Bermuda NCL Gem Review5/22 - 29/2011This was our 7th cruise, 4th with NCL. We are in our mid 50's and celebrated our 31st wedding anniversary while on this cruise. Day One (Embarkation Day) 5/22/2011Cruise terminal: Arrived at 10:15 went directly to parking lot on level three where we immediately found a porter who took our luggage. Went down to the second level to check in which took about 20 minutes. We checked in with the latitudes check-in along with two other couples who were with us, who are not latitude members. We were issued pass number 6. After this my brother made dinner reservations in the specialty restaurant. You can also make your spa reservation then as well. Just before 12 noon numbers 1-4 were called and five minutes later 5-8 were called. Onboard: When walking on the ship there were two entrances. If you take the one to the left you will enter in to the atrium. I took my bags to the room and asked if I could store my carry-ons in the closet and was graciously allowed to do this. There was a place at the Orchid lounge/restaurant that you could drop your bags as well but I found this out after I dropped my bags to the room. We ate in the Garden Cafe which was not yet too crowded as we were one of the first on the ship. The soda packages are picked up at the Java Cafe or the Orchid lounge. My brother and his wife purchased the soda pkg and had no problem at all getting served their sodas. We then headed to the casino to get our players club card. We also pre-purchased slot play coupons at (www.slotplaycoupons.com) but couldn't get them activated until the casino opened. This took about 5 - 10 minutes to have them activated. Casino staff were all very friendly. We were in our rooms by 2:00 and had our luggage by 4:30 or so. We had a balcony cabin 9088. Our room steward was Erick who was excellent!!! At 3:30 our muester drill was in the Teppanyaki Restaurant, not outside, but this may have been because it was rather chilly, lasted no more than 10 minutes and then we headed to the pool deck for sail away at 4:05. Dinner: Grand Pacific Dining room at 6:00. Our waitress, Peachy was very efficient. We told her we wanted to make the 7:30 show and we were out of there by 7:20. There were 8 in our party but they put us at two tables of 4. Just a note...although we could wear shorts in the Grand Pacific dining room for embarkation day...after that they were NOT allowed...shorts were only allowed in the Magenta or of course the Garden Buffet. I'm not going to comment a lot on the menus as I do not have copies and can't remember everything I ate but I will say I did not go hungry. Most of the food was very good to fair. I am a fussy eater but always managed to find something I liked. Show: Welcome Aboard Show at 7:30 (only one show tonight). Featured dancers and Dave Heenan comedian, he was very funny but went off the ship in Bermuda so he will not be there for upcoming cruises. After the show we went to Magnums for music with Jeffrey who was pretty good.Day Two, 5/23/2011 - Sea DayMorning/Afternoon: Ordered room service for 8:30 received a call at 8:15 to say breakfast was on its way and it arrived 10 minutes later. Sat by pool for a while and then we went to sign up for our cruise certificate that entitled us to a $100 onboard credit for this cruise. Meet & Greet was scheduled for 11 AM at Cagney's Extension. This was very well attended and NCL and Elwynn our group service coordinator did a great job setting this up. The captain, hotel manager, food and beverage manager and Jill, the cruise director attended as well. I have to say that the crew on this ship were one of the friendliest and approachable crew that we have experienced. We signed up for our slot pull here and decided to do this on Saturday at 3 PM. For lunch we went back to the upper pool deck and had great hamburgers and hot dogs at Hang Loose. The one negative that I found on this cruise was the almost lacking of pool music and pool activities. I especially missed having the steel drum music play more. The Joy Band was excellent but did not play near enough for my liking. Our friend won the hula hoop contest but it was very laid back with little excitement. At 4:00 we went to the Martini tasting where I won two full size martini's...woohoo!! DH did the beer tasting and tasted 7 different beers and foods, he really enjoyed this. They did the martini tasting and beer tasting on all three of our sea days but did NOT have a margarita tasting once??Evening: Dress up or not was tonight. We at dinner at Magenta. I ordered two lobster tails in place of the one rock fish and substituted the veggies for a baked potato. There were very accommodating and made the substitutions with no problem at all. My brother actually ordered a third tail as they were quite small. Our waitress tonight was Rosalynn. DH had the beef wellington and that was very good, the spring rolls were great as well. Went to the show tonight "Get Down Tonight" was very good. Then we were off to watch deal or no deal which was fun. 70's disco party with Next Stage was very very good. Next Stage were amazing. Jill, (cruise director) and her staff were at this party and it was so much fun. Jill is very funny and personable.Day 3, 5/24/2011 - Sea DayMorning: We decided to have breakfast at the pool today so we could be guaranteed a chair poolside...NOT!!! We were out by 8:30 and there was