A Sparkling 10 day Gem review (April 8-18)

My husband and I have just returned from the 10 day Gem cruise. We are in our late 30 (eek, it’s a recent development, but I guess it’s the truth). This review will highlight what we did do, which did not include shows or the main dining rooms. We stayed in room 11156, an aft mini-suite. We had the beverage package, pre-purchased the 4 meal dining package, I pre-purchased the thermal spa pass, and we prepaid gratuities. We had Casino At Sea embarkation and chose to leave at our leisure (aka when they kicked us off) for disembarkation. I have tons of pictures, which I will post at the end.

Day One-

We left our house around 8:30. We arrived at the pier at10:15. We showed the kind lady our booking docs and were able to get our Casino boarding card and do our check in, which had no one in line. We went through security. There were piles of cans and bottles of soda and water on top of the screening machine. We settled into a few chairs to wait. I was not able to book Moderno’s at home, but when the clock struck 11 sharp, I was able to open the ConciergeApp and book Moderno’s for 3 nights (I am a carnivore that love salads). We were the second group called, after the priority boarding, which I assume was Platinum and above, but I could be wrong. While waiting, I did learn from a lady next to us that water and pretzels are $4 and $5 if you buy them at thepier.

We boarded, went to the pursar’s desk to drop off some cash(they did not ask for a minimum amount for those that have asked)- we left $800 which was more than enough due to all of our prepaid stuff. I video chatted with my Grandma at 12:01 and took her on a little tour (mobile data, I did not have the internet package and heard from everyone that did that it was pretty darn slow over the course of the cruise). I posted my first picture to Facebook from Bali Hai on Deck 13 at 12:27.

This is when we met Jim at Bali Hai, who was a most entertaining bartender! We saw a lot of him throughout the cruise. Smoker’s note- this is one of few locations that you can smoke, the other being in the casino when it is open (and technically you are supposed to be playing), and I did hear something about deck 7, but we never went there.

We popped into the spa to find out about a manicure. They offered a tour, which we accepted because I thought Jim deserved to see where I spent a majority of my early mornings. The tour was more of a sales pitch for everything from weight loss to acupuncture to personal training. At least Jim got a glimpse of the thermal suite…and I signed up for a manicure.

Rooms were ready around 2:30 and the muster was at 3:30, our station in the Magenta dining room. The muster station is very short and cursory. We popped up to our room, and ran into our room steward Hannah as she was bringing our luggage in. A very happy lady, I heard during the cruise she is in her 13th year. I never saw her without a smile. She always stopped to chat with us. We had our gold perks (2 bottles of water and a bottle of sparkling wine waiting when we entered. Spent 10 minutes unpacking (ample storage space for 2 people). The bruise I have from constantly walking into the little rim on the wall by the end of the bed is almost healed! Our casino cards were also waiting.

We went back to Bali Hai and enjoyed sail away. We ventured to the casino to see what had changed. We played a bit and I went to the stores that were now open to purchase some duty free cigarettes. The cost was $143 for 4 cartons of Marlboro family cigarettes (buying 2 cartons brought it to $45each). It was $30 per carton for the Pall Mall family.

Side note (and a possible overstep)- a young teen was attempting to purchase a pack of condoms with cash, which you can’t do.Apparently he didn’t want his family to know. He started to leave red-faced andme (fueled by my teacher’s habit and a few drinks) followed him and gave him a little talk on how great it is he wanted to be safe. He declined my offer to purchase them for him and literally ran away. So, parents…have the talk. A 13 year old does not need that kind of cruise memento 9 months later!

I think we were in bed by midnight….

Day 2- sunrise, manicure, meet and greet, Moderno's

Day 2

We were up around 5:30. The sun was just starting to peekover the horizon. We went up to deck 12 and watched the beauty. We wanderedaround until the buffet opened for breakfast. I don’t do typical breakfastfood, but was happy with bacon, noodles, and potatoes. Jim had an omelet and wewere ready and fueled for the day. I hitthe spa at 8 sharp. The only downside at that hour is that the steam room and thalassotherapypool are not completely warmed up. My manicure was at 9:00. It was a very salespitch laden experience, with the manicurist telling me her pedicures werebetter than what I had (ironically my pedicure is in almost tip top shape afteralmost 2 weeks) and pushing oils, lotions, and elixirs. I did not want shellacand explained for some reason it always peels off of my nails after a day. Shecontinued to push, so I told her I hated all of the shellac colors. I chose an iridescentpurple for my nails. The brand they use is Vinylux, which is usually prettyreliable.

