NCL Gem -10-Day E. Caribbean- Jan 29-Feb 8,2012 - Review and Pictorial

This was our fourth time on the Gem and the trip was planned as a winter getaway.

We have been to all the ports before, but planned different activities for each. We really like the Gem and are very comfortable onboard.

Spoiler alert - as a card-carrying NCL "cheerleader," there is nothing bad in this review. :p

It was another perfect trip on a great ship with an outstanding crew and excellent service. We subscribe to the mantra that there is no such thing as a bad cruise and that any issue can be fixed. In our case, again, there was nothing to fix.... the trip was outstanding.

I mentioned more than once to some of the officers that, after more than a dozen voyages on NCL, I am constantly astounded how they just keep getting better and they continue to delight us.

(Warned ya...cheerleader. :o )

Out of NY, it had a nice itinerary...2.5 days at sea....5 days, 5 ports, bang-bang-bang... then 2.5 days to relax on the way home. We thoroughly enjoy the time on the ship, and we are "attack" tourists that try and wring as much out of our port days as possible.

This trip had an afternoon in San Juan, then stops in St. Thomas, Antigua, St. Maarten and Tortola.

I'll start with a quick photo tour of parts of the ship and then post on each of the ports.

I did a few walk-arounds to take some pictures of the Gem itself. There are some great venues here and it is a beautiful ship.

Spinnaker Lounge, Deck 13 Forward

Tequila Tex-Mex on Deck 8 (soon to be converted into Moderno)

Blue Lagoon, opposite Tequila

Promenade Deck (Deck 7)

Photo Area

La Cuchina, the Italian restaurant, next to the Garden Cafe

The Garden Cafe

Garden Cafe, Kids Area

Great Outdoors, outside of the Garden Cafe and La Cuchina

Sports Deck

Pool Deck

Bali Hai, above the Pool Deck...or favorite hangout.

Brian was an amazing host and always met us with our drinks of choice when we showed up.

Chairs. chairs and more chairs.

If you couldn't find an open lounger, you didn't look very far... I swear there were more loungers than life jackets aboard.

Cagney's, Breakfast Spread

Spa Thermal Suite

We've been on the Gem twice, just got off the Jewel yesterday, and just booked the Star today for August! Thanks for being an NCL cheerleader! Don't you just love it when someone's whole cruise is ruined for some little thing???We loved your photos! So professional looking!

Bridge

The guys who actually drive...

Every locking door onboard has an open-or-closed status light.

The controls to drive in and out of port

The Captain showed us the secret to parking close to the dock...a window in the floor

View from the bridge

I did steer for a while, but not for long...

and help them navigate...I found a slower route back to NYC :cool:

More to come... I will prep and post the details on our five ports later.

Great pics, thanks for sharing! More please! Looking forward to your review!:)

Great pics. Thanks for sharing. I was on the Gem 1/18 to 1/28 Your pics have me excited for our upcoming cruise on the Star to Bermuda this July.

Gem is one of our favorite ship as well. Is melvin were still working at the bali hai bar ?

It's about time NCL changed the sign(s) on the Gem. This is how it looked in 2008:

The new sign should help more people to understand that the area at the top of the stairs isn't for children! :eek:

Gem is one of our favorite ship as well. Is melvin were still working at the bali hai bar ?

I didn't meet him... all the guys and gals that work there are top notch... good burgers there during the day as well.

First Port - San Juan PR

Half a sea day, half a port day since we docked at 3pm

High noon at sea...hot and sunny....note plenty of loungers :-)

On the way in...

We docked next to our ol' buddy, the NCL Sun

We had made arrangements for a Walking / Food Tour of Old San Juan, which was something we were looking forward to....four courses at four restaurants with a historic walk.

The night before, we received an e-mail from the tour company that they did not meet the minimum for the tour to run, so it was cancelled.

Word of advice with third party tours...be sure to check your e-mail prior to port...that really is the only way they can reach you. They were apologetic and immediately credited us with a full refund.

Not to be discouraged (and since we did homework and had the maps and the data we needed), we did our own walking tour of OSJ and it was great....we hit the restaurants that would have been on the tour.

 

It is important to mark each stop with a Pina Colada

You can see how much there is to explore within walking distance of the ship.

A short stop in Old San Juan and underway by 9 p.m....destination: St. Thomas

Great pictures, dude!

Now I have to find an excuse to sail on her.

Port Two - St. Thomas

Approaching the island

Having been to St. Thomas many times before, we planned a 'different' kind of day. I rented a motorbike in town and we crossed the island to the East end. There, we boarded a car ferry (read...barge) over to St. Johns, where we would explore the island and the National Park.

My wife had luxury seating on the barge... I kept promising her it would be worth it.