WARNING: This Gem review will likely last longer than the cruise did!

Dear boopsahoy,

Sorry to hear your Cabin Carried..at least it was 9 months..:rolleyes:

One advantage now youall have is having the first waves and getting there always prior to the going aft towards thew stern people ..

We have a bow.. when are they going to make a curtsey too>LoL..

I hope we arrive back in time to Town..

We and all our Ship mates are the voyage prior to you!:cool:

Im sorry too! I also lost the room I had booked 9 months out. Had to take a forward PH instead of aft-anyone have any inside info on the forwards as opposed to afts?

I had 10500 on the Gem in May. Loved it so much that I book a Similar suite just a few doors down. The balcony was huge. We had 11 people on it after our cabin crawl. It wasn't windy at all, just wonderful. Enjoy your cabin Boopsahoy.

OP come back...I love your review.

 

Bonni

I am getting excited now!

Having settled into my room (and asked my great room steward, Freddie, to empty the fridge)

 

Glad to hear you had a great time! I do have a question- what's with emptying the fridge? I have seen so many referring to this. What's in there that you all what out so badly? Flat soda? Old cheese? Dirty socks? :) Why do you want them empty?

 

Thanks for any help in clearing up my confusion! :D

We have the steward empty the fridge and then I store my perfume and face cream in there (nice and refreshing when you put it on). I also can bring back snacks for me to eat in my room like fruit or yogurt.

Looking forward to the rest of the review-we are on the Gem 12/1 like some others in this thread-hope the review is done by then-:D

love the review, and the Gem,, however just one little thing it's a ship not a boat. Looking forward to more

DAY 2

Sorry for the delay... my phone had to be replaced, and all my notes about the cruise were on it!

When last we joined our story, Richard was a sad little camper. He was a little bit tipsy, kinda homesick... fortunately, a good night’s sleep changed all THAT nonsense! Work up Sunday, fresh from a great night’s sleep, and immediately went out onto the balcony to soak in the fact that I was on vacation and at sea, two of my favorite states of being.

Did I mention that the bed was crazy comfortable? I am, it's worth noting, a pillow lover. Not in the dirty sense, but in the sense that I can’t ever have enough pillows on a bed. So the fact that there were four on the bed, just for little ol’ me, was heavenly.

Eventually, I roused myself and decided to go exploring. I wound up checking out the spa and, as a result, bought the Thermal Spa pass, which was $149 for the week. (You could also buy day passes on certain days, but I decided to just go ahead and splurge! I kinda had On-Board Credits burning a whole in my pocket. After all, I'd prepaid for everything — the drink package, the meal plan — and yet had about $200 bucks worth of non-refundable credits!). For those unfamiliar, the thermal spa is kinda awesome. There’s a changing room — one for men, one for women — which offers an herbal steam room, a regular steam room, an individual soaking whirlpool tub, showers, robes, towels and lockers. Once changed, the main, unisex room features showers, a hot tub (sadly, not overlooking the ocean!), a huge thermal jet pool, heated tile loungers and more.

A word of warning: In the big thermal tub, there are two faucet-like things, one on either side. They are activated by pushing a button. DO NOT stand under them when activating the faucets, as the water coming out of them is HIGHLY pressurized. It'll rip your dang face off. LOL. They are, however, GREAT for massaging your back. The best technique? Turn them on, and then approach, backwards, with your body completely submerged in the water. Let your back get used to the pounding!

I was concerned that my kindle might not like the warm, moist air of the spa, so I decided to swing by the library (conveniently located right down the hall) and find a paperback. A day or two later, after seeing many people with their kindles in the spa, I decided to return the book I'd borrowed and stick with my kindle. But the library had a decent selection. One thing I'll say: They really should have put a room BETWEEN the library and the game room. Why? Because the library is, as you'd expect, extremely quiet... while the game room, on the other side of the wall, can get a bit raucous. Apparently, Majong is a loud game!

