Norwegian Gem Cruise Reviews - Reviews

From start to finish, other than the weather being decent and beautiful islands and meeting great people on board, very dissapointing. First they lost my boyfriends' bag until ,after many times going to guest relations, and checking with housekeeping until nearly 11pm on the first night. Then having a room directly under the casino and complaining to guest services and them telling me the ship was filled to capacity and they could not offer me a different location. Dinner is the main dining rooms, except for the poor excuse for a Thanksgiving Dinner, were adequate but nothing phenominal (sometimes the food was better at the buffets). Had a bad dinner experience at the Majenta and complained at guest service again. They sent Michael from the Majenta and he promised to make up for it if we came back. Went back next evening and he gave us an excellent server and a bottle of wine.... finally some recourse.... but not making up for the overall experience. Poor food choices, limited entertainment after 10 pm and in case of inclement weather, guest relations attitude as if you are bothering them.

The cruise ship was recently renovated and was always kept thoroughly clean. The food, both in the common dining halls and especially in the specialty restaurants, was always very good and complimented by positive service. The excursions were well organized by the ship and logistics were always easy - we also lucked out and the two snorkeling experiences were fantastic, as we saw many sea turtles, sting rays, and even one barracuda.

However, there were two items that prevented this from being a 5 star review.

1) The cruise directors were clearly targeting the senior and family demographic on the ship, but seemed to have left out the young adult demographic. I went with my girlfriend and we made a few comments that the planned activities never seemed to be very interactive for 20-30's crowd.

2) The weather was poor for almost all but 2 days. While this was not the ship's fault, the outside activities that were cancelled left huge gaps in the day with not much to do. Simple planning for back-up activities inside would have made a huge difference.

good experience on ship. 99% crews are nice and helpful. A few crews are not.

good island destination, but too short for that.

half day for tortola is waste of time. the local is not for short walk (bad road condition).

Everything was great....after we left port.  The employees that run the scanning machine were terrible.  They were sitting on the belts, dropping the "F" word....it was terrible.  But the experience on the ship was great.  Unfortunately this was the 3rd terrible experience....so we will never use the manhatten port every again

We have been on many cruises before with ncl. All extremely fun with many things to do. Seems like all they want now is to get you on the ship so they can charge you for everything and make a killing off you. Found this cruise to have very little things going on for active crowds. Many young people expressed that feeling also. 

Perfect cruise, thank you for everything.    Can't wait to go again with other members of my family.  Perhaps sometime next year.  With my son/daughter & grandkids.  I enjoyed the food & the whole ship design & the great places to go on shores.

It's the first time my parents cruise, they liked it. Though they don't speak English, they enjoyed the food, the music, the hot tub,the shows, the services, and nice fellow passengers. I thought a 10-day cruise might be a little bit too long for them, but it seems that they never feel bored. Some suggestions: 1. When we eat at Teppanyaki, the photographer came to take photos for us with our chef. I'd like to keep the photo if the chef was not pointing the fork and other cooking utensils to our heads. I know it would make a more interesting photo with better layout and cute postures, it's just that we're a little bit superstitious and are thus afraid of this type of photo. Maybe traditional photo would work better with most Asian. 2. I did not find vinegar at Garden Cafe while adding it would make my dad way more happier. 3. More Chinese language service would be appreciated, I believe my parents would enjoy even more if they could understand the language. But I understand we don't have a lot non-English speaking Chinese on our ship, and they've decided to learn some English for their next trip. Overall, we like it and sure will miss those cruising days.

I wouldn't suggest if you are going first time. Room service and food was great, water slide was broken and never fixed for all 10days. While we traveled so much waves, so my younger one and wife felt see sickness half of trip. Virgin island and st Marin was a great place to visit. Inside ship programs were great except worst comedy show, during our trip was few days were raining and we were forced to stay in room. They played same programs all 10days in TV, was terrible that we couldn't go to water pool. Hot tub was the only option, only two small tub can hold 7 people max! Finally we made it, my wife said no more curise!!! I'm happy.

Overall this cruise was very good. Last year I was on the Breakaway. Differences are noticeable.

