Worst Customer Service I’ve Ever Had on a Vacation

Embarkation was one of the only smooth experiences all trip, and that’s owed almost entirely to the New York company running the port. NOT NCL. Lines moved smoothly and got on board in a timely manner.

The bartenders were almost all friendly though it was clear they were understaffed as some bartenders were working from 7 AM and I’d see them again at 10 PM. Having cruised most other lines, the overall food was very poor on this ship. The staff tried but almost everything aside from a desert here or there tasted no different than a mediocre diner or a Denny’s. The best bets we’re having the Lido cooks make a made to order omelette and pastas. We are at Cagneys and while it was good, it was nowhere near the quality of a $45 steak. They also forgot to send out most sides for us. Luckily it was “free” as part of a promotion Timeliness was always an issue. One dinner in the main dining area took almost 2 hours whereas usually you could be done in 45-60 minutes.

I understand there’s only so much you can do with sea days shipping out of NYC in winter. But they didn’t even try. Like they didn’t even try to hide they mailed it in. Offering ping pong tournaments when the high temp was 43 degrees for example. Heck even when it was in the warmth an activity person no showed the tourney on another day. Or advertising pool games when we are even with Ocean City They also basically deliberately offered NOTHING to do on our final sea day except paid games, auctions etc. Nothing “fun” to do aside from a useless trivia here or there ALSO. Their poker tourney was one of the more blatant money grabs I’ve ever experienced. I had set aside money to play once and tried it despite better judgement of how stupid the set up was. For anyone who plays poker, the cheapest tourney was $80 You were given 2,000 chips and the blinds STARTED at 100/200, meaning 10% of your stack was needed just to call a bet. Even on other cruise ships, it’d usually be at most 5% to call a bet to start. If you survived an hour, you could get 4,000 more chips…..for $80 more. I lost. No biggie. But they only got 7 people to buy in on a 1200 person ship on a sea day (though I think they had about 10 rebuys between the other 6 people)

With small kids I only saw one show but the crew seemed talented. The live band was also a lot of fun on the pool deck and played a diverse number of instruments.

