Gem 1/11/2023, NYC to Bermuda

[Mlake09]

We boarded this morning before 11am, with no wait time for drinks and only a short wait for lunch at O’Sheehans. This is a quick 5 day cruise from NYC to Bermuda, with a planned overnight stay in Bermuda that has since been cancelled due to bad weather. We’re now just doing a day visit, which should still be nice (looks like sunny and upper 60’s!). We are making the best of it and are still happy to be on a vacation!

 

Here is the itinerary change notice, with $100 cabin OBC as a result.if I have decent WiFi I will share any other updates over the next few days. Also, I saw in another thread that there was supposed to be about 1900 pax on this sailing, but I will try to confirm at latitude gathering. So far everything is great, and the renovations of deck 6 look great!

[debenson0723]

Enjoy your cruise!

[mking8288]

Disappointed as I'm sure, at least they are issuing non-refundable OBC for the short cruise.  

 

Brace for choppy seas, waves & strong (near gale force) wind, and a choppy ride, especially on the way back in, that's in the maritime forecast.  

 

Make the best out of it.  Cheers !! 

[Mlake09]

18 minutes ago, mking8288 said:

Disappointed as I'm sure, at least they are issuing non-refundable OBC for the short cruise.  

 

Brace for choppy seas, waves & strong (near gale force) wind, and a choppy ride, especially on the way back in, that's in the maritime forecast.  

 

Make the best out of it.  Cheers !! 

Thank you! We will! And good to know about the forecast- I’ll tell my partner to put the dot behind her ear tonight. We sailed in November on Pearl, on Veteran’s Day weekend, also to Bermuda, and were on the edge of a hurricane for the first sea Day. That was really something!

[FLAHAM]

Buy a bottle of cognac on board with the OBC.

[PistolPete13]

Enjoy the cruise!  I watched the Gem leave the dock and said down the Hudson right at 4PM today.and wished I was onboard!

I was on a small boat boat excursion in Bermuda last October and had an interesting chat with the captain.  There is basically only one safe way to navigate a large ship into the dockyard due to all the shallow reefs that surround the island.  It's a meandering single lane that only a handful of local harbor pilots are certified for.

If there is a strong wind or heavy currents, the last thing you want to do is to take a big metal brick down this shallow channel where precise course corrections are needed for close to an hour before the dockyard is even in sight.

Edited January 12, 2023 by PistolPete13

[Birdnutty]

Please keep posting about your experiences on board. I, among many others, will be on board in a  few weeks and am interested in how things are going. 
Have they initiated the once a day turn down service on the Gem yet?  
As an aside, I’m sure it was very disappointing to have most of your Bermuda stay truncated. It sucks, but I guess from a safety point of view, it’s better to be out at sea.  Hopefully, seasickness aside, it’s still better than a day at home or work. 

[Mlake09]

We had a great first day yesterday! We were able to board very early (around 10:20am) and we were in the first group allowed on board.  The early boarding may have been in part to the prior cruise doing customs in Florida instead of NYC (I saw that in another post).  The staff have all been very friendly and even though we’ve never ordered the boxes of water before (we typically just bring a reusable to each meal), the new FAS six liters per person has been a score! I think we’ve gone through two already!  For those of you that are platinum plus, last night in turn down our room steward also left us two half liter boxes, for the latitudes level perks. We are platinum currently but should hit the next level after our February cruise!

 

We had lunch in O’Sheehan’s when we boarded (burger was good, fries were good but cold, and wings were good but I do prefer the “old” wings and not the newer ones- I know there are other threads about this).  Even though the bar wasn’t supposed to open until 11, the bartender still was able to make some drinks (nothing with real fruit), which was great! After lunch we went for a walk, then a quick nap (we take the train in from western mass and got up at 4am), and then we went out for another walk during sail away. I really enjoy leaving out of NYC because there is so much to look at! We had dinner at Moderno and that was very good. The staff are all very friendly so far.

 

I can’t speak to the entertainment because we typically don’t do many of those activities while on board, but I’ll try to keep an ear out for what others are saying. There are more kids and teens than I would have expected for a random January sailing, but I’m guessing that it’s due to the three day weekend for MLK day. It’s cold and pools were empty yesterday. We’re headed out for a walk and then to breakfast now, but if the internet keeps up, I’ll try to post again!

[Mlake09]

35 minutes ago, Birdnutty said:

Please keep posting about your experiences on board. I, among many others, will be on board in a  few weeks and am interested in how things are going. 
Have they initiated the once a day turn down service on the Gem yet?  
As an aside, I’m sure it was very disappointing to have most of your Bermuda stay truncated. It sucks, but I guess from a safety point of view, it’s better to be out at sea.  Hopefully, seasickness aside, it’s still better than a day at home or work. 

It’s still twice a day on Gem- I think the rollout of that policy is starting now on some ships  but will take until March to be fleet-wide.