After the secondcoat, I tried to explain that it just didn’t look right, there were tinybubbles in the polish-maybe it was old. She insisted it would be fine. Afterthe top coat, I still wasn’t happy. She offered to repaint them, but I had ameet and greet to get to. Thinking back, she didn’t cut my nails at all, andreally didn’t do much cuticle care, with the exception of the oil, which shetried to sell me for $58. So, live and learn…don’t pay $59 for something thatis done better at home for $30.

It was just about time for the meet and greet. I broughtname tags, but a few people beat me to Le Bistro, where we were scheduled. Wehad over 50 people scheduled to attend, about half showed up. There was a nicespread of pastries and coffee and around 9 officers, including the captainshowed up and each gave a little talk. Somehow, I didn’t get a copy of the listof numbers, but lots of people did, which really shows how interested NCL is tohear from us critics! We picked up a lady that was looking for the cookingdemonstration and was directed to us. It was Bistro style cooking so I figure that’swhere the confusion came in. Sherealized it when the officers started talking, but ended up joining our slotpull. We had 14 participants and opted to do a Quick Hit machine. After all wassaid and done, we each profited $1. The cashier was initially resistant aboutgiving me so many 5 dollar bills, but the supervisor knew it was a CruiseCritic thing and he was happy to oblige after she explained it.

I think we hit the buffet for lunch. Spent some timewandering around the ship. I know there was a nap in the afternoon. We putteredaround and anxiously awaited Moderno’s. It was dress up or not night. Didn’tsee all that many people dressed up as much as in the past. We had 9:00reservations and had to wait a few minutes. We were seated pretty close to theentrance. I asked for a drink menu, which for some reason the waiter did notwant to give me. He listed a few drinks so I went with a Raspberry Mojito, whichwas pretty good. The salad bar continues to not disappoint. Hearts of Palm,grilled Provolone, roasted peppers…I can go on and on and on, but it is almost lunchtime here and my cupboards are bare! Jim looked at theLobster Bisque, but decided against it. Meats that stood out to me were thefilet and the flank steak. Jim enjoyed the lamb. The grilled pineapple takesthe cake every time! I waddled out to go grab Jim some Claritin before thestore closed.

Day 3…on the sea, Poolside BBQ, O’Sheehans

Following. Thanks for the review. We are doing this same itinerary in February of 2018. How were the seas going and coming?

We love the Gem and the Gem casino! Looking forward to more!

You wrote: There were piles of cans and bottles of soda and water on top of the screening machine. Were they the cans that NCL does not allow guests to bring on board?

The seas made it too wavy to have the adult pool open for the second to last sea day and then the afternoon of the last sea day. There was one night that was rough right before that, but nothing really terrible.

The cans and bottles were things they took out of people's carry on bags...they are vigilant!

Excuse any formatting errors- I am cutting and pasting from Word. It looks fine before I post, but then when I see the submitted version, I see words have lost spaces...

Day 3 found me at the spa shortly after 8, while Jim napped.I used most of the facilities there and learned that it is really difficult toget in and out of the hot tub (and I am only 5’6). After grabbing some milkcartons for Jim (we could only find cartons at breakfast so we stockpiled themin the fridge There was no regular milk by the 6th day, only fatfree), I headed back to the room and on the way, I was really excited to seethem setting up the barbeque drums by the pool. One of my favorite cruisethings ever is the chicken, I just can’t figure out how to duplicate it. We didthat for lunch, they had chicken, a paella type dish, grilled tomatoes, onions,potatoes, and squash. They also had a bowl in the middle and you could getroasted garlic, and then steak. We didn’t really do anything else notable thatday. I went to Bandaeoke that night. Thesong selection was ok, but no Summer of 69, Spiderwebs, or Harper Valley PTA(all my go to songs). I ended up with Hit Me With Your Best Shot. Not sure howit went, I asked the Spinnaker bartender for something strong and that wasthat! I listened to music by Magnum’s for awhile, and it was, as usual,fantastic. Barry and Leo are not to be missed. I had a Lavender martini from the bar and itwas delightful. I left Jim in the casino and headed to bed. We ended up in O’Sheehanslate night/early morning. We had nachos, salad, fish and chips, and fajitas.Everything was very good. We wandered off to bed probably just before the sunrose.

