HAL mariner just back from Norwegian Gem…..long

[woodburykt]

Sail date: 02.04.09 to 02.14.09

Ports: St. Thomas, Antigua, Barbados, St. Maarten, Tortola

Cabin: Deluxe Owners Suite #15500

 

Since we live in Connecticut, sailing on the Noordam last year from New York was really ideal, no hassle of flying, just a short drive to the ship. We had an excellent time on the Noordam not just because it was a HAL ship but because the 10 day itinerary was perfect; 2 days at sea, a different island each day for 5 days and then 2 days at sea back home. Like so many others, we were so disappointed when HAL/Carnival had decided not to continue Caribbean sailings from New York. I can remember speaking with others on last year’s voyage about this and that the only February Caribbean sailings from New York was going to be the Norwegian Gem; when I asked them what NCL like was, many simply said “awful”.

 

I’m here to say that that is not true.

 

No cruise is perfect; there were certainly issues of some kind that we didn’t allow to spoil our voyages on the HAL ships, and our first cruise with NCL not perfect but certainly one hell of a great time.

 

We have a very good travel agent. We first booked an A3 cabin; Cabin 14010, a suite with full access to the Court yard. This was five weeks prior to sailing. A week and a half later we got an upgrade to Cabin 15500, the Deluxe Owner’s Suite. What a fantastic cabin. There are only 2 of them on the very top of the ship. Ceiling to floor windows looking down on the Tahitian pool area and our own private sun deck with a hot tub was just the beginning of a spectacular time we had on the Gem. She is a beautiful ship filled with bright colors and light. Do yourself a favor and splurge, spoil yourself and book a courtyard villa so that you can have access to the Court yard, it’s really great, and the service there as well as the entire ship was really terrific. Imagine your own private space with a small pool, hot tub, excercise machines, lounge chairs, and people just waiting to serve you. That's the Court yard. Simply paradise. This pales in comparison to the Neptune lounge on HAL. We always booked the Deluxe Veranda Suite when we sailed HAL and those cabins are great, but this Deluxe Owner's Suite was twice as big with many, many, more perks.

We had Mariel, our Courtyard Butler, he was excellent, and always there with a smile and waiting to get you anything you wanted. There was our cabin Butler, Akhmad, he was wonderful, bringing us anything we needed and a sincerely nice man. We had our two Cabin stewards Rolando and Mylyn, they were so nice and hard working, and they too had sincere, warm personalities, it was a pleasure to see them each day. And of course, there was our Concierge, Alexander Forbes, a true professional, who from the moment he greeted us in the VIP room at the terminal, provided us with outstanding assistance throughout our entire voyage. If for nothing else, the service provided by these wonderful people made our vacation a truly relaxing and care free experience. But the service on the entire ship was just as good.

An example good service was the great guy who greeted one and all each morning, noon, and night at the Garden Café (Lido Buffet Deck). “Good Moorrrnninngg” “Halooo” “Have a good daaaaayyy”, He was awesome; he always had a sincere smile on his face along with his 2 helpers, another young man and young lady who made sure to speak with you each time you passed them and you felt that they enjoyed their jobs as they greeted you.

One really, really nice perk for being in a suite was that when we were in port we just needed to go to the Star Bar and wait for Alex to guide down the service elevator to avoid the long lines getting off the ship. Very nice, so again, spurge! Spend something extra and book a courtyard villa, it’s so worth it.

As far as the food goes, that is where some differences between HAL and NCL come through more than anything else. But talking about food is so subjective. So the following is what I hope others will not take as nit-picking but just our opinion of how some things were.

We didn’t mind paying the additional charges to eat at the specialty restaurants; I know that bugs some people, but it didn’t bother us. As a matter of fact, most nights several of the specialty restaurants offered 2 for 1 nights, so the fees really were nominal. Free style dining was perfect for us and we did end up knowing several of the servers/hostesses by the end of our voyage, but more on that later. All we had to do was call Alex, our concierge and we got the dining time we wanted at any restaurant.

