Norwegian Gem Cruise Reviews - Reviews

Went on this ship had me a blast staff was friendly food was great the vacation was so good I’m looking to see where else I want to go. Y first time cruise was amazing and I would not change or say anything bad about it

Relaxing cruise. Wish there were more exciting on board activities.

The Gem was super clean. Also, the food was good.

Francisca04 Was my first time in a cruise. The experience was wonderful. I can’t wait to go in another cruise with Norwegian. God bless the amazing staff. I have not complain. I enjoy everything.

First time on the Gem. Previously sailed on Breakaway and Escape. Liked the smaller size. Deck chairs always available (not by pool but upstairs). Could get into the pool. With 3 banks of elevators, you never waited long and were never full. Room was slightly smaller but closet set up was better than the bigger boats. BBQ by pool was good. Entertainment was varied and good. Staff was great. Waiters, bartenders and steward all very friendly and attentive. Food was delicious. Missed the outside bars/outside seating on the bigger ships. The nightly parties were not as good as Spice H2O due to the size. Overall a great experience. Can't wait for the next one.

Enjoyed the 7 days the staff was amazing and the food was amazing

I don’t know how express my feelings. It was just fantastic.

The buffet was not good at all. Waited in lines forever for omelette or pasta stations. There were veins in the food. There was not much to do. Very limited amount of activities. Nobody wants to watch a demonstration. People would rather participate. The swimming pools were really smAll compared to the amount of people onboard.

Had a great family vacation. Favorite restaurant was The Orchid Garden. Waiters were friendly and very patient. Food was delicious!!! Best tips I received from this app was to bring paper straws, “poo-pourri”and small bills for tipping. The straws were really needed for those delicious frozen drinks. My room steward worked miracles in our room every time we left. All the staff was so friendly and helpful. Getting on and off ship was a breeze! Enjoyed the cabana for the day in the Bahamas. Band by pool was awesome and we were blessed with wonderful weather except for getting a-bit of rAin on our Blue Lagoon excursion. Next year - The Escape! My granddaughters never wanted to leave their “splash academy” camps. They loved it so much. Ages 10 and 8. The last day they put on a little circus show. I loved it!! One of my favorite things to do was order coffee and croissants to the room first thing in the morning. Loved room service!!! Back to reality now. Vacation’s over.. back to work. 😫

The staff were so friendly and helpful. We enjoyed interacting with them, be it at the buffet area, or the casino, or even guest services.

My kids 10 and 11 loved the cruise. We all loved the entertainment, both during the day at the pool and the shows at night. The food was ok. Very small portions. The coffee was horrible. Deck 11: room 11554, very, very noisy. Both at night and from 6-7 am when the chairs were being set up by the pools. That was annoying! Especially when you went to sleep late and wanted to sleep later in the morning. All in all, we would do another cruise, just pick the location of the room better.

An absolutely amazing experience. After we took a perfect cruise on the Gem in August 2012, I originally thought it would be hard for NCL to live up to my already high expectations, but boy was I wrong. Everyone and everything was great. The crew were friendly especially the room stewards and the waiters & cooks in the garden cafe. The crew also do an absolute amazing job of maintaining the ship. You always see them around painting, fixing, cleaning the venues to keep the ship up to date and ready for where ever she goes. The cruise director, Lorena, and her staff were so energized and planned the entertainment around the ship very well. The food was also fantastic, we were never hungry. I also love how this ship is layed out. All public venues were great and well designed. Places like The Grand Pacific restaurant, Stardust Theater and Spinnaker lounge were especially beautiful and really comfortable. If I had one complaint about the whole ship it would be the selection of free drinks.... that’s if you don’t have the ultimate beverage package. My family chose not to get the beverage package because we didn’t feel like paying an extra thousand bucks and the only drinks we were allowed to get were a few juices in the Garden Cafe and water. That’s it. In the complementary restaurants, you can’t get any drinks besides water without paying for them. It’s just kind of unfair. But to look past that minor detail, I’d say NCL once again succeeded in delivering us the vacation of a lifetime. We look forward to seeing more ships in the fleet soon.

