The worst coffee I have ever had. 10 Day NYC Gem Cruise Review!

[torchlight]

If we bring our own Moccona (instant) does the water get hot enough in the coffee machine to make it? I have to have coffee in the morning when I wake up and on the Carnival last year we had to take turns in doing the morning run to the coffee machine by the pool.

[antsnanny]

Okay a couple of quick facts here to see if you will be interested in what I have to say.

 

The ship: Gem, obviously. Most likely why you clicked on this thread. That or the coffee.

 

Us: Three of us. Myself, my wife, and our son. Ages? 34, 32, 3.5.

 

The trip: 10 day edition NYC to San Juan, St. Thomas, St. Martin, Tortola which left January 30.

 

The room: Porthole 5500. We spent the big bucks ($800 a person) to get the UBP promo so we would have our drinks included.

 

 

That one. Hmm, apparently that isn't linking, oh well, it was going to be a picture of the window outside the ship.

 

So that's that. There are a thousand other threads discussing those ports, the ship, so this one is just a quick run down of our experiences and general comments about the trip with personalized answers to questions if anyone has any. If not, well, its going to be a short bunch of posts.

 

So stuff about the trip:

 

Weather stuff: 6am the first morning, so Saturday, we were hit with a doozy of a wave. It felt like we were on one of those swinging pirate ship rides at an amusement park. One rocked the boat half way up on the starboard side, and then 60+ MPH winds and another smash from the other side flipped the boat up as high on the port side as anyone had ever seen. We were, it felt like this anyway, basically looking down at our feet when laying in bed. Everyone talked about it the next day from the captain to the people cleaning the rooms, every passenger, and then people manning the restaurants. The wave broke glasses, tossed tables around, smashed liquor bottles. I think the captain on the morning announcement called it "some motion" and "a couple of good waves", but he's a hardened Nordic dude who has seen everything and, I asked, the boat can take 6 times larger smashes than what we went through. Other than that it was colder than expected down by Florida (boo) but once we were way down there it was 85 and sunny every day. Coming home everything was fine until the last day, as expected, where the boat was going all over the place.

 

Service: Absolutely top notch. Couldn't have asked for anything more. If anyone complains about how the staff was towards the people then they are jerks. Everyone was out of their way kind to everyone and really acted like they wanted to help you and be friendly. My son had many "friends" and even the guys cleaning the tables at the buffet will go out of their way to get you a drink from the bar if you strike up a conversation with them like a normal decent human being.

 

Food: We have a 3 and a half year old who was scared of the kids club, we are at the buffet, Magentas, and O'Sheenhan's. The pool deck barbecues too. No specaility anything this time, just all the included offerings. No complaints. We found more than enough to eat everywhere. I am not some fancy lad who needs 5 star gourmet at all times. A corned beef sandwich for lunch with some cole slaw makes me happy so the food we had delicious.

 

Drinking/Ultimate Beverage Package: So we upgraded ourselves to get this for "free", meaning we spent a couple hundred extra bucks to move up from an inside cabin to a porthole (obstructed guarantee category which got us in our room 5500). Oy. UBP. We drank a ton. (blah blah blah you have a kid why are you drinking go away we behaved and I don't want to deal with your pretentious life views). Pretty much everything is included. No you can't have some X.O. cognac or shots of Blue Label, but you can have anything your mind can dream up. Wine, prosecco (champagne), mixed drinks, frozen cocktails, rum/vodka/whatever and soda, it's all there. $60 a person a day worth it? Not sure, if you can drink 6+ drinks a day, yes, but we got it included and we got our money's worth. I took pictures of a bunch of the drink menus with prices, I could post them but apparently the website I use to host images is blocked here.

 

Room: 5500. Port side most forward cabin on deck 5. That room rocks and rolls. Up and down, left and right. Waves over the porthole. If you like adventure go for it, if you want minimal motion, yeah, that's not for you.

 

Cruise crowd: OLD! Sorry if you are reading this and you are old, but this was an old cruise. I know it's the time of the year and it's a longer cruise, so its less young folks, but this was really old. Walkers, wheelchairs, motorized scooters, oxygen masks. It was not a big family event at all. According to the Nickelodeon staff normally they see 700 to 800 children on the cruises. This one had less than 100, so that was great in that the kids pool was always empty, the kids events were not packed to the brim with 100s of little ones, and when we did participate in the children's events we got lots of attention.

 

Kids club: Deathly scared because he saw a clown on the second night, he went once and that was it. So we'll try again next time.

 

Shows: Nope, we had a child. We were up at dawn and settled down in bed by 10 on a late night. We did watch the band play in the atrium when we could though, the little man loved watching the music.