Anyway, I hit the gym for an hour — which probably meant I worked off, like, one pretzel roll — then went to the spa to relax and read for a while. I thought the spa might be crowded, with it being a sea day, but it wasn't at all. That held true the entire week. They sell a limited number of passes, and it really seemed to keep things from feeling at all claustrophobic.

Now that I was all relaxed, it was time to head to the Cruise Critic Meet & Greet! The main reason I was psyched for this was that I knew Marc and Francis would be there. I hadn't yet met them, but he’d reached out to me after reading on our Roll Call board that I'd rented a cabana on Great Stirrup Cay. Via E-mail, he'd asked if I'd like to split the cost.

Now, if you happened to read my Breakaway review a few months ago, I met a lovely couple (Andrea & Harold) on that cruise and, knowing it was my 50th birthday, they invited me to spend the day with them in the cabana they'd rented. They wouldn't let me pay for it, and so I, on this trip, decided to pay it forward. I invited Marc and Francis (as well as her son, Ethan), to join me. But when you do something like that, you have to (at least in the back of your mind) wonder, "Uh oh. I don't KNOW these people! What if they're completely insane?" Fortunately, at the Meet & Greet, which was held in the Bliss lounge, I met them and discovered that while they are wild & crazy, it's the GOOD kind, not the "Oh dear, they're going to boil the bunny I don't even own" kind. It was here that I also met Diane and her husband Aldo, who would, over the course of the next week, be my regular partners-in-crime (especially Diane), save my literal hyde (more on that later), and wind up being people I planned to hang with on my NEXT cruise, which we're all booked on! Diane and I vowed that we were going to do what people on cruise ships are SUPPOSED to do: play shuffleboard! I've always wanted to, never had. So we promised we would... (let's see how that plays out, shall we?)

Now, I will say that from the beginning, the Roll Call on this particular cruise was not nearly as active as the one for my Breakaway trip. On that trip, by the time I got on the boat and arrived at the Meet & Greet, I was dying to meet the various folks I'd been laughing and joking with for weeks. This was a more sedate roll call. THAT SAID, get involved in your roll call's. They're SO great not only for keeping you excited about the upcoming trip, but also for making sure you'll have some fun, friendly faces to interact with during the trip!

A lot of officers put in appearances at our roll call, including Jenny (the AWESOME hotel director, with whom I interacted several times during the trip... never once about a problem, I'm happy to report) and the captain, who was downright affable and approachable.

Afterwards, I wandered around the ship a bit before heading to my room to sit on the balcony. As I mentioned in Day 1, it wasn't as large as my aft-facing balcony on Breakaway, and yet I was coming to realize that I kinda liked this one more! I felt closer to the water. Sitting there, gazing off into the distance, I saw an oil rig... now I suppose that shouldn't surprise me. I mean, I know we do a lot of deep-sea drilling. It just struck me as cool and odd to see something like that off in the distance!

We were hit by a rainstorm, and I was annoyed that I couldn't sit on my balcony until... hey, wait a minute. Why CAN'T I? It's only water! Slipping into my bathing suit, I went and sat on the balcony and it was AMAZEBALLS.

Realizing it was 1:15 p.m. and I hadn't yet had a cocktail, I set out to rectify that by heading down to "bar city." At Magnum's, I sipped a drink while folks (including Diane) played Trivia. I'd intended to play, but I wound up instead talking to Robin and Steve, two of the FUNNEST people I met all week. These two had me in stitches whenever we crossed paths. We were probably laughing so loud we disrupted the trivia players! Pretty sure we got a few glares... whoopsie.

I hit the casino for a bit and wound up winning $150. (Don't worry, that's not a trend that would last... the whole winning thing I mean!) After grabbing a quick bite at the buffet — and I loved the buffet, everything I had on it was delicious — I went back down to Shaker’s for the 4:15 p.m. Martini Tasting. I'd promised Francis I'd meet here there, and there she was, waiting! The Martini tasting costs $15 and features 6 different 3-ounce drinks. It's a really fun, fantastic way to sample a bunch of different speciality martinis without having to plop down 8-10 bucks for each. (Not that it mattered to me, as I was on the beverage package). By the time we'd finished sipping our cocktails, we were pretty buzzed!