Our first night we had dinner in the Magenta dining room, free/no fee, main dining room. The service was very good, the table we got was great, but the food was lacking. The choices on the menu seemed almost bland. I’ll say that just like any other trip to any other restaurant, it’s hit or miss. Sometimes you order the right thing; sometimes you order the wrong thing. That’s what I would summarize our entire dining experiences on the Gem. That night at Magenta was just that, maybe we ordered the wrong things, but both chicken dishes we had were all right, but not really great either. We only returned there one other night later on during the cruise, looked at the menu, and made our apologies to the hostess as we left, the choices that night were simply not enticing to say the least.

We never ate at the Grand Pacific dining room. Since the menus for Magenta and Grand Pacific were the same, we didn’t go there.

The hamburgers are not really good tasting at all, I don’t know if they have filler of some kind in them, but I tried them 2 separate times and both times I could not eat them. But then again, the hamburgers on the Noordam last year weren’t much better either, I remember being very disappointed at that then too.

We had one meal at Le Bistro, the French restaurant. My partner had the lamb which was very good but I had the salmon, which was not very good. The scallop appetizer was terrible. We did not return there, the service was good, but we just didn’t care for the atmosphere or the other menu choices.

We had a great dinner at the Orchid Garden, the Chinese/Asian restaurant. The service there was very good and we were happily surprised at how much we enjoyed our meal there.

We ate twice at La Cucina, the Italian restaurant and thought that was very good. The service was great and the menu choices were very good. The food was tasty ( and I’m Italian ) but don’t go there expecting top notch Italian 5 star dining but it fit the bill and was very good. The hostess was a sweetie who remembered us the second time we dined there and didn’t even have to look at her screen when she saw us and brought us right to our table. One of the server’s there, Luke, was great and said hello to us every day while he was working in the Garden Café.

We did not eat at Teppanyaki, the Japanese restaurant, not because we don’t like that kind of food, it just seemed liked each time we walked by the place and saw the groups of people sitting there, they weren’t really talking to each other or smiling or looking like they were having a fun time. That would be the kind of place that you have to hit on the right night with the right group of people or you’re probably not going to have much to say to each other.

Cagney’s Steakhouse. All we heard about was Cagney’s. Since we were in a suite, we could have both breakfast and lunch there at no additional charge and we had to go there. We had one couple tell us that was the only place they had all of there meals at…..yea, ok. We had another couple tell us that it was disgusting and to avoid it at all costs. We ate there a total of four times during our sailing. Simply stated: Over Rated.

Our very first meal on the Gem was our afternoon lunch there and it was ok, I wasn’t overwhelmed with the menu choices and the service was good, not great. The very next morning, our first day at sea, we had our first breakfast on board there. It wasn’t very good. My eggs were over cooked (asked for scrambled and they came back more brown than yellow) and the service was not very good. Now I was a little green, the seas were a little rough that day, so I’ll give them a pass because I wasn’t feeling that well, but the service was not very good and there were not a lot of us there at the time. I think it was the 3rd or 4th day we received a deluxe owner’s suite invitation to a special complimentary meal with wine at any specialty restaurant so we decided to eat at Cagney’s for that meal. I ordered the prime rib and my partner ordered a steak. His was very good while mine was the strangest looking prime rib I ever saw, kind of like a thin ham steak looking thing that was very tasty but just seemed odd looking. My baked potato was cold and asked for a hot one. They came back with a nice steaming hot one and an apology. The meal was good and the service that night wasn’t bad at all, it was pretty good. We met some great people and decided to invite them to have dinner with us at Cagney’s another night. I ordered the Prime rib again. Imagine my surprise when I got my meal and saw what looked like a real piece of prime rib. It became obvious to me that since my prior meal with them was complimentary, they didn’t serve me a good piece of beef, only when I paid for it, did I get it. Not nit picking, I hope, but come on. The service that night was not good at all. Many things had to be asked for 3 and 4 times before they were received and the service was very slow. Our last time at Cagney’s was our last breakfast. We wanted to make sure we saw our concierge Alex to say thank you to him for all that he did for us and his desk is in the Star Bar, right outside Cagney’s. We sat at our table at 7:30 and our breakfast was served at 8:20. The service that morning was really not good. I realize that’s a very busy and hectic morning the last day, but the kitchen seemed over whelmed as did the servers. There you have it, our times at Cagney’s. Again, simply put, we thought it was very over rated.

