Went on this cruise last year but this year they added an extra day with Bar Harbor. The last 3 Gem cruises my bff + I had deck 10 forward Penthouse Suites. This time we economized and had a deck 10 balcony under the Garden Cafe. Great location but we missed the size of the suite and some of the perks. All and all we still had a great time.

On boarding suite passengers eat in a special dining room, generally Cagneys. We ended up going to the Main Dining room and loving it. We had soup and delicious open faced tuna sandwiches that we cleverly decorated with tomato and cucumber slices. Service was friendly. Before we knew it our cabin was ready. I received a call from MaryAnn from Group Services regarding the Meet & Greet that I had set up for Sunday. It was a pleasure working with her. My emails were returned immediately. We met Sunday at 11. MaryAnn had a beautiful refreshment table set up, name tags and her friendly smile. We had approximately 30 participants which I consider successful since the roll call wasn't very active until a couple of weeks before. Quite a few of the senior staff were in attendance which I love. I always mention in the roll call to keep negativity out and if you have a specifically issue to call up the appropriate officer after the Meet + Greet. Ok, after my 6th time hosting a Meet + Greet I neglected to do so. You can guess what happened lol. I won't forget to mention it again for sure. We then played a quick ice breaker game with the prize being an item from the Cruise Critic Store. Then on to the Casino where our Cc member AnnMarie arranged a slot pull. We had fun with our $15 best, donating $5 each and taking $10 each.

Food: we had 3 dinners from cruise + 2 from Platinum Status Read more