Short version of a long review, Gem 22/01/16

[sebas030]

This is it :

 

Background : 7th cruise, all with Ncl, 4th on the Gem, 6th out of NYC, mid 40's guy with his gf. I was told by my doctor that I wouldn't be able to cruise a few months before the "free" cancellation window, but on the last day of that period I was cleared to sail and so we went to the Caribbean !

 

We are from eastern Canada and we drive ( 7h1/2 ) to NYC each time. We choose to park at the pier (400$) for the convenience of jumping in the car early and drive back home asap.

 

This is my views, opinions and feelings about my latest cruise on the Gem out of NYC on January 22nd 2016.

 

YES, this is THE cruise with THE group...will not review that part because plenty has been said already and most of it simply got deleted...only thing I will say : I will NEVER cruise that holiday again...

 

English is not my first language...so please be kind with me

 

Let's move on shall we...

 

 

We always stay 1 night in NYC before we cruise, we almost always use the Travel Inn on 42nd street because it is not expensive, close to TSquare and the Pier.

 

We got to the pier parking at around 8:45am, yes we are early but I prefer to wait in a confortable seat for security and to board the ship rather than waiting in a long line to check-in and board the ship late.

 

Parking was easy like usual, sold a kidney to pay the parking..but that's life...we parked right beside the ship and I love that feeling of looking at this huge thing that floats and will be my home for the next 10 days ! We took our luggage to the check-in level, left that to a handler and we were seated close to the security area because it wasn't open yet. As the minutes passed more and more people showed-up and no more seats were available. Then the friendly ladies who were working there started to send the newly arrived passengers in line to the security area...me and many other folks were not sure how this would go...were they going to go first or what? a few pax got up and went in the direction of the new line...finally the lady in charge came to reassure us that we would be escorted to the front of the line first as we were there first.

 

For some reason they had a bit of a delay, normally at 9 the security opens ( that's our experience in the past ), but 9:45 arrived and we were all still waiting ( we had 9:30 check-in time with Ncl, so I knew we were right and they usually open sooner )...but we were on vacation...no stress. Finally 5 minutes later we were escorted to the front and went through security and to check-in...we directed ourselves to the gold/platinum line and we were stopped and the lady asked us to use the other line...so I asked if that was the gold/platinum line ? her answer was "show me your booking"...she then gave us boarding number 1 and we went in the gold/platinum line and were immediately greeted by a clerk. ( we had the same exact experience last year in Boston...maybe I just don't have a gold/platinum face ? )

 

Check-in was painless and quick as usual. It was now 10am and we were sitting next to the ship waiting to board her. Welcome aboard photo opp wasn't even setup until almost a full hour later...they missed a lot of passengers and possibly $$. I saw the crew on deck and I knew they were having drills...so I knew we would board later than usual also...boarding began at noon.

 

A large group of special needs pax were getting on the ship, even maintenance guys in their white cover all were pushing wheelchairs. When we were told we could board there was a long queue in front of us in the ramp leading to deck 7...we had to wait there in line...people were now being directed to board from the forward ramp and were on the ship well before us....well we are on vacation right ?

 

That being done with we went to the buffet and I enjoyed my usual salads and sandwiches on embarkation day ! Then we directed ourselves to the bar in O'sheehan's, got a cold beer and waited to be cleared to go to our room, around 1:15, and we meet Gerry our cabin steward.

 

I had looked at the weather forecast the few days before we sailed because of that storm coming in NYC...30f waves were expected...so we eased up on the UBP in order to not be too affected by the rocking and rolling.

 

OUT OF NCL'S hands :

 

The weather : holy crap...you all read about our storm on other threads...will not go into details again here...didn't get sick but had a headache for 2 days straight as the storm lasted 2 days...that's the thing that got so many people sick...the length of it...a good 2 days of very bad weather and winds...we got to throw snowballs on the deck on our cruise ! I think the captain did a great job !!!

 

Back to business...

 

We are martini drinkers, so we spent a LOT of time at Magnum's and meet Ceasar, the "star" bartender ( manager ) what a great guy...he genuinely had fun working and we had lots of fun with him !

 

We saw each other a lot in the first 2 days as the weather was crappy ! Day 3 was much much better but the chairhogs were in full effect...not a single chair available around 10:30 and that for the rest of the day...we finally found something on deck 14 forward...it was so windy the chairs were moving if no one was on them...crazy wind I tell you!

