camasidaho

Duh. The 3 b's. Beer. Ball. Bikinis. Enough said.

How do they know if you plug in my own phone to get the cheaper rate? If I don't have room to pack one I may get one of those combo shoe and phone deals maxwell smart use to use. :D

Is this an ozzy Osborne tribute?

I noticed a huge drop in service the day after I returned home. No more tips I guess.

Caution- I once almost wrote something derogatory about someone in a cruise review and to my amazement a year later he mentioned reading a review that sounded like me because he was researching the same cruise. If I had written what I had first thought he would have been furious. And it would not have been well because we had to have lots of social interactions. I would have never guessed he would have even found my review little own tied it to me. He just knew I had been on a certain ship.

So if you would say to your husband's Co worker to his face what you are writing here the continue. If not go back and edit him out. We want to hear about your cruise and not a travel mate anyway. How would it be if he read this and knew you had posted it? I am glad I didn't write what I was going to

Texting is a great way to go. Many carriers are just 5 cents per text to receive while at sea and 50 cents to send and it works all the while you have the ships service at sea and in many countries at that rate. So if someone has to talk to you have them text you then u turn around and call them at $1.99 a minute from your room phone would be my suggestion.

It's bus 57 Btw. Tom's port guide tells everything. I wrote some also so look my posts up if u r interested

Are you kidding? A simple butter knife from the main dinning room can get about anything open if you have a little McGyver in ya

Looks like most of this review is out of date now that the Gem is finished with the new England route til next fall. That taxi stand in new York is crazy busy. Again around the corner to the left are hired cars. And about a block to the right also. If you sign up for Lyft which is a phone app you get the first ride free up to 25 bucks and it is operating in new York and we used it to get to lga. Lyft is basically like calling for a private licensed and insured private driver. Not cab licensed but with a clean drivers license. That way you can skip the cab line and get going quickly. Hope there are no parades or other delays and you cc could be

Thanks laura for that info. Wish we could have done a few more things but my hw and kids wanted a slower pace

This was a great cruise and great itenerary

I just got off gem Saturday and had a 2 bedroom suite with my hw (hot wife) and kids. I posted a 16 part review in this forum. Just search this forum under hw or gem or my screen name

I just got off gem Saturday and had a 2 bedroom suite with my hw (hot wife) and kids. I posted a 16 part review in this forum. Just search this forum under hw or gem or my screen name

Just getting to my home airport. Nice to meet you also and glad you could drink that safely. Ya it will be tough to go back to a regular cabin again. Good to meet you and we will see you later on down the road on a future cruise

Since thr ship gives you chowder at the dock in

Newport that took care of that. I mentioned outside of peggy cove we did have a lobster but I do not recall the name. It was fair. We did it to say we did it

It was hard to eat off the ship because we were already so stuffed with food that was paid for already. A fee port days we skipped lunch and we're so go urged we didn't even feel the miss. Sorry I don't have a list of great places to try in each port.

Thanks. Spending the night at a hotel in long island city on queens got an early check in then after the rain stopped rode the subway in and went to the top of the Empire state building. We'll the 8th floor observation deck. Ironically we watched the Gem pull down the Hudson River and past the statue of liberty just exactly a week after we had done it. Nice vantage point to watch the gem. Off to home tomorow.

There was a laundry day I think Wednesday. It was like 25 bucks for all you can fit in a small bag if I recall. Self assist started about 815 I think and most were off by 915 pm.

We did not really investigate renting a car in Newport so I can not tell you what was near the pier. Sorry

Some of the movies in the stardust were gravity, saving Mr banks, non-stop, and grown ups 2.

So it was pouring rain here. Crazy. Ad when you exit the pier folks on a tour or bus go to the left and people needing a taxi go straight across the road to the busy taxi stand. The line was huge and it was pouring rain. We went t the end of the line and waited then some hire car guys approached us for a ride. We negotiated and got a ride to our hotel for almost a cab fare and without the 45 minute wait in the down pour.

Travel tip. To the left of the taxi stand and around the corner were other car services. For a few bucks more than a cab you can save the long line wait. Our driver says he is a Uber driver and said Uber is going strong in nyc

We got to our hotel and got an earlier check in and got out of the rain

Here is my last bit of advice. Again sometimes what I read here and what really happened were different. Our letter said to do priority with luggage be in the stardust but 845 am which we were. The self assist priority were already getting off the boat. But it was delayed some and we waited and waited. About 920. No biggie but we had rushed the kids through the buffet line. It took maybe 20 minutes to leave stardust and walk all the way to the pier only to walk all the way back and get our luggage and go through customs and then a bit of a zoo.

Just pulling into new york city. Rainy. I like how the Gem comes in a bit later as I have been on ships that have docked at 4 or 5 am. It is 610 and we are going under the narrows bridge right now. That gives us a chance to see the statue of liberty about 630 and docked around 7.

My thoughts on this cruise is that this by far is the friendliest crew we have seen on a ship. Noticeably. Example: thru out the week Leo the guitarist would take requests and as he did so would ask people's names. Then all week when those people were around he would call them by name during the show at the last night he went around the lounge and called about 25 people by name and all from memory.