not a single chair by the pool. We went up to the second deck, just above the pool and found a chair there. The chairs by the inner railing were facing the sea so we turned it around to face the pool so we could watch the activities. The Miss biceps contest was a lot of fun with a lot more excitement then the hula hoop contest. The Jimmy Buffet Hour was a CD that played JB music for an hour and there was NO live music until 2:30 when Joy Band played...again this was really my only big disappointment. We left the pool area to go watch Dave Heenan (comedian) in the atrium. This really should have been in the Spinnaker or the Stardust as there were no seats available and the blenders from the bar interrupted his show. He was very good but left our ship in Bermuda...he was replaced by another comedian I'll talk more about later.Evening: We ate dinner again in Magenta and our service was very efficient as it was throughout the entire cruise in either the Magenta or Grand Pacific dining room. When we needed to be at a show we would let our server know ahead of time and they always accommodated us. We were always a party of four, six or eight. Man from Mars is a not to be missed show. I'm not going to go in to detail but it was excellent with an immediate standing ovation at the end of the show. We then headed to Spinnaker for the Quest show which was hysterical. You split up in to teams of no more than 6 so we had two teams of four and had a blast. Jill was a lot of fun with this event. Day 4, May 25, 2011, BermudaMorning: This morning we had breakfast in Blue Lagoon after a tip from another cruise critic review and this was great advice. Limited menu but service very quick. We were cleared early, just before 8 and we were off the ship with little or no lines before 9. We bypassed the first transportation kiosk located at the end of the pier on the left due to LONG lines and walked to the colorful, circular building just past the ferry dock to get our passes. It says Gombey Junction on the door. There were no lines here. We bought three day passes for $28 each. They do not sell the ticket books here only in Hamilton. Walked back to the bus stop and immediately boarded a #7 bus to go to the sea glass beach. We politely asked the bus driver to drop us off at the Military cemetery near the sea glass beach and he let us know when we were there and showed us where to wait for our return ride. We were there in less than 10 minutes, it was not far but we would not walk it as there is no shoulder or sidewalks. There are 4 aqua colored apartment buildings, called Albert Row, just across the street from where we were dropped off. Walk in between building two and three, cross the street and walk a couple of feet to your left and look for a sea glass patio, the fence was already tied open so we walked through and down to the beach...tons and tons and did I say TONS of sea glass. Make sure to take baggies or something to collect the glass. This was a great experience. When you are finished go back up and you will see a blue pole just across from the aqua church where you wait for the bus to return to the dockyard. We waited no longer than 10 minutes for our bus back. Walked around the docks for a while and then took the free tram (train) ride around the wharf. Headed back to the ship for lunch and then back off the ship to meet our Restless Native Tour Guide at 1:45 for our Catamaran Excursion that was planned on our own after NCL cancelled this excursion. It was AWESOME. Maureen met us at the pier and Keith, Troy and Emily were our tour guides. For the first hour we were given lots of Bermuda history from Maureen and then served delicious fresh baked cookies by Emily. Emily then gave us some snorkeling info and showed us the fish that we would see while snorkeling. We entered waist deep water to begin our snorkeling led by Troy who showed us some of the fish. Then back to the catamaran for more cookies and delicious Bermuda Swizzles. This was a great excursion and I would highly recommend it!! It was about 3.5 hrs. There were only 25 of us on board, which gave us lots of room to spread out and relax. Evening: We ate dinner in Grand Pacific and then tried to head back out to go to Harbor Nights in Hamilton but we just missed the ferry over to Hamilton so we decided to go back to the ship. There is a later ferry coming back for Harbor nights that I believe left at 9:30 or 10 from Hamilton back to the dockyard. Back on the ship we went to Spinnaker's for the Perfect Couple game that was a lot of fun. Again this was hosted by Jill who is really funny!! Day 5, 5/26/2011, BermudaMorning/Afternoon: Again, we had a quick breakfast in the Blue Lagoon. We headed off ship about 9:15 to catch the 10 AM, quick ferry to St. Georges. There is another ferry that comes in with this ferry but it is the slower ferry. The quick ferry takes about 45 minutes vs. the slower ferry that takes over an hour. I would recommend getting in line early as we did to sit up on top for a birds-eye view. We arrived at St. George's at 10:45 and did a self guided tour around the area. We love St. Georges, so quaint. 