nice, our mini suite was just right (11058) and the staff were super friendly and very attentive. Contrary to many reviews, the food was very fine and plentiful,deserts could have been better but they were okay, it was easy getting into restaurants before 7:30 as many people ate at later times, the entertainment was either okay or very good and the specialty restaurants were either good or very good. We enjoyed Le Bistro the most while the Asian Fusion restaurant was just okay since we are used to very good Asian food. Embarkation: Getting on the ship was very easy, just show up around noon and it's a breeze to get on. We stayed in Barcelona for one night before the cruise at the H 10 Montcada in the Las Ramblas district. Great location, small but clean rooms and good AC. Get an upper floor as the lower floors in the front pick up street and subway noise until late at night. Best restaurant we found in Barcelona near the hotel served better pizza than we had in Italy-Il Montello was 2 blocks from the H10 on Via Laietana-great pizza and pasta dishes at reasonable prices. Barcelona was very interesting but a bit concerning as far as safety goes-watch for pickpockets and guard your wallets and bags. Ports: Malta was our first stop-very interesting-best thing we did was get off the ship and arrange at the taxi stand for a 3 hr. tour by taxi for 66E that included Mdina and a few other stops-very worthwhile

Naples and Civitevecchia-We decided to have full day guided tours by a company with a driver. I can highly recommend Aldo and Nick of www.yourtourinitaly.com. They did a great job in guiding us and bringing our group of 6 to fantastic sites and restaurants in Rome, Positano, Pompeii and Sorrento, arranged for private tours of the Vatican and the Amalfi coast and made our trip a complete winner with 2 full days of touring combined with great information and pleasant guidance. They were great-I highly recommend them!!

Livorno/Florence: We decided to take a cab to the train station and took the 1+hr trip by train to Florence and spent the day in Florence. This was a great day at a very reasonable cost. It was easy to do and fun to ride the train. The train cost approx. 14e RT and the cab is approx 20E for 4 people. The Duomo and other sites in Florence-Ponte Vecchio were magnificent. Read more