Norwegian Gem Review
Rating by category
Additional details
I've cruised NCL once in the past in 2005 on the Dawn. I've cruised a few other times, including Royal Caribbean among others. I loved the freestyle concept on my last cruise, and that was one of the reasons we decided to stick with NCL for this cruise. My partner had never cruised NCL before, but had cruised a few times in the past, so neither of us were new to cruising.
We knew there was somewhat of a risk to taking a cruise in September with it being peak hurricane season in the Atlantic - but having cruised in the past I knew that no matter what happened we would have a good time on the ship.
As it turned out, Tropical Storm Katia was materializing in the area where we were headed, so when we arrived at the dock, we were informed we would be doing the Bahamas/Florida itinerary instead of Bermuda. Granted - I knew we would have fun on the ship, I just HATED the itinerary. I've been to the Bahamas a few times on previous cruises, and it just isn't a place I really want to revisit.
Cabin Review
Mid-Ship Balcony
Our cabin was nice - spacious enough for the two of us. The bathroom was nicer than I remember from other ships in the past and in my opinion it was a very decent size. Replacing shower curtains with shower doors as they have done on the Gem was wonderful.
Our balcony was great - big enough for the two of us to sit out there with drinks and watch the sunset (or with coffee in the morning for the sunrise). The ONLY problem with our balcony was when folks in the nearby cabins used their balcony to smoke. It was so bad that sometimes we had to come inside - the smoke was literally coming at us from both sides. With the upcoming restrictions (January, I believe), when folks will no longer be able to smoke in their cabin - the smoking issue on the balcony will be even worse. The only solution I can see to this, if they don't want to completely prohibit smoking on the balconies, would be to have one side of the ship smoking, and the other side non-smoking. The next best scenario would be to have big sections of balcony cabins as smoke-free - that would at least help the situation a bit.