first report from the Gem...spring break cruise....EEK!

[drbabe]

Any info about free arcade, bowling, climbing wall access with kids' club?

[GJClay]

I wanted to qualify my above post about college students who drink and NCL, since I have never sailed NCL and don't want to make assumptions. I am just trying to figure out if it would be a good line to try with my high school aged daughter and other family members, none of whom drink. My only other concern is with the waiting for dinner. Is it very inconvenient? One thing I like about assigned dining times is the fact that you know when you can eat and plan around that. Other people don't like being tied into a dining time, but last week on our RCI cruise it was nice knowing we could walk in and eat immediately when we were hungry for dinner; I am willing to try anything, however.

[newmexicoNita]

This is interesting since we were on an RCCL ship last week with our High School aged daughter and although there were many teens, we saw very few college aged spring breakers although in the Midwest, colleges were on Spring Break as well. The rates on RCCL this time of year are much more expensive and I did not realize NCL's were lower. I was considering taking NCL next March for an extended family Spring Break but certainly do not want to be among drinking college students with my mother, daughter, and middle school aged neices and nephews. Now that I think about it, we ran into some drunk college girls in GC on our bus who were going back to their NCL ship.

I think you may have just been lucky: I assume you were referring to the week that ended yesterday, right? If you were referring to the week that ended Mar 15th, there were not nearly as many college students on spring break. I happen to have a granddauther who just returned from spring break (today) she is a senior at UAR and I don't want to hear what her week was like. It is her last break before she and her friends graduate, the last break before she goes to work and the last before she gets married. I will leave it there.

 

As for prices, NCL prices certainly were not lower last week than usual, they were higher, just like all lines the 2 middle weeks of March. Maybe I missed a posting or something about the lower rates. The overall demographics of RCI and NCL are very similar. You really shouldn't get a lot more partying on one line over the other. What one poster might see as wild partying, another will see as a few kids having fun. Don't let this influence you one way or the other. If, indeed it was really bad we will see lots more postings here int he next few days.

 

Nita

 

ps I just re-read this post, I really didn't see any referance to kids being drunk on the cruise last week; rowdy, yes, I think that is to be expected when you get a zillion kids together.

 

Nita

[ChBoxers800]

I wanted to qualify my above post about college students who drink and NCL, since I have never sailed NCL and don't want to make assumptions. I am just trying to figure out if it would be a good line to try with my high school aged daughter and other family members, none of whom drink. My only other concern is with the waiting for dinner. Is it very inconvenient? One thing I like about assigned dining times is the fact that you know when you can eat and plan around that. Other people don't like being tied into a dining time, but last week on our RCI cruise it was nice knowing we could walk in and eat immediately when we were hungry for dinner; I am willing to try anything, however.

 

No one can make you any guarantees for sure. We are just back from NCL Sun (last week) and had none of the problems discussed here about the Gem. Perhaps it's because the spring breakers picked the Gem over the Sun because it does have things like the bowling alley, that the Sun does not. Right now, I'm very thankful that we picked the Sun over the Gem as if there were any college spring breakers, we didn't even notice they were there. So perhaps if you do want to schedule for next year, pick one of the smaller NCL ships instead of the one's that will probably grab the spring breakers attention. There is still plenty to do onboard for all ages.

 

As far as dining, we had a standing reservation because our group was large. You can do that too if you are concerned about having to wait for a table but only between the hours of 5 and 6 and 8 and close. No reservations during prime time. During my trip though, I can honestly say I hardly ever saw anyone have to wait for a table. The most I saw was 2 or 3 parties that looked like they were just waiting for someone to take them to their seat.

[suzimack]

Hi everyone,

 

We just returned last evening from a glorious week at sea on the Gem. As far as the spring breakers go, we didn't find them to be too bad. To be quite honest some of the younger children (probably around 11-14) were more annoying than the spring breakers - running through the halls and stairwells unsupervised! I'm not that fussy - we were cruising with our 10, 14, and 17 year olds and they are by no means perfect; but, my son (14 year old) did meet up with a group of about four other boys his age and was permitted to "hang out" with them as long as he checked in every hour - either by phone or in person. One time we did catch him and his buddies running in the halls and stairwells and quickly put an end to it. Fortunately, the other parents were also nearby and all had the same feeling about letting the boys run through the ship. After our little "talk" with the boys, we had no more problems with them.

