We love the longer (11 days) cruise. The Gem is a smaller ship which we prefer. The crew was a wonderful group of hard working folks.

We bought the spa package. The heated pool and chaise lounge chairs are awesome. It was wonderful but to save money next time I would buy it online prior to the cruise.

This was the first time that we participated in the Cruise Critic roll call. We loved it. It as nice to meet the others traveling with you. We did the meet and greet, the slot pull, poker and pub crawl and the Thanksgiving holiday dinner. What a great group of people. Apparently this was a very large group of Cruise Critic roll call folks. The slot pull and the poker pub crawl took a while but it gave you time to talk to the other cruise. We felt like we knew half of the ship.