A Teen's Review of the NCL Gem 6/21-6/27/15

[live_to_cruise]

View from our table:

 

 

Delicious broiled cod:

 

 

Salmon Tartare (DF HIGHLY recommends it):

 

 

 

Cheesecake (Not as good as the old cheesecake offered on the daily menu):

 

 

 

Caramel brownie (I don't remember tasting much caramel):

 

[seaman11]

We will be on the Gem this 4th of July also. I hope my son (14) enjoy the teen programs. He don't like them on Carnival.

i will be on this ship with my 14 year old son also. i think the kids will have a blast on this cruise

[live_to_cruise]

After getting the best sleep of my life, I woke up at 9:15am to a very foggy view. It was quite cold outside, and many people were wearing jackets and long pants. I grabbed a banana and glass of water from the Garden Cafe, then hit the gym (More on the gym below) to do the cardio portion of my workout. (The Garden Cafe closes down breakfast at 10:30, so I usually had to split up my workout so I would do cardio, head to the Garden Cafe right before 10:30 to get breakfast, then go back to lift weights) I was at the fitness center at 9:45 and there were only one or two treadmills available. The cold air was actually quite nice after my run, and cooled me down before breakfast. I had a very large breakfast (it is the most important meal of the day!) of oatmeal with cinnamon and raisins, scrambled eggs (the eggs were often very runny, but there were a few different stations with them, so I would just pick the best looking ones), turkey sausage (offered at the “cultural foods” station; the other stations served pork sausage), plain yogurt with fresh banana pieces, dried banana chips, and honey. DF mentioned he wished there was more of a variety of oatmeal toppings other than cinnamon, brown sugar, and raisins (I’m assuming he wanted nuts?). I really appreciated the availability of honey; it was stationed at every hot beverage machine, as well as with the pastries.

 

I met up with some of my new friends for the teen brunch at 11:00. They got food from the Great Outdoors, but ate in La Cucina since it was so cold outside. I had a cup of tea, then went to finish my workout in a nearly empty fitness center at 11:15. At 12:30 I headed back to our cabin, grabbed a fleece jacket, beach towel, and book, and went up to the sun deck at the front of the ship to lounge in one of the large basket chairs (since it was a bit chilly, there were plenty open). The sun came out and it was actually really warm, so I ended up taking my fleece off and took a nap in the sun (and even managed to get a tan). At 2:30, I woke up, a little confused that I was surrounded by water, and stumbled down to the Garden Cafe for a delicious lunch of a panini, chicken, caesar salad, and fruit. I also sampled a few desserts: rocky road brownie- nice and fudgy, warm chocolate chip bread pudding- delicious (esp. with caramel sauce), and mango brulee- not my cup of tea. Afterwards, I headed back up to the top deck and made plans with my friends to go to the teen bowling at 7:00; we hung out until we had to get ready for dinner.

 

Tonight was “Norwegian’s Night Out,” the optional “formal night” for dinner. My family loves to dress up, as we don’t get many opportunities at home, so we went all out, portraits taken and all. One of the pictures taken from Formal Night by the photo staff turned out really nice, so we decided to buy it! (I will share once I can find it, and will post some other pictures later so you can get an idea of how fancy we dressed) We went to dinner at about 5:45, since I wanted to do the teen bowling at 7:00. For appetizers, I had the fried brie with cranberry jam which was delicious, and the shrimp and avocado, which had a TINY drop of avocado on the bottom. My entree was the shrimp with cold orzo; the shrimp was good, but I felt the orzo was too plain. I had the warm chocolate volcano again for dessert, which did not disappoint.

 

We were finished with dinner at 7:00 almost exactly, so I left the dining room and headed one floor up to Bliss for bowling, only to find a few of the other teens leaving. Apparently Teen Bowling got re-scheduled for the next night, but no one was told until we all showed up. I felt bad since I had asked my parents if we could eat earlier just so I could go bowling, and we would have to do so the next night too, but it all worked out in the end, as my parents were able to catch the 7:00 show each night this way! I found my girlfriends, and we changed into our outfits for the night: I wore a thicker ¾ sleeve shirt with shorts and a decent jacket, which was fine for inside, but I was really cold as we went on the top deck later that night. My girlfriends and I shopped at the stores and took pictures before we met up with the boys. We weren’t really interested in any of the teen activities that night (I believe they were the Dating Game and the Traffic Light Party), so we went to the Garden Cafe for hot drinks and the leftover snacks the staff had put out for passengers to eat- there were always cookies, brownies and other pastries, as well as pizza and whatever soup was still available late at night. (They usually put away the main desserts after 10:30-11) We hung out on the top deck for a bit, but it was too cold, so we ventured to the card room which was empty. We played a few card games before going to explore the lounges and clubs.

