Norweign Gem- Never again with NCL!!

[sjcruiser]

I read the whole post and all I can say is wow. This is the worst ship review I've read in a while, or maybe a few weeks.

[PeteNYC]

Norwegian Gem... Washy Washy does not make you Happy Happy...

 

Just returned from a 7 day cruise from NYC-Port Canaveral, Fl, Great Stirrup Cay Bahamas, and Nassau Paradise Island, Bahamas. We chose this cruise from NYC because we live here and didn't want to incur the flight charges to leave from Florida. This particular cruise line nickel and dimes you for every little thing, while giving you nothing in return. You pay a flat fee for the cruise and you think you have a great bargain. That's until you step on board. There is a fee on this cruise for anything remotely fun. For example, the food in the buffet on Deck 12 reminded me of school cafeteria food. BAD cafeteria food. (and they have the nerve to serve the SAME crappy food downstairs on Deck 7 at the main dining room, and same food for ROOM SERVICE!). You just get a guaranteed seat there, so the staff may bring the disgusting food to you, instead of you chasing it down in a buffet and then looking in vain for a seat. Powdered eggs for breakfast, hamburgers, hot dogs, fries, EVERYDAY for lunch AND dinner. Each day around lunchtime they would set up a grill/wok station near the pool and make rice and chicken. EVERYDAY. So after day 2 and you're bored of the burger/fry combo, you can have chicken and rice for a few days, get bored, then back to the burgers. The free food wasn't even fast food or Applebees quality. It was gross. Pizza was laughable. Pasta dishes were tasteless and dry. This is where the money starts to add up. You have several "specialty" restaurants onboard that charge you extra to eat there. You MUST eat dinner in these specialty places (and pay extra $$), in order to have something edible on your trip. And these specialty places aren't all great. The best ones were of course, the more expensive places. Le Bistro (French , $25 pp), Cagey's (steakhouse, $25 pp), and Teppenyaki (hibachi, $25 pp). Orchid Garden has Chinese Or sushi, for a $15 pp overcharge, but the food was bland and awful. The sushi was disgusting. Tasted like plastic. I have had better sushi at the supermarket. We also tried the Italian place, La Cucina, ($10 pp), but that was atrocious. The staff had no idea which pasta was which, and no clue how to make any Italian dishes. I ordered spaghetti carbonara, and it was oily and gross without cream or any of the right ingredients in it. My boyfriend had gnocchi that was also greasy and tasteless. Never mind the fried calamari. It looked like onion rings from Burger king. Gross. Never had such bad food ever. Always an up charge for something. Cant even get a seat in the buffet if you are brave enough to try the food. Their only saving grace was their fresh baked goods. We lived on sugar for most of the week. They had great cookies, cakes, cobblers, ice cream, and crepes. If they could get their bakers to cook- the food would have a shot!! We were so disgusted with all of this, that we went to reception and told them we were planning to get off at the first port (Florida) and stay there and get a hotel and pay to fly back. The lovely people at reception smiled and asked me if I knew about the "Jones Act". Its some act from like 1916 where the ship has to bring everyone back from the port they took them from. Otherwise they get a heavy penalty that they happily pass down to you- $350 pp!!! I was fit to be tied!! We paid all the money to book the cruise (which NCL or Travelocity wouldn't refund if we got off), and then would've had had to ADD money to leave!! UNREAL!! We decided to stay and get the cruise over with and make the best of it.