Which of course meant I had to swing up to the Great Outdoors and have a couple more drinks with Adam The Awesome. Eventually, I wandered down to Moderno for dinner. I have to say, of all the specialty restaurants, this was my least favorite. Which is kind of surprising, given that I am a major carnivore. It wasn't bad — actually, the salad bar was the ironic highlight — it just wasn't great. I left full, but not necessarily satisfied. I can't put my finger on why, but it just fell kind of flat for me.

After wandering around for a while, having one more drink up at the Great Outdoors, I decided (for the second night in a row!) to make it an early night.

Apparently, that whole "23-year-old-trapped-in-the-body-of-a-50-year-old" thing was really proving true.

Stay tuned for Day 3...

I love your reviews and as you know the Gem is my favorite ship! I am so glad you said what you did about a M&G it is so true...we did not even have one on our upcoming cruise. Did you get to meet Jenny the HD? She is amazing.

Andrea

I love your reviews and as you know the Gem is my favorite ship! I am so glad you said what you did about a M&G it is so true...we did not even have one on our upcoming cruise. Did you get to meet Jenny the HD? She is amazing.

Andrea

Glad you are back! I've been on the edge of my seat waiting to see what came next. I hope that Jenny, Dan Dan and Captain Stephan are still there in May. We loved them in May of 2014.

I love your reviews and as you know the Gem is my favorite ship! I am so glad you said what you did about a M&G it is so true...we did not even have one on our upcoming cruise. Did you get to meet Jenny the HD? She is amazing.

 

Andrea

Sorry double post

Is Captian Roger still rotating on the Gem?

Sorry to hijack!

Okay..totally hooked now...please come back and post more! Love your sense of humor and writing style. Too much fun!

Okay..totally hooked now...please come back and post more! Love your sense of humor and writing style. Too much fun!

Ditto that! Looking forward to the rest!

Love your review. You certainly have a knack with words. We are leaving on the Gem in November, so like your take on all things cruising.

I'm checking everyday for your next installment! My hubby would like to know what TV channels did you get? Are there decent movies to purchase and what is the cost? Also, please give us details about the spa? Is there a lap pool there? Thanks so much!

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I'm checking everyday for your next installment! My hubby would like to know what TV channels did you get? Are there decent movies to purchase and what is the cost? Also, please give us details about the spa? Is there a lap pool there? Thanks so much!

Sent from my iPad using Forums

I'm going to be rather useless to you, I'm afraid, Holly!

Why do I say that? Because I never turned on the TV once! I didn't even watch my beloved Rachel Maddow, which I try never to miss! (It's worth noting that as the editor of a soap opera magazine, I actually get paid to watch TV... but I even gave up my soaps for the week!)

The spa did not have a lap pool. I saw people, early in the mornings, swimming laps in the adults only pool on the pool deck, if that helps...

Richard/Tralfie

I'm going to be rather useless to you, I'm afraid, Holly!

Why do I say that? Because I never turned on the TV once! I didn't even watch my beloved Rachel Maddow, which I try never to miss! (It's worth noting that as the editor of a soap opera magazine, I actually get paid to watch TV... but I even gave up my soaps for the week!)

 

The spa did not have a lap pool. I saw people, early in the mornings, swimming laps in the adults only pool on the pool deck, if that helps...

 

Richard/Tralfie

What ever happen to the rest of the review? I enjoyed reading the first few days as I will be on the Gem in a few days!

I too was looking forward to the rest of review. Hope everything is okay with Tralfie. When I saw you mention Ava Jerome I just thought you were a fellow General Hospital fan, now I know why the reference.