 

Norwegian has a rule about not allowing anyone under 18 in the certain lounges/clubs after a certain time. I don’t remember exactly what time we went into Bliss, but we hung out in one of the side lounge rooms before getting asked our age/to leave after about 45 minutes. Finding things to do later at night is harder for teens on a cold-weather cruise, as my friends and I on my Caribbean cruises used to always hang out on the top deck, but this wasn’t exactly an option unless we were running around to keep warm. I wish that the under-18 rule didn’t apply to all of the lounges, but I understand that Norwegian has to cater to adults as well, and many of them don’t want teens spoiling their fun. We all headed to bed at about 1am, with the ship still rocking and rolling in the water.

 

Fitness Center:

Being a huge fitness enthusiast, I was very grateful for the facilities provided on the Gem. This fitness center beat the one on the Dawn BY FAR. The Dawn’s gym was one main room with everything crowded inside, with a small separate room for classes and seminars. The Gem’s gym was three separate rooms; a large main room with cardio (all facing the water) and various lifting machines, a smaller room with benches, barbells, and dumbbells, and a nicely-sized additional room for classes and seminars. The Gem has pretty much anything you would need to workout; I will be playing a college sport in the Fall, and was able to complete every aspect of my workout packet while on board the ship. Both fitness centers offered cold towels as well as dry towels and water.

[Laszlo]

Nice review and best of luck at school. We looked at Scranton on our "College Tour" with my son. He is now and junior at Millersville and loves college!

[live_to_cruise]

A lovely post-run breakfast at the Great Outdoors:

 

 

The sun came out (yay!):

 

 

Random picture of the atrium ceiling:

 

 

Grand Pacific Dinner Menu (left side):

 

 

Grand Pacific Dinner Menu (right side):

 

[live_to_cruise]

What DF and I wore for "Norwegian's Night Out":

 

 

DM and I:

 

 

Fried Brie:

 

 

Shrimp and Avocado:

 

 

Shrimp and Orzo:

 

[ncklhaus]

The fried Brie looks delicious!

 

I love that you are cruising with your parents. It seems that you have a great relationship with them. We have an 8 year old daughter and she loves cruising, so hopefully she'll still enjoy spending time with us when she's your age.

[Juvesgirl]

We live outside of Philadelphia, and I will be attending the University of Scranton!

 

Great school! Best of luck!

[live_to_cruise]

We were scheduled to arrive in Halifax at 8:00am (I didn’t wake up until 8:15 so I can’t be sure if we arrived on time or not, but we were definitely there at 8:15 :) ). I hit the gym at 8:45- it was basically empty. At 9:25 I headed to the Garden Cafe for breakfast with my parents, it was a bit crowded but we were able to find seats. The crew had a drill at 10:15 which delayed our exit off of the ship, but only by a few minutes. We walked to the information desk in the port terminal marketplace and got a map- the ladies at the desk were very welcoming and helpful!

 

Though we are from the Philadelphia area, we are all HUGE Pittsburgh Penguins fans, and I’m also a hockey fan in general! That being said, Halifax is the home city of my favorite hockey player, Sidney Crosby, so when I planned our day in Halifax, I wanted to make sure we took advantage. We walked along the boardwalk; it’s very nice with lots of restaurants, shops, and views of boats. The temperature was a bit cool; I wore a t-shirt with a lighter jacket, leggings, and sneakers, and felt okay. We continued along the boardwalk, and crossed onto the city streets after a little while. Halifax is a neat place; you can be walking along the boardwalk in a total marina setting, then you walk to the next street over and you’re instantly in a city/business area. We walked up the hills of the city to the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame, home of the famous Sidney Crosby exhibit. Admission was free of charge, and the exhibit is connected to the Scotiabank Center. I LOVED the exhibit, it had everything from Sid’s socks from when he was very young, to the dryer he used to shoot pucks into at home as a kid. There was a movie about Sidney Crosby in a little theater area, so we watched that before taking a last look at everything. It was all such a cool experience for me, I can’t even describe it, just being in his home city...wow! After we walked out, I told my parents that my entire trip had been made, and it didn't matter what we did for the rest of the cruise, I was in heaven! I highly recommend this exhibit for any hockey fan.