[Mlake09]

36 minutes ago, Birdnutty said:

Please keep posting about your experiences on board. I, among many others, will be on board in a  few weeks and am interested in how things are going. 
Have they initiated the once a day turn down service on the Gem yet?  
As an aside, I’m sure it was very disappointing to have most of your Bermuda stay truncated. It sucks, but I guess from a safety point of view, it’s better to be out at sea.  Hopefully, seasickness aside, it’s still better than a day at home or work. 

Also, yes a bit disappointing about missing the second day in Bermuda. We have been a number of times but did have something new planned for this trip, however, I had to cancel our rental car yesterday when we found out, because we won’t have enough time.  I’m still looking forward to the few days away from real life! Hoping the weather stays nice for tomorrow and that we will have warm weather for the sea days back! 

[EllieinNJ]

How disappointing.  I am on the 5 day Getaway cruise to Bermuda on Feb. 1st.  I planned on taking the ferry to the bus to Crystal Caves and back the first day but if they cancel the second day this probably won't be possible if they leave at 3:45pm.  I picked this cruise because we were just down to the other islands in November and wanted a short respite from the winter.  

[vacation44]

33 minutes ago, Mlake09 said:

We had a great first day yesterday! We were able to board very early (around 10:20am) and we were in the first group allowed on board.  The early boarding may have been in part to the prior cruise doing customs in Florida instead of NYC (I saw that in another post).  The staff have all been very friendly and even though we’ve never ordered the boxes of water before (we typically just bring a reusable to each meal), the new FAS six liters per person has been a score! I think we’ve gone through two already!  For those of you that are platinum plus, last night in turn down our room steward also left us two half liter boxes, for the latitudes level perks. We are platinum currently but should hit the next level after our February cruise!

 

We had lunch in O’Sheehan’s when we boarded (burger was good, fries were good but cold, and wings were good but I do prefer the “old” wings and not the newer ones- I know there are other threads about this).  Even though the bar wasn’t supposed to open until 11, the bartender still was able to make some drinks (nothing with real fruit), which was great! After lunch we went for a walk, then a quick nap (we take the train in from western mass and got up at 4am), and then we went out for another walk during sail away. I really enjoy leaving out of NYC because there is so much to look at! We had dinner at Moderno and that was very good. The staff are all very friendly so far.

 

I can’t speak to the entertainment because we typically don’t do many of those activities while on board, but I’ll try to keep an ear out for what others are saying. There are more kids and teens than I would have expected for a random January sailing, but I’m guessing that it’s due to the three day weekend for MLK day. It’s cold and pools were empty yesterday. We’re headed out for a walk and then to breakfast now, but if the internet keeps up, I’ll try to post again!

Thank you for checking in as I am enjoying reading your post.

[Mlake09]

Day 2

Smooth seas for today! We had a quick breakfast in the buffet (sat in Cucina due to crowds), went for a long walk, and then went to the latitudes party.  There were a number of higher ranking staff members present. This afternoon we sat up on the sun deck for an hour or two to relax, then moved to Great Outdoors for a snack and an ice cream cone for me. The pools were open today and there were many people out on the deck, as well as in the hot tubs.  The weather was lovely- about 65 and sunny- and we really enjoyed being outside! We love to walk and spent a good chunk of time looping deck 7 as well as up top. No luck with ducks yet!  

 

For dinner tonight we ate at La Cucina. The food and service were wonderful. There were a few menu changes that we noticed (burrata replaced with mozzarella, seafood fra Diablo replaced with shrimp, berries removed from panacotta etc) but the overall food quality was great. Last night we ate at Moderno and that was also really good! We have the platinum vouchers and they have updated them so that you can eat at any specialty restaurant, but you can’t use the vouchers in the same restaurant.

 

Finally, the Gem is back to doing the latitudes wines around the world tasting, so we’ve signed up for that. The time change has caught up to me so we’re off to bed! Bermuda tomorrow! 

[AwesomO]

12 hours ago, vacation44 said:

Thank you for checking in as I am enjoying reading your post.

thanks for the review so far! I've heard conflicting reports; is the pool heated? We're sailing the Gem next month, with a stop in Bermuda among others. Just wondering if it will be warm enough to enjoy the pool, or if we have to wait until we're closer to the Caribbean. 

[phillynick]

13 hours ago, EllieinNJ said:

How disappointing.  I am on the 5 day Getaway cruise to Bermuda on Feb. 1st.  I planned on taking the ferry to the bus to Crystal Caves and back the first day but if they cancel the second day this probably won't be possible if they leave at 3:45pm.  I picked this cruise because we were just down to the other islands in November and wanted a short respite from the winter.  

Does the ferry run this time of year?

[luv2kroooz]

Gem is a great ship and nicely sized. Next sailings currently look to be undersold, which makes for a nicer onboard experience.

