NCL Gem - Panama Canal Cruise - Long Review + Dailies - LA -> NYC - Jan 27 2019

[pomegranate22]

 I was on the Norwegian Gem for its 19-night cruise from Los Angeles to New York City through the Panama Canal (27 January 2018 – 15 February 2018). This review is both quite late and WAY too long, but I thought I’d post it anyway. NCL is running a similar trip next year on the Gem, so maybe those thinking of booking next year might be interested.

 

 

A little background about me to give the review some context:

 

I’m in my late 20s and took the cruise with my partner and parents. I live a long way away from my parents, so it was a chance for us to see each other again and spend some quality time together. In 2017 we went on a seven-night cruise in the Mediterranean on the Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas, which was a great experience. I also went on two cruises as a child on P&O Australia, and my parents have done one or two more cruise than I have. So, it was our first time on NCL, and we immediately signed up for 19 nights...

 

We all enjoy the onboard cruise life, and really get into trivia, gameshows and pretty much any other silly competitions they have going onboard. The lack of mini golf course on this ship was a serious cause for pause when considering booking the cruise - I’m not joking. However, we are all big travellers, especially me, so the ports are also very important. I did a lot of research in advance to decide what to do in each port.

 

 

The Ship

 

 

The Norwegian Gem doesn’t have a ‘wow’ atrium or central area like so many other ships do, which was noticeable when first walking onto the ship. The two-storey Atrium area is quite humdrum. However, what the ship lacks in initial wow, it makes up in general good design and some excellent spaces throughout the ship (the Spinnaker lounge and the Great Outdoors buffet area in particular). I enjoyed the Art Nouveau/ old ocean liner design elements throughout the ship, particularly in the Grand Pacific dining room and Magnum’s Champagne & Wine Bar. It was a step above the usual campy, tacky cruise ship designs (which I also appreciate for what they are). The pool deck was very plasticky and colourful, with the silly palm tree shaped lights, but it had some charm to it.

 

 

 

I don’t really like the big painted gemstones on the bow of the ship. At every port we stopped at, I consistently thought our ship looked the tackiest of the bunch. However, it’s what’s on the inside that counts, and overall, I think the NCL Gem is an excellently designed ship.

 

 

 

The Food

 

 

First up - I have no photos of onboard food, sadly. We ate in the Grand Pacific dining room most nights, finding the atmosphere a lot nicer than the boring Magenta’s. The MDR food surprised me – after reading a lot about NCL, I thought it wouldn’t be enjoyable, but nearly all the meals we had were nice, and we found some of them very tasty. Overall, I think I preferred the Royal Caribbean MDR just a touch (I like the cold soups and escargot on RCCL), but I don’t have complaints about the MDR food we had on the Gem.

 

We had one specialty dinner, at Teppanyaki. It was nice food, and the chef put on a good show, but I was expecting more meat and shrimp. Maybe our stomachs had expanded after 18 days onboard… We aren’t really specialty dining people, and I was concerned NCL would make the MDR food particularly bad to push everyone into the specialty restaurants. I’m glad this wasn’t the case (such behaviour would really put me off a cruise line).

 

The Topsiders poolside buffet/grill was a nice touch, especially when they brought the big grills out on deck and cooked something up for lunch. One annoying note was that it was often hard to find a poolside table, as a lot of people sat at the tables to just have a drink or play cards. (It was also sometimes hard to find free pool loungers due to the fact so many people claimed a lounger all day with their towel, despite being absent for hours on end…)

 

 

 

It was remarkably easy to find a seat at the Great Outdoors when having a bite to eat at the buffet (it seems a lot of people preferred to eat indoors at the buffet, to my great surprise). I didn’t like the fact the breakfast buffet had pretty much the same food every day – there were a lot of options, but the same-sameness is noticeable on a 19-day cruise. Sadly, one of my favourite options, the breakfast noodles, seemed to be one of the only things that didn’t appear every day (it rotated with the rice). We sometimes wandered through the buffet for a sneaky pre-dinner snack, and we found that the dinner food did have variety to it. The Indian food was particularly nice.

 

 

The Great Outdoors

 

We had breakfast in the MDR on some sea days, and it was much nicer than the buffet version. Lunch in the MDR on sea days always has the same menu as well, but we only had it twice, so that didn’t matter.

 

We really enjoyed some of O’Sheehan’s offerings, particularly the buffalo wings. Orchid Garden, the free Asian restaurant, was also nice for a change. We found service in O’Sheehan’s and Orchid Garden to not be as good as in other spots on the ship – I’m not really sure why.

 

The Activities and Entertainment

 

As I said above, we love trivia, shuffleboard competitions and other silly cruise activities. I was concerned that there wouldn’t be enough to do onboard, but those worries were soon put aside. We had a pretty full schedule of activities that we wanted to do on most sea days.

 

One of the cruise staff, Aris, was truly excellent at his job. He put a lot of passion into his work and knew how to handle a crowd. There were issues with some of the other cruise staff, who didn’t always understand us due to language/cultural differences. If you’re going to run a shuffleboard tournament, you should know the rules. You should know that Roosevelt is a US president if you’re running a game show that asks people to name US Presidents. Some activities descended into true chaos, which didn’t reflect that well on NCL. However, the activities are all in good fun, and we mostly just laughed about the situation later.

 

 

I really liked the NCL system of ‘activity cards’, where all participants in an activity get a signature on a card instead of just giving out lame prizes after every activity to the winner. The winner gets two signatures. These signatures can be redeemed at the end for (also lame) prizes. I think this system got more people involved in activities. There were often insufficient seats in the atrium for all the people who wanted to play trivia, and we would sometimes have to sit up at O’Sheehan’s.