 

Coffee: Look! It's my clickbait subject line buried down here near the bottom. I should get into the SEO business. So back on topic. Oh my goodness is this bad coffee. Might be the worst I have ever had, and I can drink instant swill mixed with hot water. I love diner black coffee served in old pots and I don't mind what I get on airplanes in coach. We don't understand it really, the coffee machines fresh grind and everything is served proper temperature and looks great. But the taste of what is on this ship down there with the worst I have ever had. But did it matter? Oh heck no, we got a pot to the room every morning and drank it at the buffet. I guess that says more about our coffee addiction though that the actual stuff itself.

 

Ports: There are whole boards dedicated to each of them so here's a quick summary of what we did at each. San Juan: Wandered around, bought Panama hats at Ole, at mofongo at the place next door. St. Thomas: Went to Megan's Bay because it's the beach from the Twilight movie and my wife wanted to see it. When you get there do not stay anywhere near where they drop you off. Walk way off to the left. It's nice and quiet and empty, for some odd reason of human behavior everyone just sits where they are let off and they are three people deep to the water. Very confusing when there is a huge expanse of empty beach to hang out on. St. Martin: Took the public bus to Mahalo beach to watch the airplanes. Awesome, just like the videos on Youtube. Totola: Got off, looked around, saw nothing open, found nothing to do because we weren't taking a cab anywhere, got back on the boat and sat by the pool.

 

So that's that. It was the best family vacation we have had. We all took a daily nap, enjoyed everything, loved the people we met, and would do this one again, outside of that room. My body is still shaking when I close my eyes. I think I might go lay down now actually, I am tired.

 

Loved your review, we were on the same sailing. DH found 2 coffee machines, the ones with 2 spouts that machine actually grinds and brews real coffee. There were 2 in the buffet area that I know of. Next time you might want to look for them.

Your right, not many kids onboard but our cabin was right under Entourage, the teen club and at night it sure sound like there were 400 of them bouncing off the wall. My only complaint about the cruise. We were also woken up when the wave hit but we were mid ship so it wasn't quite as bad for us, although our champaign bottle went flying and a few little things went missing for a few days. I think the wave woke up the entire ship, huh..How about that sea smoke? Amazing, huh!

[judyf]

Any pictures of that sea smoke??????

[nyc511]

Jezo,

 

Have been on that cruise about 5 times and next time I feel the urge to post a review I'll just cut and paste yours! Spot on! I'll have to delete the bit about a 3.5 year old though, but yes, the coffee stinks. As someone noted, it becomes mildly better if you cut it with hot water.

[Kingofwylietx]

I travel quite a bit and it's rare for me to find good coffee at the hotels.

 

:cool: One coffee trick that works with most any coffee is to use the available coffee as water, by mixing it with a product like Maxwell House International flavored instant coffee. I use French vanilla flavor, which gives a cappuccino taste.....but there are many flavors and several brands. The result will be a bold coffee with your desired flavor. I'll probably pack a little container for our trip so that I'm covered.

:cool:

[Sistahdreamer]

That was a great review. Thanks.

 

See you in 3 weeks.

[weltek]

Ha! Great review (I came more for the coffee than the ship!). In my experience, anything longer than 8 days is an older crowd. In all honesty, it makes me more likely to book two shorter B2Bs than one longer cruise because having good nightlife and other's energy to feed off of is a fairly big deal to us (and we aren't that young).

[DominicAUS]

Thanks for the review! Coming from Sydney I'm not looking forward to the coffee full stop, glad there are some Aussie coffee shops in NYC.

 

I do have one question, I'm doing the same trip on 29th March 17, this will be for my 40th, with my partner, and a few friends all around the same age. What will the age crowd be on the ship at this a time?

 

Thanks in advance Dominic

[beachys]

I laugh every time I read this title. We were on the Gem in June and the coffee was horrendous! Which is odd because two years prior I raved how the coffee on the Gem was the best I've ever had! Tip though, the specialty coffee shop down in the atrium has excellent coffee.

Edited January 7, 2016 by beachys

[NYcruzzer]

Always nice to see a post from nearly a year ago come back to life....

[lenquixote66]

I very rarely drink coffee outside of my home .If the coffee on the GEM is not good it will not be a factor for me.

[sebas030]

Always nice to see a post from nearly a year ago come back to life....

 

+1 for me :rolleyes:

 

But I always found the fresh ground coffee on the Gem to be very good...

 

Nothing like a fresh coffee at the Great Outdoors in the morning....great view and very good coffee !!!