 

We got Puerto Rico first, here is my review of that day if you are interested :

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2311383

 

Then we went in St-Thomas, again here it is :

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2313060

 

Then St-Maarten:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2310819

 

and finally Tortola :

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2311311

 

 

Sadly we had to sail back to NYC...

 

 

Now for the real "critic" part of that review :

 

The iconcierge app : not god ! we didn't use the talk/text feature ( I was told that part worked fine )...but DO NOT count on it to plan your day. Names of entertainers were wrong, time of activities was wrong, location of activities wrong and showed about 50% of what was listed in the daily ( not saying everything was wrong, but it was incorrect in some way everyday )...if you want to see something in particular, look at the daily.

 

The ship: WOW the rejuvenating cure the Gem had a couple of months ago worked great, the ship looks splendid in almost every way possible...very beautiful !

 

Crew : you all read it, I lived it...the crew members went ABOVE and BEYOND what you could expect of the top of the line cruise line...they were AMAZING and have absolutely nothing to say against them...officers, well that's an other story I will tell in a letter to Ncl...

 

Bars: inconsistency is the word to use here...the same drink from 4 different bartenders will result in 4 different drinks. I am not talking about long pour or that kind of stuff, but about the taste and even color due to the mix of ingredients. Some guys made excellent drinks, some not so... I ordered many many "spicy bloody ceasar" 2 out of 3 bartenders gave me the bottle of tabasco, the pepper and the worchestershire sauce and told me to make it as I like...not what I expected. Since our last cruise they also cut back on the choice listed in the drinks menu. We clearly remember having 2 pages of martini choices...not anymore, only a few are listed. Same thing at outside bars, there was a menu ( flip cards ) on every table and on the bar with plenty of yummy drinks...not one was found on our cruise. Find a bar that does your favorite drink best and stick with it !

 

Tipping : we always tip over the dsc if we feel we had more than what we expected...we tipped or cabin steward during the week. We also asked our bartender to give us a slip even if we had UBP, he asked "why?", I said because I wanted to tip him...answer: "we don't get it anyway!, so no slip"...we were told later in the week that with the UBP they changed also the salary plan for the bartenders...bottom line they work harder and get less money. So I tipped in cash once every day and enjoyed a great time at our favorite bar.

 

Entertainment: we didn't go to any poolside party except to the Bob Marley's tribute one night, from 9:30 to 10:30...got there around 10 and the poolside was empty...there was more band members than people enjoying the music. We listened every day to Dana, the pianist and Leo, the guitarist. Let's start with Dana, ok voice, did a lot of request but he had a set list he was playing almost routinely daily...with the same bad jokes and the thing he ALWAYS did EVERY night with the "New York New York" song...do it once or maybe twice but please not EVERY time you sing. Leo on the guitar also had an ok voice, had open mic almost every day ( some folks were surprisingly good ) but had a narrower field of songs...he would refuse many request every night...but he did play 2 requested songs ( from us ) from Green Day, what the guitar player we had on our last cruise refused to do ( even if he knew them because he played a few seconds and stopped and said he couldn't play that ) so that's +1 for Leo !

 

Games : the games we saw in Magnum's were, for the most part, boring...OMG the cruise director staff, 4 out of 5, were so boring...they were doing there job and that's it...

 

I am glad we don't depend on the cruise director to make or break our cruise. I understand that Alvin is a new CD and he was on his second trip on the Gem, but was he boring...when he took the "antenna" every morning after the Captain you could feel he was reading his paper sheet and was monotone and later in the day when he took the antenna again it was like a bad infomercial, telling us about how we could spend our $ in bingo or deal or no deal, etc... I am sorry but he was bad, I wish him luck and maybe time will take the weight off his shoulders...I MISS SINAN !!!!

 

Food :

 

Buffet had a different theme every night, some excellent, some very good and some bad...Breakfast and lunch quickly became routine and boring...and it was a madhouse !!! Desserts were awful all 10 days except for one night when they had carrot cake.

 

The complain I have to do about the buffet is again, inconsistency. In any major restaurant, whether I go early or late, the offering is the same...not at the buffet...if you want the hash-brown type potatoes with your breakfast you better get there early, if you want a bagel...get there early. For lunch they had 3 or 4 different type of sandwiches, that's good BUT they would alternate them instead of having them all on display at the same time. A few times I had an ok sandwich and when I had finished my plate I saw people walking with an other kind of sandwich in their plates...you have it, put it out there!

 

Milk in little carton was no where to be found after day 4 or 5 in the morning buffet...maybe due to excessive cereal consumption on that particular cruise!?!