 

Afterwards, we walked around the city; to the city hall and clock, then went back down to the boardwalk to buy some souvenirs and got lunch at one of the little food places (The Battered Fish). We didn’t want to go to Canada without trying some poutine, so we got poutine and seafood chowder. Poutine is basically french fries tossed in gravy, topped with cheese curds. It was pretty good, but we absolutely loved the seafood chowder. I would recommend the boardwalk for a casual lunch, as there were tables to sit at on one of the docks, but if you want a restaurant/something more upscale, there were a couple of restaurants along the boardwalk, and a bunch in the city. After lunch, we walked to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic because we had heard great things about the Titanic exhibit, but after the great Sidney Crosby exhibit and all of the walking we did, we decided to forego the $10 pp charge and headed back to one of the marketplaces closer to the ship. It had also gotten colder, so we were ready to get going. We talked hockey with some of the shopkeepers, got some gelato, and my parents connected to the free wifi to check emails. Personally, I love the idea of a cruise being a break from reality, so I kept my phone on airplane mode the whole time, and am so glad I did because I felt so relaxed and stress-free the whole trip :) While my parents stayed to shop and surf the net more, I went back onto the ship by myself at about 4:15, grabbed a book, and headed up to the Garden Cafe for a cup of tea. The food area was closed off except for the Great Outdoors, so seating was easy to find.

 

We went to dinner at the Grand Pacific at 5:30-5:45 ish, and got yet another great table by the back window. I had a salad for my appetizer and the seafood brochette for my entree, which had an amazing cheese sauce and was delicious. We ordered a slew of desserts again: the carrot cake was pretty good, a little dry, but great with the pineapple, the bread pudding was delicious, but my parents thought it was too sweet if you dipped it in too much caramel sauce, and the chocolate volcano was, as always, excellent. At 7:00 I headed to Bliss for Teen Bowling (I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to bowl in the middle of the ocean, especially since it was free of charge if you did it with the Teen Club). We had to pre-register the day before, and all 16 spots were filled (luckily my friends had signed me up earlier). I am a terrible bowler, and bowled quite a few gutter balls, but I decided to blame that on the rocking ship ;) After bowling for an hour, my girlfriends and I went up to the Garden cafe for tea and snacks, before having desserts with the rest of our group at 9. I highly recommend getting a mug, filling it with soft-serve ice cream, and eating that with a brownie...delicious!

 

This night was very cold, as there was a thunderstorm outside. I was wearing leggings, sandals, a nice tank top, and a decent-weight jacket, and that seemed to suffice when we were dumb enough to go to the Great Outdoors in the middle of a thunderstorm. (The crew had put a cover over the top so we could still run around without getting too wet) Having enough of the storm, we headed to Spinnaker and sang along to the songs the band was playing, and danced a bit until we were asked to leave so they could start The Quest game show. We continued to explore the ship and went to the bar at O’Sheahans where we got fries, fruit, and brownie cheesecake (amazing) to-go, and took it up to the card room to hang out. There was a sign saying no food or drinks in the card room, so we ate in the hallway before going in to play card games. Most of us had done tiring things in Halifax, so we headed to bed at 12 am. The ship was still VERY rocky and windy, with the ship’s horn occasionally going off in the distance. As I crawled into bed, I could hear the wind from the closed balcony door, it sounded like kids badly playing recorders. There was a lot of creaking and occasional vibration, but I was quickly rocked to sleep.

[live_to_cruise]

View from our balcony upon waking up:

 

 

The boardwalk:

 

 

Lots of clouds in Halifax:

 

 

City Hall:

 

 

Clock:

 

[live_to_cruise]

Our main stop for the day:

 

 

 

 

Canadian lunch:

 

 

[live_to_cruise]

Dinner:

 

 

Brochettes:

 

 

Shrimp Jambalaya:

 

 

Desserts:

 

[live_to_cruise]

Bowling:

 

 

Towel animals left by Wendell:

 

 

Freestyle Daily (I have each one for days 1-5):

 

[cantthinkofanythingfun]

Thanks for the ship pics. I'm booked on the Gem for November, so this is useful even though the itinerary is different. It looks like those are full sized bowling alleys. That's pretty cool. The Breakaway had bowling, but it was duckpins with a shorter lane.

[emcelh]

We live outside of Philadelphia, and I will be attending the University of Scranton!

