delberto Cruise Review on Norwegian Gem on Mar 29, 2019

Norwegian Gem Cruise Review

delberto

Contributor Level: Second Mate

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 43

Overall rating:

3 out of 5

14 Night Southern Caribbean (Boston Roundtrip)

Sail date: March 29, 2019

Ship: Norwegian Gem

Reviewed: 5 years ago

Review summary

We booked this cruise to fulfill a next cruise obligation from a few years back. We have also cruised on Royal Caribbean and Carnival for comparison. We loved the longer length of the cruise and the Itinerary was excellent. Service over all was pretty good. Food although we never went hungry was not that good. Breakfast was exactly the same every day. Lunch also basically the same every day. Tried O’Sheehan’s to get something different and never went back (yuck). We purchased the specialty dining package and did receive better food there but still disappointing other than Tepannaki (which we paid extra to go to again). Erik at Tepannaki was excellent and very entertaining. Main dining room was ok but still basic bland food. Instant mashed potato isn’t my favorite. The boat itself was clean and we enjoyed our mini suite layout. Regina our room stewardess was amazing! She was very attentive and friendly. Our room was always clean and had fresh ice. She also went above and beyond to locate my lost luggage. We went as far as to fill out lost luggage ticket before it was found. Imagine thinking you were on a tropical two week vacation with no belongings except for a few things you packed in your carry on? I have no idea where it was or why they couldn’t locate it. My luggage had my room ticket right on it. Embarking was long, we’ve been through bigger lines in Miami and Fort Lauderdale in half the time. Disembarkation was equally painful. I bought a ring on board and because I spent more than 800$ had to go to a custom meeting at 0645 on last day. We waited over an hour before customs even started the check out process. If you make purchases don’t do them on the boat. I had to rush back to get my self assist bags (which they told us not to bring) in order to get in another line to get off the boat that also took about an hour. There was a couple in front of us with only a beach bag when everyone else had all their luggage. They lied saying that yellow tag people were already called when we clearly heard them called after self assist had already been in line for 45 minutes. Entertainment was pretty good, we made it to all but 2 of the shows. Outside of nightly shows there were few activities going on. We prefer Carnival entertainment over what we experienced on Norwegian. The population on the boat was overall much older than what we are used to. Waiting for walkers and scooters everywhere was the norm. We experienced people on excursions who truly weren’t safely able to participate. We did mostly beach excursions and a snorkel excursion. Aside from the convenience of having the port in Boston we will likely book future cruises with Carnival and Royal. Poor food and excessive added fees turned us off.

10 Comments

Cruisers4Lyfe 4 months ago

Thanks for sharing

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cruisereckoning 4 years ago

Thanks for the review.

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delberto 5 years ago

BillTeg I’m just stating my review. Some people are looking for one thing and some are looking for something else. Yes, one day (god willing), I will be that person with walker, scooter or whatever it takes to keep cruising! Maybe I didn’t do my homework but I’m usually pretty good at it. I didn’t expect the large numbers of elderly that we encountered on this cruise. I’ve been a nurse for 33 years taking care of all kinds (mostly elderly). Given a choice, I prefer to spend my vacation with similar aged people. For that reason (until the time comes), I’ll be sailing with Royal.

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BillTeg 5 years ago

While you may have thought there were elderly or disabled passengers "not able to participate", it may have been a trip of their lifetime, or some moments for them or families to remember. It's not prudent to question why others are failing if they aren't bothering you. You may be elderly or disabled some day and still find you can get some joy out of life

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delberto 5 years ago

We did not go to Le Bistro.

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dwright323 5 years ago

Doesn’t sound like the food was at all good for you? Did you manage to go to Le Bistro?

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delberto 5 years ago

They called for self assist passengers to disembark first. We all carried our own luggage off the boat. The passengers in front of us had no luggage and yellow tag members weren’t called until we were almost all off. I’m just saying they didn’t follow the rules.

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dreniere 5 years ago

Yellow tags are given to platinum and above latitudes members that have priority disembarking

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mpapbr 5 years ago

Leaving tomorrow. Been on ncl breakaway and escape. First time out of boston. Thx for info.

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dcregar 5 years ago

Thanks for the tip

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