 

Grand Pacific and Magenta were both equally good and service was excellent. I had a great "beef au jus" one night and a great aged steak the other night !

 

Moderno : was very good as usual, the lamb chops were particularly delicious ( my tiny gf had 5 of them ! ), it was better than the fillet mignon I tell you !

 

Le Bistro :...well this is simply plain robbery !!! we are adept of le Bistro, we go twice every cruise and my gf LOVES it !!!...we went once and might ( will ) not return on our next cruise. My gf had mussels for appetizer ( 9 lonely mussels ) and one of them was bad...so 8 really. So we had 2 appetizers, 2 main dish ( mine was the second cheapest on the menu ) NO desert and it was 54$ including gratuities...WAY WAY WAY to expensive for what we had !!!...this is not acceptable...we usually go 4 times in the specialty restaurant on a 7 night cruise...but not at those prices...no way.

 

Debarkation : we always do self debarkation to get out of the city early and hit the road. The captain told us we would dock at 7am at pier 88, we went very early to the buffet and were in line at around 6:50am in the Bliss where the line started. We docked around 7:10 and were clear to exit the ship around 7:45. At 8:05 we were sitting in the car and at 8:20 we were in Jersey on the other side of the GWB ! easy and painless.

 

2 years ago we sailed the Breakaway to see if we were big ship people, we ended the cruise and came to the conclusion that we were not and sailed the Dawn out of Boston last year...we didn't appreciate that cruise, that ship was "falling apart", in not so good condition...at that time Mr.Sheehan was CEO and we met him as he was touring the ship...I bet that didn't go so well. So we taught that was the problem, a not so good ship and we booked the Gem for this cruise...We talked about our cruise all the way back home and we came to the conclusion that our next cruise will be the Breakaway because we might not be "smaller" cruise ship pax after all. Nothing bad to say about the ship itself, the crew, or anything else major, but I think we need more options then what is offered on the "smaller" ships. I guess we will see when our sad loonie will come back up !

 

 

 

I am sure I forgot somethings and will post them if they are important to my review.

 

 

Thank you for your patience for reading this "short" version ;)

 

.

[www3traveler]

Who were your Senior Officers both on the Hotel side and the Bridge side?

[mizLORInj]

Oh that Sinan. He surely was entertaining. I believe he's on Celebrity now.

 

I agree the CD doesn't make or break a cruise for me.

 

Interesting about the bartenders and tips and UBP. Good to know.

 

Don't take the questioning at the gold/platinum line personally. They usually ask for proof from us too and check off our cabin #/name from a list. One time I had someone saying to me "I don't see you on this list" with a tone, so I said please check again and the person next to them found us. Really. Maybe people try to pull a fast one so they're super-cautious? I don't know, but it's ok. I have the papers to prove I'm platinum! :p

Edited February 9, 2016 by mizlorinj

[dshefter]

Nice review Sebastian. You should have purchased the SDP online. Minimum is three dinners, but it is worth it. Cost around $21.85 pp for each dinner. That is less than what you paid at Le Bistro for one dinner! It also includes the gratuity.

 

I agree, Alvin was an average CD, but I generally don't care who the CD is. The best CD I've seen was on Carnival Dream (Jaime). She is now on the Sunshine, I'm told. Otherwise, the CD has never been memorable for us.

[geegee1]

...We talked about our cruise all the way back home and we came to the conclusion that our next cruise will be the Breakaway because we might not be "smaller" cruise ship pax after all. Nothing bad to say about the ship itself, the crew, or anything else major, but I think we need more options then what is offered on the "smaller" ships...

.

 

Loved the Gem the first two times we sailed on her. Did the Breakaway the last two, now going back to the Gem. My fear is that I am spoiled from all there is to do on BA and will be bored on the Gem.

[obie25]

Odd question, but open mic night? Passengers could perform? Were they able to use Leo's guitar? My daughter sings and plays and would think it was really cool to play on the ship.

[sebas030]

Odd question, but open mic night? Passengers could perform? Were they able to use Leo's guitar? My daughter sings and plays and would think it was really cool to play on the ship.

 

 

You can sing...but you do not use the guitar ( Leo has a nice one ) !

 

Leo is nice....you can sing a couple of songs per night and every night if you want !!!

[obie25]

You can sing...but you do not use the guitar ( Leo has a nice one ) !

 

Leo is nice....you can sing a couple of songs per night and every night if you want !!!

 

Thanks for the info!

[Keith1010]

Thank you for your review.

 

Keith

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the report.