GEM Dailies -- Sept 3 - 10, 2016 -- Canada/New England

This is my first time trying to scan and upload the dailies. I scanned Day 1 and want to see if it is OK before I scan the rest, in case I need to make adjustments.

It looks like it's working from my computer, but not sure it will from elsewhere. Let me know and I'll either post the rest later or try again. Thanks.

img006.pdf

img007.pdf

img008.pdf

img009.pdf

Thank you so much for posting these! I've only tried the first page so far, but it came through beautifully. Did you have a good trip?? How comfortable was the weather? Who was your captain? We're on the next sailing :D

This is my first time trying to scan and upload the dailies. I scanned Day 1 and want to see if it is OK before I scan the rest, in case I need to make adjustments.

 

It looks like it's working from my computer, but not sure it will from elsewhere. Let me know and I'll either post the rest later or try again. Thanks.

They came out great. Looking forward to reading the others. We sail on the Gem in November.

Glad the Dailies are working. Here's day 2. My only concern is that somehow I'll have too many things uploaded to my account, in which case I'll have to try something else.

@newcruise12 -- I did do a review. You can find it here.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2401039

In summary -- I had a good time and am planning another trip on NCL. The plan is to try out the Jade next fall. My husband -- whose idea of a good vacation is a week spent on his recliner in the den, eating tasty treats brought in because "vacation" and watching his favorite movies and TV shows -- wasn't won over. We worked it out, though.

What I'm about to say is kind of heretical around here, but honestly, I didn't pay that much attention to who the officers are. The captain was a Greek (I think) guy and the ship got where it was going safely and more or less on time.

If things had been terrible, maybe I would have had more reason to seek out the information, but since it was fine, I didn't see any reason to do so. If there's an officer listing in the materials I have, I'll post it.

Sea Day -- was a little rough, as Hermine (Hurricane, Tropical Storm, Extratropical Storm or whatever she was at this point) was lurking nearby. While the weather wasn't bad, the seas seemed a little high.

Day 2 P1.pdf

Day 2 P2.pdf

Day 2 P3.pdf

Day 2 P4.pdf

First port day, in Halifax. Great weather and the tour bus was only about 1/2 full ... maybe less. We enjoyed having some extra time to take pictures at the various sites. We took the Shutterbug's Dream tour, which is basically an extended version of the Halifax & Peggy's Cove excursion.

Day 3 P1.pdf

Day 3 P2.pdf

Day 3 P3.pdf

Day 3 P4.pdf

Another lovely weather day -- blue skies and warm temps. Enjoyed 2 excursions. First was Bay of Fundy for Photographers (or something like that). Led by an actual photographer, we made 5 stops and actually saw the Reversing River running in both directions. Second was the Trolley Around St John, which made only one stop -- which gave me a third view of the Reversing River.

Day 4 P1.pdf

Day 4 P2.pdf

Day 4 P3.pdf

Day 4 P4.pdf

Day 5 was a port call in Portland, ME. This may be the point at which our cruise was different from the rest of the trips this season, as I think most future trips have their first US port of call in Bar Harbor. Although we've traveled to Maine a number of times, I've never been to Bar Harbor and probably will try to make that stop on a future trip.

Sorry about the scans of pages 3 and 4 of today and Day 6. I would tear them off and fold them up to carry around in my wallet. They aren't laying flat enough in the scanner to get as good an image, but it seems to still be legible.

Day 5 P1.pdf

Day 5 P2.pdf

Day 5 P3.pdf

Day 5 P4.pdf

Day 6 was a sea day. I didn't think about it when I booked the trip, but I realized that I would prefer to have a sea day on the last day of the trip. It was kind of hectic having a port call on Day 7 (or would have been had we disembarked).

Day 6 P1.pdf

Day 6 P2.pdf

Day 6 P3.pdf

Day 6 P4.pdf

As with Portland, we've been to Newport a number of times. Since there wasn't anything we were desperate to see, since they used the lifeboats as tenders and my husband (6'4" tall) was worried that he'd smash his head getting in, out or both and since it was hot (in the 80s) and humid -- we decided to stay on board. Packed, played trivia, hung out. It turned out to be a pleasant and restful last day.

In future, I'll try to get an extra copy of the daily so it will stay flat -- sorry about how my folding distorts the scans.

Will go through the rest of my materials and scan anything that looks interesting. If you are interested in anything in particular, let me know and I'll see what I can find.

Day 7 P1.pdf

Day 7 P2.pdf

Day 7 P3.pdf

Day 7 P4.pdf

Everyone on the ship must go through an immigration process, which will take place on the ship in the first US port stop after leaving Canada.