 

I will enjoy one in 15 days !!!! :D

[Kingofwylietx]

The coffee in the buffet is the same as room service. In the buffet it's ground fresh in front of you when you push the button but somehow it's still terrible.

 

 

You should have read my old thread about coffee. It might have given you some ideas before the trip. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2174751&highlight=snobs

[tumblew467]

+1 for me :rolleyes:

 

But I always found the fresh ground coffee on the Gem to be very good...

 

Nothing like a fresh coffee at the Great Outdoors in the morning....great view and very good coffee !!!

 

I will enjoy one in 15 days !!!! :D

 

Hi, we are on the gem in April. My husband says the same thing ..how terrible it is. Can you tell me where the ground coffee is? thanks

[bornin49]

Can you bring your own coffee maker on board???

[Jezo]

You should have read my old thread about coffee. It might have given you some ideas before the trip. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2174751&highlight=snobs

 

You actually posted twice in this thread before you even wrote what's in that link, so it looks like we have come full circle, you reading my thread to see about the coffee and asking questions, which then you went on your cruise and posted a thread about the coffee and coming back in here to offer advice on the coffee.

 

:)

 

This thread magically came back to life just recently, it's actually from February of 2015.

[Kingofwylietx]

You actually posted twice in this thread before you even wrote what's in that link, so it looks like we have come full circle, you reading my thread to see about the coffee and asking questions, which then you went on your cruise and posted a thread about the coffee and coming back in here to offer advice on the coffee.

 

:)

 

This thread magically came back to life just recently, it's actually from February of 2015.

 

That is pure awesome!! See, I wondered...I learned...then, I tried to help others with the knowledge.

 

It's funny, I did notice my earlier replies sometime later, after I posted that link. It was confusing until I realized that it was an old thread.

 

Now I'm wondering about the coffee on RCCL. :D

[Shawnino]

Love the way you write OP!

[sloperate]

One cup of coffee in the morning will suffice under virtually any circumstance.

[Whitnee1]

Don't want to make this into a drinking thread either but based upon what a couple of others have said on other posts I have a couple of questions regarding your included package:

 

1. Did you find any venues it was not included at. I know room service is not included but curious about others.

 

2. Did you hear of any drink "limit" like one per hour?

[gikkeroo]

Well I guess there's only 1 thing left to do.... skip the coffee and replace it with Patron XO!

[Jezo]

1. Did you find any venues it was not included at. I know room service is not included but curious about others.

 

2. Did you hear of any drink "limit" like one per hour?

 

No and no. You can get as much booze as you want from any bar. One per person at a time, but thats it.

[macandlucy]

So many good ideas in this thread, thanks everyone :) I have never had a decent cup of coffee from any cruise ship buffet--HAL, X, CCL, RCCL, they all pretty much sucked I thought. Will be a first for NCL, so can't speak to that coffee, but given that they have on the spot bean grinders, that improves the odds a bit (course a lot depends on the beans they fill it with).

 

I am now tempted to squeeze a French press into my one and only bag (Husband rule --hey, he's got to win a few here and there, amirite? ;), except for the water temperature issue. I do not find coffee makers make the water hot enough, is the water in the hot water tanks in the buffet boiling? Close to boiling? Was it ever boiling?

 

Or, maybe I will try the Starbucks Via? Can anyone recommend that? Someone in another thread posted about instant Vietnamese coffee packs, which I will try. Thanks for the tip!

[geegee1]

So many good ideas in this thread, thanks everyone :) I have never had a decent cup of coffee from any cruise ship buffet--HAL, X, CCL, RCCL, they all pretty much sucked I thought. Will be a first for NCL, so can't speak to that coffee, but given that they have on the spot bean grinders, that improves the odds a bit (course a lot depends on the beans they fill it with).

 

I am now tempted to squeeze a French press into my one and only bag (Husband rule --hey, he's got to win a few here and there, amirite? ;), except for the water temperature issue. I do not find coffee makers make the water hot enough, is the water in the hot water tanks in the buffet boiling? Close to boiling? Was it ever boiling?

 

Or, maybe I will try the Starbucks Via? Can anyone recommend that? Someone in another thread posted about instant Vietnamese coffee packs, which I will try. Thanks for the tip!

 

Not a coffee drinker, but my wife uses the Starbucks Via's on our cruises. She said it's much better than what you get at the buffets.

[macandlucy]

Not a coffee drinker, but my wife uses the Starbucks Via's on our cruises. She said it's much better than what you get at the buffets.

 

Thanks geegee1, (and Mrs, geegee1), for the recommendation. :)