Our favorite restaurant was Tequila’s, the Spanish restaurant and we at there 3 times. The service was great and the food was excellent, just don’t order the burrito. The hostess there was a sweetie too and Mayette was our server, a lovely young lady that was terrific. We had our last dinner there and asked for her as our server and we had a great time. The chicken fajitas were very good as was the Il Popo.

 

So to conclude, we had a terrific time on the Gem and we will definitely be sailing with NCL again. We know that we were very fortunate to be treated as VIP’s in the Owner’s Suite and the service throughout the ship was really very good. There were those times at Cagney’s and one or two other spots where the service was lacking, but all and all, a very good cruise. I guess if I had to compare HAL to NCL I’d say that one is mass market and one is premium. But service is what counts more than anything else and in that regard we thought they were both equal. We met many, many nice people from all over and all and all, everyone was enjoying their time on the Gem. There were some complainers, there always are…we cringed at times by the way some other passengers were speaking with the servers but I guess you’ll hear that anywhere, regardless of cruise line, airline, or restaurant one chooses. We appreciated all that was done for us by all the truly hard working folks these ships employ and never let things bother us, always reminding ourselves how lucky we were to be there on a beautiful ship visiting warm beautiful tropical islands and not being at work. At the beginning of the cruise, we met up with other HAL mariners who agreed that the over all food quality on HAL ships was better than on NCL but again, as the cruise continued, we went with the flow of things and enjoyed ourselves immensely. We have special memories of this trip that will last forever and we have the great folks of NCL to thank for that.

[rochelle_s]

Thank you very much for your review. I too have sailed both HAL and NCL. My preference would be HAL as I find it a better fit to my tastes, but I do agree with you that NCL is not near as bad as many would lead you to believe. Glad to read of your enjoyable time and thanks again for sharing your thoughts.

 

Rochelle

[scopewest]

Thanks for your review, we've been wondering how the courtyard villas were on the NCL ships and if they were worth the money.

[hammybee]

Thank you for taking the time to share your onboard experience with us. I have heard wonderful things about the garden/owner suites and service.

[marle7]

Thanks for this. We've considered NCL in their suites, but we tend to book really far in advance, and NCL has a 50% non refundable deposit on their suites. Given that anything can happen in a year, we choose not to book with them for that reason.

[sail7seas]

Thanks for your review. Interesting to read.

 

How did the prices compare? "SA" Suite vs. the Owner's Suite? (per diem)

 

[cmdchiefthom]

Thanks for your very unbiased review. As my signature indicates, my wife and I have also spent some quality time aboard NCL's ships, and what keeps us coming back to that line, is the offered itineraries. Yes I will agree that NCL is more mass-market, and HAL more elegant, but HAL kind of gets stuck in a rut when it comes to varied itineraries. NCL in the past seven or eight years, came up with nine and five day itineraries, which could be combined to BTB Eastern and Western Caribbean cruises, which made real sense. Leave Miami on Friday for the Eastern side, return to Miami on Sunday on the Western 5 day leg, and return on Friday. Stops in Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, Antigua, Tortola, and Dominica, were more exotic than HAL offered in the same cruising season. Yes the food wasn't as classy as HAL's, but on our last cruise aboard the Pearl, we never once ate in the main dining rooms because it was worth the twenty bucks to eat in the for pay venues. Add the designated butler assigned to our suite, for the price and itinerary, it was a no brainer for me. For whatever reason however, NCL has now failed to alter its itineraries, and doesn't offer the 9/5 option, so we're back aboard the Westerdam in less than two months, and are booked for the Panama Canal aboard the Zuiderdam in April of 2010. But right in the middle, next New Years, we board the Jewel in our favorite suite, with our own butler, and we know we'll have a great cruise.;)

[fann1sh]

Thanks for your review. Interesting to read.

 

How did the prices compare? "SA" Suite vs. the Owner's Suite? (per diem)

 

 

 

I'm curious, too. Like Sail, I also book HAL suites. If not the owner's suite, how did the price per diem on HAL compare with the A3 Courtyard suite you originally booked, before the upgrade?

[woodburykt]

As far as the per diem........I'm loath to discuss openly, I'm not that kind of guy, I hope you can understand that. The A3 Courtyard villa was twice as much as what we paid last year for the Deluxe Veranda Suite on the Noordam, cabin number 7069. We paid a lot for the A3 and then got the upgrade for the Deluxe Owners Suite that saved us about $1000 per person. Hope that helps.