Then there is the "entertainment". They have 2 clubs on board the ship- "Bliss" and the "Spinnaker". Bliss is clubby and has the lights and the whole thing but NEVER a DJ. They had an awesome DJ onboard, but they never let him work in the clubs at night. They would waste him during the DAY to play out by the pool (where it was always too cold to swim). Out by the pool you couldn't even dance- they had to do stupid line dances and electric slide like you were at someone's Sweet 16! In Bliss, they have 10 TVs around the room playing "Time Life" videos from 1990 that you're supposed to get up and dance to. NO ONE dances there. In the Spinnaker, they have hokey game shows (newlywed game) and Karaoke, so the guests have to entertain each other, rather than NCL hiring talent. Then there is a theater where they have the "Norwegian Gem dancers" put on shows. Who cares?? I'm in my mid 30's! How about a comedian? They had one comedian but he was pitiful. Nobody laughed at him at all. A cover band? They had a band called Kinnosis that played very rarely and played very outdated material. A real DJ? A Broadway play? Something!? It s like a trip for the over 65 crowd. Everyone was older than us. There was under 10 couples near our age without kids. We' d run into them walking around the ship at night- all looking for something to do. If they could run the club right, it would've been fun. We could have bought a lot of drinks and danced. They're always trying to push you to buy drinks- but I think if they had the right entertainment, you'd want to drink and buy em. We never wanted to stay anywhere for more than 1 drink- so we may have had 4 or 5 drinks the whole trip. We were never even buzzed. Sad.

The excursions...They don't tell you where you need to be, what time- what gangway to take. They also don;'t tell you that some ports don't even take cash and you need to bring your debit card. You also need to bring photo id AND your ship card to get on and off the ship at the ports. I found the excursions very disorganized. Our first excursion was Port Canaveral, Florida. You had the choice of a resort for the day with full run of it, Disney. Universal, etc. We chose the resort because you ll never have enough time at Disney/Universal. On the NCL site, they tell you they are in port from 9am-8pm or so, so you think you have all day at the port. Not so. By the time you get off the ship and to the port, its 10, 11 am and then they tell you, you have to be back on the ship at 5:30pm! The ship doesn't even leave port till 9:30pm! What the hell? Our "resort" in Port Canaveral was a joke. The ocean was rough and too cold to swim. The jacuzzi didn't work, and half the food places near the pool were closed because its off season. The heated pool was fine, but we could've stayed on board for that... The second port- Great Stirrup Cay, Bahamas was great. We snorkeled for the first time and loved it. That port is NCL's private island. They brought all the gross cruise food to the island and made it there and served drinks. It was a nice day off the ship, but still the bad food followed us. Then Atlantis, Paradise Island on day 3. It was gorgeous, but over priced and over rated. I was disappointed. The way the commercials look on TV- you think the whole place is amazing with a million things to do. They had about 10 pools, 4 Jacuzzis, 6 water slides, an awesome aquarium, a real expensive mall you cant afford to shop in, and the beach. It was a lot to do- but not for more than a day. We were toying of the idea of booking a week there- which is close to $3,500- and I'm glad we didn't do that trip. We did Atlantis in 1 day. The food there was atrocious also and for half the afternoon, it rained. It may just be that NCL is a crappy cruise line, but I'm not willing to try it again. I am an officially retired cruiser. Looking forward to booking Vegas for June 2011. There was also a teeny casino onboard that was cute. We paid extra for a spa pass- that was a Godsend. They only sell 85 passes and we were there everyday. They had gorgeous Jacuzzis, steam room, sauna, etc. Super Nice. Def recommend that! It was $99 per person for an unlimited week pass to use the spas amenities. The stateroom was tiny but ok. It was an ocean view. Very nice. Comfy bed. The room was the least of my worries. You also have the mandatory $12 per person per day charge for the room steward and tips for the various bars/restaurants onboard. That's crap. I saw the room steward maybe twice the whole week. He's supposed to clean the room, bring you ice twice a day and turn down the bed at night and leave you towel animals. My room was cleaned daily but I only got it turned down with a towel animal once. Sad. I thought that was a cute touch that they did nightly.

We tried it and that's the bottom line. We ended our "cruise curiosity" and saw Atlantis and we're done with it. We don't have to spend crazy money to stay there now. We're good. We made the best of it. The few good restaurants were very nice. 2 out of 3 excursions were good.

