Review of Norwegian Gem Trans-Atlantic, Barcelona-NYC November 29-December 12, 2009

I haven't posted this in the main review section yet; please let me know
if you have any comments.

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Review of trans-Atlantic cruise on the NCL Gem, departing Barcelona on
November 29, 2009

Ports: Cannes, Livorno, Civitavecchia, Ajaccio, Malaga, New York City

Pros:
Clean, modern ship; good overview of western Mediterranean, friendly
passengers and crew. Some restaurants very good.

Cons: Cold, windy weather in some ports (too late in season, ship should
have repositioned earlier); food in most restaurants seemed
mass-produced; public areas crowded and noisy; tendering not done well.
Music in restaurants too loud for the low-fi speakers they use. Spa
pricing needs to be rethought.


Getting There

We rented a car in Sacramento and drove it to the San Francisco airport,
where we dropped it off. This was much cheaper than flying to San
Francisco, and both cheaper and faster than taking public transit or an
airport van.

Happily, we left early, because there was a fuel spill on I-80 and a bus
fire on the Bay Bridge, causing traffic to come to a complete stop. We
got there in plenty of time, but I'm glad we had left early.

We flew on Air France because that's what Delta frequent flyer miles
would buy us. The Air France lounge at SFO was very nice, and had a
good selection of (cold) food and drinks. The flight itself was smooth,
but the food was not especially good (like the worst of airplane food -
I was expecting more from Air France business class), and the
temperature control was not good. I think the A330 was the first
commercial airplane I've ever been on that didn't have individual air
vents. I won't fly AF again unless there's no choice.

We arrived at CDG in pouring rain, went through customs and immigration,
and went to the AF lounge. It was more crowded than the one at SFO, and
the food selection was not as good, but at least we were able to get a
snack and some liquid refreshments.

The flight to Barcelona was on a smaller plane, with a peculiar design.
Again, we were in business class, but the difference between business
class and coach was minimal. The seats appeared to be the same width,
and were three across. The middle seat was blocked off, so there was no
one sitting next to you (even if you wanted to have someone sitting next
to you), but there was no more leg room, and the passenger seat in front
reclined, so you didn't get any more leg room. Not a good design.

Once in Barcelona, we collected our baggage, went outside, and found a
taxi. It was an amazingly fast trip into town, mostly because the
driver weaved through the lanes and drove 120 km/hr in the 80 km/hr
zones. But he seemed competent and we got there in one piece.


The Hotel

We had four nights in Barcelona (wanted to see bit of the place before
we got on the ship), and stayed at the Hotel Continental Barcelona on
the recommendation of several people on Cruise Critic.

It was a decent hotel, not a great hotel, but it wasn't expensive. The
location, right on La Rambla near the Placa de Catalunya, was good for a
first time visit, but was a bit like going to New Orleans and staying
right on Bourbon Street - tourist central. There was lots to see and do
in the area, but when I go back I will try to find something a bit more
off the beaten path (and cheaper). If nothing else is available, it
wouldn't be a disaster to stay there in cool weather, but the air
conditioning is not controlled at the room level, so I would not stay
there in warm weather.

They have a 24-hour buffet with snacks, drinks, and fruit, and hot foods
at some times of the day. It wasn't a feast, but it was convenient
(especially the coffee machine)


Seeing Barcelona

We did the Hop-On Hop-Off bus, which gave a good overview. We didn't
end up taking public transportation other than taxis.

We took the tour of the Liceu opera house, which was very interesting.
They weren't presenting any operas during the time we were there, but
there were lots of musical events going on elsewhere, both classical and
pop.

The Cathedral (El Seu) is worth seeing, and is right off La Rambla.
There was scaffolding on the outside, of course (that's the quick way to
spot churches in Europe), but the inside is impressive. You should also
see the cloister located nearby, which among other things has a grotto
devoted to the patron saint of electricity. Note that the cathedral and
cloister are closed from noon to 1pm; between 1 and 5 they charge
admission, but entrance is free before noon and after 5.

At the base of La Rambla is the statue of Columbus pointing to something
- not to the new world, oddly, but to somewhere in the Mediterranean.
There is supposed to be a good view from the top, but somehow we never
managed to make it by there when it was open.

Finding public restrooms in Barcelona can be difficult. If you are near
the Placa de Catalunya, you can use the ones in the department store El
Corte Ingles (which is worth visiting anyway).