[sail7seas]

I never would expect exact prices, of course.

 

A range was all I was seeking. Sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable.

Thanks for the response you gave us.

 

DH and I sail exclusively with HAL and wouldn't dream of going elsewhere so I have not had the opportunity to do any comparison pricing with NCL.

[CowPrincess]

Thanks so much for the detailed review. We've looked at/considered NCL from time to time. Given your comments on the food, I suspect we wouldn't be thrilled with NCL.

 

Glad you were able to make a great time of it!

[Atomica]

Thanks for the excellent comparison - glad you had a good time on the Gem! It's always nice, in my opinion, when you have more than one cruise line you can go to for a good cruise.

[hammybee]

I never would expect exact prices, of course.

 

A range was all I was seeking. Sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable.

Thanks for the response you gave us.

 

DH and I sail exclusively with HAL and wouldn't dream of going elsewhere so I have not had the opportunity to do any comparison pricing with NCL.

 

Sail, I think the two Owner's Suites are more like the PH on HAL, given the square footage is about 2300. These cabins run about $5-6,000 p/p, per week, if purchased outright.

[Taxguy77]

Our 1st cruise was on NCL, so we continued with that line for years. Had many great cruises, but quality kept going down while ship size kept getting larger. Finally left and have several cruises on ships/lines we MUCH prefered. I have read that some company had bought a half interest in NCL, the cash from which was to go to improve the cruise experience. Sounds like they have, but still not my cup-of-tea.

[mrsbooger]

I have cruised many different lines and like to try new things. I have only sailed on HAL once on the Zuiderdam. It was a nice ship but at the time they had assigned dining times and I truly prefer setting my own schedule when I'm on vacation. My last two cruises on NCL have been on the Pearl and the Jewel in A3 cabins. These are the courtyard villas. I will never cruise on NCL unless I am booked in one of these suites. It's simply the best! I don't like crowds so this set up is perfect for us. The double bedrooms are great too since we travel with children. Our boys are teens now but I want to know their comings and goings so we prefer them in a cabin with us. I will be on the Eruodam in March. We just booked it yesterday. We are in an SA and although it looks like a nice room, it pales in comparison to the A3. There is no privacy when traveling with kids in this cabin. I am excited that I don't have an assigned dining time on the Eurodam and choices of restaurants. One thing I love about NCL and I know I will get blasted for this, but here goes...I prefer the casual atmosphere of the NCL ships. When I'm on vacation I don't want to worry about dressing up for formal nights and packing extra shoes etc. That being said, I'm not saying jeans in the dining room, just smart casual. NCL always offers a main dining room on formal night that you can wear smart casual. It's the best of both worlds. People who want to dress formal can and people who don't can still eat in a main dining room. Vacation is different for people and I respect people who want to dress up for formal night but I get upset when people pass judgement because I want to dress down and relax on my vacation. I hope to reserve a Family Retreat for our cruise. I'll be calling to try and get one tomorrow. I think that will be a nice treat. As far as the food goes, we are not fancy eaters so I am the wrong person to ask about the food. Give me a White Castle Burger and I'm good to go! Sad but true. Anyone HAL cruisers who are thinking about giving NCL a try I would say go for it. You never know until you try. We stumbled into NCL years ago and they are our favorite line. It was time to switch things up though and the Eurodam looked intriguing to us. Happy Cruising! Remember, there's no such thing as a bad cruise, just some are better than others!

[DaisyL]

Thanks for your review. We are the 'opposite' and usually cruise NCL, with our first cruise next year on Holland's Zuiderdam.

 

Since we usually cruise for the itinerary, NCL is the choice most times but when we wanted to cruise the shorter Panama Canal cruise our choices were narrowed to Holland or Princess with Holland's itinerary more appealing.

 

Although we have never booked a suite (just balcony -prefer to cruise more often) I agree with your comments on the service and dining on NCL. Service is wonderful, the food mediocre (was better on our first NCL cruise 2004), but we also enjoy the casual atmosphere and choice of 'formal or not'. We have found most dress apporpriately for resort casual and there were more dressed formal (mostly women, men in suits not tuxes) than I would have expected. Maybe it's the NY based itineraries...

 

Thanks again... our group of 3 couples are really looking forward to trying Holland next year.