Although these shows were good, last time they were excellent & there were more choices. Food this time was very good, especially with the excellent wait service we had, namely Russell & Sahil. However, LaCucina was nothing but a disappointment this time & the price went up from last year which wasn't worth it at all. That won't happen again.

The crew were mostly very pleasant with a few exceptions. The restrooms weren't as clean as last year, by far.

The cruise director was good but abit more daily entertainment would've been nice since we did have several days at sea.

Ill start by saying the ship was not quite finished being renovated when I took my trip. Therefore, the ship had many features that were unusable. The water slide didnt have a pump and was closed the entire trip and the rock climbing wall was also out of service. Additionally, the bowling alley has been removed from the ship to extend seating in the Bliss Lounge. Communication to folks who booked this ship would have been appreciated. I had been on the Breakaway before this ship and I believe I was spoiled by it. This ship is a significant downgrade. The Garden Cafe buffet if a fraction of the Breakaway's and the food/entertainment is not as good either. Also, (it may have been due to when I sailed, Nov) the avg age of the folks on board was 53. There were many senior citizens with scooters. It was a quiter vibe on this ship. 

Old San Juan was unique. Lots of resturants, shops, and museums. This port also had data/voice phone coverage so we were able to use our phones as if we were in the continential US. 

St Thomas and St Maarten were very similar. Their downtown areas were setup for tourism with many shops and resturants, and the locals were very friendly. The only thing I didnt like at these locations was the transportation situation. They make you wait on long taxi lines while they try to pair you up with many others going to the same locations. Then they herd you into large vans and make you pay different amount depending on how many people you say youre with. We just found small single family car taxis and paid they roughly the same. Id rather pay 5 bucks more not to have to cram into a large van. I will say that in both islands we paid about $50 round trip to Megans Bay Beach and Maho Beach. Note: We had cell service (voice) in St Thomas but our phones didnt work in St Maarten.

Tortola was extremely limited, no cell service either. This port is in the process of being built for the cruise ship tourists. I guess thats why the ship only docked for a couple of hours. We didnt do any of the bus tours of the island but it did look like that was probably the best thing to do there. I didnt really see a lot of resturants and the shops were very limited as well. This port will be completely different in a year or so. 

Always have a great time aboard, overall great cruise, but they can improve some things.  Let me start out by saying I hate people that complain about everything, and there were some people, who complained about everything.  Listen, it's  not the Ritz Carlton, so don't expect it to be.  We stayed in cabin 11022 mini suite, cabin steward was awesome as usual. itinerary was great, don't under estimate tortola, probably the nicest destination on cruise.   The local people were the nicest and the island is aesthetically the best.   

           The main dining rooms are a joke, horrific food and worst service, we stayed and dined mostly at specialty restaurants where the food and service were both excellent.  We did the buffet a couple of nights not great.  The buffet for breakfast was great if you ate at the great outdoors(hidden Gem  on this ship).

          Like I said we are partial to this boat, food and service in MDR need to be improved, but we had a great time.

Sailed on the same ship same time last year.  Last year was disappointed but crew came to my cabin to ask personally what my complaints were. I was traveling with my severely handicapped daughter and told them what my complaints were.  They begged us to try them again and promised a lot of changes were to be made. Well it was the best decision we made to try this boat again. There was nothing to do on the boat last year especially when in port.  There was 1 show each night you either rushed your dinner or missed the show. Music around the ship was scarce.  The cruise this year had 2 show times each night, music was everywhere on the boat.  There was plenty to do in port. The shows were fantastic and they had handicapped seating available. The crew couldn't have been any nicer or more accommodating. The Norwegian Gem will def see us back again!! Thank you for a wonderful vacation!