We spent a lot of time just walking around the Barri Gotic. It did not
feel unsafe to me.

We wanted to take the aerial tram that runs from the port to Montjuic,
but when we got down there they weren't running because of the high
winds. They had been running when we started the walk over, but had
stopped by the time we got there. Note that the walk from the Columbus
statue to the aerial tram is deceptively long, and not all of it is
interesting. Take a bus, taxi, or bicycle taxi instead of walking.


Catalan

Barcelona is in an area known as Catalunya, or Catalonia in English.
They say it's the largest nation in Europe without a country. The
language of Catalonia is Catalan, which is spoken by more than 9 million
people in Spain, France, Andorra, and Italy - more speakers than some
official European Union languages. Linguistically, it's closer to
French than to Castilian Spanish, and if you can read French you will be
able to read simple signs and text in Catalan after you have figured out
the systematic differences. Unfortunately, the pronunciation of Catalan
is also more like French (many, many rules and exceptions) than like
Castilian Spanish. Almost everyone who lives in Barcelona speaks
Castilian Spanish and a majority speak Catalan. Most people you
encounter where tourists go will also speak English (between barely and
fluently).

Signs in Barcelona are generally in Catalan first, then Castilian
Spanish, and often in English. An interesting side effect of the
Catalan independence movement is the increased use of English in public
communications - if someone in the movement wants to make a public
statement, it may be in Catalan or English, and only secondarily in
Castilian Spanish. (See, for example, the protest at an association
football match, http://paper.avui.cat/politica/detail.php?id=164002.)


Pickpockets

We heard many warnings about pickpockets in Barcelona, especially on La
Rambla. Happily, we didn't have any direct contact with them, but the
balcony of the lounge at the hotel gave us a good vantage point for
seeing how they work.

I'm sure there are various methods, but the one we saw in action used
little flying devices. You've probably seen them at a fair or toy store
- they shoot up into the air and come back to the launch point. At
night they have flashing lights.

This helps the pickpockets in two ways - passersby are distracted so the
pickpockets can do their work, and if someone buys one of the devices,
the pickpockets know the location of the mark's wallet.

We saw someone buy one of those things. The mark pulled out his wallet,
bought the device, put his wallet back, and walked away. Then another
guy, apparently just a bystander, came up to the vendor and talked to
him. He then followed the mark up the street. In a minute or so, he
ran into another bystander and talked to him. That bystander then
followed the mark out of sight. I don't know if a pickpocketing took
place, but the method was obvious - find out where the money is, but
make sure there's no obvious connection between the spotter and the
pickpocket. On the ground, it was very difficult to see what was
happening. It's always a pleasure to watch professionals at work.

At least one person on the ship was pick-pocketed, we heard. He noticed
it and took off after the pickpocket. The pickpocket threw down the
guy's wallet. He stopped to pick it up. The wallet was empty, and the
pickpocket got away.

Guidelines:

- Don't carry a lot of money, all of your ID, or all of your credit
cards in one place. You don't need to, and it's dangerous. We heard
about a passenger on a previous trip who had had $2000 stolen. There's
no reason to carry around that much money.

- Carry a small amount of money - some change, maybe a 20 Euro note, in
an accessible pocket, and keep everything else in a small bag under your
shirt or in a zippered inside jacket pocket.

- Make a copy of your credit card and passport numbers, along with the
customer service numbers, and leave it in the safe in your hotel room.

I have a passport card, and that's what I took with me. I left my main
passport in my room.


Eating

There's lots of good food in Barcelona. Remember that Catalonia has a
separate culture from Spain, and buy Catalonian specialties, not Spanish
food (although that will also be good, you can get it elsewhere, and
Catalan cuisine is harder to find outside Catalunya).

Two places we ate: Attic, a formal restaurant, and Piscolabis, a small
plates bar. Food was good at both. Attic is on La Rambla below the
Placa de Catalunya, and Piscolabis on La Rambla above the Placa.

If you like to look at food, go to the old market off La Rambla, near
the opera house. There were lots of beautiful and unidentifiable foods.


Boarding The Ship

Check-out time at the hotel was noon, and we decided we would go ahead
and board. We took a taxi down, and were glad we did. Some people
walked to the ship, and it looked to be a long walk with a big incline
in the middle. Take a taxi or bus, don't walk with luggage.