 

Anyway .. . as far as the spring breakers, we found them to be polite and fairly well behaved. Of course there were a few who were rowdy, impolite, and used foul language; however, overall they were not that big of a problem. We were sailing with my parents, who are in their upper sixties, and they weren't bothered by them either. Our only complaint was that they did monopolize the hot tubs - especially later in the day/evening. However, if you got to the pool early, most of them were still in bed. I can't even imagine though what some of their bills were for alcohol. It always seemed that they had a bottle of beer in their hands or a glass of something. However, none ever seemed to be visibly drunk.

 

The buffet was indeed a madhouse at prime eating times. At times it was difficult to find a table, especially for 7 people. However, we always were able to find seating on deck at the back of the ship at the Great Outdoors. It was a little walk back to the buffet if you wanted more to eat; but, they also had great food right there at the Great Outdoors. The selection of course was not as great as in the Garden Cafe, but it was fine for that second, third, fourth . . . trip for more food! We were always able to find a nice little quiet table in that area.

 

We ate at Tequila two times and the first time were in and out in 45 minutes. The second time it took 2 hours! There were many more people there the second time - not sure why, but it took forever! My son kept saying he was going to leave and to the Garden Cafe. However, he hung in there with the rest of us and once we finally received our food, it was worth the wait. We only did the Grand Pacific two times. My parents did Cagney's one evening and said the food was great - the service was wonderful as well - sometimes too wonderful, almost as though there was always someone "hovering" over you to make sure you had everything you needed.

 

Our cabins were 4560 and 4564, oceanview forward. Although it was great being on the same deck where we disembark for the ports, it was sometimes a bit noisy. Our one cabin was right beside the gangway and one particular morning, there was a constant line of people right outside of our cabin for a half hour or more waiting to get off the ship. The day we spent two days at Nassau - because of not being to get off at Great Stirrup Cay (the seas were too rough for the tenders to run), there were people boarding the ship at all hours of the first night from nighttime to morning. The ones who boarded between 2 and 6 am were a little rowdy - I think they had been out all night drinking. Don't get me wrong, the cabins are amazingly soundproof, but you could still hear quite a bit - although not enough to ruin by entire night's sleep. I'm a very light sleeper and hear everything!

 

Sorry this has gotten so long - I'll write more later, but it's time to get set for Easter Sunday and the kids are still in bed. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask. Since our family ranged in age from 10 years to 68 years, we can give opinions from several different age ranges.

Overall, it was a great time and we hated to leave the ship - especially when the temp. was 36 degrees when we got to NYC and it had been 86 degrees in Freeport! No wonder I'm sick this morning!!!!!!!:p :D :o :eek:

 

Julie

 

 

What port had people coming in between 2 and 6 am??? I checked our itinerary and we were off the port at the latest by 1 am...please let me know...susan

[cruisefamily 77]

What port had people coming in between 2 and 6 am??? I checked our itinerary and we were off the port at the latest by 1 am...please let me know...susan

 

Hi, we were also on this cruise (Mar 15-22). To clarify - since we were unable to tender into Great Stirrup Cay due to high winds, we headed to Nassau a day early. We arrived around 3 p.m on Tuesday and departed around 1 a.m. Thursday.

 

I was traveling with my 18 year old daughter (a senior in high school) and was a bit concerned about the spring break horror stories I read about in past years. Fortunately, we did not experience much of it on this cruise and we all enjoyed ourselves.

[vissionquest]

Just came back from the same cruise --had no problem with dining the first night or any other night. It did take a little longer to get into the hot tubs, but found the young ones delightfully pleasant. I did notice that once the cruise line handed out notices of how much money you had spent, the partying died down alot. We did find the hot tubs much easier to get to as the week went on (around 2030 usually empty), and the dining halls much easier, (we never waited for more than 30 minutes and that was the first day). We had not considered that it would be spring break, and will not worry about it again next year.