 

The shows at night were usually enjoyable as well. There was one superstar ‘comedian juggler’ and one not-so-great one, plenty of guest singers of different kinds, a pianist, and a hypnotist. One thing I really found strange was the low number of full production shows with the cast of singers and dancers. They only performed three times for the entire 19-night cruise, including the welcome aboard show! Surely, they perform more than once on a seven-night cruise?! Maybe they only know three shows.

 

East to West or West to East?

 

Well, seeing as I’ve only taken this trip from LA to NYC, I can’t definitively say if one direction is better than the others. I will say the following things:

 

• We lost four hours throughout the trip, and then gained one back on the last sea day (Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao are on Venezuela time, one hour before NYC). Given you only gain or lose one hour each time, it didn’t make much of an impact on me.
• The direction we took in the Panama Canal (technically east to west, given the geography of the Canal), meant that the sun was behind us the whole day. I wouldn’t have liked to be heading into the sun all day (would hurt the eyes somewhat), but it’s not a big deal.
• I liked having the three sea days at the end of the journey – it gave me time to relax and reflect on the trip, instead of still being filled with adrenaline about what was to come.
• Arriving into NYC was a lot more scenic than leaving LA (container ports have never been the most beautiful places)

 

Ultimately though, I don’t think either direction will make or break your cruise.

 

I have attached the Freestyle Dailies, Shore Excursion Lists and Fitness Schedule for anyone interested.

 

Tomorrow I will post the other part of my review, which is about all the ports. Brace yourselves, it is much longer than this one! I'm happy to answer any questions, so fire away.

 

 

 

Shore Excursion List - Norwegian Gem 27 January 2019 - Panama Canal.pdf Freestyle Dailies - Norwegian Gem 27 January 2019 - Panama Canal.pdf Fitness Schedule - Norwegian Gem 27 January 2019 - Panama Canal.pdf

Edited March 24, 2019 by pomegranate22

[TPgal]

Nicely done!

[Turtles06]

Great review; thanks for taking the time to do this!  The Gem is our favorite NCL ship, and we are booked on her next January for a 20-night sailing from NY to San Francisco.  It will be our second transit of the Canal; some of the ports will be repeats for us, so I’m looking forward to reading about your port experiences. 

 

Thanks again, and glad you had a good time. 

[ProfessorMA]

We are also booked on the NYC to SF trip...have not yet seen a roll call...thanks for your review.

[Turtles06]

6 minutes ago, ProfessorMA said:

We are also booked on the NYC to SF trip...have not yet seen a roll call . . . 

 January 4, 2020 sailing?  The Roll Call is at this link, come on over!

 

 

[Turtles06]

2 hours ago, pomegranate22 said:

We ate in the Grand Pacific dining room most nights, finding the atmosphere a lot nicer than the boring Magenta’s.

 

We love the larger MDRs on the Jewel-class ships, they are beautiful spaces.  Unfortunately, on our Canal transit two years ago aboard the Jewel, the lights in that MDR were turned up to operating room brightness during dinner, totally ruining the atmosphere.   When I asked the Restaurant Manager about this (he was walking by our table), he said it was because the average age of the passengers on our cruise was 64.5, and they got complaints that people could not read the menu with the normal dinner lighting!   We're in that age bracket -- but we sure don't want to eat dinner in a space so bright you could perform surgery.   I hope the Grand Pacific on the Gem next year isn't lit up like that.  🤣

[pomegranate22]

5 hours ago, Turtles06 said:

 

the lights in that MDR were turned up to operating room brightness during dinner, totally ruining the atmosphere. 

The lights in the Grand Pacific were generally not notably bright or dim (at least for my young eyes 😛). However, most evenings around 8pm, the lights in there suddenly got a bit brighter. We couldn't figure out why! Our waiters also had no idea. Maybe a contingent of people with bad eyesight came to eat at that time? I still wouldn't describe the brighter lights as operating room levels (and I too can be sensitive to what I call 'supermarket lights'), so hopefully you're in luck next year.

[mugtech]

Gem has always been our favorite, have done 5 cruises on her.  Eagerly awaiting to hear about piano and guitar players in the bars.

[pomegranate22]

1 hour ago, mugtech said:

Gem has always been our favorite, have done 5 cruises on her.  Eagerly awaiting to hear about piano and guitar players in the bars.

 

There was one piano player, Brad Stevens, and one guitar player, Leo Jostol. They would appear in the Atrium and Magnum's every night, and I really enjoyed listening to both of them.  Leo in particular seemed to have quite a following! Magnum's was sometimes quite packed in the evenings with people watching him.

 

There was also the Webb Band, performing in Spinnakers or out on the pool deck - I found the female singer talented, but I didn't go out of my way to head to their performances (I'm not much of a dancer and prefer mostly chatting).  There was also a group called Vibz Quartet playing instrumental music in some places, but I don't really remember what they sounded like. Leo Jostol made a bigger impression. 

[mugtech]

Leo has been a favorite on the Gem for a long time.  We saw him 5 times on our Gem cruises between 2011 and 2016.  Glad to hear he is back on the Gem, always fun to hear, has always drawn a crowd.

 

[pomegranate22]

Okay, time for the second part of my review - the ports.

 

For all this talk of cruise ship life, you’d think I was one of those ‘cruise people’ for whom the cruise ship was the vacation. However, I love travelling and the ports are the real focus for me. I liked the itinerary a lot for this cruise, and it was the stops in Nicaragua, Colombia and all three of the ABC islands (Aruba, Curaçao & Bonaire) that attracted me to the cruise. I also liked that it was stopping in Cabo and Puerto Vallarta, as these seem to be the two best ports on the Pacific coast in Mexico.