We probably arrived at the worst time. There was a line through
security, and another line for check-in. We used the
Latitudes/mini-suite line, and it was no faster than the
non-Latitude/inside cabin line.

After that, getting onto the ship was fairly fast. Our room wasn't
ready, so we wandered around (and ate) until it was.

We had a mini-suite, which was perhaps not the best choice for this
cruise. It was a bit too windy to use the balcony, and we were
underneath the pool deck, so I was woken up several mornings by
furniture being moved by the deckhands. It was nice to have the extra
room, but probably not worth the extra money. Next time I will stick
with a deck 9 regular balcony. Unfortunately, there are no midships
oceanview cabins with other cabins above and below.

I think it's a design flaw on the Jewel-class ships to have no midships,
midlevel suites. I'd like to try a suite sometime, but on the Gem
they're fore, aft, or on the top, all places with maximum motion. The
Celebrity Infinity has penthouses midships on deck 6. That's what I
want, and I can't be the only one. Why no variety on NCL? I can't
afford a suite anyway, I guess I shouldn't complain.

The Cruise Critic roll call group really made the trip. It was very
active (over 4000 posts), and it felt like I already knew half the ship.
The largest group dinner had something like 100 attendees. When we were
in port - even in Rome, which is not small - we were always running into
other people from the ship. And it was a very nice group of people.

Cannes

The first port was Cannes, a tender port. Happily, the only tender
port, because they handled it very badly. Lots of announcements about
"don't pick up your tender ticket until you're ready to leave". We
could have picked up the tickets, had breakfast, and taken a shower
before our group was called. I understand that not everyone can get off
at once on a tender stop, but surely they should have some way of
letting us know how long it will take. I have not had this problem on
other ships.

Cannes itself was not very interesting. Lots of tourist places, many of
which were closed because it was so late in the season. We walked up to
the old church on the hill - good view, but windy, and the church itself
was closed.

If I'm ever nominated for a Palm D'Or I might go back to Cannes, but
otherwise I see no point to it.

I did hear that the people who took tours that took them out of Cannes
itself liked them. The perfume factory tour in particular was a hit.


Livorno

Livorno is the port stop for Florence, Pisa, and other parts of Tuscany.

One of the people on the Cruise Critic roll call organized a van tour
with RomeInLimo, and we took that instead of a ship tour. We were in an
8 seat mini-van, which meant that we could go into the city centers,
instead of parking blocks away and walking in. So in Pisa we parked
about two blocks from the Leaning Tower, and in Florence we parked about
20 feet from the door to the Galleria dell'Accademia where the David is
located. We walked around and through various churches and shopping
areas. It was a whirlwind tour, but we saw lots of things, and had a
very good lunch at a local restaurant (most people had some variation on
pasta; I had a Florentine specialty of beans and sausage). On the way
back we stopped at an olive oil factory and bought some olive oil - very
fresh, very good, and less expensive than the equivalent in the US.

Our driver, Laura, was from the area and was very good. I would use
her, and RomeInLimo, again if the occasion arose. I do think that 6
people in the van would have worked better than 8 - the middle person in
the back two rows can't see much.

The photo rights to Michelangelo's David have been bought up by a
Japanese TV company, so visitors are not allowed to take pictures. There
is, however, a conveniently located gift shop where you can buy cards
for no more than perhaps twice what you would pay right outside the
exit.


Civitavecchia

Civitavecchia is the main cruise line port for Rome (there's a closer
port used by ferries). Again, we used RomeInLimo for a tour. Again, it
was whirlwind, but we at least got a glimpse of the major sites. We had
long stops at the Coliseum in the morning and the Vatican in the
afternoon.

The RomeInLimo drivers are drivers, not tour guides, so we had a
separate tour guide for the Vatican. The galleries surrounding the
Sistine Chapel are amazing, as is Saint Peter's Basilica. There are
lots of descriptions of those written by people who are better writers
than I am, so I will not elaborate, but take my word for it - a
small-group private tour of the Vatican is worth the money.

The Sistine Chapel, however, could be skipped. The same Japanese TV
company that bought the photo rights to the David also bought the rights
to the Sistine Chapel. You can't take pictures, but you couldn't take
pictures anyway, because they don't turn on the lights. The famous
pictures are too dim to see well. Perhaps things would be different on
a tour at night.

