My husband and I love to cruise and decided to go on the Gem from Boston to Bermuda. I booked a balcony room but at the last minute saw there was a forward facing penthouse suite available so I called and changed the reservation to the suite. We got to the pier at around 10:30 and were in the Haven/Suite waiting area by 10: 45. Anoop, our amazing concierge met us there and gave us our card keys and all the information we needed. We were escorted onto the ship at 11:15 and brought to Cagney's for our first lunch onboard.

After lunch we decided to see if our room was ready even though they hadn't made any announcements about that yet. We were pleased that it was ready and waiting for us. We have had aft penthouse suites in the past which we have enjoyed but when we get suites on this class of ship, it will be forward facing from now on! The room is pretty much the same as the aft suite but the balcony is at least three or four times the size. There were two lounge chairs, two regular chairs and two small tables with plenty of room to walk around. We spent many hours on our balcony. While we were sailing, it was windy but if you sit on the loungers/chairs, it's really not bad at all. When we were docked, it was perfect! Our room stewardess was Helen and she was probably the best we have ever had! She took care of everything we needed and then some. She always had a smile and called us by name each time. She was so friendly and kind. We looked forward to seeing her in the hallway so we could chat. Our butler was Joaquin but we only saw him a couple of times. We didn't ask him to deliver any meals or anything like that but he brought our snacks every day. I was a little disappointed that we didn't get to know him better.

We got all the perks - beverage package, dining package, excursion credit, and 250 minutes wifi. We are platinum so we also got two more specialty dinners. For dinners we ate at Cagney's twice, Teppanyaki, LeBistro, and LaCuccina. All meals were good but our tenderloin from LeBistro was the best steak we've ever eaten! I highly recommend LeBistro. Because we were in a suite, we got to have breakfast every morning in Moderno. It was quiet and the servers were very good. My husband's favorite breakfast there was steak (filet mignon) and eggs. My favorite was eggs benedict. Every morning while we were having breakfast, Anoop, our concierge stopped to see us and make sure we didn't need anything. Any questions we had, he answered for us and took care of a few minor issues with charges right away. The assistant maitre'd, I Made also visited us every morning. We enjoyed talking to him about his country and how things are run on the ship. He saw us when we were at LeBistro and came right over to us to say hi and make sure everything was ok. We had lunch at O'Sheehan's one day which was ok. We walked through the Garden Cafe a few times and saw they had a great variety of choices. The burgers there were pretty good! Read more