11 nights sailing the Eastern Caribbean on the Norwegian Gem was my very first cruise experience. I kept my expectations low, but I was pleasantly surprised. Obviously, I have some pros and cons as a first-time cruiser so let's start with the embarkation experience from the NYC port.

Embarkation:

NCL should list the pier number for NYC embarking cruise ships in advance. When I called customer service the night before, I was told that the Norwegian Gem is located at the Manhattan Cruise Terminal. Once arriving at the terminal, there are multiple piers. To locate the correct pier, we had to ask a man who was directing traffic. As you can imagine, this was very chaotic and unorganized considering the heavy traffic. Read more