The hostess in Mdr started call us by name after day 1 and memorized our room number which they asked for or swiped you room key. Other staff learned our kids names. We were boarding in Boston and some of the crew called my teenagers by first name my kids had no idea they were. Then of course our butler and room steward and Conseiger did from the start. It's almost like they had been given sheets with our photos from when we got key cards with our names to study which is fine but they did a fabulous job always greeting us by name and we did back. But they have many names each week !!! Besides the names the entire crew seemed happy and would always say hello or smile. My kids continually commented how this staff seemed happy and friendly. Much more than other cruises.

We felt the food at the buffet was very good. Why sit in cagneys for an hour when you can just get what you want when you want and how you want for lunch and breakfast? Maybe to be waited on I guess

Overall we loved this cruise and the itinerary and the staff. Awesome experience. And the 2 bed Suite was a great way to go with a family on board

Newport is a fun city with a million things to do. Thanks to Tom's port guide we decided to do the 2 buck trolley 67 to the breakers we used our vip tender cards to skip the line on deck 7 but had to wait for a tender foe only about 10 minutes on deck 4. Nice tender in. The walked 2 blocks to the info center. There are many options and tours for sale there. We decided to do it on our own. It was 19.50 for adults and 5.50 for the teenagers to do the tour of the breakers. Which is mind blowing but enough.

We walked down to the 49 stairs on the cliffs and just spent an hour watching and taking the ocean breaking on the cliffs

took the 2 buck bus back and got lucky with a driver that was actually narrating a few things so we tipped him. Not bad for a public bus. Standing in line to get back on the ship ncl was giving out cups of chowder. I had read getting chowder was a to do thing on this cruise in ports but save your money as ncl gets you some on the pier for free.

If I was a butler I would be posting here with high numbers to set the expectations high :) best 1.49 buck a minute Internet ever spent :)

So sorry about all the typos. Again fat fingers and a new phone and cutting and pasting without being able to edit much. Hope you all fill forgive me and be able to decipher what I wrote

Pulling Into Boston I had gotten up about 4 am and went on the our balcony and looked around. A tv channel shows the ships location. I love the sound of the waves so I opened and left open the balcony I laid on thr sea and get chilly and discovered this is a single bed that doesn't fold out but the bottom just flips on place. Sort of like a lazy Susan laying down. Very cool. I was able to snag part of the bedding to keep warm.

I dozed off and awoke a bit later to the sounds of jets.

I looked out and there was no land yet. It seems, and we saw this as we sailed out, that one of the flight paths for Boston logan airport sends jets out over the path of that the ship takes.

Coming into Boston harbor was interesting with various small islands and buildings and hotels and bridges and such further out than what I had seen in past visits so the ship gave me some new perspectives.

As we left Boston the ship actually backs up down the channel for quite a while before it does a 180 to head out to sea. By the time it does that we are just past one of the inbound flight paths for logan airport . What that gives you is giant planes swooping down on the ship. There was a FedEx 777 I believe that looked like it was buzzing the Gem. You don't see that ever day.

The band Prizm did a Beatles tribute show tonight and the comedy group 2nd city did an improv show. We dropped into the main show for a bit as well.

About the tvs. The remote control has a big green button for a menu button and they have extra things like you would see at a hotel including your statement so far. This will show your 12 buck a day gratuities as well as any gift shop or photos or other purchases.

This service also shows you ship offered shore excursions info and also allows you to buy them right on your TV.

And like a hotel they have movies on demand for rent at 10 bucks a pop. Thry offer a parental block to block the adult movies and you can also block any and all purchases with a 4 digit code of your choice. If you are traveling with kids you might want to put a block on the movies.

The room safes also allow you to use a 4 digit code of your choice instead of shipping tour room key like some.

Going around cape cod and over to newport found us in the only real rough water of the cruise. And it was really rough.

In this 2 bedroom suite there is a pocket door between the master bed and bath area and the living room. That pocket door will slide open and shut and open and shut as the ship rocks unless you absolutely have it shut tight. You can also lock it open with a little latch on the end of the door. That latch only works when the pocket door is all the way open.

When the ship is really rocking like it is now the glass doors to the toilet and the shower will open and shut and make banging noise unless al the way shut. Every other night they were left open and no noise. Tonight it is Windy and rockin and the doors are noisy 3 bough to wake us up which they did.

Tonight they gave us our debarcation paperwork as well including instructions on how to be the first off or how to essentially cut the line because of Suite status. I guess they walk you right off in a special area.

Once again the teen club counselor did great tonight. since only my 2 boys signed up he spent the evening with them and completely did what they wanted instead of the schedule. He is almost like a nanny although they are od enough they could do most of this by themselves. He took them to dinner at the grand pacific then to the 2nd city show and to some other things. The kids came home with some stories of travel and such he had shared and some interesting ship experiences. My kids are loving all the attention and having a big brother type on board taking them places. And it's been a treat to taken them places all day then have some couple time each night knowing the kids are supervised and occupied and not getting into trouble or horsing around. Years ago I saw teenagers hitting ping pong balls and golf balls out to sea. I am sure there have been much worse done. With the teen counselor my boys are probably not going to do any of that. At least I hope not :)

In your end of cruise paper work they also give you two cards where you can praise employees who did above and beyond service if you chose to. I will see if I can get a third card as 3 have really been impressive to me.

Some might put their butler or conseigers and ours did good but that is their job and will get a special tip for that. But I ran into 3 other stsff that I felt did much more than what was required. I am glad they have these special vacation hero feedback cards and had not seen that written about much before on cruise critics.