Norwegian Cruise Line - Gem Transatlantic Review

In the past 4 years I have been on over 12 cruises. My favorite cruise line has been the Norwegian Cruise line (NCL). However, after my recent transatlantic cruise on the NCL Gem, I have become very disappointed and disenchanted with NCL Cruises. Our transatlantic cruise was 16 days and went from New York to Barcelona. We stopped at ports in Spain, France, and Italy. The waters were fairly smooth, but the 'running of the ship' was not!

NCL is advertised as 'freestyle cruising'- do what you want, when you want! Well, if you wanted to eat a meal in one of the two main restaurants-- Good Luck! They handed out 'flashing devices' like at 'TGIF style restaurants' and had waits to dine of over one hour! Once you finally got seated, service was very slow. The dining rooms were half empty, yet no one was being seated! Everyone cruising had negative words to say! Of course, if you wanted to pay $10, $15, or $25 per person, you could go eat at one of their 'specialty restaurants'. Another problem was that it took so long to get seated and served a meal that we ended up missing the shows most nights!

The NCL Gem also has 'buffet dining areas' where you help yourself and then find a seat and eat. Well, you could get the food, but there were not enough tables to sit at and eat!

At each port we paid for NCL tours, most of which started at 7:15 or 7:30am. It was not possible to eat breakfast at the main restaurant--a buffet was the only choice in the morning. And,only one buffet opened early and that was extremely crowded and, again, there were no available seats in the area!

In addition to less 'included' restaurants on the Gem, NCL also charged for TV viewing. The only 'free' channels were very, very, very old movies (most were black and white), or one news channel or the NCL's own channels. If you wanted to watch a movie the cost was $11.95 per movie! On previous NCL cruises there were many movie choices available during our cruise and at NO ADDITIONAL COST!

In conclusion, I would have to say that NCL, instead of raising their rates for cruises even higher, is now cutting back on services and included amenities, and is 'nickel and dimeing' its passengers! All this contributes to a poor cruise experience and has me re-thinking my choice of cruise line for future crusing...