[pookel]

1 hour ago, AwesomO said:

thanks for the review so far! I've heard conflicting reports; is the pool heated? We're sailing the Gem next month, with a stop in Bermuda among others. Just wondering if it will be warm enough to enjoy the pool, or if we have to wait until we're closer to the Caribbean. 

 

I asked this on Facebook, someone on board asked the pool attendant, and the answer was YES the pool is heated. I'm guessing people don't think it's heated because it's not kept "warm" but just at a reasonable swimming temperature. 

[mking8288]

36 minutes ago, phillynick said:

Does the ferry run this time of year?

Bermuda's public fast ferry runs year-round, it is on their WINTER schedule and services are limited, and especially on weekends & island holidays, always check ahead. 

 

NCL's fast ferry to St. George's ("Spirit of ") that docked across from NCL ship whenever it's there, run on its own special schedule that align with ship's sailing time.  The last ferry for the day usually returns at 5 pm (or 1 pm if the ship sail at 3 p.m. with all abroad by 2:30 p.m.)  "Current" schedule always posted on the deck & when in doubt, ask the ferry crew.  

 

Our friends were there in Bermuda last month for a scheduled 5 days cruise out of NY and took advantage of the free NCL ferry, show your Guest Key Card to board.  Just be advised that some shops are closed for the winter season while others are open with winter schedule in place.  Check & sync your watch and smartphone's clock, the Pier Runner's Club membership is free but very expensive if the ship sail without you & disembark your belongings and luggage on the pier with the port agent.  

[phillynick]

49 minutes ago, mking8288 said:

Bermuda's public fast ferry runs year-round, it is on their WINTER schedule and services are limited, and especially on weekends & island holidays, always check ahead. 

 

NCL's fast ferry to St. George's ("Spirit of ") that docked across from NCL ship whenever it's there, run on its own special schedule that align with ship's sailing time.  The last ferry for the day usually returns at 5 pm (or 1 pm if the ship sail at 3 p.m. with all abroad by 2:30 p.m.)  "Current" schedule always posted on the deck & when in doubt, ask the ferry crew.  

 

Our friends were there in Bermuda last month for a scheduled 5 days cruise out of NY and took advantage of the free NCL ferry, show your Guest Key Card to board.  Just be advised that some shops are closed for the winter season while others are open with winter schedule in place.  Check & sync your watch and smartphone's clock, the Pier Runner's Club membership is free but very expensive if the ship sail without you & disembark your belongings and luggage on the pier with the port agent.  

Oh wow thank you for all the info!

[Birdnutty]

I heard a nasty rumor that the paper dailies are being discontinued.  Are you still getting them on this sailing?

[Mlake09]

1 hour ago, Birdnutty said:

I heard a nasty rumor that the paper dailies are being discontinued.  Are you still getting them on this sailing?

Yes we are.

[Mlake09]

16 hours ago, AwesomO said:

thanks for the review so far! I've heard conflicting reports; is the pool heated? We're sailing the Gem next month, with a stop in Bermuda among others. Just wondering if it will be warm enough to enjoy the pool, or if we have to wait until we're closer to the Caribbean. 

It feels better than ice water but it was mostly just kids in yesterday…stuck my toes in but it was not that enticing! 

[bluesea777]

Hope you’re enjoying your short stay here in Bermuda, sorry to hear that, but

 

https://www.royalgazette.com/weather/news/article/20230113/gale-force-winds-with-storm-force-gusts-forecast-for-weekend/

 

2:20pm now and the clouds are rolling in and winds are picking up, so it’s safer for you and others that the Gem departs at 3:45pm today. 
 

Hopefully you’ll be back here on another cruise. 
 

Enjoy the ride back to NYC. Fingers crossed. 
 

 

[PistolPete13]

Watching the Bermuda webcam now (1:45PM EST) and the boarding process.  Those winds are something else!  Even the camera is flickering.

Safe travels back to NY.

https://www.portbermudawebcam.com/

LOL, just saw a few line jumpers!  

Edited January 13, 2023 by PistolPete13
added web link

[billslowsky]

1 hour ago, PistolPete13 said:

Watching the Bermuda webcam now (1:45PM EST) and the boarding process.  Those winds are something else!  Even the camera is flickering.

Safe travels back to NY.

https://www.portbermudawebcam.com/

LOL, just saw a few line jumpers!  

I just watched the Gem leave, looks relatively calm with the sun going down...  hopefully the captain finds them a "relatively calm" path back to NY.  I was on the Gem late January 2018, the year that the Breakaway supposedly tried to go directly through a bomb cyclone (great videos).  We came up from the Caribbean maybe two weeks later, really rough seas.  I was on deck 7 or 8 in an oceanview room, some friends on 4 described how the waves were so rough that their windows would occasionally be underwater.  Gulf Stream not friendly to us.