I guess the Vatican is having money problems - there was a billboard for
a gas company in Saint Peter's Square.

There was an incident at lunch that illustrates why RomeInLimo is a
better choice than the ship's tours. One of the people in the tour fell
ill, and wasn't able to continue. We could have dropped her and her
husband off at the train station and let them find their way back to
Civitavecchia on their own, but that's not what RomeInLimo did. They
sent out another driver with a car to take them the back to the ship at
no charge. That went way beyond what we would have expected. We also
got free bottles of wine at the end of the tour, and free pastries and
coffee in Pisa, none of which we expected. Contrast that with the ship
tour in Malaga which I'll mention below.


Ajaccio

Ajaccio is the largest port on Corsica, which is a French department
(not a colony). It was a bit cool and windy, and rained at one point,
but was a pleasant place to visit, and looked like it would have
spectacular scenery outside town. There's an interesting farmers'
market near where we got off the ship, with lots of odd looking cheeses
and sausages and unknown spices.

I would like to go back and spend more time there.

Not much English was spoken in Ajaccio, but we managed to cope. Some
signs were in Corsican, which seems closer to Italian than to French
(Italy is just a few miles away).

There are restrooms in the cruise terminal. If NCL wants to be helpful,
they should list public restrooms on the port information handouts they
put in the Freestyle Daily. I would find that much more helpful than
lists of overpriced souvenir and jewelry stores.


Malaga

Malaga, in southern Spain, is the port for Granada and the Alhambra, but
we had a relatively short stop and decided to stay in town. It was nice
place to visit; I'd go back.

The cruise terminal in Malaga is undergoing construction, and so it's
slow to get in and out. When we got off the ship, we got on a bus that
took us to the cruise terminal, which is in the middle of the port, and
then we got on a different bus that took us to the edge of the port,
from which we could walk into town.

We were told that we had to be back on the ship at 5:30, but we weren't
told that the last bus left at 5. We heard that some people failed to
be left behind only because there was a medical emergency that delayed
departure by an hour.

We used the Hop-On Hop-Off bus. The main sights are the fortress at the
top of the hill and the Moorish-style castle at the bottom of the hill.
We got off the bus at the fortress, bought tickets, did the tour
(interesting building, spectacular views), and walked down to the
castle. You have to go outside the fortress and walk down the side of
the hill. It's a wide paved path, but it's long and completely
unsheltered, and would not be pleasant in hot, cold, windy, or rainy
weather - take the bus instead.

The castle is very pretty, a must see in Malaga. Make sure you buy the
right kind of ticket at the fortress; you can buy a ticket that lets you
into both the fortress and the castle, or into only one of the two. I
think there's a third type of ticket that lets you into an additional
area of the castle. It was hard to tell, because Malaga was the only
monolingual city we visited - no signs in English, or French (which I
can understand), or German (which I can't understand but at least there
are some words in common).

We heard some bad things about the ship's tour in Malaga. One of the
passengers attacked another passenger, and the bus driver didn't do
anything. The witness I talked to said that the attacker should have
been kicked off the ship, but the person who was attacked was afraid to
report it. And the medical emergency that delayed departure was someone
who had a heart attack on the bus, and the driver just took him back to
the ship. Both incidents were completely unacceptable, in my opinion,
and NCL needs to find a new tour bus company in Malaga. I will
certainly not use them.

In addition to the Hop-On Hop-Off bus (which did not have adequate
change to sell tickets to the busloads of tourists they knew would
arrive), there were individuals offering guided tours, and there was a
tourist booth in the cruise terminal.


Across The Atlantic

I had wanted a bit of rough seas to see what it was like, but I got more
than I wanted. We had rough to very rough seas all the way across.
There was a series of low pressure zones/storms across the ocean. The
navigation channel said that the waves got up to 30 feet, but it never
displayed anything past that, even when the waves seemed higher, so
there's no telling what the seas were really like. The wind got up to
90 knots, which is over 100 mph. So we had quite a bit of motion at
times, with waves splashing on the windows of the thermal suite on deck
12. The balconies were unusable. The cruise director said it was the
first time in six years at sea that he had gotten seasick.

We were not greatly affected, thanks to judicious avoidance of the
high-motion areas of the ship, something which the CD can't do. We
weren't able to take the ship tour, which was canceled, and they drained
the pool in the thermal suite. A good side effect was that we never had
a problem getting a table at the specialty restaurants.