Did not use the Splash Academy

Let me first State not everyone deserves this star. Our Steward deserved 4 stars. Many of the hardworking staff deserve 3-5 stars. It’s CLEAR many are WAY over worked. If you just gave someone, especially on Lido just a moment of your time to talk, they’d just start subtly spilling beans about how tired they are. How even staff had internet that doesn’t work so they can’t even text or talk to their families. How the hours are unbearable. I felt horrid for them. But I cannot explain to you how terrible other areas of the ship were ESPECIALLY guest services. Forget unhelpful. They were flat out combative, antagonistic, and liars. They should all be fired. Examples. —They did not notify us prior to the cruise that there would be a customs check at our Port Canaveral stop. We had a private shuttle to Disney planned and their paperwork stated the customs check could take up to two hours which obviously was alarming. The guest services person, a woman from South Africa went against their own paperwork and said it shouldn’t take much time and started to become hostile when we asked what the process was going to be like exactly. We then asked for any relevant info to pass on to the service we ordered to pick us up like the terminal we may arrive in, or any instructions for drop off and all she kept saying was the time due back on the ship and then even flat out said to me that “You’re wife keeps asking me the same question. I understand what she’s saying” despite us trying to ask different questions. —We ordered a private villa on their private lagoon. However we were given tickets for an ocean view. It may sound small but the lagoon was a decision to give my small kids better water to Wade in. When we got to the Cay, their ticket agent for villas said they’d fix it at their villa office down the island. That office then said they can’t fix it and tough luck. They borderline called us liars until we told them to contact the excursion office, who couched we were telling the truth and they messed up. This was the again guest services staff that was in this office. As an aside, despite giving them over $600 for a villa, they forced me to spend almost 45 minutes to travel back to the main island and had to pay $20 for two life preservers that are offered for free when on the ship. Also, despite being told they constantly ran tenders, we waited over 39 minutes to depart to the island as well as go back to the ship at the end of the day so they could stuff as many people as possible, despite fluff talk they took extra Covid precautions. —Another family member had a free dinner promotion but was ill. They wanted me to have it so they and myself went to guest services. She flat out said she didn’t feel well and wanted the be cautious and stay in her room mostly and not be around the public. We asked since it was our second to last night if I could use it. Pre Covid we had a similar instance with one of my parents and HAL had no issues. NCL? Not only refused but basically rudely threw it in our face that under no circumstances can a promotional dinner ever be transferred. I get it in theory. But to claim they care about health and basically tell someone to go eat when sick or lose their meal? Is pretty ridiculous. They wouldn’t even let her bring it back to her room to go. —We we’re set to disembark in Florida at 630. However we had to wait almost 90 minutes for clearance. After an hour the NCL staff that was both activities and guest services tried to blame the government saying a gangway was broken, however the cruise directly kept going on the voice system saying it was clearance. Someone in a white officers uniform was also very antagonistic towards passengers. Our hunch is between this a future issue (see below) is the ship had an issue that the us government didn’t like and they had issues getting cleared. We had zero issues getting clearance in Bermuda and. Nassau. But Florida and New York were a MESS —No one told us that as part of the promotion we signed up for included 24 bottles of their water. It was only on Day 4 when we asked guest services to take what we thought was basically a mini bar of water out of our room did they say it’s ours. We then asked for the other 12 bottles of water on Day 5. No delivery. We asked on Day 6. Then Day 7. Then Day 8. Nothing. Finally on that afternoon the day before we came home did we get frustrated asking why NCL won’t fulfill their promise and we wanted a credit to our account. They said they wouldn’t give us a credit and then we heard an audible argument between guest services and the bar about whether the 12 bottles qualified because they were under my kids accounts who sailed free. After hearing this for 10 minutes we simply said if you won’t count them then why force a service charge. The agent then said we can have it refunded. And after this, the other instances mentioned here and other smaller issues, we took them up on it. We feel bad that this may have an effect on unintended workers, but at the same time didn’t exactly feel bad given so many hassles endured. We were told we’d hear from NCL finance in a few days. —On Day 8, we confirmed from guest services our bill was handled and our final bill had NCL owing us money that we’d be contact on in a few days. —Upon disembarkation, we lined up at 620 AM to exit at 7 AM to try and beat a snow storm. We ended up getting more excuses again that we could not get cleared. It took until 745 for us to get cleared. We spoke to a couple who said on over 39 cruises, they’ve never experienced a ship get delayed like this TWICE, by US port authorities both times no less Here’s where it gets even better. Upon exit, security stopped us and flagged us saying we could not leave. When asking why they said we had an outstanding bill. After physically showing them he hill we received saying we were cleared; they wanted us to exit the line which was now hundreds deep being 45 minutes late. They said we could not leave because NCL owed us money. We stayed we were told we’d be contacted about it but we’re told we could not leave. I then at this point fed up with this entire crew basically ran to guest services and demanded answered. Guest services were confused and said we were clear. When I told them security is basically treating us like criminals they then went to get a manager. About 90 seconds later an incredibly rude woken randomly showed up near jogging over to me and told me to sign a paper. I asked what I’m signing and was told to calm down. Now I was really pissed. After telling them why I have a right to be animated, the woman said she was there to pay me and they tried to call me. When I asked how they could call me when I’m on the ship they claimed they called my room. When I mentioned we spent over 12 hours in it yesterday (since there was nothing to do) and played board games I asked when they did. They had no answer. I also asked why they didn’t leave a message. She didn’t answer. She basically threw cash ok their table and ran off. I then asked are we cleared. She didn’t answer and kept walking So…I did yell to her saying what assurance we now have we can leave. And the woman continued to hustle away. Fortunately , security did let us through but not until we were leaving over an hour behind what was stated we’d leave by. In all my life, I’ve never felt less valued as a customer. It’s one thing to be inept. It’s quite another to be inept while also being complete jerks on top of it. If anyone from NCL reads this. Your guest services team on the Gem ensured we will NEVER give you another dime of our business.

The layout was very meh. Which for a 20 year old ship was to be expected. I didn’t like how so much of the activities were on the 7th floor atrium which was near a bar, shops a Starbucks, CruiseNext, Excursions and guest services. It made everything feel very clogged which during the world we live in now made it feel germy

Our steward was a very nice man, but some areas collected dust over time. Definite wear and tear on the deck made it a bit unappealing.

As described above, a total disaster. I don’t know how a ship that arrived to NYC at 2 AM ahead of scheduled managed to be nearly an hour delay getting cleared.