Moonieelf's Gem Notebook! AKA: A Review from 7/11/15 - 7/18/15

[moonieelf]

I don't think I've done one of these before, so here goes!

 

My roommate, Susan, and I went on our second cruise this past week on the Beautiful Norwegian Gem. Embarkation day was on Susan's birthday, but my review will start us on Friday, July 10. Now, I know what a lot of you will be saying. A cruise review should start with the cruise. Well, for us the vacation started the night before, as we needed a day to get from Boston to New York.

 

Friday was a normal work day for Susan, but a normal day off for me. I spent the day doing my last minute laundry and packing, while Susan was at work. Once my packing was done, I needed to run around town to hit my bank, and a few other errands. But, I had the stack of happy waiting for me when I got home!

 

 

Susan met me at the bank (because doing most of the lugging I needed to do by bus with how hot it was that day was the last thing I wanted to do. Once we got home, there was a surprise waiting for Susan. Half moons (some people call them black and white cookies) from her favorite bakery. Her brother (another one of our roommates) picked those as well as cake up for her because he wouldn't see her for her birthday.

 

Once we were ready to go John (Susan's brother) took us off to South Station for our train ride to NYC. The drive to the train station was... Very Boston. I think I'll take the Red Line next time. No matter what time of the day I seem to need to hit the financial district it seems to just be a cluster of too many cars, not enough road. But, that's Boston for you.

 

Our train left South Staton late, but that was why we decided to take the 9:30 PM train rather than the 6:40 AM train we had been planning on taking. Our charming Irish conductor informed us that we should make it to New York by 2:30 AM, so only 15 minutes late. And the hotel knows we'll be getting in late, so it's all cool.

 

We were also told that our station will not be announced (it is also not the last station on this line) so I set an alarm for 1:45 am. I didn't get any sleep though, but the alarm was set.

Edited July 19, 2015 by moonieelf

[moonieelf]

We got to Penn Station almost an hour after we were scheduled to get there. This was the main reason (and fear) behind why we left the night before, rather than leaving the day of. Though, based on this experience we have decided for future cruises we will greyhound our way to NYC and either greyhound of amtrak our way back to Boston.

 

I've never been through Penn Station before, but to me it felt more like a regular subway station, and not an interstate train station. Once we figured out how to get up the three levels to the surface, we found ourselves in a taxi large enough to handle us and our luggage, and we were heading to the hotel.

 

I need to pause the recap here, and talk about the issues with the hotels. Yes, more than one hotel was involved with this. Our first hotel was the Comfort Inne Midtown West. We booked (and had a confirmation of this) a room with two twin sized beds. When I called the hotel to tell them we would be getting in between 2:30 to 3 in the morning, the hotel confirmed the booking for me. A room with a single king sized bed. For the two of us this will not do. We knew we weren't going to get much sleep, so we wanted separate beds to make sure we would get enough sleep. Well, the Comfort Inne was not willing to work with us. Because they were in breach of their contract with us, we were able to book at another hotel in the city for a little less money (without having to pay them.) So, we ended up staying at the Skyline Hotel.

 

Susan gave the driver the address of the hotel, and he looked confused. I gave him the name of the hotel, and he nodded and started going. In the wrong direction. We tried getting his attention, but with how loud the city was, and how long his radio was he didn't hear us. By the time I got his attention, and gave him the corner we were looking for, we were one block away from the hotel he THOUGHT I had said (the Highline Hotel) which he went on and on about how cheap it was, and how so many of his passengers ended up there. Yeah, right.

 

When we got to the right hotel, we both fell into bed (which were the hardest mattresses known to man) and were suddenly wide awake.

 

 

By the time we fell asleep, it was close to 4:30 am.

 

Our alarm was set for 8 am. Susan was awake before the alarm. When the alarm went off and I woke up, I heard her singing "Big Boat" over and over. I couldn't pretend to be sleeping, so we started getting ready to head to the pier.

 

The walk to the pier wasn't horrible. Once we got there, it took a little figuring out on how to get on the right side of the fence, but we managed it! And before us was the beauty we'd call home for the next week.

 

 

Embarkation day happened to be Susan's birthday. She agreed to wear a sash all day for Embarkation that read "Birthday Princess." Let me tell you, that sash got us a lot that day. We got a better boarding group (2 when we'd originally been assigned 5) among other things.

 

 

Once we got past the whole check in process with our embarkation picture taken and everything, we grabbed breakfast from a vendor there. I have never in my life had a bagel and cream cheese taste so good!

 

 

I was a little disappointed on the reception that we were met with when we got on the Gem. When we got on the Dawn in October, it was like the party was just starting. There was music, dancing, the works. When we got on the Gem there was a single washy washy guy, and one other NCL employee on the deck.