Day 4

I slept until around 9 today! More spa, more Bali Hai, morecasino, more buffet. I really tried to keep track of exactly what we did on seadays, but relaxation won this day. A day at sea is a happy day, that’s forsure. I did go to O’ Sheehans by myself very late and pretty much was one of 3tables. I had salad and wings. The wings weren’t anything to write home about…ifthey aren’t crispy, I am not a fan (texture is big with me).

Day 5- Puerto Rico

We woke up and heard the forecast wasn’t great so we stayedon board. I hit the spa, grabbed the milk, and clunked around the room untilJim woke up. We took up our usual seats at Bali Hai and reveled in the emptinessof the ship. We had the adult pool entirely to ourselves. This is when welearned that this pool defies gravity! You could float forever, except when Ikept rolling to the left for some reason. We floated and frolicked and enjoyedourselves feeling weightless until our fingers and toes pruned. We had a latelunch at the buffet since tonight was to be Le Bistro night. It poured duringthe afternoon and we watched sail away from Spinnaker, where they were showinga funny movie with Jennifer Garner and Jennifer Aniston (we couldn’t see it,but we heard it so I have to find the name). Back to the room, the casino, andthen to Le Bistro.

We haven’t done Le Bistro before, and figured we would giveit a shot despite the reviews. I was hell bent on trying escargot this trip. I am not a seafood person, I just haven’tfound anything I like. I wore a dress and Jim wore jeans and a suit jacket. We wereseated and given our menus. We had Jameson from the casino and I followed it upwith a glass of the Red Blend, which was pretty good. We ordered the escargotto share, I go the Onion Soup, the Goat Cheese salad, the stuffed artichoke (Ilove artichokes), and the beef tenderloin. Jim had the Mushroom soup, the lumpcrab cake, and the duck. I am not a fan of escargot…I liked the sauce, but thetexture of the snails got me. I am a big texture person. The onion soup was wonderful and piping hot. Thestuffed artichoke was in reality a stuffed artichoke heart, which is a bigdifference in my world, but pretty good anyway. The goat cheese salad was todie for. I could eat that every day. It’s a spring mix with a light dressing (Ithink it was olive oil and lemon), tomatoes that have been peeled, and littlecroutons with warmed goat cheese on top. Jim thought the mushroom soup was ok,but resembled more of a gravy. The lump crab meat tasted more like tuna and wasunder a lettuce wrap. Our entrees came- and this is what did it for me. Jimliked the duck, but after trying my beef, was absolutely blown away. The beef,oh the beef, was divine. It was cooked a perfect rare and the sauce did notdrown anything out. It was then and there we decided we had to come back. Itwas worth giving up my beloved Moderno’s for another night of that beef. Wetold the server how excellent it was and the chef actually came out to thank usfor our compliments and when asked, gave us the instructions on how to cook thebeef. We split a Crème Brulee (again, texture person that does not like eggs)and called it a night. We ended in the casino and hit the hay to prepare forSt. Thomas.

Coming up- Day 6- lost in St. Thomas, Day 7- Maho in St.Maarten

I am going to take a break from the day to day and do some shout outs for the stand out staff.

Arnell (Assistant Beverage Director)- While holding court in Bali Hai, we saw the caring man Arnell was. A little girl was lost and ended up on deck 13. Watching Arnell touched our hearts. He wrapped her up in a towel, sat her down, and spoke softly to her like (in my mind) only a father can do. He really seemed to have her comfort in mind, making sure she was warm, safe, and comfortable. After the girl was reunited , we told him how touched we were by his actions and promptly filled out a hero card.

Jim and Rohan (Bali Hai bar)- these guys are the epitome of teamwork. They were hilarious and super quick. We enjoyed joking with them and played a little game where Jim would make me a drink to sidestep my indecisiveness and then have me guess what was in it. The "Swamp Thing" was not pleasant to look at, but sure was tasty, despite it's gray color. Two more heroes.

Hannah- our room steward. This lady was amazing. We would often have discussions in the hallway with her, always starting with her asking "What time did you get home last night?" It was like being a teenager all over again. She was wonderful, did a fantastic job, and we tipped her every day, she was that amazing. The last night we "came home" we had a towel cake waiting with a thank you note. I will share pictures when I do my camera to computer transition.