 

One area where I wasn’t so pleased with NCL was the number of hours spent ashore. I believe NCL sometimes left port earlier than other lines might in order to maximize onboard spending (shops, casinos, specialty restaurants, shore excursions for fear of missing the ship) and minimize port/fuel costs. This strategy is particularly apparent in the ABC islands, where the distances between the islands are incredibly short. A Holland America ship visiting the islands stayed at each one until 10pm, while we left at 6pm.

 

 

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

 

 

 

 

Cabo is a tender port. The first thing we did after arriving at the dock was walk a few metres to the left, to a pier filled with small boats. For $10 per person, we had a boat tour to Land’s End and the Arch. I can highly recommend this activity – we got the choice of whether we wanted to be dropped off at Lover’s Beach (near the end of Land’s End) or just go straight back to the pier. We chose to be dropped off at the beach, while the other four people on our boat stayed onboard. We said we’d like to be picked up after an hour, and sure enough, an hour later our boat was back at the beach to pick us up. It couldn’t have gone more smoothly!

 

 

Divorce Beach, near Land's End

 

 

After this, we went for a walk around the Marina and went to a well-reviewed restaurant on the beach, called the ‘Office on the Beach’. The food was nice, but very expensive for what it was. The drunken guests in the first row of tables were inexplicably buying trinkets from the beach vendors, which meant that soon every beach vendor in Cabo was hanging around in front of our restaurant. We then walked all the way back to the pier and got a tender back to the ship.

Ceviche at the Office on the Beach

 

 

 

I realised afterwards that we should’ve got our Land’s End boat skipper to drop us off at Medano Beach instead of back at the pier. He offered this, but I didn’t realise where Medano Beach was (it is the beach in front of the restaurant, and it has very clear water. It would’ve saved us quite some time.

 

 

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

 

Puerto Vallarta is usually a docked port, but we had to tender in there too, because we were the fourth ship in port that day. By looking at the daily arrivals online, it seems that four ships in one day is very unusual – we just had bad luck.

 

We walked outside of the port area and got a taxi to Hotel Rosita, at the start of the Malecon – a boardwalk along the ocean. We paid $10 for the taxi, and I’m sure we could’ve paid less if we’d walked a bit further from the port, but we weren’t really trying to get a bargain.

 

 

For the rest of the day, we just walked the Malecon and the Zona Romantica, stopping at a small, simple restaurant that is apparently called ‘Taco 1’ according to Google. We had a delicious meal there, so I’d definitely recommend it. Although still a big tourist destination, Puerto Vallarta was more ‘Mexican’ than Cabo, with older buildings, some local street life and the old cathedral.

 

 

To get back to port, we caught a local bus a few streets back from Hotel Rosita. The bus had destination ‘Walmart’, and the driver confirmed that it was going to the cruise port. Very easy! You do need pesos to pay for the bus.

 

 

Manzanillo, Mexico

This port wasn’t on the original itinerary. We were scheduled to go to Zihuantanejo/Ixtapa, and I was really looking forward to hiring bicycles and doing a bike ride there. However, the stop got changed to Manzanillo due to pier construction in Zihuantanejo. The time changed as well, given the different distances involved: we stopped from 6am to 2pm instead of 11am to 6pm, which was much less convenient.

 

 

My father is a very keen fisherman, and Manzanillo is a place known for fishing. So, my partner and father went on a 6-hour fishing charter with two other passengers (arranged thanks to the cruise critic roll call). It was $130 per person including tip. Unfortunately, they didn’t catch anything, and didn’t even have even one bite. This can happen with fishing, but it was still extremely disappointing.

 

My mother and I booked onto a ship tour, Manzanillo Coastal Highlights. We considered heading up the coast with taxi’s ourselves, but given the tour was only $50 each, and my mother had the $50 per stateroom discount on ship tours, it seemed like a good deal.

 

 

I got off the ship around 7am to have a walk around the town, which is right next to the port. It is much less touristy and much more rundown than Cabo and Puerto Vallarta, but I enjoyed the glimpse of a ‘normal’ Mexican town. The massive sailfish statue was a nice touch!

 

 

 

Our tour was scheduled for 8am, but then there was a time change to 9am (we think they put on a second bus, because we were originally on the waitlist. This was disappointing, because I wanted to go to the Iguana ‘Sanctuary’ afterwards, and it would no longer be possible.

 

 

 

The tour was mostly a bus ride up the coast, with nice views of the coast, hills and somewhat rundown hotels. As a tourist destination, Manzanillo seemed past its prime. We got out a few times at viewpoints and stopped at a restaurant on the beach for a complimentary beer and quesadilla. It was a pleasant and enjoyable morning.

 

 

Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala

 

This is the first time NCL’s short port time earnt some additional money from us: we took their Antigua On Your Own tour. Given the distances involved, the recent volcano eruption and the short time in port, it seemed a bit risky to arrange our own transport. Additionally, those taking their own transport need to take a shuttle bus out of the port area anyway.

 

 

The Antigua on your Own tour is what it says on the box: a bus that takes you into town. The guide gives you a lot of background on Antigua and Guatemala on the way in. There was some confusion on our bus, with the guide thinking we had to be back to the ship a full hour and a half earlier than we actually did, but it got sorted out before we arrived.

The View from Cerro de La Cruz

 

 

One thing I didn’t like about the ‘tour’ was that the drop-off point was a Jade Factory, and our guide tried to make us sit down and listen to a talk there. Additionally, once arriving at the Jade Factory, our guide was trying to tell us we had to wear their tour lanyards while walking around the city, which is quite ridiculous.