Although not shown on the form, here's the "actual" order:

- Haven/Suite guests will meet the concierge in the dining room for the Suite breakfast (was Moderno for us). Once immigration is ready, everyone will line up and then be taken down in an elevator to one of the immigration rooms. The concierge or one of the helpers will escort suite guests to the head of the line.

- Passengers with disabilities were also called "early" although they waited in another line while the suite guests went through the process.

Note that both suite guests and guests with disabilities went through immigration in the room assigned for non-US citizens.

- Passengers with NCL excursions went through immigration first. Everyone else went through based on what deck your cabin was on, starting at the top of the ship and working the way down.

We were late getting into Portland. The immigration process started maybe 30 minutes later than the posted time -- it was foggy and there were delays getting the immigration folks on board.

Some lady in Moderno was yelling at one of the concierge's helpers. She was under the (mistaken) impression that the immigration officers had boarded the ship the previous day. Maybe this happens sometimes, but it was not the case for us -- the immigration people came on board after we docked in Portland.

Bottom line: if you are planning a private excursion and have booked a cabin on a lower deck, make sure you've built in time for late arrival and lengthy immigration processing at the first US port. There were definitely people stressing out about missing their excursions and no one needs that kind of aggravation on vacation!

I'm also posting the disembarkation brochure, which explains the process, indicates what's open for breakfast, etc. On our trip, Haven/Suite guests who were self-disembarking met in the Stardust Theater and were first off the ship at about 7:30 or so. We were in our car that was parked on the pier and on the way home by 8:15.

Immigration Notice.pdf

Disembark P1.pdf

Disembark P2.pdf

Disembark P3.pdf

Here are a few of the flyers and brochures on things I've seen people ask about

Dining -- the Ultimate Dining Package is available for purchase on board. Since it was one of our included promos from last year when I booked, I didn't ask about pricing. I'd be interested to know if there's a price for "upgrading" one of the current SDPs to the UDP.

We ate in the specialty restaurants on all but 2 nights. We ate in Magenta one night and had room service the other. It was not bad, but it certainly encouraged me to get reservations for the last couple of nights at a specialty restaurant.

We ate at La Cucina, Cagney's (twice), Le Bistro and Moderno and all of them were at least good. A few items were great, we weren't impressed with the beef anywhere although Moderno was probably best. We would have eaten at La Cucina a second time, but the only reservations available were late.

The dining brochure provides some detail on dress code, even though it's not clear that dress for Grand Pacific is the same as for Le Bistro.

Cruise Next and Laundry -- we didn't take advantage of the CruiseNext or Laundry offers, but the details are here. I don't remember the pick-up day for the laundry. I believe it was picked up from your room by Tuesday night and returned on Thursday, but it's possible that you had to leave the items out Wednesday morning to be returned on Thursday.

Spa Offer -- I did get a mani/pedi in the spa on Friday morning. There was no "general" discount for spa services on the port day. Just the special combination offer. I would have been interested in a mani/pedi and facial, but wasn't interested in the massage.

Dining P1.pdf

Dining P2.pdf

CruiseNext Offer.pdf

Laundry Offer.pdf

Spa Offer.pdf

We stayed in one of the Aft Penthouses, so we got the perks of the Haven without the "benefit" of having access to the Haven itself. From what I could tell, we weren't missing anything on this not-school-vacation-time Jewel-class ship. The ship never seemed crowded, we had our nice balcony to retire to and overall, I don't think the money for access to the Haven would have been worthwhile for this trip on this ship. YMMV.

I've attached the Welcome letter from our concierge, which details her availability, the hours for suite breakfast and lunch and an overview of butler service. I've also attached the Suite room service breakfast menu, as I think some people have expressed interest in that.

That's it in terms of materials from NCL that I thought might be interesting. There was no officers listing handed out, so sorry -- I just don't have that info. If there is anything else you are looking for, let me know. I saved most of the handouts we got, so I probably have it somewhere.

SuiteLife Info.pdf

Suite Room Service Breakfast Menu.pdf

JM485 thank-you so much for all the information you have posted. This is so useful for me. We have not cruised on NCL before and have a cruise booked to New England/Canada for June 2018. Really appreciate all this information. Thankyou

JM485 thank-you so much for all the information you have posted. This is so useful for me. We have not cruised on NCL before and have a cruise booked to New England/Canada for June 2018. Really appreciate all this information. Thankyou

Just note that the information on this thread is a year and a half old and might no longer be accurate.

Thanks 1025, I'll keep that in mind