We took a southerly route (the rhumb line rather than the great circle),
so the weather was warm most of the way - wet but warm.


New York City

At Q&A with the captain, someone asked if we would be able to see the
Statue of Liberty when we got to New York. He said we couldn't. I
don't know why he said that, as it was clearly visible to port.

It was very cold in New York City when we arrived (around freezing), too
cold and windy to want to stand on the deck to see the statue and
skyline. So we stayed out for only a few minutes, and then we went down
to the dining room and had breakfast. We were off the ship around 9:45.

We discovered that it doesn't cost much to use a porter, and the porters
take you to a separate, faster customs line. Well worth the money.
There was a long wait for taxis.


Restaurants On The Ship

As I said above, the food was mostly of mass-produced chain restaurant
quality. Not bad, but certainly not gourmet. The worst of the meals
was better than the worst of the meals on the Sun in October 2008, and
the best of the meals was as good.

We ate at all of the specialty restaurants except the Tex/Mex place,
which we heard was not good, and the sushi bar, which we heard was good
(but I was the only person who wanted sushi,so we didn't eat there).

Orchid Garden is the Asian Fusion restaurant. The hostess recognized us
from our trip on the Pride of Hawaii, and we got very good service. We
decided to order family style (we were joined by a third person we had
met at the hotel), and managed to sample most of the items on the menu
in one meal. It was all very good. We ate there again later in the
voyage, and again the food was good. We heard that it's the captain's
favorite restaurant.

The Teppanyaki grill is inside the Orchid Garden. It's a Benihana-style
cook-at-the-table restaurant, with a single cook at the grill in the
middle of the table. We ate there twice. The first time was with the
full menu, and the second time was with a reduced menu at a reduced cost
(lobster, scallops, and filet mignon were no longer choices, and the
cost was halved). The cooks need more practice, but not on passengers.
The food tended to be overcooked, and neither cook coped completely well
with my request for no onions. Overall, the skill level wasn't as high
as on the Pride of Hawaii. And for me, the extremely high noise level
is a problem. The room is small and full of reflective surfaces, and
there's a lot of shouting and clanging. I wouldn't be surprised if many
of the staff develop hearing problems in 10 years. I'll eat there again
on a future voyage, but I'll bring earplugs.

We had a Cruise Critic group dinner at the Italian restaurant. After
our good experiences on the Sun, I was disappointed by the Italian food
on the Gem - it seemed lackluster and unimaginative. We didn't return,
even though they later had a two-for-one offer (after removing the
lobster ravioli and some other higher-cost items from the menu). The CC
group at the dinner was, however a lot of fun.

Le Bistro is, in my opinion, the best of the specialty restaurants (some
people think Cagney's is the best). We ate there twice. The first time
was at dinner. There were three of us, and we ordered some extra dishes
to share, so we ended up trying almost everything (felt like we need to
order wheelbarrows to get us out afterwards). It was a very good meal,
and service was very good in the first half. We seemed to get handed
off to different people in the second half, and service declined a bit,
which I thought was odd. But overall a very successful meal. The
second meal there was at the Jazz Brunch, which I didn't think was
anything special. The food didn't seem different from what we could get
in the other restaurants, and they did not have hot syrup for the
waffles (for me, that's one of the tests of whether a restaurant is
trying hard). The "jazz" was just piped in over the low-quality
loudspeakers in the ceiling. Near the end of the meal, the low-quality
recorded music was replaced by the string quartet - not jazz, but very
good.

We also ate at Cagney's twice. They have the best dinner rolls on the
ship. The menu had been reduced a bit; it's now almost entirely beef,
with the (pork or fish or chicken, I don't remember which) no longer
available. The food and service were good. On the last meal (last
dinner on the ship) we ate family style, which again worked very well.
One of the waitresses from the Sun was working in Cagney's but we didn't
happen to have her table.

We ate at Blue Lagoon for breakfast or lunch a few times. It was good,
but its location above the lobby meant a high noise level because of the
constant sales presentations downstairs. It was really obnoxious to
have so many sales events in one of the few large indoor spaces.

The buffet on this ship seemed better organized than on the Pride of
Hawaii or the Sun. The food was labeled, and there was generally a good
variety. The ham was too watery, and there was no fresh waffle station.
On the plus side, they had a crepe station at dinner. For some reason,
they didn't have butter available at the station, but you could get some
from the other side of the buffet and make your own butter, sugar, and
lemon dessert crepe, one of the simplest and best desserts on the ship.
On the minus side, there was not nearly enough seating for the number of
people who wanted to eat there.