There weren’t enough activities for my sister and I to do together compared to your other cruise lines

Overall the cruise was fair. I think the buffet food was pretty good. The one thing I loved the best about the buffet was the chocolate cake. The chocolate cake they had there was rich and creamy and fudgy. I loved it but I'm a chocolate lover who likes that rich, sugary chocolate to begin with. The pools here are kind of small and the water slide is not exciting at all. The night shows they have here are pretty good. I enjoyed tim Kaminsky's show the most. The activities on the cruise are kind of lacking. Sometimes they put the best things to do at the same exact time and you have no idea which to do and then the times after that, there is nothing to do. Like at 1pm, they will have like 2 or 3 good things to do but then by 2pm and 3pm, the activities get boring again until 7pm again. So to me between 2 and 7, there wasn't much to do but to play bingo. The people who clean your room on this ship was very nice and did a good job and I loved my towel animals! The guest service was ok,not too bad except when I had a problem with my credit card company, it was on a Sunday and they didnt even give me one business day to call my credit card company to fix things before they put a hold on my room key to charge things. So I had to complain to guest services because I didn't think it was fair of them to not allow me to charge things with my room key even though they knew for a FACT that I had to talk to my bank about it. They knew it for a fact because they let me call my bank from the desk there. But I dont think that guest services had much to do with that, I think it was more of the finance department who did that to me. So I wont fault guest services for that one. The people in the art gallery were very nice and fair. I liked them, I bought a piece of art from them that I fell in love with and the people there were super nice. Mika who is in charge of shopping at the ports was super sweet but she is a dangerous person to know because she tells you all these good things and makes you want to shop. So shes dangerous to my wallet! Lol. The washy washy happy happy people in the dining room area are so nice and friendly. The excursion choices weren't too bad. I would say to not go to Disney world for a ship excursion due to time restraints. If you want to go to Disney world and have fun, go to Disney world on it's own vacation, not on a cruise ship excursion. I went to three restaurants in here teppanyaki, moderno and la cucina and they were all awesome. I just wish la cucina (Italian food restaurant) gave me more pasta for my entree but it was pretty good pasta. The stateroom was pretty small but it was ok for me because it was just me and my teenage daughter sharing the room. So we were not too too cramped on top of each other. I appreciated the trip in whole because I think everyone on these cruise ships work very hard to make sure that the guests are happy and some of them don't get to see their families for months at a time. So they deserve as much love as you can offer them.

Although I had a lovely time there is a lot of room for improvement. Because of freestyle I don't thing the crew is as nice and friendly as they could be. I had staff that was super nice and friendly with smiles that made you feel warm and fuzzy. I also had staff that always looked annoyed and were cold especially after ordering an extra entree. I would get coffee but no creamer and when I asked for it I get a reply of "yeah". Food is hit or miss in dining room. I had to send back a few. Pork belly should have crispy skin and the meat and fat layers should melt in your mouth. But no, skin like leather and no fat so out was dry and hard to chew. Sent it back for eggplant parm Effingham was very good. Ordered short rib ragu with pasta. Three was only a tiny piece of meat. I asked the manager if this is the way it's supposedto be and she said no and immediately got me a new one which has loads of meat. That was super delicious. I ordered warm bread pudding. It was refrigerator cold. Sent it back and they brought it back piping hot and it burned my mouth. I told them and no apologies. Prime rib on last night was absolutely perfect. So they need to step it up in the dining room. Need better activities for people who don't want to lay on deck all day. Shows were pretty good. My room was always kept nice. Always fresh towels even though I never left them on the floor. I do like eating whenever instead of the scheduled seating. Most delicious scones and whipped cream on the back of the boat during snack hours.

Loved it! Food isn’t as amazing as you expect but still good! It’s a smaller ship so dizziness and sea sickness may most likely occur but overall, great ship with many great things to do!

We had a good time. Food was ok. The MDR was the best included eateries. The shows were ok. Nothing spectacular, a bit over acted and definitely over sang. Both pool bands were great. AT Port Canaveral we choose the Kennedy Space Center. (big expensive disappointment) I LOVED GSC. Nassau was as expected. I will definitely recommend doing a resort excursion. I don't understand the art auction appeal or the end of cruise junk sales they had.

Loved it. Can't wait to do it again. The food was good and of course the drink package came in handy. We met some really fun people and crew members. The casino bar is where people seemed to gather and have a lot of fun sharing their experiences. I was told to try a drink called Pain Killer on our third night and had one every day since. The Miami Vice was another favorite drink. Like I said before we can't wait to do it again.

I'd recommend this for anyone who wants to get away and see the open waters. Friendly crew, food was great and the ports was were easy to get on and off. All the shows were great and the rooms were always taken care of.

Good trip, the shows at the Stardust were great. The Caribean band were good, the comic was as well. The other bands were weak. Other than the comic the other late night entertainment was weak. They even make the not so newlywed game terrible. No Liar's club or any other late night fun. The night parties were good. Watch out for the roving bands of 15-18 year old kids roving the boat after midnight with nothing to do but get in trouble and run from security,... So much for a curfew. Overall good time.