 

 

 

We visited a lot of the main spots in Antigua: Cerro de la Cruz (Hill of the Cross), which is a small hike up the hill to the north of town, the cathedral, the arch, the main square and several small ruin sites. We also walked over to the City Market, but it didn’t have food vendors (or, at least, we didn’t find them). Our time in Antigua was short, and I feel like I’d appreciate the city more if I had more time, but it was still a beautiful place to visit. I’d definitely recommend it if you’re visiting Puerto Quetzal.

 

 

 

 

Corinto, Nicaragua

Given the political unrest in Nicaragua in 2018, I was convinced we weren’t going to stop in Corinto. Ships last year did not stop there for a few months. However, luckily for us, the situation calmed down somewhat, and ships started visiting again in November.

 

 

We took another NCL shore excursion, the Cerro Negro Hike. This entailed a long drive to the volcano Cerro Negro, a hike to the top, and then a very fun run down through the volcanic ash to the bottom. We were in a group of only about 14 people; it was great to not be part of a massive busload. Our guide was excellent and very chatty. Well, very chatty about everything except the recent political protests in the country. He didn’t seem to want to talk about it, and as a result none of us asked any questions about the situation directly.

 

 

The Cerro Negro hike was a lot easier than I expected, and the views were wonderful. Highly recommended! One important note: the tour description mentioned a ‘spectacular descent’ down from the volcano. In recent years, ‘volcano boarding’ down the side of Cerro Negro has become popular with backpackers, and I was hoping that we would get the chance to do it too.

 

 

However, although our guide works as a volcano boarding guide as well, he said that the cruise companies do not allow it, and that we would just run/jump/slip/walk down. Once I actually got to the top of the volcano, I realized that it really was extremely steep and didn’t mind the fact that we couldn’t board down. It saved me standing at the top deciding whether I was brave enough! Running down was actually a lot of fun and I don’t regret not arranging a private excursion to board down.

 

 

 

 

After reaching the bottom of the volcano, we drove into the city of Leon and had a nice lunch at a restaurant (a buffet put out just for us – the rest of the customers ordered off menus). I had really wanted to visit the roof of the Leon Cathedral, and asked the guide about it during the hike. I said I’d be willing to go alone and visit instead of eating, but he was very hesitant, saying that he wasn’t allowed to take guests there as it wasn’t on the itinerary.

 

 

I didn’t want to cause any problems (even though I would’ve just looked like a backpacker visiting the town), I and didn’t want to cause the group to be late somehow (even though the cathedral was very close to the restaurant), so I just ate with the rest. The downsides of taking a ship-based tour, I suppose - and a reason to return to Niacaragua! I was impressed by what I saw of the country.

 

 

 

Puntarenas, Costa Rica

 

This was my first ever foray into the world of private cruise excursions. We took the ‘25 ziplines over 11 waterfalls’ tour with Adventure Park – Hotel Vista Golfo.

 

 

We were late getting off the ship, due in part to some issues at the port related to gangways. We managed to find the owner of Adventure Park in the mass of people at the end of the gangway, but the other four guests were not to be found. Turned out there was confusion about the arrival times. It worked out in the end, and we drove up into the hills towards the hotel.

 

 

The vegetation on the drive up was surprisingly dry, yellow and sparse – it wasn’t the green wet rainforest I had imagined. It was dry season, and Puntarenas apparently lies just north of the ‘wet’ rainforest region of Costa Rica. However, it improved the higher we got.

 

View from the Adventure Park Hotel Golfo

 

 

Upon arrival at the atmospheric, small-scale hotel, we had to pay the balance of our excursion, and I was unimpressed to learn that we had to pay an additional $15 each for transport from the port. I didn’t specifically ask if the transport was included in the price when booking, but I did arrange to be picked up, and you would think they would mention the additional cost while arranging the booking. The other four guests had prepaid entirely via third parties and didn’t have to pay extra (their price was higher though). However, $15 each is not the end of the world, so we paid and got on with it.

 

 

 

 

The ziplining itself was fantastic, and I would recommend the excursion. The men running the ziplines spoke English and knew what they were doing. The area we were in was relatively lush, and the waterfalls were flowing. The optional extra ‘Superman’ zipline (750 metres long, with your feet strapped up behind you) was a highlight.

 

 

Relaxing in Puntarenas before getting back onto the ship

 

 

Panama Canal

 

I didn’t know what to expect from the Panama Canal. It sounded like it’d be an interesting experience, but the photos I’d seen ahead of time weren’t particularly captivating. However, I woke up at 6am on the day of the transit full of excitement.

 

Panama City on the morning of the transit - wish we'd had a chance to visit

 

We spent the transit through the first locks (Miraflores) out on the bow of the ship, which opened at 7am. We knew that the bow was on deck 8 thanks to the Freestyle Daily, but there were no instructions about how you get onto the bow. We walked up the corridor of rooms on deck 8 a bit before 7am but didn’t see any indication that we were in the right place.

 

 

We then came back around 7am after finding no alternative entries, and it turned out the entrance to the bow was through a now-open ‘crew only’ door at the front of deck 8. By this point, of course, quite a lot of people had made their way out there. We got relatively good spots and really enjoyed the spectacle, including a Panama Canal worker creating a reciprocal cheer between us on the ship and the crowds in the observation building on land.

 

 

Just the kind of uninspiring industrial photo that left me unsure about the transit. It's actually great, I promise.

 

 

For the transit of the second locks (Pedro Miguel), which happened just after the first set of locks, we first went up to the ‘Observation Deck’ on deck 14. Theoretically, this would be an excellent place to see the transit (it is one of the places the ship recommended in the Freestyle Daily). Unfortunately, it has glass panels over 2 metres high across the whole front, and there had been no attempt to clean them before the transit. They were very dirty and stained with salt. Luckily, there weren’t many people around (most people seemed to tire of being outside after the first transit), so I could stand up on a deck chair that was next to the glass and take a photo over it, without blocking anyone’s view.