We ate in one of the main dining rooms several times. At peak periods,
there was a wait to be seated, even though there were lots of empty
tables. We didn't understand that.

We missed the sandwich bar on the Sun; there was no equivalent that I
saw. The buffet had a more limited selection.

If you're not in a suite, the room service menu is sparse. I ordered
coffee one morning, but it came with artificial creamer instead of real
cream, so I didn't order it again.

Some side comments: (1) According to the crew, passengers on
trans-Atlantics don't eat at the specialty restaurants. That seemed
true - even before the weather got rough, we didn't have a problem
getting a table anywhere. That's probably why they changed the menus
and reduced the prices at the teppanyaki and Italian restaurants. And
this cruise also didn't have many adventurous eaters. (2) If you want
your steak done medium, order medium rare. If you want an omelette with
the eggs cooked soft instead of hard, be prepared to send the first
order back - and it works better if you order a two-egg omelette instead
of the standard three-egg one. (3) There were signs on the water
spigots in the buffet asking passengers not to fill their water bottles.
It was obvious why they didn't want us to do that - the design was such
that filling a bottle would block both spigots for at least a minute -
but if there was a place designed to fill water bottles I never saw it.
(4) Forget about warm toast - you won't get it.


The Spa

The thermal suite seemed a bit larger than the one on the Pride of
Hawaii, and had slightly different facilities. It was a good place to
spend time, especially on sea days when you could sit in a chair and
watch the ocean. The large pool was closed for most of the
trans-Atlantic portion of the trip because the motion of the ship was
causing big waves and water was flooding the whole area.

Spa services were good, but the pricing is very irritating. They were
constantly running specials of various types, and the only thing you
could be sure of was that if you made an advance reservation you would
see the same thing offered for a lower price later. They need to
rethink how they do that - the current pricing scheme makes them look
like late-night TV hucksters.


Gambling

I tried bingo for the first time. It's now done with machines in
addition to the old paper forms. It cost $35 or $70 per session to
play, depending on the package you bought, and it did not strike me as a
good deal. The payouts did not seem either frequent enough or big
enough to justify such a high entry cost.

Playing bingo gave me a coupon for some 2-for-1 gambling money, so I
spend some time in the casino. I had better luck there, and came out
slightly ahead (though still behind when you subtract the cost of the
bingo). There's too much smoke in the casino for me.


Getting Home

We had dinner Saturday night in New York City with the passenger we met
at the hotel in Barcelona. We had also had dinner with her on the ship
Friday night, and breakfast on Saturday morning just before we left the
ship.

Well, on Sunday morning she and I both came down with acute
gastroenteritis. Ron did not. Were we infected on the ship? At the
restaurant in New York City? In the taxicab from the pier? There's no
way to tell. It did happen at the best possible time, when I was in a
hotel room and not on the ship or the train (gastroenteritis on Amtrak
would be very inconvenient for everyone).

I spent all day Sunday in the hotel room. I was able to get up and walk
around a bit on Monday, and then on Monday afternoon we went to Penn
Station and got on the train to Chicago.

After being in a mini-suite on the ship, and a small 2-room suite at the
hotel, the train compartment seemed really small. Not only seemed
really small, but was really small - smaller than the bathroom in the
hotel, and not much bigger than the bathroom on the ship. One night to
Chicago, where we got on another train to Sacramento. Unfortunately,
the food on Amtrak has really gone downhill, and it was not exact
gourmet before that. I'm not sure how they managed to make the food
overcooked and cold at the same time. I might make more trips on the
Coast Starlight, which has better food than the rest of Amtrak, but I
think my days of preferring Amtrak to flying for long distance travel
may be over.


What Next?

Not sure. We might do another Alaska cruise (the Pearl will be up
there). Some friends want to go to Curacao, so our next trip might be
on Celebrity, which is better for Curacao than NCL is. But I did buy a
cruise credit on the last full day of the cruise, so I'll be back on
NCL.








--
Jack Hamilton


"A restaurant is an unusual business, charged as it is with
stewardship of one of the fundamental processes of our animal
biology. Until breathing and excretion can be commodified,
the restaurant manager inhabits a rarified sphere whose only
other residents are obstetricians, undertakers, and whores."