 

Good school. Sister and niece both went there.

[live_to_cruise]

I woke up at 9, and was in the fitness center by 9:25. We weren’t slated to arrive in St. John until 10:00, so the gym was a bit crowded, but there were a few cardio machines available. I had breakfast at 10:00 as we pulled in, and ate my usual Garden Cafe breakfast, but tried the eggs benedict today. I’m not a huge fan of poached eggs, but it was pretty good! We took our time at breakfast and getting ready to go into the port, so we didn’t leave the ship until about 11:20, but there was absolutely no line to get off. It was a lot warmer than Halifax, in the 70’s and sunny, so I wore athletic shorts and a t-shirt and felt very comfortable all day, maybe even a little hot during some of the walking we did.

 

When planning for St. John, everything seemed a little sketchy; not the city itself, but the excursions (We decided that St. John is actually a really fascinating place, one of our favorite cities we have visited, and would totally come back!). I definitely wanted us to do something with the Reversing Falls. Initially, I read about going on a jet boat tour up the falls, but couldn’t find any information on that except for some reviews that stopped after 2011. Then, I read that you could take a cab, walk, or bike to the Falls, but found no information about bike rentals. When we got off the ship, we walked up to official looking people, a woman at a tour bus information desk, and police officers, asking about bike rentals, and NO ONE had a clue. Someone suggested that we go to City Hall and ask, so we walked there, but the building was confusing with the different floors, and appeared pretty empty. We stopped in a shop along the main street where I was excited to find NHL keychains. We asked the salesman if there were any more stored where we could purchase hockey merchandise, and he suggested the coin shop on King street. (We found that it’s always a safe bet to ask the locals). Deciding that we would continue shopping later, we followed the pink path all the way to the Falls. It was about a 40 minute walk there (with one bathroom stop at an office building- note: there aren’t really any bathrooms readily available along the path), but it was nice to stop and take pictures from the different vantage points, as the path was very scenic the whole way! There were lots of beautiful plants and flowers, I recommend you literally stop and smell the roses- they are delightful. The path was very easy to walk on, though I was dizzy because I still felt the rocking of the ship. The last part of the path goes across a busy bridge, so you are walking next to lots of traffic, which made me a little uncomfortable as I am also scared of heights, but it ended up being worth it to see the Falls!

 

The sketchiness continued a bit when we got to the Falls; there were two restaurants, one which was closed for the day, and another that had complete sets of tables and chairs, but looked as if it had been abandoned a few years ago. There was a worn-down sign for jet boat tours (guess no one removed it after 2011? haha), and the some of the wooden fences along the paths to get closer to the water level were sunken and broken. I’m not complaining at all, as this didn’t affect the magnificent views we got of the Falls, but it was just interesting to me. We were there at about 12:45/1:00 and while the tide hadn’t fully reversed yet, the rapids were picking up and there were lots of really neat whirlpools brewing- a cool sight to see. It would have been nice to go at high-tide, but maybe we’ll just have to come back ;)

 

We made our way back to the main part of the city, walked along the boardwalk, stopping to check out a few restaurants, and into the streets to King street. We went to the coin shop which had tons of hockey memorabilia and framed pictures. The shop was owned by a very friendly father and son who we talked to for a while, and they suggested we eat at Billy’s Seafood Co. around the corner near the marketplace. This was at 3:30 (St. John’s time, not ship time), and the restaurant was almost empty, which provided for quick service. We split a large lobster roll between the three of us, and we each got a cup of seafood chowder. The chowder was very creamy compared to the cup we had in Halifax, but still good. The lobster roll was delicious, and came with light cole slaw and a good serving of french fries. After lunch, we walked through the marketplace, which had lots of good bakeries and meat stands. Then we headed back to the ship, where there was a large covered area with little shops set up, like a flea market almost. We found one area that had a ton of hockey things- jackpot! After talking hockey with some of the locals, we went back to the ship where we were greeted with warm wash cloths and a variety of juice and water (they did this after every port which was really nice to come back to). At 4:30, I changed into a bathing suit, walked past the pool deck (very lively and pretty crowded), to the sun deck at the front, settled in a comfy basket chair, and napped and tanned for an hour or so.

