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Review: 11.16.2013 Gem 9-Day Eastern Caribbean Adventure


puddles99
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This review will take me a little while to write, so please hang with me - but also feel free to post questions along the way & I'll do my best to respond to everyone.

 

A bit of background: We were a "family" of seven sailing together in the Horizon Villa (Garden Villa 14000). In the master bedroom, we had myself, my husband (DH), and my two daughters (DD#1, age 11 and DD#2, age 8). In the middle bedroom was my best friend (CC username Laurabegorrah) and in the third bedroom were her Mom & Stepdad (SD). All of us had sailed with Norwegian before - but for some in our group, it had been quite a few years. I suspect that Laurabegorrah will chime in here and add her pespective at some point :) Clearly this entire review is simply our perspective of our experience and your mileage may vary.

 

For those of you who really aren't interested in all of the details, here's the synopsis: We had a great cruise. There were some bumps along the way - including a suspected Noro outbreak (not yet confirmed by the CDC last I looked) - but we had an amazing time and continue to look forward to Cruising Like a Norwegian in the months & years ahead.

 

______________________

 

Embarkation & Cruising South

Saturday, November 16th - Monday, November 18th

 

We arrived at the Manhattan Cruise Port / Pier 88 as two separate groups - both via car service. For us, the drop off was pretty easy. The security & check-in process was a bit delayed due to a Coast Guard inspection, but still ran pretty smoothly. It was during the check-in that we first observed what would become a bit of a theme of the week -- a good percentage of guests seemed to have a sense of entitlement and/or spent an undue amount of energy complaining and taking issue with the littlest of things. In this case, the couple next to us lectured the check-in agent for using their first names and insisted that it was extremely disrespectful to do so. When he tried to apologize, they commented that his entire generation had not been raised well and it really was a shame. Yes, I did roll my eyes.

 

After completing check-in, we were pointed to the VIP Lounge where we picked up our key cards and some other information from Carlos (the Concierge). Within a short amount of time, Carlos arrived in the lounge and began greeting guests - some of which had a clear fondness for Carlos from past cruises. We found Carlos to be charming and attentive and by the end of the cruise consensus was that he was the best concierge we've ever sailed with. Once the Coast Guard had cleared the ship, we were able to board (around 1:30pm, if memory serves me right), and we headed straight to Cagney's for lunch where Laurabegorrah and I toasted the day with a "Pear Pleasure" martini as we all chatted and dreamed about the adventure that lay ahead.

 

After lunch, Carlos escorted us to cabin and we all had fun exploring our new home and beginning to make mental lists of all the things we wanted to do. Laurabegorrah had the room decorated with the "Happy Birthday" package (embarkation day was my birthday) and it was quite festive. We registered the girls for Splash Academy (a far more impressive set up than we experienced on the Sun last year) and spent the afternoon wandering the ship, checking out the Casino, and settling into our cabin. We thoroughly enjoyed our sunset sailaway from our private sundeck and took lots of pictures as we sailed down the Hudson River and past the Statue of Liberty.

 

We went to the 7pm Welcome Aboard show to get a sampling of the week's entertainment and then decided to eat my birthday dinner at Le Bistro where we were doted on and shared a fantastic bottle of Silver Oak which we had brought on board. For the record, it was painless to pay the corkage fee & bring our five bottles on board and I would do it again in a heartbeat. We drank four of the five bottles while on board and have set the fifth bottle aside to take with us on our next Norwegian cruise.

 

On Sunday morning, we woke up a little giddy about the day. We started with a late breakfast at Cagney's and then gathered the nametags & slotpull paperwork to head to the Cruise Critic Meet & Greet in Bliss. We had a great showing of more than 60 people & a number of ship staff joined us as well. The girls had fun handing out name tags & helping me "manage" the event. Hotel Director Jenny told the group that a number of new trainee staff had just boarded the ship - and this was extremely good to know as we heard a lot of buzz about spotty service throughout the week which may very well have been attributable to the newness of many crew members. After another lunch at Cagney's, we dropped the girls off at Splash Academy & headed to the Casino for the Roll Call Slot Pull which mommyto2girls helped me wrangle. By the time we arrived, she had already arranged for a round of Rum Punch (on the house) and we had been assigned a machine. We had twenty members of the Roll Call participating and we doubled our money!!!

 

During the next day & a half at sea, we played 80's music trivia, TV tunes trivia, and two rounds of Bingo (without winning ;)), the girls decided that they really liked Splash Academy (thank goodness!) & climbing the rock wall, we all lounged on our sundeck (despite quite a bit of wind!) & in our hot tub, and started gaining weight thanks to breakfasts & lunches at Cagney's, our first of two dinners at Moderno, and snacking galore :p. By our second day, we had already become big fans of Assistant Cruise Director, Dan Dan, who was absolutely hilarious & fun. We also had already begun being spoiled by our Room Steward, Gigi, and Butler, Rizzy.