 

Once we were on board, I set up my On Board account (I don't have a credit card, so I was dealing with cash) and paid for the shore excursion I wanted to do in GSC (Stingray City.) Once this was done, Susan and I were more than ready for lunch.

 

We went to the Grand Pacific (we're not buffet people.) To me, the Grand Pacific feels like what a dining room on a cruise ship should be. I enjoy dressing up, and having a nice sit-down meal. And the atmosphere in these main dining rooms has always been, well, relaxing to me.

 

For lunch, I had a salad, the Spanish Fritatas, and this vanilla bean thing for desert. It was awesome! This was where I also had my first drink on board, a glass of white wine. We had the UBP, and we wanted to make good use of it!

 

After lunch, we stopped off in the stateroom since they were ready, and we dropped off our carry-on bags. This was when we noticed that the room had been decorated for Susan's birthday. There were streamers, a Happy Birthday sign, and balloons in the room.

 

After we hung up our dresses for dinner, we went to the Bali Hai for our now ritualistic pre-cruise away drinks, a tequila sunrise. The bartender was a little heavy handed with our drinks because it was Susan's birthday.

 

By this time, we thought we'd be late for our pre-sail away meet and greet with the people from our Cruise Critic Roll Call. As I'm writing this (in the notebook I'm copying from now) we're on day 2 of the cruise and we haven't had the formal meet and greet yet, but they seem like good people!

 

By the time the pre-sail away wrapped, it was about time for our muster drill. So, we made our way down to our muster station in Le Bistro. When we sailed on the Dawn, we learned a lot with our muster drill. And, it was very entertaining. The muster drill we had on the Gem was lack luster at best. We were shown how to put on our life jacket, and that was it. Nothing about hoe to board the life boats, no alternate muster station. Just this is where you go, and here is how you put on a life jacket.

 

When the drill was done, we went back to Bali Hai for the sail-away party. My drink this time was a mud slide.

 

The party was.. Well it wasn't our thing. So, we went to the Great Outdoors to take pictures of New York Harbor.

 

 

By now, we had about an hour before our dinner reservations at Cagney's, so we went back to the stateroom to change and freshen up our makeup. When we got there, our suitcases were waiting for us. So, we took about 20 minutes to unpack (and there was space for everything for the two of us in the room) before we got ready.

 

I didn't expect dinner at Cagney's to take as long as it did, and we ended up missing the first bit of the opening show that night. The dinner was good, but I liked the sides better. With that in mind, I don't think that $30 a head for the sides is really worth it for me.

 

After dinner, I ran down to the room to change my shoes, and drop off the cheese cake from dinner, and this was when I ran into our steward, Jerry. He'd already been to turn down our room, and we had a few more surprises waiting for us.

 

 

We had our first towel animal! I didn't think they did that on embarkation day, but under Susan's pillow was a little mouse!

 

I met Susan at the Stardust for the intro show just in time to do the Hey Baby dance. Most of the night time activities for us were a wash that night. I wasn't a fan of the band playing in the Spinnaker. They were playing slow and sleepy music.

 

We ended up putting on swim suits and hitting the hot tubs. But, we went to bed shortly after that.

[Freespir8]

Thanks for your review! Enjoying it so far and happy birthday to Susan!

[moonieelf]

Thanks for your review! Enjoying it so far and happy birthday to Susan!

 

No problem! And Susan said "Thank you!" I'll try to do one post per day.

[BensonFan711]

Thanks for the birthday wishes!

[meatball_nyc]

Nice review so far :)

Great pix. Looking forward to reading more.

We might be sailing Gem next year.

Happy Birthday and Happy Sailing!

[moonieelf]

Nice review so far :)

Great pix. Looking forward to reading more.

We might be sailing Gem next year.

Happy Birthday and Happy Sailing!

 

Most of my pictures were taken with an iPhone 6. Not to plug them, but I love the quality I get out of them!

[moonieelf]

Sunday, July 12, 2015

 

I set an alarm for 8 am, and when it went off, Susan didn't believe me. We were booked in an interior state room, but in all honesty it worked well for us. When I showed her the bow cam, she sprang right up. All she needs is a little sun and she's up and going.

 

We had our breakfast at the GP. I had an omelet with cheddar cheese and ham in it, sausage, english muffins, coffee and orange juice. After breakfast, I got drink #7 of the cruise. I <3 the UBP.

 

Our Cruise Critic Meet and Greet was fun, and we did a slot pull after where I only lost $7.00. Not too shabby when all is said and done.

 

After that, we went to O'Sheehans for lunch. Oh. My. God. I don't think I've had fish & chips that good since my last trip to Australia. And hot fries! On the Dawn last October, we couldn't find hot fries at all.