I have been on the Gem six times and lately the food is going downhill. Now in order to get dishes that were previously included like lobster tails and escargot yoy have to go to a speciality restaurant and pay $20 to $30 extra per person and even then the food is not great plus even in the specialty restaurant some dishes have an extra charge. In addition it's bad enough that Norwegian raised the tips (service charge) twice in one year and you still have to pay an addional gratuity of 18 percent in the speciality restaurants. This is like double tipping because when you are eating in a speciality restaurant you are also tipping in the dining room where you are not eating.  The excursions are very overpriced. They even discontinued a simple dish at the pasta station like spaghetti and meat sauce. Why?  They should also have trays in the buffet like some other cruise lines have 

The service and the staff and the nightly shows were just about the only good parts of the cruise experience.  The daily activities were sorely lacking (first time Ive ever been bored on a cruise) or you had to pay extra or the activity was related to a sales pitch.  There were only 2 pools and they were right next to each other, causing everyone to be in the same place at the same time and never ONCE were we able to find an unoccupied lounge chair.  Everytime we went swimming we had to put our belongings on the floor or in a cubby.  There were no good movies to watch in the cabin, and the movies that did play we never knew when they would start so we would always catch them in the middle.  Having a large screen or a seperate theather for movie viewing would have been nice. And finally the food was most nights terrible.  Lots a gelatin was used in the desserts, we were introduced to nothing new or exciting, and there was no midnight chocolate buffet or mexican night (2 cruise staples). My fiance actually LOST 10 POUNDS on this cruise because he was eating so little!

My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed our 10 Day Caribbean Cruise on the Norwegian Gem!  The staff and crew were amazing.  The food was incredible.  The majority of the entertainment was superb.  This was our 5th cruise and it did not disappoint us!  The freestyle cruise agenda works well for us as we prefer to eat where we want, when we want, and what we want!  We would most definitely recommend this cruise to our friends and family as well as anyone who is considering taking a purely relaxing, enjoyable vacation!

Service was great,both cabin steward and waiters in all restaurants.  Supposed to have the availability of concierge; had no idea who he/she was; never received a notice in our stateroom about this.  Food was pretty good; have had better on previous Norwegian cruises.  We will be going on another one!!!  This was our 17th on NCL

The only excursion that was a expensive for what we got was the Cuisine Tasting and Historic Walk in San Juan.  It was avertised as about 1 1/2 miles of walking and it close to 2 1/2.  The tour guide did 900% of talking in the restaurant whereas we thought it would be the chef, as did other people on the tour.  The other port tours we went on were great.

This is my 3rd cruise with Norwegian and it was my worse because from day one, our luggages went to someone's else's room and the stateroom attendants keep telling us to go to customer service and report it... I don't have time for that when the line is forming a circle and all they have to do is confirming that the tags on the luggages are at the correct stateroom... My husband and I did just that and it took us less and a few minutes and got our luggages ourselves... Secondly the food look old and stale. It looks to me like it was prepared days ago... While I understand that not everything were prepares fresh daily, for crying out loud at the very least please make sure the vegetables are FRESH!!!! All vegetables were saggy, of POOR quality therefore no NUTRIENTS, etc... The drink package "UBP" was a joke I am an occasional drinker and i like a good cocktail once in a while but the cocktails were all syrup, ice and mixers "juice, cream, etc"... The shower floor was dirty because the water keeps coming back up i was showering in "STANDING WATER" which is very unhealthy and not sanitary from a health prospective... "EW" Worse experience EVER!!! so gross!!!

From the time we stepped onto the Gem, we were treated in such an excellent manner it was the perfect way to start a vacation.  Our requests were met with the quote, "Right away, no delay."  I was celebrating my 60th Birthday and the staff and crew made this trip extra special.  This was our 4th cruise in the Gem and we are now looking to book our next.

My husband and I had an awesome time on our cruise aboard the Norwegian Gem. The food was awesome, the staff was excellent and we had a terrific experience.

Ms. Leslie Pierna,   My wife and I were on Norwegian Gem for 10 days cruise 10/20/15-10/30/15 from New York. During cruise we got form from the ship customer service for return $270. Returning home, I e-mailed this form 11/2/15 with automatic response and promise get my return within 2 weeks. After 2, than 3 weeks I didn't get return. I e-mailed again this form 11/24/15 and mentioned, that this form attached and, again, got the same automatic response and promise... If we don't get this return this time, nether we, or our friends never ever again ask your Co for any cruise.

David Rossin & Elaine Aronsky