 

. . . . more to come (I think I need to switch devices so I can add pictures)!

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GiGi and Rizzy are amazing...glad to see Rizzy is still getting to be a butler!!

 

he was our Pool Valet for our cruise and was wonderful and attentive!

 

I didn't realize he had been the Courtyard Valet previously - he was a little frazzled the first evening, but was a GREAT butler once he settled into a routine.

 

Great start to what is going to be a very interesting read!

 

More, please!:)

 

Coming right up :D

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[quote name=puddles99;

After another lunch at Cagney's' date=' we dropped the girls off at Splash Academy & headed to the Casino for the Roll Call Slot Pull which mommyto2girls helped me wrangle. By the time we arrived, she had already arranged for a round of Rum Punch (on the house) and we had been assigned a machine. We had twenty members of the Roll Call participating and we doubled our money!!!

![/i]

 

I have just one question......so far LOL.

 

I have heard conflicting answers about arranging slot pulls. One person stated to call NCL before sailing to arrange and I have read others say after boarding to arrange. How did you arrange this or Mommy2two girls? We will be wanting to do this next oct

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I have just one question......so far LOL.

 

I have heard conflicting answers about arranging slot pulls. One person stated to call NCL before sailing to arrange and I have read others say after boarding to arrange. How did you arrange this or Mommy2two girls? We will be wanting to do this next oct

 

We did it on board. I had tried to contact the Casino Manager before sail away, but I think I confused the hostess when I asked so I just waited until the next day. By then, mommyto2girls had spoken to the Casino Manager and he knew we were coming - it didn't seem to be any trouble at all. The cashier was also great about giving me the payout in increments that made it really easy to divide up the winnings (and tip the bartender & hostess).

Edited by puddles99
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....Yeah....what she said....

 

hehe.

 

My mom and stepdad had never sailed in a suite before, but got used to Carlos and Rizzy quite quickly :D They also were so insistent that they really only wanted to do the Grand Pacific for breakfast and lunch. But after we took them to Cageny's, they never looked back!

Edited by laurabegorrah
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Thanks for the honorable mention..lol the Slot Pull was fun and you arranged a wonderful M&G. We are so addicted to the Gem. I have to second Gigi as being the best, this was our third cruise with her and cannot wait to see her again in January.

I am so glad you enjoyed the Villa, your family was always smiling and your children so well behaved and polite. You should be proud!

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In this case, the couple next to us lectured the check-in agent for using their first names and insisted that it was extremely disrespectful to do so.

 

LMAO

Were they the King and Queen of someplace? LOL

 

Great review

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Thanks for the honorable mention..lol the Slot Pull was fun and you arranged a wonderful M&G. We are so addicted to the Gem. I have to second Gigi as being the best, this was our third cruise with her and cannot wait to see her again in January.

I am so glad you enjoyed the Villa, your family was always smiling and your children so well behaved and polite. You should be proud!

 

Thanks so much for your kind words - that's one of the best compliments a Momma can hear!

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Before I begin posting about the ports & our excursion experiences, I thought I'd comment on a few other miscellaneous topics.

 

Misc. Info / Observations

 

I had read here that it wasn't possible to transfer OBC to other accounts and that instead the best way to "share" OBC is to transfer charges from an account without OBC to an account with OBC. We had a total of $550 OBC from NCL (from back when the 9-month suite OBC and DASH Sale OBC were actually combinable :rolleyes:) as well as additional OBC from our Travel Agent. We had agreed to share the NCL OBC among our party with each adult receiving $100 to spend and each child receiving $25. After each adult had spent their $100, I visited guest services to transfer their charges to my account and discovered that you actually CAN transfer OBC. It's a simple form you fill out at Guest Services & the transactions showed up in our accounts within hours. Super simple.

 

Splash Academy activities don't actually end at the time stated on the schedule. The first few nights of the cruise, we went to pick up the girls at 10pm just to be asked to "please come back later" (by the girls, not the staff) because they were still doing the activity & were having fun I wish the schedules wouldn't list "free play" from 10-10:30pm each night as the actual activities lasted right up to 10:30pm. I also wish DH could stay awake long enough to pick up the kids at Splash Academy, but I suppose its his vacation, too! LOL

 

At least in the Garden Villa, you really do get unlimited mixers with the bar set up. We asked for, and received, pina colada mix, sours mix, margarita mix, orange juice, grapefruit juice, & cranberry juice. We also had an unlimited supply of milk / cream for our coffee. We carried on some Starbucks syrups and DH became a master of both the bar set-up & the espresso machine, making me lovely Vanilla Lattes each morning. I highly recommend taking your own travel mug / cup aboard to enable you to move freely about the ship nursing your caffeinated or adult beverage ;)

 

I'm sure I'll think of more random things later!

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