11:45 the Town Crier arrived at the Town Square and put on a very fun show with a "drunk" and a wench who was later ducked. My DH and DB and friend were all part of the ducking so that made it even more fun!! They put on this show Monday to Friday at high noon. After this we walked up to Tobacco Bay, a 15 minute walk that at first appears to be all up hill but levels out after the unfinished church. We were told that you didn't need water shoes for tobacco bay and although this is true if you are just planning on swimming there but if you want to snorkel I would highly suggest you have them, if you want to go out by the rocks it is very rocky and I kept stubbing my toes. You won't need your fins but you should have water shoes. There were some good fish though and we saw all the ones we learned about the previous day on our Restless Native Catamaran excursion. We found a nice bench with a table and ate our lunch there...(Note: we packed a lunch that we ordered the night before from room service, put it in ziplocks and kept in the fridge til morning.) We also took water bottles, sodas and snacks along with us. We caught the 3:45 quick ferry back to the dockyard. Again this was a rather long line so I would suggest getting in line at least a half hour before time. Evening: We ate in the Grand Pacific and then went to the 7:30 Second City show. This was pretty good but not really my taste of comedy...just my opinion. Then we went to Spinnaker's for the White Hot Party that was great fun!!!Day 6, 5/27/2011, BermudaMorning/Afternoon: Breakfast in the Grand Pacific which did take a little longer than Blue Lagoon so if you are in a hurry to get off the ship I would highly recommend Blue Lagoon. We caught a # 7 "special" bus to Horseshoe Bay at 10:30. It only made one stop at the lighthouse before arriving at HSB about a 30 minute bus ride. Again we told the bus driver where we wanted to be left off and he announced it when we got there. You walk down a rather long hill. There is a shuttle at the top $1 down and at the bottom $2 to go back up. This is a beautiful beach and I would say, not to be missed if you haven't been there. We rented two High beach chairs for $11 each with a $10 deposit you got back when you returned the chairs. They were not renting umbrellas as it was too windy but we discovered we didn't need them because there were plenty of coves we could go in to get out of the sun. We did see a couple of blue Portuguese Man of Wars but only on shore. We snorkeled a little to the right as you walk through the baby beach. Again we had lunch ordered by room service the night before. We decided to take a taxi back that we caught right in the parking lot just outside the beach. There were six of us, we paid $15 a couple to cover tip. The taxi driver was great and gave us a little history on the way back. Evening: Dinner at Grand Pacific then to World Beat show at the Stardust...again this was pretty good but if you are not in to the dancers you may want to pass. Then to Spinnaker's for Newlywed/Not-So-Newlywed Game, lots of fun and our friends who were married 42 years won the contest so that was even more fun for us!! Stayed at the Spinnaker for some music by Next Stage followed by comedy by Rick Starr, (new comedian), who was funny even with keeping his act clean. Day Seven, 5/28/2011, Last Sea DayMorning/Afternoon: Ate breakfast in the Garden Cafe, very good. Headed to the pool deck 13 table outside the Hang Loose/Bali Hai Bar. Emanuel, our bar server was excellent and saw him working all over the place, all times of the day!! Music by Joy Band was to start at 11 today and I was so excited until 11:30 when they took a break only to come back at 12:30 to play another ½ hour...so frustrating. We stayed by the pool until 2:45 when we went to the casino for our Roll Call group Slot Pull. This was a lots of fun. We each paid $15 and got 5 pulls on the Wheel of Fortune Game. We even won a little of our money back. The cashier divided the money evenly for all players with a little left over to tip the bar waiter who supplied us with a complimentary drink.Evening: Our last supper in the Grand Pacific Dining Room. Food was good and service as well. We headed to the 7:30 Variety Farewell Show who included Man from Mars again who was just as good as the first time we saw him...so amazing!! Beatles tribute with Next Stage was very good. After this we went to Blue Lagoon for some amazing New York style cheesecake...BEST cheesecake on the ship!!! Then back to the cabin to pack our bags...Soooo Sad!!Last Day, 5/29/2011, Disembarkation DayBreakfast at the Grand Pacific at 7:45. Got in line to disembark at 9:30 and we were off the ship by 10:00. Easily found our luggage and got a porter who took us to a special customs line and then up to our car in the garage. There was a little chaos due to Fleet Week but we anticipated this and it really wasn't a problem for us. Overview: This was an excellent cruise with great weather and seas like glass. The Gem is a beautiful ship although I was not all that impressed with the grand atrium. As I stated my real complaint was the lacking steel drums by the pool but other than that we had a wonderful vacation. The crew were all excellent, service was great, and the ship was very clean, as were the hands of every passenger on board who will go to sleep the first few nights after the cruise hearing "washy, washy, happy, happy"Don't hesitate to ask any questions...I'll do my best to answer. I know this was a looong winded review but I always appreciate reading the details so I wanted to give my observations as seen by my point of view back!!