Herman- Moderno's. He found the time to seek us out on our second visit to thank us for coming back. When we were less than thrilled with the second night, he wrote it down and genuinely seemed concerned. He checked on us several times on both ocassions and went above and beyond.

Saving the best for last...

The star of the show, the man of men, the icing on the cake...ladies and gentlemen...Traian Luca aka "Luca". Luca is a casino drink server. This guy made our vacation. It got to the point that other drink servers pretty much knew we were a one server couple. He was always there, which I understand is his job, but he knew us by the second day and we had tons of discussions with him. If something wasn't available in the casino for us, he would track it down. Maybe it was the 10 days instead of 7, but we really got to know him, hear his stories, he got to know us and our stories, and we made a friend for life. I rarely get teary-eyed when saying goodbye to crew, but Luca is an extraordinary man. We now have Romanian money home with us, and Luca has 2 dollar bills to remember us by. We will keep in touch and hopefully pick him up in NY for dinner soon. We look forward to seeing this vacation hero again. If you are reading this and are heading out on the Gem before his contract is up in October, please tell Luca that Jim and Bean miss him, and if it's not too much trouble ask for a double Jameson and a Rebellious Fish with 22 blueberries!

The entire crew makes the Gem what it is. We encountered one unhappy employee (a dealer from California that was clearly not happy and tried to slip in jabs to casino patrons to instigate them), but without these other happy employees, there wouldn't be as many happy guests and that says a great deal.

Great review. I love the Gem!

We were on the cruise with you....I spoke to you at the M&G as well as the casino.....thanks again for organizing everything!!

I just read this part to my husband:

Side note (and a possible overstep)- a young teen was attempting to purchase a pack of condoms with cash, which you can’t do.Apparently he didn’t want his family to know. He started to leave red-faced andme (fueled by my teacher’s habit and a few drinks) followed him and gave him a little talk on how great it is he wanted to be safe. He declined my offer to purchase them for him and literally ran away. So, parents…have the talk. A 13 year old does not need that kind of cruise memento 9 months later!

We had noticed on a few occasions quite a few hickey's on various teens necks on this cruise so I can not agree MORE on your suggestion about the parents and the talk. Even our room steward the first day talked to us about the girls using caution on board the as the teens start to form groups and sometimes don't make good decisions (thankfully my two preferred to just hang out with each other! LOL). Overall most of the teens where well behaved from what we saw (thought I admit we were lights out at 10 pm) But there was definitely some hooking up going on! :o

I also agree how great the staff on the Gem was......I was amazed!! They truly made this cruise wonderful!! :)

Yeah, I have been waiting to read a Gem review!

Thanks for sharing!

I will return to the review tomorrow...one more PSA...I don't want to be a wet blanket, but we were disturbed by some of the stuff we saw...

One night, Jim and I went up to deck 13 because we heard music and thought it was a party. It felt kind of like that school dance scene from Dazed and Confused. Kids (teens) had their phones and speakers going, it was really dark, and people were coupled and grouped off. I dont think i would ever sit in one of those double loungers again! We ran into the Asst. Cruise Director on the deck below and let him know there were a few rowdy teens. He went up and issued some warnings to some of the boys that were being a bit aggressive with the girls. You just never know in this day and age. Another night we were at Bali Hai and watched a kid jump up on a balcony rail and put one leg over the top of the glass, which is a pretty long drop to the ocean. He got down before we got there. We were all young once...but talks and warnings from elders allowed us to reach this age!

Take it for what it's worth, but be safe!

Finally...St. Thomas day! It's been awhile since we visited and we knew there were beaches somewhere around. We got off the ship after breakfast, and hit the liquor store. We ended up with 3 bottles of Finlandia ($27), 3 Cruzan Rum- strawberry, blueberry lemonade, and peach (low $20 range), 2 Captain Morgan ($18), 1 Henessey White (44), and a coveted can of Diet Coke :) The best part was they would deliver to the ship! We headed off on an adventure and after about 4 miles stopped at a gas station to get directions because to be honest, I was hot and ready to swim. We caught a cab and ended up at Emerald Beach. There were facilities and some shady trees. We dropped our stuff and swam. We wandered down to a bar/restaurant and had some Conch Fritters and a few beverages. I thought it was kind of pricey, especially compared to where we usually go in Nassau- $11 for 5 fritters compared to $4 there. Anyway, back to the beach for another swim. We thought we might take a bus back to town, but did not see anything for awhile so we caught another taxi- well worth the $6 per person. The driver was charming, turns out he was pushing 80 and had never been off the island. We got back on the ship and I hit the pool and then spa. Of course, we ended up at Bali Hai and then visited Luca in the casino.