 

 

WOW! How can one cruise be so miserable for anyone? From the roughly 100 descriptions you have given, the only thing you guys liked were the cookies and desserts? I have read dozens of reviews, and no one has complained about every single part of their cruise. I think you just started off on the wrong foot and became bitter and just learned to hate the entire cruise. Should of just tried making the best of it.

 

Either way, I hope you give it one more shot and try another company and see how it goes. It REALLY can't be that bad after reading all the other posts! Sorry you guys had such a bad time and hope if there's a next time, you guys have a great time.

[njhorseman]

WOW! How can one cruise be so miserable for anyone? From the roughly 100 descriptions you have given, the only thing you guys liked were the cookies and desserts? I have read dozens of reviews, and no one has complained about every single part of their cruise. I think you just started off on the wrong foot and became bitter and just learned to hate the entire cruise. Should of just tried making the best of it.

 

Either way, I hope you give it one more shot and try another company and see how it goes. It REALLY can't be that bad after reading all the other posts! Sorry you guys had such a bad time and hope if there's a next time, you guys have a great time.

 

I realize you're new to Cruise Critic, so you probably didn't realize it, but you're replying to a post made almost 11 months ago, and a thread that's been inactive for more than 10 months. I don't think the poster is going to be coming back to discuss it with you.

[GlendaleCruiser]

This thread was started a year ago. How is it that it is even on the board still?

 

I got in trouble (for the first time) when this thread came up then and I really don't know why it got resurrected, but I don't want to get ZINGED again every time someone posts. This thread should have been deleted.

[JLC@SD]

...I got lost at washy washy......can someone explain that to me.......:)

[Krazy Kruizers]

Sorry you had a experience.

 

We left NCL many years ago when they went "freestyle".

 

Hope whatever you do for your next vacation -- you will have a great time.

[dobiemom]

I realize you're new to Cruise Critic, so you probably didn't realize it, but you're replying to a post made almost 11 months ago, and a thread that's been inactive for more than 10 months. I don't think the poster is going to be coming back to discuss it with you.

 

This thread was started a year ago. How is it that it is even on the board still?

 

I got in trouble (for the first time) when this thread came up then and I really don't know why it got resurrected, but I don't want to get ZINGED again every time someone posts. This thread should have been deleted.

To avoid this, is there a way for Cruise Critic to put a date along with the OP's name when the thread is started? Then everyone could see when the thread was started before opening it.

[lady_cruiser]

Tip for reading those small fonts - Hold the control key down and then hit the + or - key to make everything on your screen larger or smaller. Works for any web site.

 

I did it and still had trouble reading the "review". Some people wouldn't be satisfied if they had the whole ship to themselves with cooked to order meals, etc.

Thanks. I worked with computers for over 37 years and didn't know this trick. THANKS AGAIN!

[njhorseman]

To avoid this, is there a way for Cruise Critic to put a date along with the OP's name when the thread is started? Then everyone could see when the thread was started before opening it.

 

Even better, I think threads should be automatically locked after they've been inactive for a certain amount of time...say two or three months. That way they're still available to be read if someone wants to, but no further posts can be made. If someone feels the need to reopen a discussion they can start a new thread.

[seacat65]

Tip for reading those small fonts - Hold the control key down and then hit the + or - key to make everything on your screen larger or smaller. Works for any web site.

 

 

Thank you..Thank You...for this wonderful tip. I did not even know it existed! I tried it and it sure works. Now to go and read the review w/o putting strain on my eyes!....:)

[busmech]

We never wanted to stay anywhere for more than 1 drink- so we may have had 4 or 5 drinks the whole trip. We were never even buzzed. Sad.

 

Maybe not the right cruise?

[patty0227]

I read the whole post and all I can say is wow. This is the worst ship review I've read in a while, or maybe a few weeks.

 

 

Agreed~

It's bordering on the absurd.