Gabriel Roth, San Francisco Bay Guardian, July 13, 2005

On Sun, 10 Jan 2010 16:02:21 -0800, I wrote:

We heard some bad things about the ship's tour in Malaga. One of the
passengers attacked another passenger, and the bus driver didn't do
anything. The witness I talked to said that the attacker should have
been kicked off the ship, but the person who was attacked was afraid to
report it.

I have been told that this incident was in Corsica, not Malaga.

The witness said "When we investigated why the NCL representative did
nothing on the bus to terminate the problem we were told they only send
a representative to make sure the tour is operating as stated, not for
any type of security. If I'm paying NCL to transport & entertain me I
expect they care about passenger safety first. NCL shore excursion
manager sat down with us to discuss what we witnessed, assured us she
would be in further contact then we never heard from her again. What we
then witnessed is the passenger who unleashed anger towards the other
passenger remained onboard & unrestricted in their movements so I assume
NCL did nothing".

Still completely unacceptable, I think.

Four other things:

The food preparation and portions are controlled by the head office in
Miami, and there's little room for variation on the ships (which is why
I used the term "cooks" and not "chefs"). I would like some room for
interpretation, and even local dishes, on the ships. Also, I would like
an option for smaller serving sizes. I could eat less, and it would be
easier to construct tasting menus, which I would have liked in the
specialty restaurants. Yeah, I know that I don't have to eat everything
that's put in front of me, but I find it hard to stop.

I had a chance to talk to the Hotel Director and the Food & Beverage
Director. They were both very nice, and were happy to hear what I had
to say. It turns out that I had been on a ship with the F&B Director in
Hawaii, but hadn't had a conversation with him.

The only news channel on the trans-Atlantic portion was Fox News. There
were many complaints about this - NCL should keep its political
preferences better hidden. We were told that only Fox was available on
the Atlantic, but other passengers said that they had gotten
non-right-wing news on other ships. Supposedly, Fox came through the
internet connection instead of the satellite, but there's no technical
reason why they couldn't have received the more centrist CNN the same
way (there aren't any left-wing news channels in the US, so balanced
coverage isn't possible).

The crew seemed happy, and seemed to like the Captain. I did not see
him walking around the ship, but the weather probably kept him busy. I
did hear that he was in constant telephone communication with many
people in the hotel department.

Thanks so much for sharing your detailed trip report. I love all the
helpful tips and information. It will be a great archives find for
anyone researching a similar trip or a cruise on the Gem.

It sounds like you had a wonderful time over all and that all of your
pre-trip research and contacts with your CC group paid off in terms of
favorable private tours and socialization. I have always wondered
about those late season repositionings--it is good to get your
perspective that a Nov-Dec trip was too late.

Diana Ball
Austin, TX

PS - Was the special Mapplethorpe exhibit still up at the Galleria
dell'Accademia? I would have loved to see it in juxtaposition to
Michelangelo's David. BTW, I don't think the museum conveyed the photo
rights on David; rather, I think the ban is simply part of standard
preservation practice and/or efforts to keep tourists moving through
the museum. You're correct, of course, regarding photo rights at the
Sistene Chapel, which the Vatican ceded to the Japanese TV company
that funded the fairly recent (and controversial) restorations of the
ceiling frescoes.

On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:36:01 -0800 (PST), D Ball
wrote:


PS - Was the special Mapplethorpe exhibit still up at the Galleria
dell'Accademia? I would have loved to see it in juxtaposition to
Michelangelo's David.

It was still up. There were some interesting points, but overall I
think the comparison of Mapplethorpe to Michelangelo is a bit of a
stretch. But we can't tell what Mapplethorpe, who died at 42, might
have created if he had lived as long as Michelangelo, who died at 88.

BTW, I don't think the museum conveyed the photo
rights on David; rather, I think the ban is simply part of standard
preservation practice and/or efforts to keep tourists moving through
the museum.

Could be - the tour driver might have been wrong. But they did allow
sketches, which take much longer.

One advantage of the late season visit was that nothing was crowded, not
even the Vatican.

You're correct, of course, regarding photo rights at the
Sistene Chapel, which the Vatican ceded to the Japanese TV company
that funded the fairly recent (and controversial) restorations of the
ceiling frescoes.