St. Martin/Sint Maarten

Jim's favorite island...and now mine too! Being that it was a holiday (Good Friday for us Catholics, but the lady serving mojitos at the pier said it was something different), downtown was closed. The drink lady was telling us a lot of disappointed people were coming back after purchasing water taxi tickets. We weren't really sure what we wanted to do, but then I remembered reading about Maho Beach. After wandering around the port shopping area for a bit, we hopped in a taxi for $16 per person round trip, shared with 6 other people. It was about a 25 minute ride. It was here I got my drink in a coconut. There was a little booth set up with a hysterical man singing and joking and cutting upon coconuts. At $7, a coconut with rum was a bargain! Coconut in hand, we wandered over to the casino that was right there. Drinks were free, but I had my coconut so Jim had a few Caribs. We played for a bit and left a little ahead :)

Beach time! We headed towards the opposite side from the casino and bars to a slightly less populated section of the beach. The water was amazing, though there was one boulder under the sand that I kept stepping on and apologizing to because I thought I walked into a child! You stand in the water, see a plane on the horizon, and before you know it, it is flying 30-40 feet directly over your head to land. I must have taken 15 videos, each one I said...just one more. The crazy part of the afternoon was when everyone ran out of the water because, as a fellow beach goer said "There is a huge sucker about to take off". Monkey see, monkey do...out we got and there is what we think was a 730 or 40 something on the runway with the jet engines facing us. Brace yourself Bessie...it was an epic blast. Hats were flying, sand was pelting. All in all it was exhilarating. I am still trying to figure out why people don't heed the warning painted on the fence across the street and actually go and stand there and hold onto the fence.

We swam a bit more and headed down the beach to investigate. We learned the last taxi pickup was at 3:30. We had some nachos (Jim loved them) and a beverage at the bar. Off to get the taxi. Because it was just 2 of us, we had to wait for a crowd...which was an understatement. Thirteen people later, we were in the taxi. It was a tight fit, with the lady loading us in, telling the teens "Get in the back, we have big people that need more room". The tallest guy got to sit in the front seat, which was good since he was the Beverage Director and if nothing else...we need to keep him jolly!!! We also had a casino bar worker with us so we had a good discussion on the way back. Our taxi lady was bizarre and at one point pulled over and conducted some sort of business in a parking lot. When she came back, she had a lady selling Heinekens for $1 a piece. We bought 2 and were back on our way.We did some shopping for cigars, hot sauce, and knicknacks for our nephew. Grabbed a Guavaberry punch on the way, we got our cool washcloths, boarded, and settled back onto our Bali Hai seats.

Up next- port day on the ship, Le bistro and Modernos (take 2), and the trip back to NYC

Finally...St. Thomas day! It's been awhile since we visited and we knew there were beaches somewhere around. We got off the ship after breakfast, and hit the liquor store. We ended up with 3 bottles of Finlandia ($27), 3 Cruzan Rum- strawberry, blueberry lemonade, and peach (low $20 range), 2 Captain Morgan ($18), 1 Henessey White (44), and a coveted can of Diet Coke :) The best part was they would deliver to the ship! We headed off on an adventure and after about 4 miles stopped at a gas station to get directions because to be honest, I was hot and ready to swim. We caught a cab and ended up at Emerald Beach. There were facilities and some shady trees. We dropped our stuff and swam. We wandered down to a bar/restaurant and had some Conch Fritters and a few beverages. I thought it was kind of pricey, especially compared to where we usually go in Nassau- $11 for 5 fritters compared to $4 there. Anyway, back to the beach for another swim. We thought we might take a bus back to town, but did not see anything for awhile so we caught another taxi- well worth the $6 per person. The driver was charming, turns out he was pushing 80 and had never been off the island. We got back on the ship and I hit the pool and then spa. Of course, we ended up at Bali Hai and then visited Luca in the casino.