 

 

 

 

We then went to deck 7 once we entered the locks, and we enjoyed how we could almost touch Panama with our feet. The height transition is more dramatic when watching from deck 7.

 

Before


After

 

 

In between the second and third set of locks, there are about 4 or 5 hours. The jungle scenery along the way was surprisingly beautiful, with the manmade Gatun Lake being home to many palm tree-bedecked islands.

 

 

 

For the transit through the third and final (and longest) set of locks, the dirty windows on deck 14 became more of a problem. Everyone had regained their enthusiasm for being outside, and there was a row of deck chairs set out along the front of the observation deck. This meant that only those few people sitting on the deck chairs could get within three metres of the view through the dirty glass. The man in front of me would periodically move a table he had in front of his deck chair, stand up on the table, take a photo over the glass, then move the table back immediately. I would’ve loved the chance to stand up on it and take a shot for a few seconds, but he wasn’t offering, and no one was asking. I should’ve been more assertive!

 

 

My best photo taken through the dirty glass from a distance...

 

From above the glass

 

 

Once we got into the middle of the locks, most people dispersed, and it was then more pleasant. The Carnival Fascination followed us out of the Canal, and I continued my trend of thinking that all other ships look better than the Gem. THEIR observation deck glass was only chest height!

 

 

 

Cartagena, Colombia

 

 

Arriving in Cartagena

 

 

When people ask which place I most enjoyed on the cruise, I tend to say Colombia. Cartagena was a beautiful city to wander around. We exited the (surprisingly nice) port terminal and found a taxi to take us to La Popa monastery, which is outside of the centre and on top of a large hill.

 

 

 

Tip: the white tourist taxis just outside the port are much nicer cars with English-speaking drivers, but they cost a lot more than the yellow, small taxis you’ll find if you keep walking out of the port area. We intended to walk out of the port, as I assumed the taxis inside the protected port area were going to be big rip-offs. However, we walked a bit, turned a corner and found nothing but another white taxi. Given we weren’t sure if there WERE other taxis, we lost our nerve and with the white taxi. Sure enough, thirty seconds down the road, we passed the gates of the port and saw all the normal taxis. The price we paid at the end of the day to get back to the port confirmed the price difference.

 

View from La Popa

 

 

 

La Popa Monastery was a worthwhile visit, and the taxi drivers are happy to wait for you at the top. We then drove to the fortress (Castillo de San Felipe) and said goodbye to our taxi. After visiting the fortress, we walked across the bridge to the Getsemaní neighbourhood, which is clearly an area being coated in a fresh lick of paint. It was beautiful and colourful, just like the old town, but with a touch of local life still remaining. We ate a delicious lunch at Caffe Lunatico, which is ideally located if you’re heading from the fort to the old city on foot.

 

Getsemani
 

In the Old Town

 

 

From there, we walked into the old city and marveled at the beautiful squares and coloured buildings for a few hours, until it was time to take a taxi back to the port.

 

 

Santa Marta, Colombia

Figuring out what to do in Santa Marta took up more of my research time than most other cities. It’s a smaller city than Cartagena, and it doesn’t have as many obvious attractions. Tayrona National Park seemed much too far for a day trip (and it was closed during February anyway), the Lost City ruins mentioned on NCL’s website are a four DAY hike away (thanks for mentioning that, NCL), and I read that Taganga, a nearby small beach community popular with backpackers, had seen better days.

 

What did we do? We got a taxi to Rodadero Beach, a local beach area about 4 miles from the centre of Santa Marta. From there, I knew that you could get a boat to Playa Blanca, a popular beach only accessible by water. I didn’t have any more information than that, so we just walked in the direction of some boats. It was mildly chaotic at the boat area, especially considering we don’t speak any Spanish, but thanks to writing some numbers in the sand as negotiation, and one English speaking worker that the other workers went and found, we got tickets for a boat to take us to the beach. The beach itself was quite nice – busy with locals, but with nice clear water and some small restaurants along the beach.

 

 

The real highlight was hiking up into the hills surrounding the beach. It was awesome walking between the huge cacti, and the views back to Santa Marta and of the various beaches were beautiful. Getting our boat back to Rodadero was uneventful, and we didn’t have to pay any extra. A taxi back to Santa Marta was similarly easy. We then walked around the town a bit, stopped for a drink at a café with WIFI, and headed back to the ship.

 

 

 

 

I was very impressed that throughout the whole day, not one person tried to rip off or exploit us bumbling Westerners. The restaurant where we had some drinks on the Playa Blanca didn’t know the exchange rate for Colombian pesos to US dollars – he got a young worker to look it up on his phone, and then only wanted to charge us the real market rate (we of course paid significantly more to cover for his inconvenience).

 

 

Aruba

Aruba was our second foray into private excursion territory; we went on a half day ‘UTV’ (ultra-terrain vehicle) tour with ABC Tours. I’ve noticed a big downside to private excursions – fumbling around trying to figure out where we are supposed to meet our company. We got off the ship promptly, and there was no one for us in the terminal. We exited the terminal, and there was no one there either. The other guides assured us that we’d be met by ABC Tours outside the terminal, but no one came. Some of us went back inside the terminal, and sure enough, the representative was now inside the terminal.

 

 

 

The UTV tour was fun, but I’m not sure if I’d recommend it. There was no safety explanation at the start of the tour, and I didn’t like that the seatbelts weren’t adjustable and weren’t tight. The itinerary turned out a lot different than the one I booked. This led me to worry that we were on the wrong tour and weren’t going to go to the Natural Pool after all (my reason for booking). We got clarification from the guide that the company had recently changed their routes, but I found it strange that they never mentioned this to us upfront.