 

After lunch, we went to the latitudes cocktail party. This was fun, and where I acquired drink #8: A glass of wine. We also won in a raffle a bottle of champagne. As I write this, we're thinking about giving this to Jerry, our room steward as part of his tip. We did take some advice we received here to heart, and split our tip this time. He got $20 on our first day at sea, and $20 on our last. It might be more than other's tip, but it did get us decent service from him.

 

We went to the pool deck for a little bit. I do not like how the pool deck was set up on the Gem. On the Gem, with the two pools in one place it was way too crowded on the pool deck.

 

We were hardly there for five minutes, when someone approached the stage on the deck, and announced that there was a girl there with the Make A Wish foundation. She wanted to sing a song with the band that was playing, and she had such a beautiful voice.

 

One part of it stuck us though. She's on the ship through Make A Wish. Most of the kids they grant wishes for don't have too much time left in them. Remember that bottle of champagne that we won at the latitudes party? Well, we bombed down to our state room and gave it to this family.

 

When we got back to the stateroom after giving the bottle of champagne away, there was a surprise waiting for us. Earlier in the day, Susan called down to the restaurant manager, to compliment her on the food we'd gotten from O'Sheehans. She seemed startled, and asked Susan to call the Chef. He seemed just as shocked as the restaurant manager, but he asked Susan for our stateroom number. He sent us a tray of chocolates (that I didn't manage to get a picture of until after we'd attacked it.)

 

 

For dinner, we went back to the GP (our favorite of the MDR's). As tonight was Norwegian's Night out, we were both dressed up. On our way to the P, we did get our picture taken with Captain Lars.

 

After dinner, we went to the Spinnaker to watch the Friendly Family Feud. I like it, but it seemed like Helmie, a member of the Cruise Director's Staff, was feeding the answers to one of the families.

 

After that, we decided to get out of our formal clothes and got back to the Spinnaker for the Newlywed: Not so Newlywed game. On our way there, we saw some flashes in the sky. We were headed for a storm.

 

The Newlywed: Not so Newlywed Game was hilarious. I highly suggest going to see the live filming if you want to really get the full impact of it. I haven't laughed so hard in some time.

 

Right after that, the party started. I have to say, after all of the drinks (wine with dinner, a mudslide and daquiri at the Spinnaker) and how much the ship was moving, I didn't last too long.

 

So, we went back to the Bali High to watch the storm. We met this great couple from Nevada and talked with them through the worst of the storm.

 

At midnight, we decided we were peckish, so we went back to O'Sheehans for more fish and chips. Almost as good as they were at lunch. At 12:30 we got back to the room and fell asleep.

[Presbycruiser]

a great, funny review so far. Thanks for posting it. And happy birthday to Susan.

[cruisin0504]

Great style. ..enjoying it, thank you!

[boopsahoy]

Fun review!

[moonieelf]

Monday, July 13, 2015

 

Port Day! We're going to Universal Studios today! We both got up at about 7ish (an hour before the alarm was set) and we were ready for breakfast. We went to the GP. The maitre d' there, Enrique, is awesome. He asked if he could go with us to the park, but then he said he had to work all day. We would have totally had a great time with him.

 

My breakfast was another omelette. This time spinach with bell peppers and cheese.

 

After breakfast, we went to the early morning trivia session. We did this a lot on the Dawn, and we were looking forward to getting into the swing of things on the Gem. 10 out of 20 right. We need to get our heads in the game.

 

We decided to do an early lunch at O'Sheehans. Unforntually, O'Sheehans closes between 11-11:30 for cleaning. I think this is something that needs to be revisited on policies for port days. Maybe do their cleaning around 2-3 in the afternoon when most of the all day excursions are gone? We ended up having "lunch" (they were still serving breakfast) at the Great Outdoors.

 

When the time came to gather for the bus ride to Universal, we had ourselves packed and ready to go for a day in the park.

 

The bus was packed, and we were the last two passengers to board. So, we began the hour long ride to Orlando.

 

 

 

Once we got to the park, the heat of the day really started to kick my butt. The first chance I got, I bought a bottle of water and CONSUMED! No bottle of water in my life has ever tasted so good.

 

We wandered the park for about an hour before we found the first ride we'd end up taking. Disaster. I rode this ride years ago when it was Earthquake. It's gotten cheesier over the years, but it's still just as much fun as I remember it being. There was a 20 minute wait, and well worth it.

 

 

After Disaster, we found the monument to the Jaws ride. This was one of the drawing points of the park for Susan. She loved that ride when she was younger.

 

 

Shortly after that we found the Knight Bus, and Kings Cross Station, but we couldn't find how to get to Diagon Alley. Maybe we were too muggle to see it? But we could see #12 Grimauld Place, so there was hope, and we had to be close!