 

St. Martin/Sint Maarten

Jim's favorite island...and now mine too! Being that it was a holiday (Good Friday for us Catholics, but the lady serving mojitos at the pier said it was something different), downtown was closed. The drink lady was telling us a lot of disappointed people were coming back after purchasing water taxi tickets. We weren't really sure what we wanted to do, but then I remembered reading about Maho Beach. After wandering around the port shopping area for a bit, we hopped in a taxi for $16 per person round trip, shared with 6 other people. It was about a 25 minute ride. It was here I got my drink in a coconut. There was a little booth set up with a hysterical man singing and joking and cutting upon coconuts. At $7, a coconut with rum was a bargain! Coconut in hand, we wandered over to the casino that was right there. Drinks were free, but I had my coconut so Jim had a few Caribs. We played for a bit and left a little ahead :)

Beach time! We headed towards the opposite side from the casino and bars to a slightly less populated section of the beach. The water was amazing, though there was one boulder under the sand that I kept stepping on and apologizing to because I thought I walked into a child! You stand in the water, see a plane on the horizon, and before you know it, it is flying 30-40 feet directly over your head to land. I must have taken 15 videos, each one I said...just one more. The crazy part of the afternoon was when everyone ran out of the water because, as a fellow beach goer said "There is a huge sucker about to take off". Monkey see, monkey do...out we got and there is what we think was a 730 or 40 something on the runway with the jet engines facing us. Brace yourself Bessie...it was an epic blast. Hats were flying, sand was pelting. All in all it was exhilarating. I am still trying to figure out why people don't heed the warning painted on the fence across the street and actually go and stand there and hold onto the fence.

We swam a bit more and headed down the beach to investigate. We learned the last taxi pickup was at 3:30. We had some nachos (Jim loved them) and a beverage at the bar. Off to get the taxi. Because it was just 2 of us, we had to wait for a crowd...which was an understatement. Thirteen people later, we were in the taxi. It was a tight fit, with the lady loading us in, telling the teens "Get in the back, we have big people that need more room". The tallest guy got to sit in the front seat, which was good since he was the Beverage Director and if nothing else...we need to keep him jolly!!! We also had a casino bar worker with us so we had a good discussion on the way back. Our taxi lady was bizarre and at one point pulled over and conducted some sort of business in a parking lot. When she came back, she had a lady selling Heinekens for $1 a piece. We bought 2 and were back on our way.We did some shopping for cigars, hot sauce, and knicknacks for our nephew. Grabbed a Guavaberry punch on the way, we got our cool washcloths, boarded, and settled back onto our Bali Hai seats.

Up next- port day on the ship, Le bistro and Modernos (take 2), and the trip back to NYC

I see you played in the casino at St Marten-we played a tiny bit but hubby was worried about collecting if we won-you didn't have any problems right?

Thanks for taking the time to do this review. Sept will be my first time on the Gem as well as my first time trying NCL. Casino cruise from Harrah's. I usually sail Princess or Carnival.

No problem collecting from the little casino...the only problem I am having now is uploading these darn photos!

I have created the following site to easily view pictures (I couldn't get them to upload for some reason).

I hope you enjoy them- I will be adding the dailies to the last page soon and finishing the review.

https://jackieamendola.wixsite.com/gem040817

I see you played in the casino at St Marten-we played a tiny bit but hubby was worried about collecting if we won-you didn't have any problems right?

We also played in casino at st Maarten. I put in a $20 and cashed out $151 half hour later and left

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

Tortola day-

Since the port time was short, we opted to stay on board. This was the day the poolside BBQ had pork. We were able to snag some of the crispy, delicious (and completely unhealthy) pork skin that was roasting away on the grill. It was absolutely amazing!!! We ended up meeting up with our NY/Italy friends at Bali Hai and passed the afternoon talking and laughing and living it up. We learned that we were able to order rounds of shots with the beverage package without a problem (they did not get any perks when booking). This is where the situation got a little hairy. Jim and I tipped for each round of drinks throughout the cruise, which is why the next part is disturbing. Our friend wanted to give a tip and clearly asked the waiter for change. She only had a 100 bill on her. 10 minutes go by and no change. Jim asked the server if he had the change yet. The response was "I thought it was a tip". Jim told him $100 was a bit high and he said he didn't look at it before he put it in his pocket. It left a bad taste in our mouths and we steered clear of that server after he brought the change.not sure if it was an honest mistake or not, but it's hard to mistake a crisp, unfolded $100 for a $1...