[momtothree]

The reason that happened was because we were unable to go to Great Stirrup Cay due to the waves. The captain felt that it was not safe to operate the tenders; therefore, we went on to Nassau and ended up spending the night there. So, that first night in Nassau, people were coming back on board at all hours of the morning. :(

[kingtns]

We just got off this cruise too! Although we had a great time, traveled with a big group of friends there hasn't been a cruise I don't love, but sailing on different lines of course I have my favorites...I'm curious if you guys saw ANY pool games at all...comparing NCL to RCCL without a doubt the staff from waiters to cruise director didn't have that funny high spirit, I thought Julie was booooooring, all she did was let everyone know what was going on but didn't have much of a personality!!! just curious as to what you thought!!

[pinstripes4887]

They need to make Andres from Karaoke the cruise director. He has been only working at that job for 1 month and I think he did an awsome job.

[nyflush]

Does anyone know if Matt Baker will be back on the Gem? The CD Can really Change the mood of the cruise :) As for Julie she seems very nice but she maybe better for an older crowd.

[GJClay]

I think you may have just been lucky: I assume you were referring to the week that ended yesterday, right? If you were referring to the week that ended Mar 15th, there were not nearly as many college students on spring break. I happen to have a granddauther who just returned from spring break (today) she is a senior at UAR and I don't want to hear what her week was like. It is her last break before she and her friends graduate, the last break before she goes to work and the last before she gets married. I will leave it there.

 

As for prices, NCL prices certainly were not lower last week than usual, they were higher, just like all lines the 2 middle weeks of March. Maybe I missed a posting or something about the lower rates. The overall demographics of RCI and NCL are very similar. You really shouldn't get a lot more partying on one line over the other. What one poster might see as wild partying, another will see as a few kids having fun. Don't let this influence you one way or the other. If, indeed it was really bad we will see lots more postings here int he next few days.

 

Nita

 

ps I just re-read this post, I really didn't see any referance to kids being drunk on the cruise last week; rowdy, yes, I think that is to be expected when you get a zillion kids together.

 

Nita

 

Thanks for the tip! Our RCCL cruise was from March 15-20th, and although I have been happy on both of my cruises on this line, I would like to give NCL a try.

 

Regarding my post, I was misinterpreting a statement about college students to mean they were drunk, I think. I should know better than to make assumptions until I try something. I have often been surprised about how happy I have been in hotels, on islands, and also on ships that have negative reviews (not to say NCL has bad reviews), and until I experience something myself, I won't know. I am definitely considering NCL for next spring break. I'm sure I would love this line as I have Carnival and Royal Caribbean.

[Silverspoon]

We also just sailed the Gem on March 15th. I'm a mom with two little ones in my mid 30's. I saw the Spring Break college kids, but was happy to find them to be mostly pleasant and polite. Yes, usually holding a beer, but not noticeably "drunk".

Crowds: Garden Cafe was busy, but there were always tables available. Second City at Spinnaker Lounge and the small pool area were the only other places we noticed large crowds. We were suite pax and didn't have to fight for reservations at the surcharge restaurants--but I hear that's always a problem, no matter what the occupancy is.

 

I wouldn't hesitate to take a NCL cruise during a holiday. I thought the ship handled the "crowds" very well!;)

[dukejr]

I would immediately ask to speak to Prem, the Hotel Director, explain the difficulty you are having and ask for reservations now for the rest of the week.

 

I bet if you do this you will have no further problems with your dining.

 

Libby

 

Prem was not helpful at all to the group that we were traveling with, in fact he was rude, untruthful, and disrespectful toward the women in the group. As to helping with problems issues that were brought to his attention, they were never rectified or followed up on by Prem.

 

I will say that I did find 99% of the other staff that we dealt with on the Gem very helpful, courteous, and pro-active. We have traveled on the Gem three times since December and have noticed a vast difference in the hotel directors demeanor, and visibility..