Maybe her ex husband works for the cruise line....

:rolleyes:

[Cruisin' Chick]

For a laugh, I looked at the OP's profile. She actually came back to this site in March of this year, but basically kept bashing her cruise. Here's one post:

 

I took the Gem out of Ny (I live here) and embarkation was a breeze. That was the best part of our trip. Lol. The Gem was awful. Food, service, excursions, things to do, awful. I have never been so sad and bored on a vacation. I cannot recommend this ship (or this cruise line). Take your chances on the Dawn or try another cruise line altogether. Maybe RC? This was my one and only cruise and it was so bad, I ll never cruise again.

 

So she's not cruising again. Well, good. She's already poisoned against this type of travel. I'm just wondering if she's this "positive" about her other travels too.:rolleyes:

[av8tr21]

A cruise is only what you make it. Sounds like you decided to be miserable before you got on the ship. Maybe if you had done research and read the forums/reviews on here, you wouldn't have wasted your time writing such a large number of run-on sentences that no one is bothering to read.

[mactrio]

I am not a complainer unless there is something to complain about! Land or sea!!

 

I am a complainer! It's my 1 fault :D but seriously I will complain when it is needed. I've sailed on the NCL Spirit twice and honestly my only complaint was frozen butter. Yes; I am serious! They served the butter on ice and it was too hard to spread on the delicious bread. But my solution was to hold it in my hand for about 20 seconds and soften it before using it. The ship is beautiful, clean, the staff were friendly, our 1st rom steward wasn't as friendly as the 2nd was; but he was efficient and was nice. Will I sail NCL again? Yes indeed. My upcoming cruise is on Carnival Conquest because we are joining 15 other people on that trip. I've read great reviews & bad reviews but IMO a cruise is what you make it. I choose to make my vacation fun, relaxing and as stress free as I can make it.

I can not imagine someone not liking anything on a cruise. Sure we had some meals that were not as good as others; but I realize that these men & women are cooking huge quantities of food at any given time. I just ordered something different the next time or asked for more salad.

 

Apparently cruising is not the ideal vacation for the OP

[phabric]

I have been on 16 cruises with Princess, RCI, Carnival and NCL. One year, we decided to do the 3 day cruises. We took RCI, Carnival and NCL with all of them going to their own island and Nassau. We knew before going that they used the old ships. We knew a 3 day cruise is not like a 7 day or longer cruise but it is still a cruise. Since we had been on other lines, we could compare them.

 

NCL was the worst. They cabin was very small compared to others. We only had one meal we enjoyed. We decided we would try a different place each night. We enjoyed our meal in the bar where they served pub type of food. In the diningroom, we order the shrimp cocktail, it was cut up shrimp mixed with some type of sauce (not the normal type served with shrimp), the steak had so much fat that we could only eat 1/3 of it, on other lines when you order the souffle they make a hole in it and pour the sauce, with NCL they just put the sauce on the table. The buffet had a limited selection to choose at any meal.

 

We do not complain and accept things will go wrong. We do enjoy a nice meal (it does not have to be fancy) and NCL did not have that for us.

 

In my family, we have cruised about 50 times total, and we each have cruised with NCL and we each have our own opinion of NCL and will not be cruising with them again.

[Bostoncruiser35]

We sailed NCL out of Boston on the Spirit and loved it, the entertainment was awesome, plenty of DJs, the Cruise director Paul Scally was the best. The food was delicious and we had a great time. I am sorry your cruise experience was not the same as ours. We have decided to do the same cruise on the Dawn and are so excied Paul Scally is the director there too. He really played a big part in making our cruise alot of fun. And he is a great comedian- we laughed through his whole act. We too are in our 30s. And we both agreed we would rather washy washy and be happy happy and smilie smilie , than no washy washy and sicky sicky.