 

We went to dinner at 6:45/6:50ish, and were yet again lucky enough to get a table at the back window (we were starting to wonder if Rachel had said something the first night to make sure we got good seats, or if it was maybe because we had a balcony cabin, but we never figured it out, and just appreciated our good luck!). Our waitress tonight did not introduce herself or tell us her name, and I’m sorry to say that the service was extremely slow. I was a little antsy because tonight was the night of a bunch of good teen events that I really didn’t want to miss out on. Thankfully we talked to the couple sitting at the table next to ours, as they were also from outside of Philly, as this helped pass the time. For my appetizers I had the scallops au gratin which were fabulous, and split the thai fish cakes with my mom, also very good, but a bit spicy. For my main course, I had the grilled grouper with couscous- excellent. The service was so slow that after ordering our desserts, I went up to Bliss at about 8:15 (it was “Teen Takeover”,where the teens got full use of the bowling and karaoke, from 7-9, and my friends had made plans to go) to see if my friends were there, had enough time to sing a karaoke song, go to the bathroom, and back down to the Grand Pacific, and our desserts still weren’t ready. It was worth the wait, because the coconut souffle was extremely good, especially with the caramel sauce...wow! DM got the fruit tart which was nice and not too sweet, and DF got some sort of chocolate torte which he enjoyed. We had initially wanted to try the cherries jubilee, but saw another couple get it, and it looked like basic cherry jello with whipped cream, so we decided to skip that one. After we were finally done dinner, I went back up to Bliss with my friends. We did a few rounds of karaoke before going to the Garden Cafe for more dessert (very thankful I was able to work out every day ;) ). My friends got crepes from the crepe maker, and I got the key lime tart which was to die for! We decided we didn’t feel like waiting until 10 for the teen hot tub party, so we went on our own at 9:30, and stayed until they closed at 11, playing Truth or Dare and What are the Odds. We changed into dry clothes and headed to Entourage at 11:30, when Ryder said the College Night would start. We played games like flip cup and beer pong (with water of course), which was actually pretty fun with a ton of teens there (a bunch were in the 13-14 range, but we all got along well). After that (12:15), my friends and I went to the pool deck and played Man Hunt on decks 12 and 13. We played until 1:00, then it was off to bed.

[cruisinjune]

We have a few families going in April on the Getaway. Two of three girls will be 17 and one will be 18 (all high school seniors). How likely would it be to get the 18 year old in The teen club with the others. Do they closely monitor? How?

[live_to_cruise]

Freestyle Daily:

 

 

Grand Pacific Menu:

 

[live_to_cruise]

Thai Fish Cakes:

 

 

Scallops:

 

 

Grouper:

 

 

Coconut Souffle:

 

 

Lovely view:

 

 

Thanks, Wendell! :

 

[live_to_cruise]

Pink path to the Falls:

 

 

Nice view of our lovely Gem along the way:

 

 

The Reversing Falls:

 

 

A great lunch at Billy's Seafood Co:

 

 

Marketplace:

 

[live_to_cruise]

Catching some rays on the sun deck before dinner:

 

 

Our outfits for dinner were along the lines of this each night:

 

 

A cruise friend and I at Entourage (we usually dressed nicer, but we had just gotten our of the hot tubs and wanted to wear our college shirts for College Night):

 

 

Entourage:

 

 

[live_to_cruise]

We have a few families going in April on the Getaway. Two of three girls will be 17 and one will be 18 (all high school seniors). How likely would it be to get the 18 year old in The teen club with the others. Do they closely monitor? How?

 

The 18 year old will not be allowed to officially register for the teen club, so she can't go to the first event the first night, because the teen staff will definitely check the Sea Passes to see if everyone is registered. Our teen counselors told us that at first, they would be checking to see that everyone was registered/the correct age, but after that they would be lenient with the checking, because they wanted a lot of teens to participate in things. We had the same situation with three of our friends we met, they had all graduated, but one was 18, so we would just have him walk into Entourage with us in a large group of people, and sometimes the counselors didn't say anything, and other times they asked him his age, it was a hit or miss.

[cruisinjune]

Thanks! How do they identify you as under 18? Do you get a wristband or sticker on your room card?

[live_to_cruise]

Thanks! How do they identify you as under 18? Do you get a wristband or sticker on your room card?

 

They cut off a corner of your room card when you first get it when boarding!

[rocklinmom]

Live to cruise, I have this exact cruise booked for next June for my daughter's high school graduation gift, just like you. Your review is fabulous so far! My daughter also takes food and towel animal pictures on our cruises, so I am enjoying this so much. Thank you for all of the details and photos. Can't wait to read the rest of this.