 

The Natural Pool was very nice, but all the stops except the Natural Pool were just OK. Driving the UTVs was a LOT dustier than I expected. We wore sunglasses, and while proper goggles would’ve helped against the stinging pain, they wouldn’t help with actually seeing. We should’ve purchased goggles for $15 each, but I do think they should’ve been included once I saw how dusty it was.

 

The Natural Pool. You can snorkel in there - here are quite a few fish.

 

 

The guides kept telling us we had to stay very close to the UTV in front of us, which felt scary at times. My mother got a flat tyre while driving on one particularly rough, downhill stretch of rocks (I won’t call it a path), and the company representative tried to make us pay for the tyre at the end of the tour. We refused, and they made us write down our description of events. They said they’d do an ‘investigation’ and email us, but nothing ever came of it. Given the price of the tour and the roughness of the rocks, I imagine this must happen regularly. I guess some people just pay, but it’s a guided tour, not an actual rental car situation.

 

 

Eagle Beach

 

 

After the tour ended, we got dropped off on Eagle Beach and enjoyed the beautiful white sand and blue water for an hour or so, before heading back to the port.

 

Curaçao

 

 

 

Curaçao was one of the ports I was most looking forward to. The colourful Dutch buildings had captured my imagination. We didn’t arrange any activities at this port, thinking (correctly) that my parents might need some rest after so many big days. I thought we could fill a whole day in Willemstad, but it was smaller than I expected.

 

 

 

I enjoyed wandering around town and eating some bitterballen (a Dutch snack) in tropical surroundings, but I do wish I had also visited some of the beautiful beaches in the north of the island for a few hours. Distances are relatively large on Curaçao, which makes just popping up north quickly in a taxi unfeasible. I would enjoy coming back to the island for more than a daytrip and renting a car though; it was a nice place.

 

 

 

 

Bonaire

 

Our last stop was Bonaire. This island was significantly more Dutch than Aruba and Curaçao, which was nice as a Dutch speaker (I was surprised how many people couldn’t speak Dutch on Aruba and Curaçao).

 

Our first activity was the Double Dip Snorkel at 7:30am, arranged through NCL. This excursion was very well organised – we got off the ship and had to walk about 30 metres over to our snorkel boat, the Sea Cow, which was pulled right up to the dock!

 

The snorkelling itself was nice, with a large variety of fish. It wasn’t the best I’ve ever done, but it was very enjoyable. The workers on the Sea Cow told us that the cruise companies insist that we wear life jackets in the water, and I was prepared for an argument – I love diving down to get a closer look when snorkelling, and wearing a life jacket makes that impossible. Besides, the water was quite calm, and it just felt ridiculous. However, luckily, the workers said that we could choose not to wear one if we really didn’t want to, at our own risk of course. The whole operation was very professional.

 

 

After the snorkelling finished at 10:30am, my partner and I rented a scooter from Scooters Bonaire.  We really wanted to visit the Donkey Sanctuary in the centre of the island, and we didn’t think a taxi driver would want to hang around for ages while we visited. The scooter and the Donkey Sanctuary were a lot of fun! A car would’ve maybe been better, because then you can feed the donkeys carrots (the owner wouldn’t give carrots to people on scooters for safety reasons), but we had a great time.

 

 

After the donkey sanctuary, we debated whether we had enough time to ride around the south side of the island but decided against it. Breaking down far from the port on our last port day didn’t sound like an appealing prospect. We rode around some more central roads on the island before returning the scooter and heading back to the port.

 

 

 

Three Sea Days Back

 

We were very lucky with the weather on the trip back to NYC, with two full days being warm enough to lay on deck and swim. So, out of 19 days onboard in January and February, we only had one day where we needed a jacket. No wonder there were so many Canadians onboard.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 25, 2019 by pomegranate22
spacing

[BalconyGal]

7 hours ago, pomegranate22 said:

 

There was one piano player, Brad Stevens, and one guitar player, Leo Jostol. They would appear in the Atrium and Magnum's every night, and I really enjoyed listening to both of them.  Leo in particular seemed to have quite a following! Magnum's was sometimes quite packed in the evenings with people watching him.

 

There was also the Webb Band, performing in Spinnakers or out on the pool deck - I found the female singer talented, but I didn't go out of my way to head to their performances (I'm not much of a dancer and prefer mostly chatting).  There was also a group called Vibz Quartet playing instrumental music in some places, but I don't really remember what they sounded like. Leo Jostol made a bigger impression. 

We love Leo.  The Gem is our fave and we have sailed with Leo many times.  Thanks for your review.  🙂

[BalconyGal]

5 hours ago, mugtech said:

Leo has been a favorite on the Gem for a long time.  We saw him 5 times on our Gem cruises between 2011 and 2016.  Glad to hear he is back on the Gem, always fun to hear, has always drawn a crowd.

 

Same.  Although I am sailing the Jade next month so kinda disappointed we will miss Leo this time.  LOL 

[Turtles06]

Thanks for the very detailed and enjoyable review of your ports, and for your beautiful photos.  I know it's time-consuming to do this, so I really appreciate it.

 

5 hours ago, pomegranate22 said:

After reaching the bottom of the volcano, we drove into the city of Leon and had a nice lunch at a restaurant (a buffet put out just for us – the rest of the customers ordered off menus). I had really wanted to visit the roof of the Leon Cathedral, and asked the guide about it during the hike. I said I’d be willing to go alone and visit instead of eating, but he was very hesitant, saying that he wasn’t allowed to take guests there as it wasn’t on the itinerary.   I didn’t want to cause any problems (even though I would’ve just looked like a backpacker visiting the town), I and didn’t want to cause the group to be late somehow (even though the cathedral was very close to the restaurant), so I just ate with the rest.