[eh2zed]

That is a good tip

Thanks

[Arzeena]

We did the same route on the NCL Jewel and loved it. No complaints at all! Now if the OP comes across a cruise where the weather AND the ocean temperature is under the cruiseline's control, please let me know. I'd like to join. Happy happy!

[Arzeena]

We sailed NCL out of Boston on the Spirit and loved it, the entertainment was awesome, plenty of DJs, the Cruise director Paul Scally was the best. The food was delicious and we had a great time. I am sorry your cruise experience was not the same as ours. We have decided to do the same cruise on the Dawn and are so excied Paul Scally is the director there too. He really played a big part in making our cruise alot of fun. And he is a great comedian- we laughed through his whole act. We too are in our 30s. And we both agreed we would rather washy washy and be happy happy and smilie smilie , than no washy washy and sicky sicky.

 

:Dyup. We have always been happy happy with NCL too.

[weltek]

If you want a young person's party at sea with five star food and service, you won't get it by any cruiseline I'm aware of. NCL, Royal Caribbean, and Carnival are the closest you'll get to some late night party options. They are also lines with very similar food quality (though most would agree it's not as "atrocious" as you think it was, but food IS subjective).

 

The higher end cruise lines will be a ghost town at 9:00.

 

I'm in my 30s. Things we do on NCL (have been offered on our last three cruises, all on different ships):

 

-Pub Crawl, offered on many ships

-Comedian in main theatre

-Comedy improv show in smaller lounge during the week

-Trivia

-Drink and listen to live music in a bar. Usually there is one singer that plays some fun music.

-Listen to cheesy karaoke, which is usually pretty bad, but is kind of fun

-Attend the White Hot Night party (with the dj and lots of dancing)

-Martini, wine or beer tasting (or all of the above!)

 

We also think most of the other main theatre shows are not for us, and the hokey game shows are cheesey (though admitedly, sometimes watch them and laugh). There are a few ships that are trying to get a larger young audience, such as the Norwegian Epic, the new Carnival ship, and Royal's larger ships.

 

Too bad you didn't research more ahead of time. If your interest was late night clubbing, you might have found that that's not what most cruiselines focus on. Absolutely Vegas is for you. I would also suggest being careful about any All Inclusive resorts in the Caribbean or Mexico. Maybe Cabo would be for you, but even during the off season and during the week, you might not have much to satisfy you.

[Scotoco]

ugh....NCL. We went once and that will be it. The food is horrible and I hate hearing those stupid announcements every 5 minutes about gift shop deals, gold by the inch and the daily drink rip-off. The food is a joke. Sloppy indian food is not what I would call cuisine. Even the burgers and chicken by the grill were dried out. I have had better food at all you can eat buffets.

 

My wife and I were relaxing in the pool around 5:00 and some kids came over to swim with no adults around. Well one of them jumps right on to my head. The kid was crying and I was in a lot of pain. Long story short the cruise line would not give me anything to relieve the pain in my neck and the kids parents did not get in trouble for not supervising their kids. I did not even get an apoligy from the kids parents who I saw at the lobby desk while complaining.

[commodoredave]

Enjoying a cruise, like a resort hotel, depends on your age, your preferences, and your budget. NCL and Carnival are loved by many people under 40 who enjoy nightlife, popular entertainment, regular food, lots of people, and budget pricing. However, if you want a more upscale experience, a higher end culinary experience, more refined nightlife, and are prepared to pay more for it, then you won't like NCL and Carnival. That's why it is very important to know what you want and can afford, and then to pick the cruise line and ship that best reflects the experience you would most enjoy.

[Pushka]

Reading this on tapatalk is a pain when people quote the whole original post in their reply. Why do people do that?

 

Problem with the OP is that they complain about everything.

[sarafinadh]

Pretty sure that that particular run was the one where the Gem detoured for a few hours to pick up 5 sailors on a slowly sinking boat. The weather was abysmal, but blaming the Cruise line on that seems silly. That was the sv/ Sanctuary.