We had reservations at Le Bistro tonight, but moved them since we weren't really feeling like a formal dinner. Nothing else noteworthy to report on this day, other than we had a last with our new friends!

Sea Day-

The seas were rocky the night before and we were up rolling around the room. It's nice to have a balcony when you can't sleep at 4! I was up and ready to go to the spa, but due to the rough seas, the thallasotherapy pool was closed, as was the adult pool on deck 12. We replanned and wandered for awhile. Dinner was at Le Bistro and possibly even better than the first night, especially since we knew what we liked and didn't like. I had the onion soup, goat cheese salad, beef tenderloin, and the cheese plate. Again, the beef was perfect. Jim opted for the seafood puff pastry, goat cheese, beef, and cream puffs. He liked the pastry much better than the lump crab meat he had previously. The pinot noir was very good as well.

Sea Day-

We parked ourselves at Bali Hai and I went swimming on last time. Jim was deep in conversation with a guy about motorcycles (he thinks he's getting one this year hahaha) and didn't notice I had to move to a hot tub because they closed the pool due to waves. I ended up in the hot tub with 2 other teachers so it doubled as a therapy session! We spent the rest of the afternoon chatting with our new friends, and before we knew it, it was time for Moderno's.

We saved Modernos second visit to try to make the last evening less depressing. I had a jalepeno mojito, which was ok (it was an extra $3 over the beverage package). We had quite a bit of salad, because I love that salad bar and would be happy eating tat for the rest of my days. Our meat carver (I forget the actual name) was very personable and Herman, the manager checked on us. Unfortunately, the meat was very, very dry. We attribute it to the restaurant being near empty and the meat sitting. We let Herman know and he was very apologetic. We were so full from the salad, it didn't really bother us, we just wanted them to be aware. We went to bid our friend Luca in the casino goodbye and closed out our onboard account since there was no line at the purser's desk. Cash people- they gave us the unused balance back in cash. Up to the room to take one last bath. As I'm scrunched up in the tub, I realize I don't know where my room key is. Throw on my clothes and head back down, where we watched about half of Ground Hog day on the big screen while waiting. I felt really bad for the teen in front of us who only needed to return a deck of card she borrowed so they didn't charge her $35. That's a steep price for a deck of cards!

One more swing by to see Luca and Nannette in the casino. My last drink was a Rebellious Fish. Kind Luca put 22 blueberries in there for me, which obviously were meant to repair my liver. Back up to our room around 1:30 for our final balcony gazing and our last night of Norwegian slumber.

Disembarkation-

Woke up at 6:30 and turned on my phone, only to see our ride was stuck in traffic on 95S. No worries, we don't like to leave until the bitter end. We grumbled about the brown NY water, lugged our bags up to Bali Hai, dumped them, and had our last breakfast. We lingered until they made the last call for all luggage tags and began our trek to deck 7. Off we go, and into the cattle herding called customs. I am not sure why people don't understand that cell phones are not allowed. I can't even count the amount of times an official had to tell the same people to put their phones away. We made it through and out into the sidewalk area. The ride home seemed to take forever...

We had an absolutely amazing time on this voyage. We laughed (sometimes until we cried), we ate, we drank, and we met people we will remain in contact with from now on. The staff on the Gem is really something else. We prefer the more intimate layout of the Gem as opposed to last years Breakaway, but we wouldn't hesitate to sail either one in the future.

Any questions, just ask. The cruise withdrawal after 10 wonderful days is only cured by booking another, at least that is what I am hoping!

following closely....thanks

I have created the following site to easily view pictures (I couldn't get them to upload for some reason).

I hope you enjoy them- I will be adding the dailies to the last page soon and finishing the review.

 

https://jackieamendola.wixsite.com/gem040817

I loved the pictures and videos. Thank you for your great review, which reminded me of our cruise on the Gem last year.

Thank you Barb! I miss the Gem so much, especially since our server friend keeps posting pics on my Facebook of the ports he's in!

Great review....

I was wondering if they repeated shows and menus on the 10 day cruise?

thanks