 

When we were in Corinto two years ago aboard the NCL Jewel, I took an NCL tour to visit the Cathedral of León.  It was quite interesting to see a pure white Cathedral, and the fascinating roof was very Gaudi-esque. (You must take off your shoes to walk on the roof.)  In case you or anyone else reading is interested in knowing more about this, my discussion of that tour (with photos) starts at post number 42 in my review of our Canal cruise, here:

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2370716-my-review-of-the-jewels-16-night-wb-panama-canal-cruise-jan-20-feb-5-2017/

 

Again, thanks for your excellent review!

 

[pomegranate22]

10 hours ago, Turtles06 said:

Thanks for the very detailed and enjoyable review of your ports, and for your beautiful photos.  I know it's time-consuming to do this, so I really appreciate it.

 

When we were in Corinto two years ago aboard the NCL Jewel, I took an NCL tour to visit the Cathedral of León.  It was quite interesting to see a pure white Cathedral, and the fascinating roof was very Gaudi-esque. (You must take off your shoes to walk on the roof.)  In case you or anyone else reading is interested in knowing more about this, my discussion of that tour (with photos) starts at post number 42 in my review of our Canal cruise, here:

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2370716-my-review-of-the-jewels-16-night-wb-panama-canal-cruise-jan-20-feb-5-2017/

 

Again, thanks for your excellent review!

 

Thanks Turtles06! I remember reading your review while I was doing research for my trip - I loved your photos and detailed descriptions. Shame that your tour to Leon wasn't so great. I didn't actually talk to anyone on board who went into Leon with a ship's tour; most people I discussed it with did the 'Nicaraguan Traditions' cultural tour in the local area, which sounded so-so (cultural demonstrations etc. aren't really my thing anyway).

 

 I think I read almost every review/post on this site about NCL's Panama Canal cruises and about particular ports (no matter the cruiseline), so I wanted to give something back by posting my own. 

[Turtles06]

29 minutes ago, pomegranate22 said:

Thanks Turtles06! I remember reading your review while I was doing research for my trip - I loved your photos and detailed descriptions. Shame that your tour to Leon wasn't so great. I didn't actually talk to anyone on board who went into Leon with a ship's tour; most people I discussed it with did the 'Nicaraguan Traditions' cultural tour in the local area, which sounded so-so (cultural demonstrations etc. aren't really my thing anyway).

 

 I think I read almost every review/post on this site about NCL's Panama Canal cruises and about particular ports (no matter the cruiseline), so I wanted to give something back by posting my own. 

 

Thanks for your kind words.  And giving back by sharing info, etc., is how I feel about CC as well.  And you've certainly succeeded!  

 

We are still wrestling with "what do we do on our second visit to Corinto" -- your volcano hike sounds interesting but unfortunately a few of our knees would no longer agree.  🤣     (We're going to have a similar issue in Puerto Quetzal, having already visited Antigua, the one "must do" there imho.  Lots of research to do!)

 

Thanks again for your review!

[Tatka]

Thank you for well written review. As we are sailing on her for the third time this Friday (14 dayer to South Caribbeans from Boston), I really enjoyed reading it.

 

Seems like we have something in common. We do prefer RCCL a little bit more, but just so you know.. we cruised with them 6 times last 2 years and cold soups are gone. Only once they are served. Escargots which I LOVE are served during the first 3-4 (sometime longer) nights, but not every night.

 

Love Great Outdoors of Jewel class, miss more "sparkling" atrium of previous class. Wish NCL would add some covered pools like Royal. Love shuffleboard (our main activity ... even more preferable than minigolf lately 🙂 ). I am so happy to sail on ships which still have it and at Promenade deck under the roof.

 

Thank you once again!

[cmh]

On 3/24/2019 at 3:13 PM, pomegranate22 said:

 I was on the Norwegian Gem for its 19-night cruise from Los Angeles to New York City through the Panama Canal (27 January 2018 – 15 February 2018). This review is both quite late and WAY too long, but I thought I’d post it anyway. NCL is running a similar trip next year on the Gem, so maybe those thinking of booking next year might be interested.

 

 

A little background about me to give the review some context:

 

I’m in my late 20s and took the cruise with my partner and parents. I live a long way away from my parents, so it was a chance for us to see each other again and spend some quality time together. In 2017 we went on a seven-night cruise in the Mediterranean on the Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas, which was a great experience. I also went on two cruises as a child on P&O Australia, and my parents have done one or two more cruise than I have. So, it was our first time on NCL, and we immediately signed up for 19 nights...

 

We all enjoy the onboard cruise life, and really get into trivia, gameshows and pretty much any other silly competitions they have going onboard. The lack of mini golf course on this ship was a serious cause for pause when considering booking the cruise - I’m not joking. However, we are all big travellers, especially me, so the ports are also very important. I did a lot of research in advance to decide what to do in each port.

 

 

The Ship

 

 

The Norwegian Gem doesn’t have a ‘wow’ atrium or central area like so many other ships do, which was noticeable when first walking onto the ship. The two-storey Atrium area is quite humdrum. However, what the ship lacks in initial wow, it makes up in general good design and some excellent spaces throughout the ship (the Spinnaker lounge and the Great Outdoors buffet area in particular). I enjoyed the Art Nouveau/ old ocean liner design elements throughout the ship, particularly in the Grand Pacific dining room and Magnum’s Champagne & Wine Bar. It was a step above the usual campy, tacky cruise ship designs (which I also appreciate for what they are). The pool deck was very plasticky and colourful, with the silly palm tree shaped lights, but it had some charm to it.

