Norwegian Gem 12/2 back in NY, still on the Hudson, not Pier 88 yet

[shof515]

13 minutes ago, luckyinpa said:

 

does where you park change because of this? i would assume they direct you to closer parking but...

if the ship is docked at pier 90, they will tell to park at pier 90. if pier 90 lot is full, they will tell you to park at pier 88 

 

for those wondering what a broken gangway looks like, this is at pier 88 aft gangway:

 

the front gangway had some bends and kinks in the metal framework too that could make structurally unsound 

[GnRTravel]

Did NCL give you back anything for missing St. Thomas?  Besides port taxes did they do anything for you onboard?  

 

 

[foxfive5]

I was on the Gem 11/22/19 cruise and it was the worst experience on her I had sailed on the Gem 3 times already and it will be the last one.   It was a madhouse on disembark day no organization at all one lady fainted even the elderly were yelling and cursing at the staff and sneaking off the ship the wrong way that’s how bad it was.  Our bus arrived at 10 am we did not get to our bus til 2:30 pm thank god he waited.  The cruise staff sucked on this cruise and the food not good at all.  I’m very disappointed with the Gem.  And we only got 15 pp for missing ST Thomas. Not sure if that should be enough I never had that happen to us.  But even crew members were upset to miss st Thomas that is port they get off to buy their supplies so I was told by a crew member.

Edited December 4, 2019 by foxfive5

[MoniMommy]

So did Gem come back late in a failed attempt to avoid congestion with 2 ships (Bliss and Gem) in port and a broken gangway? Assuming that the gangway is still broken, would you assume we will have similar woes on Friday? Coming back should be better as the Blis returns one day before us.

 

Also, NCL should take the heat because with a broken gangway they could have warned passengers to come later and adjust times to make it manageable for 2 ships to use one gangway. They could also provided large portable heaters and additional food. Corporations dont really care about customers. This is mu first time with NCL. Hope it won't be my last. Someone mentioned Boston. I would not do that either. NYC and Cape Liberty are an hour from me and plenty of other cruise lines that use MCT without chaos. I wonder if the convestion is due to have 2 ships in at the same time? I have cruised from MCT and Cape Linerty and it has always been smooth sailing. I hope the Gems fiasco with boarding and disembarking was a one time fluke and will not be the norm.

[njhorseman]

On 12/4/2019 at 8:41 PM, MoniMommy said:

So did Gem come back late in a failed attempt to avoid congestion with 2 ships (Bliss and Gem) in port and a broken gangway? Assuming that the gangway is still broken, would you assume we will have similar woes on Friday? Coming back should be better as the Blis returns one day before us.

 

Also, NCL should take the heat because with a broken gangway they could have warned passengers to come later and adjust times to make it manageable for 2 ships to use one gangway. They could also provided large portable heaters and additional food. Corporations dont really care about customers. This is mu first time with NCL. Hope it won't be my last. Someone mentioned Boston. I would not do that either. NYC and Cape Liberty are an hour from me and plenty of other cruise lines that use MCT without chaos. I wonder if the convestion is due to have 2 ships in at the same time? I have cruised from MCT and Cape Linerty and it has always been smooth sailing. I hope the Gems fiasco with boarding and disembarking was a one time fluke and will not be the norm.

Although this is old news by now, having just returned from the 12/2 cruise I think it's still worth an observation or two.

 

First, NCL's communications about the problem were not timely. I received a text about the start of check in being delayed until 1 pm at about 11:30 am . We, as well as perhaps the majority of passengers were already at the cruise terminal by that time . We had arrived at 10 am...a full 90 minutes before I received the text.

 

Second, why NCL couldn't have sent over something more...for example sandwiches...to Pier 88 is beyond me . Cookies, water and flavored water don't make up for a missed lunch. Some people can't have all the sugar and other carbohydrates in cookies, which is why we always travel with  a small supply of high protein bars.

 

The above having been said, I think it's necessary to say that while NCL's response to the problem wasn't too good, they didn't cause the problem. Another ship had badly damaged to two gangways on the north side berth of Pier 88, where NCL ships normally dock. The damage made that berth unusable, so the Gem was moved to Pier 90, where it normally docks if one of the larger NCL ships that have to use Pier 88 is in port on the same day.

 

No...the Gem didn't come back late in  a failed attempt to avoid congestion with two ships in port and a broken gangway. First, there was only one ship in port on 12/2, the Gem.  NCL actually skipped its last port, St. Thomas, in an attempt to avoid the worst of the storm, but the weather  didn't cooperate and rather than getting in on time or even early as was intended the ship was delayed, which snowballed on that snowy day into the long delays. 

 

NCL doesn't own, manage or operate the cruise terminal or even the shore side check in staff. The NY City Economic Development Corporation owns the cruise terminal. Ports America operates the cruise terminal for NYCEDC, and Intercruises is the company that provides the check in staff. When the decision was made to use Pier 90 instead of 88 I'll wager that the building engineer turned on the heat in 90, but since it was never anticipated that Pier 88 would be used for overflow the heat was not turned on in that building. You could tell it was a hasty decision to move people over to 88 when it became clear that 90 had become far too overcrowded due to the delay in the Gem's disembarkation. 

 

Finally, today the Bliss was docked at the south berth of Pier 88, which still had a functioning gangway and the Gem was docked at Pier 90. Both ships were in port more or less on time, and although traffic was nightmarish, once we were permitted to disembark the Gem the process went about as expected and I think we spent more time waiting for our car service to get to the pier through the traffic to pick us up than it did for us to make our way off the ship, pick up our luggage and pass through the CBP check point.