 

We ended up wandering into Springfield, or as I like to call it: Where manners and politeness go to die. It was the long lines at the food court and how annoying the other guests were there that we decided to try our luck back in London for food.

 

We saw people leaving what we thought was an empty building. When we walked through it we were transported to Diagon Alley!

 

 

We wandered until we found the Leaky Cauldron. That was where we had lunch. I had bangers and mash and a butter beer. It was delish! Once we left there, we wandered the rest of Diagon and Knockturn Alley's. It was then that we decided to move on to see more of the park.

 

 

We both wanted to ride ET. So, we asked an employee how to get there. We had to go through Springfield again. Wonderful. We get to ET without killing anyone (but Susan's Teacher Voice came out a few times.) The line wasn't too long so we hopped in it. I do have one complaint about ET. When you are outside the fast lane is on the right. When you get into the forest the fast lane is on the left. They need to do something about that so it isn't merge chaos.

 

After ET, we decided to give the Simpson's Ride a try.

 

So, the line had a 45 minute wait. That was no big deal to us because we had about an hour and a half before the first bus would leave to head back to the Gem. And, this ride was on our way out of the park. When we get into the line, there's a woman in line right in front of us on her phone. No big deal right? Wrong.

 

Before long, she's joined by two more people who pushed their way through the people behind us, including us, to get to her. I thought this would be the last of it and the line started moving. When we got to where the line stopped, two more people joined them. Then the line moved again. When the line stopped MORE people had joined this group in front of us including a little girl who was way too short to be on this ride.

 

Somehow, through the shuffle, they lost some people, and where shouting down to more friends to just come up and join them.

 

When they got to the top, and the attendant asked them how many people they had, they said that they were waiting on more people. The attendant looked flustered by this, but then looked to us, and when Susan said it was just the two of us, we were lead inside, and right into a "funhouse" to get on the ride.

 

The ride was more than I thought it would be. We were told it was just a simulator, but when you get in the car, part of it closes around you so you can't see the edge of the screen. You are transported into Springfield for a wild ride.

 

We decided we were mostly parked out by now, but there was still one more thing we wanted. So, it was back to Diagon Alley for butter beer ice cream. It was good, but way to rich for me to finish.

 

On the way out of the park, we kind of got lost so ended up asking an employee. He seemed shocked that we were leaving before the parade, but when I said we were on a cruise ship, he gave us great directions to get out of the park quickly.

 

Once we were on the bus, I fell asleep.

 

When we got back to the ship, I took a shower, then we went to the GP for dinner.

 

We tried to go out and party, but everywhere we went was filled with sleepy music or annoying teenagers (like a girl that hopped on an elevator and pressed the button for every floor between deck 5 and 13), so we went to bed.

[Presbycruiser]

More, please? I love this review. :o

[fairygirl1]

Loving!! Your review!!! Im still 7 months out from our next Gem cruise and I just cant wait!!! Cant wait to read more! :)

[lovetrauma]

It was great seeing you both at the Pre Meet & Greet and at the Meet & Greet. I know My Wife, 2 DD and I had an excellent Cruise.

[moonieelf]

Sorry I've been wrapped up in irl stuff. I'll post more hopefully after I've slept a little!

[1jazzylady]

Really enjoying your review I will be on Gem August 29 with the same ports.

[Jacy613]

Great review, very entertaining and informative!! Can't wait to read more! We just booked the GEM for a March vacation, so this review is really helpful! Thanks!!

[moonieelf]

Sorry for the delay folks. Health issues and getting ready for the school year got in the way. I'll get things rolling again though.

[moonieelf]

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

GSC!!!

 

We woke up at 7, and went down for breakfast at the GP. I had waffles today, and they were tasty.

 

Once we finished our breakfast, they announced our group for tenders to the island, so we went down the hall (from our stateroom) to the gangway.

 

About halfway to the island, it started raining. We were going swimming, so we didn't mind it. We went to the counter for our shore excursion (Stingray City) ad waited there for the squall to pass. Once it did, it was time to play with the stingrays. I love this excursion, and it is something I would do again in a heart beat.

 

 

The rest of the day we spent on beach chairs or in the water.

 

When we got back to the Gem, we were both hungry so we went to O'Sheehans for food. I had the meatloaf and a drink called the BBC. After that, we both took a nap.

 

When we woke up, we went to dinner where we had lamb and wine.

 

After that, we went to the Spinnaker for their version of Dancing with the Stars. Susan put her name in the bucket to be selected. And she was.

 

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjlIRdNB8DI[/YOUTUBE]

 

Unforntually, she was out in the first round, but it was all in good fun.

 

Shortly after that, we went to bed.

Edited September 2, 2015 by moonieelf