 

 

 

I don’t really like the big painted gemstones on the bow of the ship. At every port we stopped at, I consistently thought our ship looked the tackiest of the bunch. However, it’s what’s on the inside that counts, and overall, I think the NCL Gem is an excellently designed ship.

 

 

 

The Food

 

 

First up - I have no photos of onboard food, sadly. We ate in the Grand Pacific dining room most nights, finding the atmosphere a lot nicer than the boring Magenta’s. The MDR food surprised me – after reading a lot about NCL, I thought it wouldn’t be enjoyable, but nearly all the meals we had were nice, and we found some of them very tasty. Overall, I think I preferred the Royal Caribbean MDR just a touch (I like the cold soups and escargot on RCCL), but I don’t have complaints about the MDR food we had on the Gem.

 

We had one specialty dinner, at Teppanyaki. It was nice food, and the chef put on a good show, but I was expecting more meat and shrimp. Maybe our stomachs had expanded after 18 days onboard… We aren’t really specialty dining people, and I was concerned NCL would make the MDR food particularly bad to push everyone into the specialty restaurants. I’m glad this wasn’t the case (such behaviour would really put me off a cruise line).

 

The Topsiders poolside buffet/grill was a nice touch, especially when they brought the big grills out on deck and cooked something up for lunch. One annoying note was that it was often hard to find a poolside table, as a lot of people sat at the tables to just have a drink or play cards. (It was also sometimes hard to find free pool loungers due to the fact so many people claimed a lounger all day with their towel, despite being absent for hours on end…)

 

 

 

It was remarkably easy to find a seat at the Great Outdoors when having a bite to eat at the buffet (it seems a lot of people preferred to eat indoors at the buffet, to my great surprise). I didn’t like the fact the breakfast buffet had pretty much the same food every day – there were a lot of options, but the same-sameness is noticeable on a 19-day cruise. Sadly, one of my favourite options, the breakfast noodles, seemed to be one of the only things that didn’t appear every day (it rotated with the rice). We sometimes wandered through the buffet for a sneaky pre-dinner snack, and we found that the dinner food did have variety to it. The Indian food was particularly nice.

 

 

The Great Outdoors

 

We had breakfast in the MDR on some sea days, and it was much nicer than the buffet version. Lunch in the MDR on sea days always has the same menu as well, but we only had it twice, so that didn’t matter.

 

We really enjoyed some of O’Sheehan’s offerings, particularly the buffalo wings. Orchid Garden, the free Asian restaurant, was also nice for a change. We found service in O’Sheehan’s and Orchid Garden to not be as good as in other spots on the ship – I’m not really sure why.

 

The Activities and Entertainment

 

As I said above, we love trivia, shuffleboard competitions and other silly cruise activities. I was concerned that there wouldn’t be enough to do onboard, but those worries were soon put aside. We had a pretty full schedule of activities that we wanted to do on most sea days.

 

One of the cruise staff, Aris, was truly excellent at his job. He put a lot of passion into his work and knew how to handle a crowd. There were issues with some of the other cruise staff, who didn’t always understand us due to language/cultural differences. If you’re going to run a shuffleboard tournament, you should know the rules. You should know that Roosevelt is a US president if you’re running a game show that asks people to name US Presidents. Some activities descended into true chaos, which didn’t reflect that well on NCL. However, the activities are all in good fun, and we mostly just laughed about the situation later.

 

 

I really liked the NCL system of ‘activity cards’, where all participants in an activity get a signature on a card instead of just giving out lame prizes after every activity to the winner. The winner gets two signatures. These signatures can be redeemed at the end for (also lame) prizes. I think this system got more people involved in activities. There were often insufficient seats in the atrium for all the people who wanted to play trivia, and we would sometimes have to sit up at O’Sheehan’s.

 

The shows at night were usually enjoyable as well. There was one superstar ‘comedian juggler’ and one not-so-great one, plenty of guest singers of different kinds, a pianist, and a hypnotist. One thing I really found strange was the low number of full production shows with the cast of singers and dancers. They only performed three times for the entire 19-night cruise, including the welcome aboard show! Surely, they perform more than once on a seven-night cruise?! Maybe they only know three shows.

 

East to West or West to East?

 

Well, seeing as I’ve only taken this trip from LA to NYC, I can’t definitively say if one direction is better than the others. I will say the following things:

 

• We lost four hours throughout the trip, and then gained one back on the last sea day (Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao are on Venezuela time, one hour before NYC). Given you only gain or lose one hour each time, it didn’t make much of an impact on me.
• The direction we took in the Panama Canal (technically east to west, given the geography of the Canal), meant that the sun was behind us the whole day. I wouldn’t have liked to be heading into the sun all day (would hurt the eyes somewhat), but it’s not a big deal.
• I liked having the three sea days at the end of the journey – it gave me time to relax and reflect on the trip, instead of still being filled with adrenaline about what was to come.
• Arriving into NYC was a lot more scenic than leaving LA (container ports have never been the most beautiful places)

 

Ultimately though, I don’t think either direction will make or break your cruise.

 

I have attached the Freestyle Dailies, Shore Excursion Lists and Fitness Schedule for anyone interested.

 

Tomorrow I will post the other part of my review, which is about all the ports. Brace yourselves, it is much longer than this one! I'm happy to answer any questions, so fire away.

 

 

 

Shore Excursion List - Norwegian Gem 27 January 2019 - Panama Canal.pdf 9.62 MB · 9 downloads Freestyle Dailies - Norwegian Gem 27 January 2019 - Panama Canal.pdf 14.13 MB · 33 downloads Fitness Schedule - Norwegian Gem 27 January 2019 - Panama Canal.pdf 146.44 kB · 9 downloads

Thanks for posting so much information.  We are taking this cruise next year on the Gem but leaving from SF to NY.